Recent events in the world and in my life have left thinking about work and how it is done.
The first event is a common occurrence in Canada and in other countries where I have lived, but not here in Turkey.
Daylight saving time (DST), also known as daylight savings time or daylight time (US, Canada and Australia), and summer time (the UK, the EU and some other countries), is the practice of advancing clocks (typically by one hour) during warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time.
The typical implementation of DST is to set clocks forward by one hour in the spring (“spring forward“) and set clocks back by one hour in autumn (“fall back“) to return to standard time.
As a result, there is one 23-hour day in late winter or early spring and one 25-hour day in the autumn.
Above: Daylight saving time regions: (blue) Northern hemisphere summer / (orange) Southern hemisphere summer / (light grey) Formerly used daylight saving / (dark grey) Never used daylight saving
(Personally I don’t give a damn, but there are nonetheless some factors worth considering….)
Above: Clark Gable (Rhett Butler), Gone with the Wind
The idea of aligning waking hours to daylight hours to conserve candles was first proposed in 1784 by American polymath Benjamin Franklin.
In a satirical letter to the editor of The Journal of Paris, Franklin suggested that waking up earlier in the summer would economize candle usage and calculated considerable savings.
Above: Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)
(Something else to blame the Americans for….)
Above: Flag of the United States of America
In 1895, New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Hudson seriously proposed the idea of changing clocks by two hours every spring to the Wellington Philosophical Society.
He wanted to have more daylight hours to devote to collecting and examining insects.
Above: George Vernon Hudson (1867 – 1946)
(Not selfish at all….)
Above: Ladybug (Coccinella magnifica)
In 1907, British resident William Willett presented the idea as a way to save energy.
Despite receiving some serious consideration, it was never implemented.
Above: William Willett (1856 – 1915)
(Even then the energy industry didn’t want to save energy.
Less profits for them, after all.)
Above: A turbo generator transforms the energy of pressurized steam into electrical energy.
Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada was the first city in the world to enact DST, on 1 July 1908.
In January 1970, Port Arthur amalgamated with Fort William and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay.
Above: Flag of Canada
Starting on 30 April 1916, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary each organized the first nationwide implementation in their jurisdictions.
Above: Flag of Germany (1867 – 1918)
(If you want something organized get a German speaker involved…..)
Above: Coat of arms of Austria – Hungary (1867 – 1915)
Many countries have used DST at various times since then, particularly since the 1970s energy crisis.
Above: Nominal and real oil prices (1968 – 2006)
(The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices.
The two worst crises of this period were the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, when the Yom Kippur War (6 – 25 October 1973) and the Iranian Revolution (7 January – 11 February 1979) triggered interruptions in Middle Eastern oil exports.
Above: Images of the Yom Kippur WarAbove: Mass demonstrations at College Bridge, Teheran, Iran
The crisis began to unfold as petroleum production in the US and some other parts of the world peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
World oil production per capita began a long-term decline after 1979.
The oil crises prompted the first shift towards energy-saving (particular, fossil fuel-saving) technologies.
The major industrial centers of the world were forced to contend with escalating issues related to petroleum supply.
Western countries relied on the resources of countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
The crisis led to stagnant economic growth in many countries as oil prices surged.
Although there were genuine concerns with supply, part of the run-up in prices resulted from the perception of a crisis.
The combination of stagnant growth and price inflation during this era led to the coinage of the term stagflation.
By the 1980s, both the recessions of the 1970s and adjustments in local economies to become more efficient in petroleum usage, controlled demand sufficiently for petroleum prices worldwide to return to more sustainable levels.
Above: Oil well, Lubbock, Texas
The period was not uniformly negative for all economies.
Petroleum-rich countries in the Middle East benefited from increased prices and the slowing production in other areas of the world.
Some other countries, such as Norway, Mexico, and Venezuela, benefited as well.
In the US, Texas and Alaska, as well as some other oil-producing areas, experienced major economic booms due to soaring oil prices even as most of the rest of the nation struggled with the stagnant economy.
Many of these economic gains, however, came to a halt as prices stabilized and dropped in the 1980s.)
Above: An oil refinery in Mina Al Ahmadi, Kuwait
(The aim was to save money, not to save the environment.)
DST is generally not observed near the Equator, where sunrise and sunset times do not vary enough to justify it.
Above: Countries and territories that touch the Equator (red) or the Prime Meridian (blue)
Some countries observe it only in some regions:
For example, parts of Australia observe it, while other parts do not.
(The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the Jervis Bay Territory, New South Wales (except Lord Howe Island), Norfolk Island, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria observe DST.)
The US observes it, except for the states of Hawaii and Arizona.
(Within the latter, however, the Navajo Nation does observe it, conforming to national practice).
Above: Flag of the Navajo Nation
A minority of the world’s population uses DST.
Asia and Africa generally do not observe it.
DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, and sleep patterns.
Computer software generally adjusts clocks automatically.
Above: Spring forward
Above: Fall back
(My German-bought Chinese made laptop never changed time.
Somehow it always knows where it is.)
Industrialized societies usually follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year.
The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, and the coordination of mass transit, for example, usually remain constant year-round.
In contrast, an agrarian society’s daily routines for work and personal conduct are more likely governed by the length of daylight hours and by solar time, which change seasonally because of the Earth’s axialtilt.
Above: Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity) is currently about 23.4°.
North and south of the tropics, daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater the further one moves away from the tropics.
Above: Ancient water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season – A small human figurine holds a pointer to a cylinder marked by the hours. The cylinder is connected by gears to a water wheel driven by water that also floats a part that supports the figurine.
(Perhaps, Mr. Trump, there are advantages in your so-called “s***h*** countries“.
In January 2018, Trump was widely criticized after referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations in general as “shithole countries” at a bipartisan meeting on immigration.
Multiple international leaders condemned his remarks as racist)
By synchronously resetting all clocks in a region to one hour ahead of standard time, individuals who follow a clock-based schedule will wake an hour earlier than they would have otherwise.
They will begin and complete daily work routines an hour earlier, and they will have available to them an extra hour of daylight after their workday activities.
But, they will have one less hour of daylight at the start of each day, making the policy less practical during winter.
(It is at this point of the year women in these DST countries moan and groan that it is already dark at 1630, when had they left the clocks alone it would be 1730.)
Above: Winter, Alfons Mucha (1896)
While the times of sunrise and sunset change at roughly equal rates as the seasons change, proponents of daylight saving time argue that most people prefer a greater increase in daylight hours after the typical “nine to five” workday.
Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, but the actual effect on overall energy use is heavily disputed.
(Globally speaking, no, for the Southern Hemisphere’s summer is the Northern Hemisphere’s winter and vice versa, so “spring forward” and “fall back” would happen in the reverse of the calendar, so heating savings in the North are balanced by heating expenditures in the South.
Sadly, no one seems to think globally, only nationally.)
The shift in apparent time is also motivated by practicality.
In American temperate latitudes, for example, the sun rises around 04:30 on the summer solstice and sets around 19:30.
Since most people are asleep at 04:30, it is seen as more practical to pretend that 04:30 is actually 05:30, thereby allowing people to wake close to the sunrise and be active in the evening light.
Above: Sunrise, Placida Harbor, Florida
(Interesting phrase that: “It is seen as more practical to pretend.” – humanity in a nutshell)
The manipulation of time at higher latitudes (for example, Iceland, Nunavut, Scandinavia or Alaska) has little effect on daily life, because the length of day and night changes more extremely throughout the seasons (in comparison to other latitudes).
Sunrise and sunset times become significantly out of phase with standard working hours regardless of manipulations of the clock.
Above: Early afternoon during the polar night in Tromso, Norway
(It is a wee bit arrogant this manipulation of time itself….)
DST is similarly of little use for locations near the Equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year.
The effect also varies according to how far east or west the location is within its time zone, with locations farther east inside the time zone benefiting more from DST than locations farther west in the same time zone.
Neither is daylight savings of much practicality in such places as China, which — despite its width of thousands of miles — is all located within a single time zone per government mandate.
Above: (in green) China
(Considering the size of the nation, admittedly not as large as Canada or Russia, it is odd that China has only one time zone.
Which brings up the issue of the need for time zones…..)
Above: World Time Zones Map
Proponents of DST generally argue that it saves energy, promotes outdoor leisure activity in the evening (in summer), and is therefore good for physical and psychological health, reduces traffic accidents, reduces crime, and is good for business.
Above: Sunset Beach, New Jersey
(I find myself pondering whether a nation like Turkey which does not practice all of this springing forward and falling back is thus energy inefficient, unhealthier, more accident prone, more criminal and poorer by comparison to these DST devotees.)
Above: Flag of Trump
Studies found that DST leads to electricity savings of 0.3% during the days when DST applies.
Several studies have suggested that DST increases motor fuel consumption, but a 2008 US Department of Energy report found no significant increase in motor gasoline consumption due to the 2007 United States extension of DST.
An early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, once a primary use of electricity.
Although energy conservation remains an important goal, energy usage patterns have greatly changed since then.
Electricity use is greatly affected by geography, climate and economics, so the results of a study conducted in one place may not be relevant to another country or climate.
(And herein lies the complexity of universal DST:
Places are different from one another.)
Later sunset times from DST are thought to affect behavior: for example, increasing participation in after-school sports programs or outdoor afternoon sports such as golf, and attendance at professional sporting events.
Advocates of daylight saving time argue that having more hours of daylight between the end of a typical workday and evening induces people to consume other goods and services.
Above: A storm at sunset, Johnson Valley, California
(I can’t say that I see this reflected in my own life.
The lazy man that I sometimes am does not become more motivated by one more or less hour of daylight.
The miserly curmudgeon that I sometimes can be does not suddenly spend more money just because I have gained another hour on the clock.)
Many farmers oppose DST, particularly dairy farmers as the milking patterns of their cows do not change with the time, and others whose hours are set by the sun.
Young children often have difficulty getting enough sleep at night when the evenings are bright and are most likely to oversleep the next morning due to darkness in the morning.
DST also hurts prime-time television broadcast ratings, drive-ins and other theatres.
(That is always something that has struck me as odd, how we expect the rest of existence to adapt to our whims and wishes.
And there are countless examples of this all around us:
For example, deer crossing signs – I did not know that deer could read.)
It has been argued that clock shifts correlate with decreased economic efficiency, and that in 2000 the daylight-saving effect implied an estimated one-day loss of $31 billion on US stock exchanges.
Others have asserted that the observed results depend on methodology and disputed the findings, though the original authors have refuted points raised by disputers.
Above: New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Wall Street, Manhattan, New York City
( I fervently wish that we stop correlating stock exchanges with economic realities when the very nature of stock exchanges is the perception of what the future might be.
How my life suffers when the Turkish lira trades poorly or improves when it becomes more coveted a currency does not affect me if I remain bound to Turkey, neither travelling to nor trading with other nations.
Where my life fluctuates is when banks and governments decide to muck about with rates of inflation affecting my purchasing power in Eskişehir.
Above: ES Park Shopping Centre, Eskişehir, Turkey
In my opinion, and I freely admit I am NOT an economist NOR that clever, the stock exchange seems to me to be nary more than a sophisticated casino involving corporate fortunes rather than individual savings.
And truly if the mere changing of the clock one hour generates losses of billions, then seriously how trustworthy an indicator of the economy can stock markets actually be?)
Above: NYSE’s stock exchange traders floor before the introduction of electronic readouts and computer screens
A correlation between clock shifts and traffic accidents has been observed in North America and the UK but not in Finland or Sweden.
Four reports have found that this effect is smaller than the overall reduction in traffic fatalities.
DST likely reduces some kinds of crime, such as robbery and sexual assault, as fewer potential victims are outdoors after dusk.
Artificial outdoor lighting has a marginal and sometimes even contradictory influence on crime and fear of crime.
A 2017 study in the American Economics Journal: Applied Economics estimated that “the transition into DST caused over 30 deaths at a social cost of $275 million annually“, primarily by increasing sleep deprivation.
Above: Insomnia, Taccuino Sanitatis
(Could it be that North Americans and Brits are simply worse drivers than Finns or Swedes?
Seriously, is the argument that a mere 60 minutes is the line between decent and dastardly deeds, between life and death because someone lost an hour of light or an hour of sleep?)
Opponents argue that DST disrupts human circadian rhythms (negatively impacting human health in the process), that it increases fatal traffic collisions, that the actual energy savings are inconclusive, and that DST increases health risks such as heart attack.
Year-round standard time (not year-round DST) is proposed to be the preferred option for public health and safety.
Clock shifts were found to increase the risk of heart attack by 10% and to disrupt sleep and reduce its efficiency.
Effects on seasonal adaptation of the circadian rhythm can be severe and last for weeks.
Above: Overview of biological circadian clock in humans. The biological clock affects the daily rhythm of many physiological processes. This diagram depicts the circadian patterns typical of someone who rises early in morning, eats lunch around noon, and sleeps at night (10 p.m.). Although circadian rhythms tend to be synchronized with cycles of light and dark, other factors – such as ambient temperature, meal times, stress and exercise – can influence the timing as well.
(Seriously, I know that the human body is a fragile thing, but I find it hard to believe that a mere 60 minutes could make such significant differences, but then I am not a qualified physician, am I?)
Above: The Doctor, Luke Fildes
DST’s clock shifts have the obvious disadvantage of complexity.
People must remember to change their clocks.
This can be time-consuming, particularly for mechanical clocks that cannot be moved backward safely.
People who work across time zone boundaries need to keep track of multiple DST rules, as not all locations observe DST or observe it the same way.
The length of the calendar day becomes variable.
It is no longer always 24 hours.
Disruption to meetings, travel, broadcasts, billing systems, and records management is common, and can be expensive.
During an autumn transition from 02:00 to 01:00, a clock reads times from 01:00:00 through 01:59:59 twice, possibly leading to confusion.
(Truth be told, human beings are easily confused….)
Some clock-shift problems could be avoided by adjusting clocks continuously or at least more gradually— for example, Willett at first suggested weekly 20-minute transitions — but this would add complexity and has never been implemented.
DST inherits and can magnify the disadvantages of standard time.
For example, when reading a sundial, one must compensate for it along with time zone and natural discrepancies.
Also, sun-exposure guidelines, such as avoiding the sun within two hours of noon, become less accurate when DST is in effect.
Above: Top view of an equatorial sundial. The hour lines are spaced equally about the circle, and the shadow of the gnomon (a thin cylindrical rod) rotates uniformly. The height of the gnomon is 5⁄12 the outer radius of the dial. This animation depicts the motion of the shadow from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m. (not accounting for Daylight Saving Time) on or around Solstice, when the Sun is at its highest declination (roughly 23.5°). Sunrise and sunset occur at 3am and 9pm, respectively, on that day at geographical latitudes near 57.05°, roughly the latitude of Aberdeen, Scotland, or Sitka, Alaska.
(Considering that exposure to an overabundance of sun is not one of my normal routines nor the viewing of sundials a common occurrence I think, for me personally, all of this is much ado about nothing.)
A move to permanent daylight saving time (staying on summer hours all year with no time shifts) is sometimes advocated and is currently implemented in some jurisdictions such as Argentina, Belarus, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Namibia, Saskatchewan, Singapore, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Yukon.
Although Saskatchewan follows Central Standard Time (CST), the capital city Regina experiences solar noon close to 13:00.
In effect they are on permanent daylight time.
Above: Flag of Saskatchewan
Similarly, the Yukon is cited as being on Mountain Standard Time (MST), though they are really on year-round permanent daylight time (PDT) to align with the Pacific zone in summer.
But in fact, local solar noon for the capital Whitehorse occurs near 14:00, the result being double-daylight time.
Above: Flag of the Yukon Territory
(I’m sorry?
Double-daylight time?
What in tarnation is that?)
Advocates cite the same advantages as normal DST without the problems associated with the twice yearly time shifts.
However, many remain unconvinced of the benefits, citing the same problems and the relatively late sunrises, particularly in winter, that year-round DST entails.
(Certainly DST is a convenient excuse for complaining about the lack of enough sleep, but are there not other days when my lack of sleep has been caused by other factors unrelated to clock adjustments?)
Russia switched to permanent DST from 2011 to 2014, but the move proved unpopular because of the late sunrises in winter, so in 2014, Russia switched permanently back to standard time partially.
Above: Flag of Russia
The United Kingdom and Ireland also experimented with year-round summer time between 1968 and 1971, and put clocks forward by an extra hour during World War II.
Above: Satellite image of the British Isles
(Well, that was enlightening….)
In the US, the Florida, Washington, California and Oregon legislatures have all passed bills to enact permanent DST, but the bills require Congressional approval in order to take effect.
Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have also introduced proposals or commissions to that effect.
Although 26 states have considered making DST permanent, unless Congress changes federal law, states cannot implement permanent DST — states can only opt out of DST, not standard time.
(Ah, the Excited States of Hysteria!
Always agitated by this, that and the other.)
In September 2018, the European Commission proposed to end seasonal clock changes as of 2019.
Member states would have the option of observing either daylight saving time all year round or standard time all year round.
In March 2019, the European Parliament approved the commission’s proposal, while deferring implementation from 2019 until 2021.
As of October 2020, the decision has not been confirmed by the Council of the European Union.
The Council has asked the Commission to produce a detailed impact assessment, but the Commission considers that the onus is on the Member States to find a common position in Council.
As a result, progress on the issue is effectively blocked.
Above: Flag of the European Union
(Basically, the eternal European passion of rushing to a standstill….)
Experts in circadian rhythms and sleep caution against permanent daylight saving time, recommending year-round standard time as the preferred option for public health and safety.
The experts include various chronobiology societies have also published position papers against adopting DST permanently.
According to the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms:
Local and national governments around the world are currently considering the elimination of the annual switch to and from Daylight Saving Time (DST).
As an international organization of scientists dedicated to studying circadian and other biological rhythms, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) engaged experts in the field to write a Position Paper on the consequences of choosing to live on DST or Standard Time (ST).
The authors take the position that, based on comparisons of large populations living in DST or ST or on western versus eastern edges of time zones, the advantages of permanent ST outweigh switching to DST annually or permanently.
Four peer reviewers provided expert critiques of the initial submission, and the SRBR Executive Board approved the revised manuscript as a Position Paper to help educate the public in their evaluation of current legislative actions to end DST.
(Seriously, so much fuss over 60 minutes more in the spring and 60 minutes less in the fall….)
The World Federation of Societies for Chronobiology stated that “the scientific literature strongly argues against the switching between DST and Standard Time and even more so against adopting DST permanently.”
And the American Academy of Sleep Medicine having the position that “seasonal time changes should be abolished in favor of a fixed, national, year-round standard time.”
In the EU, the European Sleep Research Society has stated that “that the scientific evidence presently available indicates installing permanent Central European Time (CET, standard time or ‘wintertime’) is the best option for public health.“
(The perfect cure for insomnia: reading these reports on DST….)
Since daylight saving time creates the illusion of the sun rising and setting one hour later on the clock, but does not add any additional daylight, the already later sunrise times under standard time are pushed an hour later on the clock with daylight saving time.
Late sunrise times can become unpopular in the winter months which essentially forces workers and schoolchildren to begin the day in darkness.
(It is called “winter“, Bunky.
Deal with it or move to the Equator.)
In 1974 following the enactment of the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Act in the US, there were complaints of children going to school in the dark and working people commuting and starting their work day in pitch darkness during the winter months.
The complaints led to the repeal of the Act in October 1974 when standard time was restored until 23 February 1975.
In 1976, the US returned to the schedule set under the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
Above: Coat of arms of the United States of America
In 1971, year-round daylight time in the UK was abandoned after a three-year experiment because of complaints about winter sunrise times.
Above: Flag of the United Kingdom
The same complaints also led to Russia abandoning DST and instituting standard time year round in 2014.
Above: Coat of arms of Russia
(Ah, First World problems….)
Above: “Weird” Al Yankovic
The second incident was my coming across an article about the possible demise of the five-day office week….
Most office workers are in no hurry to return to the office full time, even after the corona virus is under control, but that does not mean they want to work from home forever.
The future for them, a variety of data shows, is likely to be work weeks split between office and home.
(I will be blunt.
Writing from home is something I thoroughly enjoy.
Teaching from home…..
Not so much.
For it is much more difficult to motivate students (and myself) electronically than in person.)
Recent surveys show that both employees and employers support this arrangement.
Research suggests that a couple of days a week at each location is the magic number to cancel out the negatives of each arrangement while reaping the benefits of both.
“You should never be thinking about full time or zero time.“, said Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University whose research has identified causal links between remote work and employee performance.
“I am a firm believer in post-COVID half time in the office.“
Above: Logo of Stanford University
(It is a grim reality that the spectre of COVID and similar harbingers of death are the new reality that humanity needs to come to grips with.
Despite every inclination to return to pre-COVID conditions, the potential of viruses of this nature is too chancy to disregard.
Crowded conditions, unsanitary situations, a compulsion to return to the carefree carelessness of a pre-pandemic planet will all spell disaster for humanity if we do not heed the lessons that COVID has forced us to acknowledge.
We may not have a choice in the matter of when we work.
Remote work may be necessary if not necessarily desirable for everyone.)
Above: Covid-19 Outbreak World Map total deaths per capita (per 100,000 inhabitants) as of 15 November 2021
According to a July 2020 survey by Morning Consult, 47% of those working remotely say that once it is safe to return to work, their ideal arrangement would be to continue working from home one to four days a week.
40% would work from home every day.
Just 14% would return to the office every day.
(Among the staff of WSE there were some who were delighted to do their job from home and others who relished their return to the classroom.
I am of the latter category.
That being said, there was a certain delight to be literally anywhere (at least with Wifi and electricity) and still be able to do my job during the days when the government closed all schools in the name of pandemic prevention.
During the last lockdown in Turkey I was able to do a wee bit of travelling away from Eskişehir, though admittedly many of the tourist attractions that I wished to see were closed because of the lockdown.
Nonetheless, spending my days exploring new places and my evenings teaching online was something I enjoyed.
It was with a bittersweet reluctance that I returned back to the classroom to teach in the manner in which I am best suited.)
Above: (in green) Turkey
The group of workers that is able to work from home is likely to have more education, with higher incomes, and so far have escaped the most severe job losses from the pandemic.
That could change as the economy continues to suffer, which analysts said could affect work-from-home policies in different ways:
Employers might panic and revert to their old ways or encourage remote work to cut real estate costs.
(There is no denying that there are definitely sectors of the economy where a higher education is a prerequisite and where actual physical presence at a public venue is actually not needed.
That being said, there is also an assumption, akin to a horse with blinders, that presumes that those without higher qualifications are unable to generate income electronically without the co-operation of an actual tangible enterprise.
If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that, with the exception of industries such as catering and gastronomy, much of our business lives could be conducted from home, whether this is desirable or not.)
In the Survey of Business Uncertainty – by the Atlanta Fed, Stanford, and the University of Chicago – employers predicted that post-pandemic, 27% of their full-time employees would continue working from home, most for a few days a week.
Other surveys of firms have shown that they expect at least 40% of employees to keep working remotely.
(For all its perks, working as a location-independent person has its challenges.
Doing business from home or from the road can mean long hours.
You have to jump out of bed proactive.
Some days it is just you versus the world.
Are there benefits to online working?
Certainly, but everything comes at a cost.)
Across organizations, work was most effective when employees were home one to two days a week, found research by Humu, a tech company run by Google’s former chief of human resources.
“It creates a shift, where office time is for collaborative work, for innovative work, for having these meetings, and home time is for focused work.“, said Stefanie Tignor, director of data and analytics at Humu, which makes tools to nudge people to improve their time at work.
(Humu?
What?
Were all the good names taken?
As for being able to focus when one is at home…..)
Some past experiences in remote work in the US, like at Best Buy and Yahoo, were ended because managers decided remote workers were not accountable enough and missed out on in-person collaboration.
(“Not accountable enough” = not controllable enough?)
But in research on remote work, it has been hard to prove that workers’ location caused certain effects and to know if the effects would have been different had their competitors, partners and customers also been working from home.
Also, only in the last few years has technology for video calls and virtual collaborations become more seamless.
(“Seamless” technology?
Not in my experience.)
Now, the pandemic has forced corporate America into a large-scale experiment on remote work.
And so far, the results have largely been positive – even with the enormous stresses of the pandemic, including shuttered schools.
And dystopian dreams disturb my slumber.
If the outside world is too dangerous then why venture out at all?
Let’s develop surrogates – humanoid remote-controlled robots – to do everything for us in our stead.
The 2009 American sci-fi film Surrogates‘ main concept centers on the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase remote-controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society.
These fit, attractive, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
Compared to their surrogates, the human operators are depicted as slovenly and homebound.
Protected from harm, a surrogate’s operator feels no pain when the surrogate is damaged, and can do acrobatics that a normal person wouldn’t.
But as Surrogates‘ Prophet suggests:
“Look at yourselves.
Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in the mirror.
What you see is how God made you.
We’re not meant to experience the world through a machine.“
Above: Ving Rhames (The Prophet), Surrogates
In the Morning Consult survey, conducted 16 – 20 June 2020 with a representative sample of 1,066 Americans who said their jobs could be done remotely, nearly two-thirds said they had enjoyed working from home.
Just 20% said they had not.
(The rest said they did not know or had no opinion.)
Three-quarters are happy with how their companies have handled the transition.
Just 9% are not.
59% would be more likely to apply to a job that offered remote work.
(The downside is working remotely from home for a company generally means you are not free to choose your own hours, you are not exposed to the variety of living that socializing with others offers, your place of leisure is no longer sacred as it has also become your workplace, with videoconferencing you can no longer dress as you once did inside your own home, and at the end of the day your private home is no longer as private as it once was.)
Some downsides of remote work persist.
Most people miss the social connections at work, the survey found.
In Bloom’s study of a Chinese travel firm, half of the remote workers wanted to return to the office when the experiment ended.
Their reasons were loneliness, stigma and penalties in terms of being promoted.
These and other reasons are why firms want workers to eventually return in some capacity.
Above: Flag of China
(Solitude does not necessarily mean loneliness.
Being surrounded by people does not necessarily mean the absence of loneliness either.
As for stigma and penalties, work politics are prevalent regardless of whether the work is done remotely or on-site.)
An ideal work setup, several say, may be one in which everyone works from home or in the office the same few days each week, and everyone knows which days are for collaboration and which are for focused work.
That may be hard to achieve while the corona virus is still a severe risk, because staggered schedules are recommended to achieve physical distancing in offices.
(Another worry this presents is whether an employer might use our present pandemic circumstances as an excuse to implement job-sharing, having two people share the same job dividing the work week between them.)
Consider how abnormal new WSE colleague Ian from St. Augustine (Florida) and I from St. Philippe d’Argenteuil (Québec) – I refuse to call it Brownsburg – Chatham (pronounced shat-ham in Quebecois French) – view a five-day workweek as opposed to the normalcy of a six-day workweek as practised in Asia.
Above: Images of St. Augustine, FloridaAbove: Aerial view of St. Philippe d’Argenteuil, Québec
With the tragic destruction of Syria and civil war raging in Yemen and the theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia (more alike than different despite their ceaseless proxy wars), it is sad that some countries in the Middle East remain off-limits to travellers such as ourselves.
Suicide bombings falsely committed in the name of faiths not faithfully followed, endless intractable tensions and violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and an escalation of anti-Western sentiment (some deserved, some not) in some quarters have dampened enthusiasm for travel and employment in the Middle East.
Yet, despite all this, there are, at least for now, oases of calm, so perhaps it is premature to write off the whole of the Middle East as uninhabitable and undesirable due to anxieties about personal security.
For travellers such as myself and Ian, the areas of employment to consider throughout the Middle East are English teaching, nannying, nursing, or a position in the petrochemical or construction industries, depending, of course, upon your academic and professional qualifications and experience.
The difference for us North Americans is that countries in the Middle East vary greatly in degree of Islamic restrictiveness, where in some nations redemption is less a matter of personal choice as it is a question of obligation and enforcement.
Above: The Middle East
Despite the reputation that the Swiss and the Germans unjustly assign Turkey, it is truly a wonderful country to travel and work in, with a wealth of historic sites (such as Troy and Ephesus), marvellous food (ask any Turk their opinion of this) and warm friendly people.
But here too as well its tourism industry has been decimated by terrorist attacks (both real and rumoured), a wary fatalism following the failed military coup, and in recent memory, of course, the pandemic that continues to plague the planet.
There is no denying that the authoritarian and pro-theocratic tendencies of President Erdoğan’s government have killed Turkey’s campaign to join the European Union by 2023, the centennial anniversary of the Turkish Republic.
Above: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Despite this, Turkey is a land pregnant with promise and potential.
For several decades now, Turkey’s prosperous classes have been eager to learn English.
Expat teachers routinely earn good money (or at least used to) for private English lessons.
There are established chains (such as Wall Street English), but sadly there are still dodgy operators (“cowboy schools“) and swashbuckling employers (thieves and pirates) willing to hire and exploit expats.
You will want a school that is professional (with good resources, support and teacher development), offers a good package (salary, accommodation, holiday entitlement) and has a timetable to suit you.
Although Istanbul is not the capital, it is the commercial, financial and cultural centre of Turkey, so this is where most of the EFL (English as a foreign language) teaching goes on.
Above: Istanbul, Turkey
On the negative side, there is more competition from other travelling teachers in Istanbul (and Izmir) than in Ankara or less obvious cities, such as Mersin, Bursa and Eskişehir.
Demand is steady for English-speaking au pairs among wealthy Turkish families.
High salaries are very attractive, though the life of a nanny can be frustrating because of cultural differences.
Some nannies have had to get used to having their freedom and independence curtailed, and also the extent to which Turkish children tend to be spoiled and babied.
There is (or at least used to be) a large population of seasonal travellers looking for casual employment.
Some succeed.
The main Aegean resorts of Marmaris, Kusadasi and Bodrum absorb a number of foreign travellers as workers.
Other places firmly on the travellers’ trail, such as Antalya on the south coast and Goreme in Cappadocia, are also promising.
Proprietors of bars, shops, travel agencies, aim to use native English speakers to attract more customers to buy their souvenirs or stay at their hotels.
In the majority of cases, this sort of work finds you once you make known your willingness to undertake such jobs.
Major Turkish yachting resorts are excellent places to look for work, not just related to boats but in hotels, bars, shops and excursions.
Of course, as with anything else anywhere else, there is always a catch.
In Turkey, a person must be prepared to work long hours, handle demanding clients and get used to working with the same people for a long period of time.
And yet, by comparison, the 35-hour week I do at Wall Street Eskişehir (Monday to Friday: 1600 – 2100 / Sunday: 0930 – 1800) seems mild compared to the schedule I had in Suwon, South Korea (Monday to Friday: 1000 – 2000 / Saturday 1000 – 1300) which I supplemented with extra work as a reader at an English language children’s bookstore and a tutor of doctors in medical English.
I think, at least for me, it is easier to do long hours if the work gives you pleasure.
Above: Hwaseong Fortress and the skyline of Suwon, South Korea
Recently a co-worker of mine has been debating her future.
Is there life beyond WSE?
I certainly hope so.
I also recently met a fellow Canadian, Rob from Kelowna (BC), who has expressed some envy in the lifestyle I led prior to settling down and since I have relocated to Turkey.
His dilemma is what should he do – he was in Eskişehir for the Erasmus program (a blogpost for the future) – once he returns back to BC.
I spoke of books like:
Work Your Way Around the World, by Susan Griffith
The Big Book of Living and Working Overseas, by Jean-Paul Haché
What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Bolles
Lonely Planet’s The Digital Nomad Handbook
I will never tell someone what I think they should do.
Instead I try to show them their value and the options available to them.
Above: Rob and the blogger
As for myself, I am aware that at the age of 56 that there are more working years behind me than there are ahead of me, and that even freelance teachers are affected by mandatory retirement age legislation universally.
Personally I find the notion of retirement insulting and wasteful if a man is still able to contribute his intelligence and expertise to the world.
For old men have a sixth sense, subtle knowledge, to see problems about to arise.
There is no substitute for experience.
Though I am far removed from the appellation of tech savvy, I believe there is a lesson to be learned from the pandemic and the necessity of online working it created.
Perhaps when mandatory retirement is forced upon me I could try becoming a digital nomad, working as a paid travel blogger, or teach online if a classroom is denied me, or a paid freelance writer.
Certainly this would be a big step for me and I would be lying if I said that I felt sure that I was ready, that I am not worried about running out of money, that I am used to being on my own financially.
But as long as I can work remotely over an Internet connection, there is no age limit to what I could do!
Above: “Weird” Al Yankovic, “It’s All About the Pentiums“
Ride the commuter planes between capital cities any morning at 0700 or late in the evening and you will be amazed at the vast number of look-alike, grey-faced men, moving endlessly to and fro across the country in the dreadful lifestyle of the ‘executive’.
They might be flying First Class or Business Class.
They are first off the plane and into the Club Lounges.
But no one in their right mind envies them.
They are privileged eunuchs, leading a dry and joyless life.
Commuting isn’t just tiring, it’s draining.
Around 20% of people cite commuting to work as the main cause of stress in their lives.
How did this all happen?
How do intelligent people become so ensnared?
It is because we take on obligations and we spend the rest of our lives paying for them.
It isn’t the fact of working that does harm.
Work is good.
It is the nature of the work that is the problem.
If you do a job that lacks heart, it will kill you.
The strongest predictor of life expectancy in a man is whether he likes his job.
Two elements – the lack of real purpose and the lack of personal control – are the main problems.
And these two elements come into our lives when it comes to how our limited time of existence is determined for us.
We will spend 80% of our adult lives working.
And we will “gladly” do so, because we must pay for the lives we have created.
The dream is to own property, to have your own “pied-à-terre“, a piece of land which, after all, is a scarcer and scarcer commodity.
The mortgage system allows you to have a house, from the start of your adult life, and to spend the rest of your working life paying for it.
Your obligation is not to people but to institutions.
Lose your job, fail to pay, and faceless institutions will throw you out with no hesitation or remorse.
Whatever urge you may have to do something risky, exciting, different or adventurous, chances are you will not, because you must meet your obligations and dare not risk losing the perceived benefits of these obligations.
Anyone visiting Earth from another planet would think it each man’s goal to look as much like the next as possible.
And no matter what a particular man does or how he spends his day, he has one thing in common with all other men –
He spends 80% of his adult life in a degrading manner.
And he himself does not gain by it.
It is not his own livelihood that matters.
He would have to struggle far less for that, if luxuries did not mean anything to him.
But the obligations he takes on for the hope that he might be praised for his sacrifice and hard work are all done for the uncertainty of wife and children whom he sees less frequently than his place of employment.
No matter what the man’s job may be – bookkeeper, doctor, bus driver or Managing Director – every moment of his life will be spent as a cog in a huge and pitiless system – a system designed to exploit him to the utmost, to his dying day.
Above: Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times
How exciting it must be to drive a bus through a busy town!
But always the same route, at the same time, in the same town, day after day, year after year?
We have long ceased to play the games of childhood.
As children, we became bored quickly and changed from one game to another.
A man is a child who is condemned to play the same game for the rest of his life.
The reason is obvious:
As soon as he is discovered to have a gift for one thing, he is made to specialize.
Then, because he can earn more money in that field than another, he is forced to do it forever.
If he was good at arithmetic in school, if he had a “head for figures” he will be sentenced to a lifetime of figure work as bookkeeper or mathematician, for there lies his maximum work potential.
Therefore, he will add up figures and add up more figures, but he will never be able to say:
“I’m bored.
I want to do something else!“
For he is now belaboured with obligation that will never permit him to look for something else.
Driven by debt, he may engage in a desperate struggle against competitors, to improve his position, and perhaps even become head clerk or Managing Director of a bank.
But the price he pays for his improved salary is high.
A man who changes his way of life, or rather his profession (for life and profession are synonymous to him) is considered unreliable.
If he does it more than once, he becomes a social outcast and remains alone.
Above: Billie Eilish (centre), “Lost Cause“
And it is this fear of being alone, this fear of being rejected by society, that is his biggest obstacle to happiness.
Why else will a doctor (who as a child liked to observe tadpoles in jam jars) spend his life opening up nauseating growths, examining and pronouncing on human excretions?
Why else does he busy himself night and day with people of such repulsiveness that everyone else is driven away?
Does a pianist who as a child liked to tinkle on the piano really enjoy playing the same Chopin nocturne over and over again all his life?
Above: Tord Gustavsen
Why else does a politician who as a schoolboy discovered the techniques of manipulating people successfully continue as an adult mouthing words and phrases as a government functionary?
Does he actually enjoy contorting his face and playing the fool and listening to the idiotic chatter of others?
Surely he must once have dreamed of a different kind of life.
Even if he became President of the United States, isn’t the price too high?
No one can hardly assume men do all this for pleasure and without feeling a desire for change.
Above: US President Joe Biden
Instead we do the work that others command and it has become a grind – increasingly repetitive.
It is a numbing of human senses and a subjugation of ourselves beneath the need to survive, to meet our obligations, so perchance we won’t be rejected by a society that barely notices we exist.
Today, in the 21st century, work has become more comfortable but not more fulfilling.
It is still a separate – albeit dominant – compartment in life – something you tolerate in exchange for ‘real’ living in the time left over from doing your job and recovering from your job!
Work drives an unhealthy wedge into the very core of our lives.
Too many people, men and women, do work they do not much like – jobs that are beneath them.
When I was a teenager in high school and later a young man in college, there was an office in these buildings called “career guidance“.
Its aim was to help you find something you liked to do.
But underneath it all we dimly sensed the real purpose.
Since you had to work to purchase the good life, the aim was just to find the best paying job you could tolerate.
That’s what jobs were.
Why else would you do them?
(At least in those days there was a choice – with unemployment rates today, to have any job is seen as a privilege and being choosy is a sin.)
Meanwhile, we sell human potential short.
We reject it in our own lives and we reject it in the lives of our children.
We need work with heart, work that our heart is in.
Work that makes you jump out of bed in the morning, keen to get started.
I am a teacher, of adults, of English as a second language.
Certainly I would be lying if I said that even this job doesn’t have its share of routine and repetition, tedium and tension, for certainly it does.
Wall Street has a method and it expects its teachers to follow this method as religiously, as faithfully, as flawlessly as possible.
Asking students to speak of bags of rice, tins of tomatoes, packets of chips/crisps, jars of peppers and boxes of lettuce again and again and again quickly loses its novelty.
Correcting the oblivious omissions or the unnecessary inclusions of the same words again and again on a regular basis does not make for eternally optimistic days.
If I had a Turkish lira for every time I heard a student say “Pisa” instead of “pizza“, I could retire tomorrow.
Above: Piazza dei Miracoli, Pisa, Italy
And yet despite this, and the inevitable politics every organization has, I feel fulfilled in my job, despite living alone, despite having few luxuries, despite working six days a week, for I feel I am making a contribution in the lives of others.
This is not to suggest that other jobs I have done in the past did not serve humanity in their own ways, but the environment of a classroom is very different than that of a Starbucks café, or the cubicle of a government or corporate office, or in the empty aisles of a store being cleaned, or the soulless halls of a building being guarded, working the fields of a farm, or at the cash of a store, or doing any of the many other jobs I have had in my uncertain history.
I feel a more direct bearing on the well-being of others as a teacher (and hopefully one day as a paid writer) than other jobs that I have done.
I left Switzerland for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that here in Turkey (ironically a land less prosperous than the Swiss Confederation) I can support myself doing a job I love, which was difficult to do in a land where finding full-time employment as a freelance teacher is fraught with far more difficulties than here.
As my wife has a job that more than adequately supports herself, I am relieved of the obligation of having to support her doing a job I am less than satisfied with.
Does this mean I run the risk of rejection?
Absolutely.
Above: Flag of Switzerland
But, truth be told, I am happier here.
Here, I feel that I am improving the lives of others by giving them a skill that may improve their educational and professional potential.
As an example, while serving customers in Starbucks was less about making coffee and collecting cash as it was the direct contact I made with people, and even though I have tried to do every job in my past as friendly and as interested in people as possible, I nonetheless feel I make more of a positive impact on people as a teacher (and they on me) than any other job that I have done.
Certainly I am indoctrinated enough to my societal standards to have within me a desire to have the ability to support others, but I now live in a nation where I make just enough to adequately fend for myself and which by comparison with the Swiss expensive standard of living I am in no way capable of supporting my wife therein.
And, another truth be told, if a man’s sole role in life is to support others, despite the acknowledgement that this support makes the continuation of life and the generations that follow possible, if this is done with little consideration of the effects this has on him and his potential, then somewhere something is truly wrong with this picture.
If a man is to be judged on his earning potential alone rather than the happiness he is willing to share than perhaps solitude is a small price to pay in comparison to the unreliability of too many people who wish to exploit him.
Above: Swiss coinage
As a teacher, I feel that the knowledge I impart to my students ultimately may provide an infrastructure for others, to help them find employment, to nurture their leadership skills, to create opportunity and growth in the world around me.
As a teacher, it is my hope that I enhance the lives, maybe even the futures, of other people.
In my own small way, I feel that as a well-travelled Canadian, as a seasoned senior (at least compared to my colleagues), my work builds bridges between people and cultures, and, more importantly, “as oneteaches, two learn“.
Some men know how to solve crimes, others can heal pain, paint pictures, make violins, train dogs, ride waves, kick a ball, lay cement, design glorious buildings, make new laws.
We need them all.
Each of us has things inside of us to do.
They lie dormant, expecting to be expressed, but too often remain unspoken urges that hurt within.
You have to set yourself free.
No one will do it for you.
If we have to do the banal, then at least we can choose to make the banal bearable by finding the heart in the work we already do.
If we could only find the confidence that comes from some inner sense of what matters.
I remember a very short stint I had as a shoe salesman for Bally Shoes on Sparks Street in Ottawa.
Such aggressive high-pressure tactics the sales staff used on the customers!
Such was not my way.
I was more interested in the customer finding satisfaction, even if it wasn’t in a pair of Bally Shoes, than making massive amounts of money for the store.
I did not last long in that job and, unconnected with myself, nor did that store.
I have lost or have left jobs that made others question my sanity, but I have always been aware that life is short and that, if possible, it should not be preoccupied with activities that make life less joyful than it was meant to be.
Not all jobs can be converted from banal to beautiful and magical.
There are basically negative jobs, like politics as it is currently practised, environmentally damaging work or dishonest work like some kinds of selling.
I recall another brief stint going door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions in the Kingston (Ontario) region.
And I recall in that one and only week, a week of being trained and observed, that I came to a household which looked desperately impoverished, and yet my manager pushed me to sell magazines that the household could not afford and should not have agreed to.
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I quit.
Above: Conversion of Paul, Guido Reni
I recall another job, again back in Ottawa, data entry for a credit card company.
My supervisor saw something in me and wanted me to lead a group of other data entry clerks.
Her first assignment was for me to fire a friend whose data entry speed was slightly less than the demanded standard.
I pleaded his case, I spoke of his financial situation and familial obligations, but to no avail.
I was given an ultimatum.
Fire him or be fired.
My friend and I both left.
The credit card company, unrelated to me, no longer exists, or if it does it is somewhere else or named something else.
Above: Images of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Sadly, I have lost touch with that friend I defended, but I am confident that he found another position somewhere else more appropriate.
And, against all odds, I’m still standing.
We have recessions because there is no growth in the economy, but yet we live in a finite world that cannot sustain growth.
Instead of more factories and office towers, we need to build a spiritual, intellectual and social infrastructure that will make all of us (not just a privileged few) healthier, more secure and more self-sufficient.
The message of maintaining the status quo though is insidious, a pervasive cancer that will not die until the structure that supports it is killed.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against princes and powers and principalities.
We outnumber them, but they overpower us.
And the band plays on.
Above: Moxy Früvous, “The Drinking Song“
I change the world in subtle ways, doing what I can in the best way I know how.
I am just one man.
But I cannot share happiness if I do not find happiness from within myself.
Doing the job I love is part of that happiness for me.
It does not matter to me whether I am in a land that practises Daylight Savings or not.
It does not matter to me whether I work more or less days per week if I am enjoying the job that I am doing.
It does not matter to me whether the work I do is face-to-face rather than online, despite my preference for the former, I do see the wisdom and freedom of the latter.
What matters to me is that, when possible, I am doing work that fulfills me.
What matters to me is that I try, whenever possible, to breathe beauty into the banal.
And if in the process someone out there is glad that I exist, then I can die in the knowledge that my life, even if for only a moment, had value.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Facebook / YouTube / Steve Biddulph, Manhood / Susan Griffith, WorkYour Way Around the World / Lonely Planet, The Digital Nomad Handbook / Claire Cain Miller, “Is thefive-day office week over?“, New York Times, 2 July 2020 / Moxy Früvous, “The Drinking Song” / Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man
I am back in Europe only until 4 August, then back again to Eskisehir.
For now this is a chance to collect books and clothes to take back with me, a chance to see the wife and Swiss friends, a chance to remind myself of all that is good and bad about Switzerland.
What is most positive about my return, besides people, is my library of books that make writing so much easier in terms of both information and inspiration, for both my blogs and my literary ambitions.
Above: Landschlacht, Switzerland
Considering it is mid-summer now and temperatures are rising all over the world, including places where it rarely heats up to extremes (like Canada, Scandanavia and Russia) so intensely, it feels strange to speak of Winnipeg in winter.
But I write of Winnipeg and my visit there in January 2020, just before the corona virus became a global pandemic, because a number of topics in the news of late – human rights, indigenous relations, climate – all seem relevant and related to this discussion.
Above: Winnipeg in winter
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Tuesday 14 January 2020
The loveless Airbnb is on Ashburn Street.
Knowing this does not help me at all.
I arrived last night in darkness – the cab taking me down snow-covered streets that all looked the same to me.
This morning with no breakfast forthcoming I needed to explore the streets or starve quietly indoors.
It is lightly snowing and the wind is cruel.
The temperature is -20°C and my Swiss clothing is suited to a warmer winter.
I cannot read Google Maps without exposing my hands to the cold.
I cannot read a map without my reading glasses because the lenses fog up when I put them on.
I am lost in a suburban jungle with no notion of where I am or where I should be going.
Dawn has not broken when I first emerge into the Arctic clime, though Winnipeg has woken.
Lights are on in most of the houses I trudge past.
Folks preparing to go to work, heading to showers and kitchens to bolster themselves for the day.
The locals all drive, for the most part.
I walk the streets alone like some homeless hobo seeking shelter.
There is no one I can ask for directions.
I am navigating by instinct, trusting my gut.
This has always been a mistake, for unlike my wife, I don’t know cities, despite all my travels.
My wife can read the shape and flow of a city like a sailor can sense the direction of the waves and wind.
I am not my wife.
I find myself on Valour Road.
Above: Valour Road Monument
Valour Road is a three-kilometre (1.9 mi) street in the West End area of Winnipeg, so at least I know I am west of the downtown core, but which direction west is with the sun invisible to my eyes downcast to avoid being slapped in the face by the aggressive wind, I am still none the wiser.
Originally called Pine Street, it was renamed Valour Road in 1925 to recognize three young men — Corporal Leo Clarke (1892 – 1916), Sergeant Major Frederick William Hall (1885 – 1915) and Lieutenant Robert Shankland (1887 – 1968) — who all lived in this neighbourhood and individually received the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery during the First World War (1914 – 1918).
Shankland was the only one to survive the war.
The other two men were awarded the medal posthumously.
Shankland attended the ceremony for the renaming of Pine Street to Valour Road.
All three medals are now on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario.
The three medals were loaned to the Manitoba Museum here in Winipeg in 2014 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War.
This marked the first time that all three medals were in Winnipeg at the same time.
A memorial statue of the three men is located at the corner of Valour Road and Sargent Avenue.
The inscription on the Victoria Cross is “For Valour“.
Above: The Victoria Cross of Canada
The Valour Road Commemorative Plaza is a Victoria Cross-shaped plaza, located at the corner of Valour Road and Sargent Avenue, commemorating Clarke, Hall, and Shankland.
Designed in 2005 by David Wagner Associates, it features four bronze plaques mounted on Tyndall stone bases accompanied by three metal silhouettes, one for each of the three soldiers.
(The fourth plaque commemorates the significance of the Victoria Cross.)
It was on the night of 24 April 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres, Belgium, that Hall discovered a number of men were missing.
Above: Ypres, Belgium before the BattleAbove: Ypres after the Battle
On the ridge above he could hear moans from the wounded men.
Under cover of darkness, he went to the top of the ridge on two separate occasions and returned each time with a wounded man.
By nine o’clock on the morning of the 24th there were still men missing.
Above: Frederick William Hall
In full daylight and under sustained and intense enemy fire, Hall, Corporal Payne and Private Rogerson crawled out toward the wounded.
Payne and Rogerson were both wounded, but returned to the shelter of the front line.
When a wounded man who was lying some 15 yards from the trench called for help, Company Sergeant-Major Hall endeavored to reach him in the face of very heavy enfilade fire by the enemy.
He then made a second most gallant attempt, and was in the act of lifting up the wounded man to bring him in when he fell, mortally wounded in the head.
The soldier he had attempted to help was also shot and killed.
Above: The German front at Ypres
Hall’s name can be found on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing War Memorial in Ypres, honouring 56,000 troops from Britain, Australia, Canada and India whose final resting place in the Ypres salient is unknown.
Above: Menin Gate, Ypres
The main assault of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette was scheduled for 15 September 1916.
Its objective was to occupy a chain of trenches between Martinpuch and Courcelette.
On 1 September 1916, Clarke’s battalion was charged with capturing a 50-yard-long salient between the Canadian position at Mouquet Farm and Courcelette to the north.
On 9 September 1916, near Pozières, France, the first three companies of Clarke’s battalion went over the top, leaving the fourth in reserve.
Clarke, an Acting Corporal at the time, was assigned to take a section to clear the enemy on the left flank to allow his company sergeant to build a fortified dugout that would secure the Canadian position once the salient was overrun.
When his section reached the trench, it was so heavily defended that they had to battle their way through with hand grenades, bayonets, and their rifles as clubs.
Clarke was the only man left standing.
The rest had either been killed or wounded.
At that time, about 20 Germans, including two officers, counterattacked.
Clarke advanced, emptying his revolver into their ranks.
He then picked up two enemy rifles and fired those too.
One of the officers attacked with a bayonet, wounding Clarke in the leg, but Clarke shot him dead.
The Germans retreated, but Clarke pursued, shooting four more and capturing a fifth.
In all, Clarke killed 19 of the enemy, capturing one.
Above: Portrait of Leo Clarke
On 11 October 1916, Clarke’s battalion was ordered forward to secure the newly captured Regina Trench which was still under heavy enemy artillery fire.
Clarke was crouching in a hole at the rear of a trench when a shell exploded and the back of the trench caved in, burying him.
His brother dug him out, but Clarke was paralyzed.
The weight of the earth had crushed his back and injured his spine.
Clarke was taken to No. 1 General Hospital, but died on 19 October.
He is buried in Plot II, Row C, Grave 3A, in Etretat Churchyard Extension, 16 miles north of Le Havre, France.
According to a contemporary newspaper article, shortly before his death he wrote his parents, stating:
“I don’t care so much for the Victoria Cross as getting home for a couple of months.“
Awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions at Sanctuary Wood (east of Ypres) in 1916 as a Sergeant (in charge of a stretcher bearer party), Shankland received a battlefield commission later that year and continued to serve with the 43rd Battalion as an officer.
Above: Portrait of Robert Shankland
On the morning of 26 October, he led his platoon of 40 men from D Company to the crest of the hill at the Bellevue Spur, the main trench line defending the approach to Passchendaele.
Overrunning it and holding the position was critical to capturing the town.
Early in the advance, B Company captured and held the Spur.
On the right, the 58th Battalion, which was under heavy fire from Snipe Hill, was forced to retire after failing to reach its objective.
Some of the men joined Shankland’s platoon, but this still left his right flank open.
For four hours they withstood incessant artillery shelling and German counterattacks, sustaining frightful casualties.
By this time the 8th Brigade on the left was forced to withdraw leaving both of Shankland’s flanks exposed.
He and his men were in danger of being cut off and losing the vital position gained at such fearful cost.
The only solution was to bring up reinforcements and counterattack.
Shankland turned over his command to another officer and then weaved his way through heavy mud and German shelling to battalion headquarters where he gave a first-hand report of the situation.
He also offered a detailed plan on how a counterattack with reinforcements could best be achieved.
He then returned to his men to lead the forthcoming attack supported by reinforcements from the 52nd and 58th battalions.
Above: Canadian Monument, Passchendaele, Belgium
For his actions that day Robert Shankland was awarded the Victoria Cross.
His citation reads:
Having gained a position at Passchendaele on 26th October 1917, Lieutenant Shankland organised the remnants of his own platoon and other men from various companies to command the foreground where they inflicted heavy casualties on the retreating Germans.
He later dissipated a counter-attack, allowing for the arrival of support troops.
He then communicated to his HQ a detailed evaluation of the brigade frontage.
On its completion he rejoined his command, carrying on until relieved.
His courage and his example undoubtedly saved a critical situation.
Above: Shankland’s medals on display, Manitoba Museum, Winnipeg
Valour, courage, bravery is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty and intimidation, especially in battle.
Above: Valour Road mural
I have no idea what kind of soldier I might have been had I found myself in battle.
So far, I have always remained distant from war, for I have difficulty in seeing the sacrifice of so many as something justifiable.
Above: Canada Slim
They risked death in the name of the nation.
The nation erected a monument, gave out medals, renamed a street.
Clarke died – age 18.
Hall – age 30.
Chances are strong their parents outlived their sons.
As for Strickland, those who have seen war never stop seeing it.
Above: Canadian War Memorial, Ottawa
I will not dishonour their sacrifice, but the tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.
I will not dishonour their acts, for a true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but rather because he loves what is behind him.
William Westmoreland correctly said that it is not the military who start wars, it is the politicians.
Above: William Westmoreland (1914 – 2005)
“War itself is, of course, a form of madness.
It is hardly a civilized pursuit.
It is amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices that kill each other and so little time working on how to achieve peace.
Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means, we would eliminate it.
Those advocates who work for world peace by urging a system of world government are called impractical dreamers.
Those impractical dreamers are entitled to ask their critics what is so practical about wars.“
Walter Cronkite (1916 – 2009)
“If we don’t end war, war will end us.”
H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946)
Above: Herbert George Wells
The problem is that wars do not end wars any more than gasoline ends fires.
The glorification of war, the assignation of honour and glory to permissible national assassination of other nationalities, teaches us little of the horrors of war, does not inspire the repetition of history.
The bravery of boys, the courage of comrades, where is the victory in their valour?
Their bravery, courage and valour is valued when the war is won, all of this is forgotten and nothing forgiven should the war be lost.
The political value and economic benefit are what matter.
The graves row upon row are far away and forgotten except by the fallen’s families and loved ones.
How convenient the JFK quote:
“Ask not what your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your country.“
Above: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963)
Why is it wrong to ask what your country can do for you?
Why is it wrong to expect certain things from your country?
Above: Kevin Kline as Dave Kovic / President Bill Mitchell, Dave (1993)
(“I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you and that it was just a temp job at that.
I forgot that I had two hundred and fifty million people who were paying me to make their lives a little better and I didn’t live up to my part of the bargain.
See, there are certain things you should expect from a President.
I ought to care more about you than I do about me.
I ought to care more about what’s right than I do about what’s popular.
I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in.”)
War is a theme common in Winnipeg literature, for settlement at this junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers grew through more than 50 years of conflict before Winnipeg was named the capital of the new province of Manitoba in 1870.
Above: Aerial view of The Forks, Winnipeg
The story of the battle for control of the region was told first by Pierre Falcon (1793 – 1876), a Métis balladeer whose songs record the struggle, as he witnessed it, from the Red River Settlement in 1812 to the Red River Rebellion (1869 – 1870).
Above: Pierre Falcon
Born at Elbow Fort, Swan River, in 1783, Falcon was educated in Québec.
He returned to Red River in 1806 to work for the North West Company’s trading post, Fort Gibraltar.
The Company was opposed to permanent settlement in the West because of the impact farming colonists would have on the fur trade.
Company officials at Fort Gibraltar were troubled by the appearance in 1812 of the first colonists for Lord Selkirk’s Red River Settlement – planned on a 116,000-acre site, at the rivers’ junction, granted to Selkirk by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1811.
Above: Coat of arms of the North West Company
Falcon was present at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816, when his brother-in-law Cuthbert Grant, a clerk of the North West Company, led an attack on a group of Red River settlers, in which twenty of them and their governor, Robert Semple, were killed.
Above: Cuthbert Grant (1793 – 1854)
Seven Oaks (also known as Frog Plain) stands near the site of the battle and is believed to be the oldest habitable house in Manitoba.
The site of the battle, Frog Plain, is now the area around the intersection of Main Street and Rupertsland Avenue.
Falcon celebrated the Métis victory with “La Chanson de la Grenouillère“.
Above: The Battle of Seven Oaks, 19 June 1816
Another song, “Le Lord Selkirk au Fort William” satirized a ball held at the North West Company’s Fort William (Thunder Bay, Ontario) by Lord Selkirk after he captured the post in retaliation for the killings at Seven Oaks.
Armed conflict ended in 1817.
After Selkirk died in 1820, the growth of the Red River community by the Hudson’s Bay Company from Fort Garry, built in 1818.
Above: Thomas Douglas, Lord Selkirk (1771 – 1820)
After 1821, when the North West Company merged with its trading rival, Falcon worked for four years with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Above: Logo of the Hudson’s Bay Company
He then joined other Métis under Cuthbert Grant to found Grantown (later St. Francois Xavier), where he lived until his death in 1876.
Above: Buffalo meat drying
Although Falcon is believed to have written and circulated many songs, only six survive.
In addition to the two ballads relating to the Red River Settlement, he is also known to have written “The BuffaloHunter’s Song“, which exists only in English translation (Le Général Dickson), about an American adventurer visiting Grantown in 1837, and two songs from his old age about events relating to the Red River Rebellion, “Les Tribulations d’un roi malheureux” and “Le Dieu du Liberal“.
The Red River Settlement is described by R.M. Ballantyre – who worked in the Northwest Territories for the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1841, when he was 16, to 1847 – in Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America during Six Years’ Residence in the Territories of the Honourable Hudson Bay Company (1848), which was based on his journals and letters home to his mother.
After returning to Scotland in 1847 he became a successful writer of adventure stories for boys.
Among them were two set in the Red River district:
The Red Man’s Revenge: A Tale of the Red River Flood (1880)
The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River (1891)
Above: Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825 – 1894)
The Red River Rebellion resulted from a plan by the Dominion government to purchase the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western land holdings and from fear among the region’s Métis people that this would destroy their way of life.
There were three important literary witnesses to the Rebellion besides Pierre Falcon:
the Métis leader Louis Riel (1844 – 1885)
Alexander Begg (1839 – 1897)
Charles Mair (1838 – 1927)
Mair arrived at Fort Garry in the fall of 1868 as paymaster to a surveying party allowing into the region by the Dominion government in anticipation of its purchase of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western land holdings.
Above: Charles Mair
Mair heightened the tensions in the community by writing several articles for the Toronto Globe that criticized the Red River Métis and urged eastern Canadians to settle in the region.
Mair was away from the Fort in the fall of 1869 for his wedding to Elizabeth Louise McKinney when the first confrontations occurred between Louis Riel and William McDougall (1822 – 1905), Lieutenant Governor of the North West Territories.
Above: William McDougall
When the newlyweds returned, Mair allied himself with McDougall, longtime friend John Christian Schultz (1840 – 1896) and others in opposing Riel.
Above: John Christian Schultz
On 7 December 1869, Mair was one of an armed party arrested by Riel, who had taken control of the Red River Settlement and declared a provisional Métis government.
Above: Métis Provisional Government
Front row: Robert O’Lone, Paul Proulx.
Centre row: Pierre Poitras, John Bruce, Louis Riel, John O’Donoghue, François Dauphinais.
Back row: Bonnet Tromage, Pierre de Lorme, Thomas Bunn, Xavier Page, Baptiste Beauchemin, Baptiste Tournond, Joseph Spence
With Schultz he escaped and travelled to Toronto to seek military help.
By the time Mair arrived on 6 April 1870 news of Riel’s execution of one of his prisoners, Thomas Scott (1842 – 1870), had reached Ontario and the Red River Expedition was organized under the command of Colonel Garnet Wolseley (1833 – 1913).
Above: Artist’s depiction of the execution of Thomas ScottAbove: Thomas Scott (1842 – 1870)Above: Garnet Wolseley (1833 – 1913)
Wolseley’s troops arrived at Fort Garry on 24 August to find Riel and his forces already gone.
Above: Fort Garry
Mair’s house, Clover Cottage, stood at what is now the corner of Portage and Main.
On 2 July 1870, his wife gave birth there to Maude Louise Mair, the first child of British parentage born in Winnipeg after the passage of the Manitoba Act.
In 1871, Mair moved his family to Portage la Prairie to open a store.
He always believed that Riel had destroyed several poetry manuscripts that he had been forced to leave behind at John Schultz’s store when he was arrested.
One of them was a long narrative poem based on events from the life of Zoroaster that was never reworked.
Above: 19th century Indian-Zoroastrian perception of Iranian prophet Zoroaster derived from a figure that appears in a 4rd century sculpture at Taq-e-Bostan in southwestern Iran.
The businessman and journalist Begg lived in the Red River district from 1867 to 1884
Founder and editor of several periodicals, including the Manitoba Trade Review (1872) and the Gazette and TradeReview, Begg kept a detailed journal of events in the Settlement during his years there.
In the 1870s Begg held various government positions.
His house was on George Avenue at the bank of the Red River.
He had offices on Rupert Avenue and in the post office on Main Street.
He drew on his diary for historical accounts of the period, including The Creation of Manitoba (1871) and for a satirical novel ‘Dot It Down’: A Story of Life in the North West (1871).
During this period and beyond, Begg was prominent in the community fighting for a representative government in Manitoba.
At first, he was supportive of both the Métis and the Hudson’s Bay Company and criticized the expansionist ideas of many of his fellow Canadians.
As the Red River Rebellion wore on, however, he began to advocate a negotiated annexation of the region by Canada, provided local rights were preserved.
In his book about the Red River Troubles in 1869 he laid out the almost state-free social-political system before the rebellion started:
“The Courts of Justice savored more of arbitration than of a mere attention to the technicalities of law.
And it generally happened that there were more cases decided outside the courtroom than inside it.
People at that period had learned to live on terms of friendship and kindliness towards each other, and, consequently, it was not a difficult matter to heal a breach between any two individuals.
The Government at that time depended greatly on the quiet, peaceful, and contented character of the people for a strict observance of law and order, and did not deem it necessary to enforce severe measures.“
Begg was a sympathetic chronicler of all sides in the Red River Rebellion with one exception:
The party surrounding John Schultz that included Charles Mair.
Mair is the model for Begg’s satirical character, ‘Dot It Down‘.
Mair wrote extensively in opposition to Riel’s cause and his columns incensed the citizenry of Red River.
At a dinner given by Begg, Annie McDermot Bannatyne, the Métis daughter of Andrew McDermot and wife of Andrew Graham Ballenden Bannatyne, reacted to Mair’s account of tensions between Métis and white wives with a public slap and horse-whipping, which inspired the first western roman-à-clef (a novel about real life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction), Begg’s 1871 Dot it Down: A Story of Life in the Northwest, presenting “a caricature of Mair as a self-important Upper Canadian flirt who dots down his sneering observations about the West“, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Above: Annie McDermot
After leaving Fort Garry to Wolseley’s Red River Expedition, Riel lived briefly in the US, but he was back in Manitoba by the end of the year.
Elected to the House of Commons in 1873, he was denied his seat and forced again to flee the country.
In 1885, fifteen years after the Red River Rebellion, he again directed armed Métis opposition to western settlement, this time in the Saskatchewan River Valley.
Riel surrendered on 15 May 1885 and was executed in Regina (SK) on 16 November 1885.
His brothers prepared a collection of his verse from his writings, Poésies religieuses et politiques (1886).
His complete writings, including ballads in the style of Pierre Falcon and other works occasioned by the Red River Rebellion, are available in The Complete Writings of Louis Riel / Les Écrits Complets de Louis Riel.
Above: Louis Riel (1844 – 1885)
After the Red River Rebellion, Winnipeg quickly developed as the gateway to the West.
Consequently it soon became the birthplace and home of various writers concerned with the experiences of settlers and immigrants in the new land.
Charles Gordon, who wrote under the pen name of Ralph Connor, came to Winnipeg in the 1890s and spent over 40 years there.
Gordon, who was a Presbyterian minister, was invited in August 1894 to become pastor of St. Stephen’s Church, then a mission on the outskirts of the city at the corner of Spence Street and Portage Avenue.
He remained there for the rest of his life.
All of Gordon’s books were written in Winnipeg, although his subjects were driven primarily from his childhood in Glengarry County (ON) and from his missionary years near Banff (AB).
Above: Charles W. Gordon (aka Ralph Connor) (1860 – 1937)
During the First World War Gordon went overseas as chaplain of the 43rd Highlanders and rose to the rank of senior Protestant chaplain to the Canadian forces.
His campaigning for social issues and his war experiences both figure in his novel, The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land (1919) follows the career of a Canadian army chaplain.
The editor and novelist Ralph Allen came to Winnipeg in 1929 at the age of 16 to work as a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune.
In the early 1930s he lived at 184 Walnut Street, in 1936 at 601 Boradway Avenue, and from 1938 until shortly before the Second World War at 55 Donald Street.
He then moved to Toronto.
Above: Ralph Allen (1913 – 1966)
Allen wrote two novels set during the War: Homemade Banners (1946) and The High White Forest (1964), which also draws on his experiences as a newspaperman in Winnipeg in the 1930s.
Michael Kaan, the child of a father from Hong Kong and a Canadian mother, was born in Winnipeg.
He completed a degree in English from the University of Manitoba, later completing an MBA in Health Economics from the same institution.
He has worked as a healthcare administrator since 2000, primarily in mental health and health research.
His debut novel The Water Beetles was published in 2017.
The novel, a family saga about a young boy’s experience during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, was based in part on Kaan’s father’s memoirs.
What I am asking of Winnipeg is shelter and food.
The wind is relentless and merciless.
Dawn comes but solutions elude me.
Above: Tent City, Winnipeg
Miracle of miracles, wonder of wonders, I stumble across a Tim Hortons on St. James Street.
Finally….
Food and folks who know Winnipeg far better than I.
Above: Tim Hortons, 980 St. James Street, Winnipeg
I am a loud man, so I recognize species of loud people when I hear them.
Two young ladies – one stout and loud, the other mousy and quiet – holding hands, sharing their thoughts and feelings.
I am no expert on relationships, but I suspect I am viewing one.
Above: Winnipeg lesbian couple (not the Donut Duo)
They loudly and openly speak of their sexual intimacies in a semi-crowded Tim Hortons at 0800 on a Tuesday morning.
As I work up the courage and charm to approach them for directions into town, for a downtown bus to attractions worth enduring the cold, I find myself wondering where their need for public attention stems from.
Do they feel they are being defiant, somehow challenging the status quo, that loudly exhibiting their LGBTQ membership must be trumpted across the donut shop for everyone to notice?
I am in no way suggesting that a person should apologize for their attraction (or lack of attraction) to others – whether heterosexual or homosexual, whether promiscuous or asexual – nor should anyone be ostracized for their intimate relationships between consenting adults.
Are the human rights of LGBTQ equally respected everywhere?
Definitely not.
Above: Gay pride flag
Canada may be far more liberal than other countries, but this is not to say that respect to alternative lifestyles is equally applied everywhere across the country.
Certainly the LGBTQ community needs to speak up when injustice appears in society, but I fail to see the significance of a clarion call to arms in the middle of a Tim Hortons.
As I view the sweet tantalizing temptations of the donut display behind the counter, selections forbidden to the gluten-intolerant, I find myself thinking of the Fruit Machine.
“Fruit machine” is a term for a device developed in Canada by Frank Robert Wake that was supposed to be able to identify gay men (derogatorily referred to as “fruits“).
The subjects were made to view pornography.
The device then measured the diameter of the pupils of the eyes (pupillary response test), perspiration, and pulse for a supposed erotic response.
The “fruit machine” was employed in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s during a campaign to eliminate all gay men from the civil service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the military.
A substantial number of workers did lose their jobs.
Although funding for the “fruit machine” project was cut off in the late 1960s, the investigations continued, and the RCMP collected files on over 9,000 “suspected” gay people.
Above: Badge of the RCMP
The chair employed resembled that used by dentists.
It had a pulley with a camera going towards the pupils, with a black box located in front of it that displayed pictures.
The pictures ranged from the mundane to sexually explicit photos of men and women.
It had previously been determined that the pupils would dilate in relation to the amount of interest in the picture per the technique termed ‘the pupillary response test‘.
People were first led to believe that the machine’s purpose was to rate stress.
After knowledge of its real purpose became widespread, few people volunteered for it.
The accuracy and functional mechanism of the “fruit machine” was questionable.
First, the pupillary response test was based on fatally flawed assumptions:
that visual stimuli would give an involuntary reaction that can be measured scientifically
that homosexuals and heterosexuals would respond to these stimuli differently
that there were only two types of sexuality.
A physiological problem with the method was that the researchers failed to take into account the varying sizes of the pupils and the differing distances between the eyes.
Other problems that existed were that the pictures of the subjects’ eyes had to be taken from an angle, as the camera would have blocked the subjects’ view of the photographs if it were placed directly in front.
Also, the amount of light coming from the photographs changed with each slide, causing the subjects’ pupils to dilate in a way that was unrelated to their interest in the picture.
Finally, the dilation of the pupils was also exceedingly difficult to measure, as the change was often smaller than one millimeter.
The idea was based on a study done by an American university professor, which measured the sizes of the subjects’ pupils as they walked through the aisles of grocery stores.
Brian Drader’s 1998 play The Fruit Machine juxtaposes the fruit machine project with a parallel storyline about contemporary homophobia.
Above: Brian Drader
An abandoned attempt to employ a fruit machine during the interrogation of Canadian diplomat John Watkins was shown in the 2002 TV film, Agent of Influence.
Above: John Watkins (1902 – 1964)
Alex Brett’s novel Cold Dark Matter (2005) uses the project as a plot device.
Sarah Fodey’s 2018 documentary film The Fruit Machine profiled the effects of the project on several of the people affected by it.
Canadian military policy with respect to LGBT sexuality has changed in the course of the 20th century from being intolerant and repressive to accepting and supportive.
Above: Canadian Forces emblem
In May 1967, due to the passing of the CF Reorganization Act (C-90) the Canadian Forces issued Canadian Forces Administrative Order (CFAO) 19-20, Sexual Deviation – Investigation, Medical Investigation and Disposal, which required members of the military suspected of being homosexual to be investigated and then subsequently released.
These investigations carried out by the Special Investigation Unit made use of the fruit machine, the aforementioned device created by Dr. Frank Robert Wake of Carlton University in the 1960s.
Above: Logo of Carleton University, Ottawa
This device was created with the objective of identifying perceived and actual homosexuals in the Canadian military in order to protect the organization from blackmail by Soviet Union spies.
Above: Flag of the Soviet Union (1922 – 1991)
Based on the results of the fruit machine evaluation, members of the CF were removed, having their careers ruined, their privacy invaded, and their lives destroyed.
I will never comprehend the notion that a gay man is less of a man than a straight man is.
Gay or straight, male or female, we each have the capacity to be great.
Great soldiers, great officers, great people.
Those that deny others the opportunity to excel in their chosen field, because of their gender or sexuality, are doing no one any good.
Above: National Film Board of Canada film about gays in the Canadian military
A gay man or woman, a male or female soldier, does not possess any more or less courage than anyone else.
There are a-holes and saints, cowards and heroes in every gender, in every sexuality.
To characterize all members of a group as being identical to each other is to do a disservice to individuality.
This order was repealed in 1992, after a challenge by then CF Member Michelle Douglas, thereby allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to serve in the Canadian Forces free from harassment and discrimination.
Above: Michelle Douglas
A series of provincial and territorial court decisions beginning in 2003 ruled in favour of the legality of gay marriage, and a national law to that effect was passed by Canada’s Parliament in 2005 by the Paul Martin Liberal government.
Above: Former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
In 2018, the Ross, Roy Satalic vs Canada class action lawsuit was settled.
This followed the apology in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and leaders of each party on 28 November 2017.
The settlement provided compensation to individuals who faced discrimination in the Canadian Armed Forces as well as other civil service members.
The settlement also established a multi million dollar fund, the LGBT Purge Fund, to complete a number of reconciliation and memorialization measures, including the Canada Pride Citation.
Above: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Davin Hoekstra was the first to come out nationally as a gay soldier in the Spring 1998 edition of Fab NationalMagazine.
His interview with award-winning journalist Michael Rowe garnered global attention.
Davin was subsequently interviewed by Kathleen Petty on CBC Newsworld, Arlene Bynon on Global and his story appeared in newspapers across the country.
In 2004, Jason Stewart was the first member of Canada’s military to marry a same-sex partner.
In May 2005, Canada’s first military gay wedding took place at Nova Scotia’s Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Greenwood.
Officials described the ceremony as low-key but touching.
A similar wedding has since taken place between two male RCMP officers.
Today, the Canadian Forces recognizes same-sex marital and common-law unions, and affords them the same benefits offered to all married or common-law serving members.
The Gulf Cooperation Council homosexuality test was a proposed homosexuality test that would have been used in Gulf states to prevent any homosexual travellers from entering the countries.
The director of public health Yousuf Mindkar from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health initially proposed that routine medical examinations would have also screened for homosexuality.
Obtaining a visa already requires passing a health examination for migrant workers from certain countries.
Those who would have failed the tests would have had their visas revoked.
It has been suggested that concern for hosting 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and fears for controversy in a case that football fans would have been screened, made Mindkar to backtrack the plans and insist that it was a mere proposal.
The proposal was set to be discussed in Oman on 11 November 2013 by a central committee tasked with reviewing the situation concerning expatriates.
Previously in 2012 over two million expatriates across Gulf Cooperation Council countries were gender tested.
Homosexuality is illegal in most Gulf Cooperation Council member states including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, with the notable exception of Bahrain.
Above: Flag of the Gulf Cooperation CouncilAbove: GCC members (in green)
There is no known working medical test for homosexuality in existence.
Some gay activists were worried that the Kuwaiti test would have used anal probes.
Above: Flag of Kuwait
Lebanon uses such methods at police stations to determine what sexual practices suspected criminals have engaged in.
One such instance was in 2012 when a movie theater was raided for pornography and 36 Lebanese men were subjected to anal examinations.
Above: Flag of Lebanon
Peter Tatchell and the UK-based foundation carrying his name demanded boycotting or cancelling the 2022 FIFA World Cup that is to be held in Qatar.
Amnesty International strongly opposed any plans to introduce tests for discriminatory purposes against sexual minorities.
It was also pointed out by Richard Lane from gay rights charity group Stonewall that restricting freedom of movement due to sexual orientation would be problematic to Gulf States that have marketed themselves as open to international business.
Gaydar (a portmanteau of gay and radar) is a colloquialism referring to the intuitive ability of a person to assess others’ sexual orientations as homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual.
Gaydar relies on verbal and non-verbal clues and LGBT stereotypes.
These include the sensitivity to social behaviors and mannerisms; for instance, acknowledging flamboyant body language, the tone of voice used by a person when speaking, overtly rejecting traditional gender roles, a person’s occupation, and grooming habits.
The detection of sexual orientation by outward appearance or behavior is frequently challenged by situations in which masculine gay men who do not act in a stereotypically “gay” fashion, or with metrosexual men (regardless of sexuality) who exhibit a lifestyle, spending habits, and concern for personal appearance stereotypical of fashionable urban gay men.
A number of scientific studies have been conducted to test whether gaydar is real or just a popular myth.
Perhaps the earliest study asked people to judge sexual orientation from video clips, with results concluding that it was a myth.
A later study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people could judge sexual orientation more accurately than chance.
This study asked people to indicate their sexual orientation using the Kinsey scale (also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, used in research to describe a person’s sexual orientation based on one’s experience or response at a given time) and then had others view very brief silent clips of the people talking using thin slicing.
Above: Psychologist Alfred Kinsey (1894 – 1956)
(Thin slicing is a term used in psychology and philosophy to describe the ability to find patterns in events based only on “thin slices“, or narrow windows, of experience.
The term refers to the process of making very quick inferences about the state, characteristics or details of an individual or situation with minimal amounts of information.
Research has found that brief judgments based on thin-slicing are similar to those judgments based on much more information.
Judgments based on thin-slicing can be as accurate, or even more so, than judgments based on much more information.)
The viewers rated their sexual orientations on the same scale and the researchers found a significant correlation between where the people said they were on the scale and where they were perceived to be on the scale.
Later studies have repeated this finding and have even shown that home videos of children can be used to judge accurately their sexual orientation later in life.
Later studies found that gaydar was also accurate at rates greater than chance for judgments just from the face.
Study participants use gendered facial cues and stereotypes of gay people to make their judgments, but reliably misjudge sexual orientation for people countering stereotypes.
The race, ethnicity and nationality of neither the person making the judgment nor the person they are judging seems to make a difference when making judgments from faces.
Even individual facial features (just the eyes) can sometimes give enough information to tell whether a man or woman is gay, straight, or lesbian.
One study showed that judgments of men’s and women’s faces for about 1/25 of a second was enough time to tell whether they were gay, straight, or lesbian.
People’s judgments were no more accurate when they had more time to make their judgments.
Follow-up work to this suggested that gaydar happens automatically when someone sees another person and that seeing someone’s face automatically activates stereotypes about gays and straights.
People seem not to know that they have gaydar, though.
Gay men have more accurate gaydar than straight men, and women have more accurate gaydar when they are ovulating.
One study hypothesized that this might be because homosexual people are more attentive to detail than heterosexual people are, apparently as an adopted perceptual style aiding in the recognition of other homosexual people.
Other studies have found that men and women with body shapes and walking styles similar to people of the opposite sex are more often perceived as gay.
A study by UCLA assistant professor Kerri Johnson found that observers were able to accurately guess the sexual orientation of men 60% of the time, slightly better than would be achieved by random chance.
With women, their guesses didn’t exceed chance.
Although the study was designed to reveal information about the perception of the observer, it has been misinterpreted as conveying reliable information about the sexual orientation of the participants.
Gender-specific body movements are not reliably associated with a person’s sexual orientation.
This is true of face shape, but surprisingly not for voices, even though people think they are associated with a person’s sexual orientation.
A handful of studies have investigated the question of gaydar from the voice.
They have found that people can tell who is gay and straight from their voices, but have mostly focused on men (sometimes terming the vocal difference “gay lisp“).
Detailed acoustic analyses have highlighted a number of factors in a person’s voice that are used, one of which is the way that gay and straight men pronounce “s” sounds.
Above: Seal of the University of California, Los Angeles
Research by William T.L. Cox and his colleagues proposed that “gaydar” is simply an alternate label for using LGBT stereotypes to infer orientation (e.g., inferring that fashionable men are gay).
Above: William T.L. Cox
(Does this mean slovenly men are straight?)
This work points out that the scientific work reviewed above that claims to demonstrate accurate gaydar falls prey to the false positive paradox, because the alleged accuracy discounts the very low base rate of LGBT people in real populations, resulting in a scenario where the “accuracy” reported above in lab studies translates to high levels of inaccuracy in the real world.
Above: Outside of the official business district, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. A 1969 police raid here led to the Stonewall riots, one of the most important events in the history of LGBT rights (and the history of the United States). This picture was taken on pride weekend in 2016, the day after President Obama announced the Stonewall National Monument, and less than two weeks after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
When I think of Winnipeg I don’t immediately equate the city with the LGBT crowd, but perhaps I forgot about the writers here that brought their human rights to the attention of others.
Barbara Branden (née Weidman) (1929 – 2013) was a Canadian American writer, editor, and lecturer, known for her relationship and subsequent break with novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
Above: Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982)
Born in Winnipeg, Barbara Weidman met Nathaniel Branden (1930 – 2014) because of their mutual interest in Ayn Rand’s works.
Above: Nathaniel Branden
They became personal friends of Rand in 1950, and when they married in 1953, Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, served as the matron of honor and best man.
Above: Frank O’Connor (1897 – 1979)
Barbara earned her MA in philosophy, and authored a thesis on free will.
Above: Barbara Branden
Nathaniel and Barbara Branden became founding members of an Objectivist movement that sought to advance Rand’s ideas.
Objectivism’s main tenets are that:
reality exists independently of consciousness
human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception
one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic
the proper moral purpose of one’s life is the pursuit of one’s own happiness
the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez faire capitalism
the role of art in human life is to transform humans’ metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form — a work of art — that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.
Academic philosophers have mostly ignored or rejected Rand’s philosophy.
Nonetheless, objectivism has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.
The objectivist movement, which Rand founded, attempts to spread her ideas to the public and in academic settings.
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion.
She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism.
In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism, statism and anarchism.
Instead she supported laissez faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including property rights.
Although she was opposed to libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, she is often associated with the modern libertarian movement.
In art, Rand promoted romantic realism.
She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals.
Above: Bust of Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)Above: Portrait of Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274)
In 1954, Nathaniel Branden began a secret romantic affair with Rand with the reluctant permission of both spouses.
This relationship continued for three years.
While their respective spouses, Barbara Branden and Frank O’Connor, had knowledge of the affair and nominally accepted it, Barbara later said it led to “years of pain” and “enormous harm“, describing it as a “sacrifice“.
Above: Ayn Rand, 1957
Barbara and Nathaniel Branden co-wrote Who Is Ayn Rand? in 1962.
Barbara Branden’s essay in the book was the first biography of Rand.
When it was written, Rand considered Barbara to be one of the most important proponents of objectivism.
She served as the Executive Director of the Nathaniel Branden Institute and gave a series of lectures on the “Principles of Efficient Thinking.”
In 1968, when Rand terminated her association with Nathaniel Branden after she discovered that he had become involved with actress Patrecia Scott more than four years earlier, she likewise disassociated herself from Barbara Branden for keeping this fact from her.
The details of these events remain controversial.
In 1986, Barbara Branden published another biography of Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand.
The book, written after Rand’s death in 1982, caused a rift among Rand’s followers because it not only stated that Rand and Nathaniel Branden had been lovers, but that Rand had broken with them when she learned of his affair with Scott.
Rand had previously claimed that the friendship broke up over other matters, but letters in her estate confirmed Barbara’s version of the cause.
The book was made into an Emmy Award-winning motion picture, The Passion of Ayn Rand, in 1999 starring Helen Mirren as Rand, Eric Stolz as Branden and Julie Delpy playing Barbara.
She contributed the lead essay “Ayn Rand: The Reluctant Feminist” to the anthology Feminist Interpretations of AynRand, wherein she argued that the way Rand lived her life made it a feminist manifesto, even as Rand had disagreements with feminism.
Barbara was estranged from her cousin Leonard Peikoff, Rand’s chosen intellectual and legal heir after Rand’s break with Nathaniel Branden.
Leonard Sylvan Peikoff is a Canadian American philosopher.
He is an objectivist and was a close associate of Ayn Rand, who designated him heir to her estate after her death.
He is a former professor of philosophy and host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show.
He co-founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) in 1985 and is the author of several books on philosophy.
Above: Leonard Peikoff
Barbara died of a lung infection in Los Angeles on 11 December 2013.
Above: Barbara Branden
Granted that the lives of Barbara and Rand don’t automatically lead us to link these persons with the LGBT movement, but there is something about individual rights and dignities that Rand advocates that is admirable, though her disdain for those unable or unwilling to compete in unfettered and undisciplined capitalism leads many liberals to object to her ideas as being too egotistical and lacking concern for the less fortunate or those discriminated by her attitudes.
Robin Clarkson Hardy(1952 – 1995) was a Canadian journalist and author.
Born in Halifax (NS) and raised in Winnipeg and Ottawa, Hardy studied creative writing at the University of Alberta and took a law degree at Dalhousie University before settling in Toronto, where he was a staff writer and editor of The BodyPolitic, a noted early Canadian gay magazine.
He also produced radio documentaries for CBC Radio, contributed to publications including NOW, Canadian Forum and Fuse, and was an activist for and the first paid staff member of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario.
He moved to New York City in 1984, where he was an editor for Cloverdale Press and a founding member of Publishing Triangle.
He also wrote numerous young adult, science fiction, mystery and horror novels, primarily under pen names.
Above: Robin Hardy
Call of the Wendigo(1994) was the only novel he published under his own name.
He was also a freelance contributor to publications including The Advocate, Village Voice and Penthouse in this era.
He also wrote poetry throughout his life, although this was never published as a book, and submitted a short story, “Ghosts“, to the annual CBC Literary Competition.
He relocated to Tucson (AZ) in 1993.
On 28 October 1995, Hardy died in a hiking accident in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest.
Above: Tonto National Forest
His unfinished non-fiction manuscript The Landscape of Death: Gay Men, AIDS and the Crisis of Desire was completed by David Groff, and was published in 1999 under the title Crisis of Desire: AIDS and the Fate of Gay Brotherhood.
The book was a shortlisted nominee in the Gay Studies category at the 12th Lambda Literary Awards.
Many of his papers and manuscripts are held by the archives of the New York Public Library.
Brian Drader is a Canadian stage actor and playwright.
He is best known for his plays Prok (about Alfred Kinsey and Clara McMillen) and The Fruit Machine (about the RCMP’s controversial 1960s fruit machine project to identify homosexual people.
Originally from Winnipeg, he is currently based in Montréal (QB), where he teaches playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada.
His other plays have included.
Easter Eggs
TuckTuck
The Author’s Voice
The Norbals
Mind of the Iguana
Liar
To Be Frank
Everybody’s Business
Curtsy.
Above: Brian Drader
Noreen Stevens is a Canadian cartoonist, who created and wrote the lesbian comic strip The Chosen Family.
Stevens was born in Sault Ste. Marie (ON) and grew up in Mississauga (ON) and Strathroy (ON).
She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in interior design in 1985.
After graduation she began work on a comic strip titled “Local Access Only” for publication in the U of M newspaper, The Manitoban.
In 1987, she created The Chosen Family and began producing and self-syndicating bi-weekly strips to LGBTQ+ newspapers and magazines in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia, including Xtra!, Swerve, Herizons, Chicago Outlines and the Washington Blade.
Stevens’ strips also appeared in The Body Politic, Ms., Gay Comix, and several feminist and LGBTQ+ anthologies.
Stevens retired the strip in 2004 after producing almost 400 semi-serialize installments.
From 1993 to 1995, Stevens was an owner and the manager of Winona’s Coffee and Ice, the first gay and lesbian café in Winnipeg.
In 2003, Stevens and her partner, Jill Town, were the first same-sex couple in Manitoba to jointly adopt two children they had fostered since birth.
Their adoption experience was featured on a 2009 episode of the Discovery Health Channel series Adoption Stories.
Carol Anne Philipps (1965 – 2009) was a Canadian journalist and activist, most prominent as the original editor of Swerve, the first LGBT community magazine in Winnipeg.
Philipps first came out in high school, at a time when Winnipeg did not yet have a gay and lesbian community centre or a Pride parade, and eventually moved in with her first partner, Noreen Stevens.
Although Philipps and Stevens eventually ended their relationship, they remained close friends and collaborators.
She studied at the University of Winnipeg and joined the university’s student newspaper, The Uniter, where she helped to coordinate a controversial LGBT issue in 1991.
She later moved to Vancouver, where she campaigned for Betty Baxter, an openly lesbian New Democratic Party (NDP) candidate in Vancouver Centre in the 1993 federal election, and returned to Winnipeg in 1994.
Above: Betty Baxter
The LGBT community in Winnipeg was facing tough battles when Philipps returned to the city.
Mayor Susan Thompson had refused a request to proclaim the city’s Pride Day, the Winnipeg School Division had voted against an anti-homophobia curriculum and a man had recently been murdered in an anti-gay hate crime.
Against this backdrop, a small group of community activists, including Philipps, met to discuss launching what would become Swerve, and Philipps became the magazine’s first editor.
While editing Swerve, she met her partner Virginia McKee in 1995.
Philipps and McKee married in 2007.
She stepped down as editor of Swerve in 1997 for health reasons, but continued to contribute to the magazine, as well as to publications such as Xtra! in Toronto, as an occasional freelance writer.
She also worked at Viewpoints Research.
According to Stephen Lawson, another member of Swerve‘s editorial board,
She demanded a level of reporting that went beyond what was going on at the drag bar or what the bears were doing.
It was very sad when the paper declined.
But it had to.
It didn’t have Carol Philipps at the helm.
She died on 27 February 2009, due to a congenital heart condition.
Above: Carol Philipps
Gilles Marchildon is a Canadian francophone LGBT activist currently living in Toronto.
He is currently Toronto campus director for Collège Boréal.
Prior to that, he worked in the field of health as Executive Director of the French-language health planning agency Reflet Salvéo (now called Entité 3) from 2014 to 2019, and previously, from 2010 to 2014, as Executive Director of the community health agency Action Positive HIV/SIDA.
He was president of the Association Canadienne Francais de l’Ontario (ACFO) Toronto, and also vice-chair of the City of Toronto’s French Language Advisory Committee.
He continues to serve on Toronto’s Advisory Committee on Seniors Services and Long-Term Care.
He also sits on the board of the provincial community foundation, la Fondation Franco-Ontarienne, where he was elected president.
He was executive director of Egale Canada during the organization’s campaign to obtain recognition of equal civil marriage rights (2003 to 2006).
In addition, he is one of the three founding directors of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (an advocacy group for LGBT rights in Iran), and served as its first president from 2008 to 2011.
He has also worked as director of communications for the HIV Legal Network from 2009 to 2010 and for World University Service of Canada from 2006 to 2008.
A native of Penetanguishene (ON), Marchildon studied political science at the University of Ottawa, and was president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa in 1987 – 1988.
Above: Logo of the University of Ottawa
He later lived in Paris and Toronto before moving to Winnipeg, where he established his own communications and marketing firm, People and Ideas, and served on the boards of several community organizations for both the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and Franco-Manitoban communities in Winnipeg, including the Reel Pride film festival (an annual gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender film and video festival produced by the Winnipeg Gay and Lesbian Film Society) and the Winnipeg Film Group (an artist-run film education, production, distribution, and exhibition centre committed to promoting the art of Canadian cinema, especially independent cinema.
He served as editor and publisher of Swerve, Winnipeg’s LGBT magazine, for four years, and also wrote for Xtra! and Icon magazines in Toronto.
Above: Gilles Marchildon
Noam Gonick is a Canadian filmmaker and artist.
His films include Hey, Happy!, Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight and To Russiawith Love.
His work frequently deals with themes of homosexuality, social exclusion, dystopia and utopia.
Gonick was born in Winnipeg in 1970.
His father, Cy Gonic, is a reputed Marxist economist and former member of the Manitoba Legislature.
Above: Cy Gonick
As a youth, Noam showed a strong interest in theatre.
While in elementary school, he started a small theatre company composed of other children from his neighborhood.
At 16, he lived briefly in Berlin, Germany, where he worked as an actor in an experimental theatre troupe.
After returning to Canada, he met and began working with filmmaker Guy Maddin, who would have a seminal influence upon his early work.
Above: Guy Maddin
Gonick attended and graduated from Ryerson University in Toronto, earning a BFA with a major in film.
Above: Crest of Ryerson University
He edited Ride, Queer, Ride (1997) a collection of writings on and by filmmaker Bruce LaBruce , who would prove to be another important influence on Gonick’s filmmaking.
Above: Bruce LaBruce
In 2007, he was made the youngest inductee to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Above: Canadian Academy of Arts, Ottawa
He is currently president of the board of directors at the Plug-In Institute of the Contemporary Arts.
Gonick’s first film was the 1997 short 1919, a historically revisionist depiction of the Winnipeg General Strike, as seen through the window of a gay oriental barbershop and bathhouse.
MoMA selected the film as one of the best gay and lesbian films from the last fifteen years.
Above: Scene from the Winnipeg General Strike, 15 May to 26 June 1919
His next film was the documentary Guy Maddin: Waiting for Twilight, narrated by Tom Waits and featuring Shelley Duvall.
The film captures Maddin as he begins production on Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997).
The documentary received acclaim on the festival circuit and went on to a successful life on television.
Gonick would follow up with the experimental short Tinkertown in 1999, while also writing and developing his first feature, Hey, Happy! (2001).
The cult-styled film, set in the Winnipeg rave scene on the eve of an apocalyptic flood, was distributed in North America and Europe, and was listed in Artforum’s selection of best movies of the year.
In the early 2000s, Gonick directed a number of episodes of Canadian documentary television series KinK, before returning to film with Stryker (2004), a feature he co-wrote with David McIntosh.
Stryker strikes a comic-tragic tone in its colourful depiction of the bleak realities of Aboriginal youth and working-class transsexuals.
The film was photographed by Ed Lachman, and featured a cast of mostly amateur actors.
It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.
In 2007, Gonick wrote and directed Retail, a comedy TV pilot.
Gonick’s early interest in theatre was given renewed outlet in his creation of two short documentaries about important Canadian theatre figures: Hirsch (2010)(on Hungarian Canadian director and co-founder of the Manitoba Theatre Centre John Hirsch – 1930 – 1989) and What If? (2011)(on Leslee Silverman, celebrated artistic director of Manitoba Theatre for Young People).
Above: John Hirsch (1930 – 1989)
Some of Gonick’s recent installation art has included elements of live performance.
Gonick directed the documentary To Russia with Love, featuring LGBT athletes competing in and responding to the Sochi Olympics.
The film was nominated for a GLAAD Award and was streamed worldwide on Netflix.
In 2016 Noam began directing the series Taken for APTN about murdered and missing Indigenous women.
I will be blunt.
I do not possess gaydar.
Usually I am told by others if an acquaintance of ours is gay.
Invariably I am both surprised and unmoved by the revelation.
What a person does in their intimate hours between two consenting adults does not necessarily mean that they are a bad person should they not share my sexual orientation.
I simply don’t care.
As long as a person is happy and they treat me with the same respect and dignity that they themselves deserve I have no reason to dislike them or fear them.
I have gay friends and I have straight friends.
I listen and talk to others, but they do not share intimate details with me nor I with them.
We speak of the troubles of human relationships.
We speak of the joys.
Neither the LGBT community nor straight society has a monopoly on happiness or misery.
Human interaction has never been easy for anyone.
People just ain’t no good I think that’s well understood You can see it everywhere you look People just ain’t no good
We were married under cherry trees Under blossom we made our vows All the blossoms come sailing down Through the streets and through the playgrounds
The sun would stream on the sheets Awoken by the morning bird We’d buy the Sunday newspapers And never read a single word
People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good
Seasons came, seasons went The winter stripped the blossoms bare A different tree now lines the streets Shaking its fists in the air The winter slammed us like a fist The windows rattling in the gales To which she drew the curtains Made out of her wedding veils
People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good at all
To our love send a dozen white lilies To our love send a coffin of wood To our love let all the pink-eyed pigeons coo That people they just ain’t no good
To our love send back all the letters To our love a valentine of blood To our love let all the jilted lovers cry That people they just ain’t no good
It ain’t that in their hearts they’re bad They can comfort you, some even try They nurse you when you’re ill of health They bury you when you go and die It ain’t that in their hearts they’re bad They’d stick by you if they could But that’s just bullshit People just ain’t no good
People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good People they ain’t no good at all
The Tim Hortons duo are literally shouting to the world that they are lesbians.
Because of LGBT activists who came before the Donut Duo, they can openly speak of their lives without censor or fear.
Above: Winnipeg lesbian couple (not the Donut Duo)
I suspect that being teenagers they want to shock the straights in the donut shop, but the patrons of Timmys simply pay them the same attention New Yorkers pay the homeless asleep on the subway.
We are wary of them but by the same token we know that what is ignored simply does not exist.
This is akin to a discussion of God.
Just because we choose not to believe in God does not mean He does not exist.
Just because we choose to believe in God does not mean He does exist.
Above: Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam
Replace the word “God” with other words – love, discrimination or unicorns – and the same notion of acknowledgement creating existence still applies.
I don’t care.
The vibe I do get from them with their ease of expression inside the Tim Hortons is that they are local to the neighbourhood and could best advise me on how to get to Winnipeg’s city centre.
My options are three:
continue walking in -20°C winds
grab a bus downtown
hail a taxi
I linger awhile in Timmys, savouring the warmth and the aromas of the café.
I glance at the headlines of the day’s Winnipeg Free Press:
Investigators to get close-up look at tragedy, the crash site of Flight PS752, shot out of the sky by an Iranian missile last week – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has spoken to US President Donald Trump about de-escalating tensions in the Middle East. The Transportation Safety Board seeks answers in deadly Ukraine airline crash as Iran gives access to wreckage. “The world deserves to know how and why events unfolded as they did.“, says TSB’s Kathy Fox.
Above: He Who Should Be Forgotten and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Cabinet heads to Winnipeg for retreat – Liberals choose cold (not cold shoulder) in visit to Prairies. Trudeau and the ministers will meet Sunday to Tuesday (19 – 21 January) to brainstorm and set priorities ahead of the House of Commons sitting for most of the next five months.
Above: Coat of arms of the House of Commons of Canada
Slain man had “lot of potential“. – Weeks ago, police said the closure of a downtown hotel that has been on their radar would be a step in the right direction. Early Sunday (12 January), another violent incident near there left a man dead. Yassin Abdu Ahmed (20) was killed after gunfire broke out near the Windsor Hotel. “He was a positive kid.“, a friend says. The shooting has Winnipeg City Council’s safety head Sherri Rollins pressing for a national handgun ban. She said it is time for Ottawa to put forward measures to monitor bulk sales and centralize the reporting of firearms that are used in crimes or confiscated by police.
Above: Yassin Abdu Ahmed (2000 – 2020)Above: Windsor Hotel, WinnipegAbove: Flag of WinnipegAbove: Sherri Rollins
Winnipeg mom Jess Fuga could not believe the lack of clothing options available to pregnant women in the city, so she decided to launch an online maturity consignment boutique last year. The response has been glowing.
Above: Jess Fuga
Queen agrees to let Harry and Meaghan live part time in Canada after emergency royal summit – Royals able to “lettheir hair down” in Canada
Above: Queen Elizabeth IIAbove: Harry and Meghan
St. John’s-Ravenscourt teaching colleagues Heather Ragot and Jock Martin to share Governor General’s History Award for their work leading a student-authored book (Reconciling the Past, Finding a New Path) about reconciliation with Indigenous peoples
Above: Jock Martin and Heather Ragot
Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain’s tweets unprecedented, risky, experts say. McCain wrote his “personal reflections” after learning that a colleague had lost his wife and child when Ukraine International Airlines flight PS572 was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran Airport on 8 January, in what Iranian officials described as an accident. All 176 on board were killed, including 57 Canadians. “I am very angry and time isn’t making me less angry.“, he wrote. The Canadians on board are “collateral damage” from the behaviour of “a narcissist in Washington.”, he said, adding “we are mourning and I am livid.” The company declined an interview request, saying McCain “would prefer to let the messages in his tweets speak for themselves.”
Above: Victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752
Liberal government to delete near-death requirement but could impose new limits to MAID (medical assistance in dying) – Feds launch consultations on assisted dying
Democrat Cory Booker quits presidential race as money, polling issues mount, ending a campaign whose message of unity and love failed to resonate in a political era marked by chaos and anxiety
Above: Cory Booker
Illinois police suspect serial killer Bruce Lindahl strangled teenage girl Pamela Maurer (16) in 1976
Above: Bruce Lindahl (1953 – 1981)
Ottawa cutting off flood evacuee benefits: Manitoba First Nation plans to argue in court that the federal government is cutting off benefits without providing securing housing more than eight years after flooding forced people to leave their homes when water was diverted from the Assiniboine River into Lake Manitoba to reduce the risk of flooding in Winnipeg.
American TV host Wendy Williams’ mocking comments about people with cleft palates hit close to home for Winnipeg Blue Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill who he and his son Beau were both born with this condition. He is hoping his social media campaign will convince her to apologize for her remarks. “Kids are already bullied every day for not looking like other people. I couldn’t let her just get away with it, because it is not OK. I am a grown man. I am past bullying, but there is so many who have not got to that point. I am standing up for everyone who does not have a voice. She makes a point of specifically making fun of people being born with cleft. She is uninformed and uneducated and knows nothing about it. It is one thing when it is a kid saying it, but it is another when an adult encourages the stigma.” Bighill felt “disappointment” last Friday (10 January) when he saw a video from last Tuesday’s (7 January) Wendy Williams Show of the host using her fingers to pull on one side of her upper lip, saying it was what actor Joaquin Phoenix has. Williams was discussing how Beyoncé did not stand up when Phoenix won the Golden Globe (5 January) for his starring role in Joker. Williams then told the audience that Phoenix was born with a cleft lip.
Above: Wendy WilliamsAbove: Logo of the Winnipeg Blue BombersAbove: Beau and Adam BighillAbove: Joaquin PhoenixAbove: Beyoncé
Winnipeg ponders monumental change with a plan that promotes revisiting the legacy of historical figures and greater Indigenous inclusion. “Welcoming Winnipeg: Reconciling Our History” looks at ways to name, rename or add context to current landmarks, such as Bishop Grandin Boulevard and St. Vital Centre, both named after Bishop Vital Justin Grandin who helped the federal government build residential schools that tore Indigenous families apart. “Indigenous peoples are the original peoples of this land and have contributed to the creation and evolution of this city. However, this is not evident in our day-to-day movement, the surroundings and the environment.“, the report says.
Above: Vital-Justin Grandin (1829 – 1902)
Meanwhile in the world:
Chung Sye-kyun was sworn in as Prime Minister of South Korea and Alejandro Giammattei took the oath of office as President of Guatemala.
Above: Chung Sye-kyunAbove: Alejandro Giammattei
American rapper Jay-Z and his philanthropic organization Team Roc filed a federal lawsuit against Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia E. Hall and Mississippi State Penitentiary Superintendent Marshal Turner over the abusive and neglectful treatment of their prisoners, which they claimed has led to the deaths of at least three people.
After the conviction of serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga, Mohammad Idris, the mayor of Depok, West Java, Indonesia, said he planned to raid the local LGBT community and was condemned by human rights activists for his remarks.
Above: Reynhard SinagaAbove: Mohammad Idris
General Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army (LNA), refused to sign a ceasefire agreement after talks in Moscow brokered by Russia and Turkey yesterday with Government of National Accord leader Fayez al-Sarraj. Haftar said that the deal “ignores many of the Libyan army’s demands“.
Above: Khalifa HaftarAbove: Fayez al-Sarraj
At least 44 people, including 20 elementary school children, were injured after Delta Flight 89, bound for Shanghai, dumped jet fuel over Los Angeles before making an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport. None of the reported injuries required hospitalization.
An explosion in a chemical plant in Tarragona, Spain, killed three.
Above: Tarragona, Spain
At least 67 people were killed in avalanches in Kashmir.
Above: Kashmir
So much I don’t understand, so much of which I have little experience.
“Thelma” and “Louise” tell me where the bus to downtown can be taken.
I now have a plan for the day: a visit to the Manitoba Legislature, a visit to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a stroll across the river to St. Boniface, and a reunion with a teaching colleague from my time in South Korea.
A full day.
A promising day.
A day of discovery.
Above: Manitoba Legislature, WinnipegAbove: St. Boniface City HallAbove: Lorenna Wong
I find myself wondering whether it is harder or easier for lesbians than straight women to find love.
Meeting women to date (and marry) is said to be notoriously difficult for women seeking other females.
Not only is same sex love and marriage between two women so rarely represented in the media — there is still no equivalent rom-com meet-cutes for women meeting women today — but the dating pool for queer women is just smaller (for example, roughly 5% of American females identify as LGBT).
And just because someone shares your sexuality (as any woman who has been set up with another woman based on the fact that they’re interested in the same sex would know) that doesn’t mean you want to share your life, or even a date, with them.
Love isn’t about numbers, statistics, or data.
In fact I think that it is kind of amazing when any two people meet and fall in love with each other.
How easier or harder is it for famous lesbians?
Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres met at a party in 2000 but didn’t strike up a romance at first.
According to Portia, she immediately felt a connection to Ellen, but the Ally McBeal actress was still hiding her sexuality at the time and didn’t feel ready to confess her feelings.
In 2005 — after reconnecting with Ellen a year prior — Portia came out as a gay woman and the pair went public as a couple.
They tied the knot in 2008 and have remained loving and committed partners ever since.
Above: Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres
Juno star Ellen Page and her wife since early 2018, dancer-choreographer Emma Portner, began dating in 2017 after Ellen saw Emma dancing online and immediately felt a connection to her creative spirit.
Back in 2014 at the Las Vegas Time to Thrive conference, Ellen famously came out as a lesbian, telling the audience:
“I’m tired of lying by omission.”
Above: Emma Porter and Ellen Page
Thanks to her performances on the shows Orange Is the New Black and The Handmaid’s Tale, the world has fallen in love with actress Samira Wiley.
Above: Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli
In 2016, Samira shared a heartfelt Instagram post revealing that her girlfriend, screenwriter-producer Lauren Morelli — whom she met on the set of OITNB — had asked for her hand in marriage.
The pair exchanged vows in 2017 in a beautiful ceremony in Palm Springs, California, each wearing custom looks by designer Christian Siriano.
Back in 2018, Samira revealed that she was devastated when one of her OITNB co-stars (she didn’t say who) outed her in an interview before she was ready to do so herself.
Lauren had more control over her own coming-out experience:
In 2014, she explained in a piece she wrote for Identities, that she realized she was gay while writing OITNB, leading her to amicably divorce her then-new husband.
Above: Wedding of Samira Wiley and Lauren Morelli
Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor’s love story is so sweet, it might make you forget about their 32-year age difference.
They met in the mid-aughts at a dinner party when Sarah was still dating actress Cherry Jones.
Years later, they reconnected after seeing one another at a taping.
Sarah told The New York Times that she was slayed by Holland’s looks, calling her “probably the most exquisitely beautiful woman I had ever seen.”
Today, fans are awed by their enduring devotion to one another.
Above: Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor
Legendary screen actress Jodie Foster is an icon in her own right, but for years, the ultra-private star refused to talk about her sexuality.
In 2013, Jodie teasingly came out as a gay woman — mocking years of speculation about her sexual identity — while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award during the Golden Globes.
The same year, the world learned that Jodie had a new special someone in her life — photographer (and Ellen DeGeneres ex) Alexandra Hedison — whom she fell for after splitting with longtime partner Cydney Bernard.
The Oscar winner, who was raising two sons with Cydney, married Alexandra in 2014.
Above: Jodie Foster and Alexandria Hedison
Model-actress Cara Delevingne met actress Ashley Benson on the set of their 2018 movie Her Smell.
“My love life is sacred,” Cara told ELLE magazine in September 2019.
Of publicly confirming their romance earlier in the summer around the time of their one-year dating anniversary, she added:
“We had gotten to the point where we had kept it a secret, or at least not wanted attention, and now I feel like I’m not going to not be proud.
Which isn’t the same thing as wanting to pose on a red carpet together, either.”
Above: Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson
In 2013, Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts took to Facebook to publicly come out as a gay woman, making a point to thank her longtime partner, massage therapist Amber Laign, for her support during Robin’s grueling battle with the blood and bone marrow disease myelodysplastic syndrome.
Above: Logo for Good Morning America
A few months later, Robin sat down with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and revealed that she and Amber met on a blind date nine years earlier.
Robin also praised Ellen for being a “trailblazer” and paving the way for other people like her to come out.
“You have helped a lot of people like myself to have that discussion with their families because you are so well respected and loved and it’s really helped a lot of us and I thank you for that,” Robin said.
Above: Robin Roberts and Amber Laign
We got to know Sara Gilbert as Darlene Conner on the sitcom Roseanne and Linda Perry as the lead singer of 4 Non Blondes.
Years after both ladies left those day jobs — Sara added producer and TV host to her resume while Linda’s famously worked as a songwriter with artists like Pink, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Faith Hill and more — they began dating, confirming their relationship to the world in 2011.
In 2014, Linda and Sara married.
In 2015, Sara — who also has two kids with ex-partner Ali Adler, a TV producer — gave birth to their son.
Above: Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry
Lily Tomlin is one-half of a hilarious duo of senior citizens on the Netflix comedy Grace & Frankie, which co-stars Jane Fonda.
But there’s another important Jane in Lily’s life: her wife, writer Jane Wagner.
Though Lily was openly gay among her circle of friends and colleagues for decades, she never made a big statement about her sexual identity and many fans didn’t know she was gay until later in her career.
Although Jane and Lily — who have been Emmy-winning collaborators for most of their lives — married in 2013, the pair have actually been a couple since 1971.
Above: Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner
Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon is the long-running show’s first openly out cast member.
The actress and comedian, who has appeared in films including Ghostbusters, Rough Night, and The Spy WhoDumped Me, first stepped out with her girlfriend, actress Jackie Abbott, at the 2017 Emmys, where she won the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series.
Because Kate’s super-private, the world still doesn’t know a whole lot about her romantic relationship.
Above: Kate McKinnon and Jackie Abbott
Just one month before actress-comedienne Wanda Sykes publicly came out as a lesbian in 2008, she quietly married her girlfriend of two years, granite countertop saleswoman Alex Niedbalski, who is French.
Alex, who gave birth to their twins in 2009, often joins her famous wife at Hollywood red carpet events like the 2019 Creative Arts Emmys, where Wanda was up for two awards.
Above: Wanda Sykes and Alex Niedbalski
Former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon first met her love, activist Christine Marinoni, in 2004.
Five years later, the couple got engaged and eventually married in 2012 — a year after Christine gave birth to their son, Max.
Christine more recently supported Cynthia as the star tried a new but short-lived career as a politician:
She ran for Governor of New York in 2018.
Above: Christine Marinoni and Cynthia Nixon
World champion tennis player Billie Jean King had the awful experience of being outed by reporters in 1981 before the majority of the world was ready to accept or embrace members of the LGBTQ community.
Instead of hiding the truth, however, Billie chose to confirm the reports and thus began her life as an out and proud lesbian athlete.
In the mid-1980s, Billie met the woman who would become the love of her life, South African tennis star Ilana Kloss.
Though the couple never married, they’ve remained a solid team since their days on the tennis court.
Above: Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss
Emmy-nominated actress, comedienne and writer Tig Notaro met her future wife, actress Stephanie Allynne, while filming the 2013 comedy In A World.
By the time the movie wrapped, Tig and Stephanie were in love.
They got engaged on New Year’s Day in 2015 and just 10 months later exchanged vows in Tig’s hometown of Pass Christian, Mississippi.
In 2016, the ladies became proud parents to twin boys who were born via surrogate.
Above: Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro
Four years before Ellen DeGeneres’ groundbreaking public coming out, rock singer Melissa Etheridge said “Yes I Am” (and released an album with that title) in response to rumors that she was a lesbian.
Above: Melissa Etheridge
Although Melissa was in long-term relationships with Julie Cypher and Tammy Lynn Michaels for years, it wasn’t until 2014 that the Grammy-winning musician finally said “I do,” marrying Nurse Jackie creator Linda Wallem.
The couple — who happen to share the same birthday — began dating in 2010 but were friends for years before their relationship took a romantic turn.
Above: Melissa Etheridge and Linda Wallem
In 2010, singer Chely Wright made the brave decision to come out to the world as lesbian, becoming the first woman in country music history to do so.
Overcoming suicidal ideas and depression, Chely found a new sense of freedom by owning her sexuality.
Two weeks later, that revelation would lead her to meet Sony Music Entertainment Marketing Director Lauren Blitzer.
By 2011, the ladies had cemented their relationship by getting married.
Today, they are still going strong and are the parents of twin boys, George and Evan Wright.
Above: Lauren Blitzer and Chely Wright
Former Family Ties actress Meredith Baxter made headlines when, in 2009, she revealed that she was a lesbian.
Her coming out was a powerful step toward embracing her identity and her happiness with general contractor Nancy Locke, whom she met through a mutual friend.
The couple initially began their relationship over the phone, waiting months to meet.
Once they did, it was love at first sight.
Meredith and Nancy married in Los Angeles in December 2013.
Above: Mereidth Baxter and Nancy Locke
NCIS star and Oscar-winning actress Linda Hunt has — by Hollywood standards — enjoyed an incredibly long romance with her wife, Karen Klein.
The couple got together back in 1987 and have remained committed to each other (and their dogs) ever since.
After more than two decades as a couple, they went from long-term girlfriends to wives in a beautiful 2008 ceremony.
Above: Karen Kline and Linda Hunt
In-your-face comedienne and actress Sandra Bernhard, who identifies as bisexual, has been in a long-term relationship with Hollywood screenwriter Sara Switzer for many years.
The couple met when Sara was an editor at Harper’s Bazaar and asked the former Roseanne star to write for her.
Together, they have raised Sandra’s daughter, Cicely.
Above: Sandra Bernhard and Sara Switzer
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow met longtime girlfriend Susan Mikula while working on her doctorate in 1999 — Susan hired Rachel, who needed money to pay her education bills, to do lawn work.
They soon fell head-over-heels in love and have been together ever since.
Rachel revealed in 2015 that although same-sex marriage had finally been legalized, they were in no rush to tie the knot.
Above: Rachel Maddow and Susan Mikula
As a straight male, certainly there is a part of me that feels a twinge of sadness that these beautiful women are unavailable for men, for it is easy to see why these women are physically attractive.
But attraction is an odd thing, a chemical thing, that determines a person’s sexuality and to whom they are attracted.
I admire those of the LGBT community with the courage to admit who they are and what they want.
More straight men would be far happier if they could face their fears and find the courage to risk rejection from women, confident in the knowledge that a woman’s rejection of him as a partner is not a rejection of him as a human being deserving of love.
Canada – at least in its cities – is liberal in its attitudes towards the LGBT community, but this is not to say that gay men and women are universally loved and respected everywhere.
Above: Flag of Canada
Part of the problem is ignorance.
It is difficult for many of the straight to comprehend and/or accept same sex attraction.
But here is the thing….
We don’t need to understand those who are different from ourselves.
We simply need to deal with every human being with the same dignity and respect that we ourselves desire.
Those who persecute (and in some nations prosecute) members of the LGBT community show their fear and hate towards adults whose only “crime” is attraction that is considered too unconventional for their liking.
Fewer in number than the straight strata of society the LGBT group is vulnerable to attack simply by lack of numbers.
Viewing movies showing intimacy between same sex couples is discomfiting for many straights, but if they could look beyond their personal distaste for this type of sexual interaction and instead expressed happiness for that rarest of miracles – two people finding love and companionship – they would see the LGBT as human and deserving of love and respect as anyone else.
Coming out, declaring openly and proudly who you are, is fraught with difficulties, for we have harnessed the community with stereotypes too often repeated to be ignored.
While LGBT people are associated with irreligiousness, the Human Rights Campaign promotes the idea that an individual can be gay and religious.
Activists are working to bridge the gap between religion and homosexuality and to make denominations friendlier to the community.
Above: Logo of the Human Rights Campaign
Many Protestants have opened their doors and the United Church of Christ has ordained gay ministers since 1972.
LGBT clergy are also ordained in the Episcopal Church of America and the Presbyterian Church (US).
Above: Shield of the US Episcopal Church
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has worked with Jewish individuals in the LGBT community, and organizations like Keshet continue to work with Jewish members of the community both to raise awareness of LGBTQ issues in Jewish communities and Jewish issues in LGBTQ communities.
Why is it so contradictory to believe that being gay and believing in God is compatible?
The problem arises not with faith but with religion.
The choice to believe in God and to adapt this belief to your individual life – which includes sexuality, for much psychological (or even physical) harm can be done to others in the emotional vulnerability of intimacy – is faith.
The decision to condemn a person for their sexuality (as long as it is between consentual adults) is not faith but discrimination in the name of religion.
We do not choose who we are attracted to.
We choose how we will act upon this attraction.
It is debatable how psychologically harmful denial of one’s sexuality could be, but it does seem to me that denying one’s nature is a very frustrating way to live.
I believe the original rationale behind the prohibition of sexuality that isn’t heterocentric was simply the basic question of population growth, disease prevention and wealth distribution.
Without this modern age that allows surrogacy and fertilization and same-sex couple child adoption the expansion of the human race might be problematic if everyone were gay.
Infidelity and promiscuity may (though not necessarily) lead to the spread of disease if safe sex isn’t practiced.
If a woman has a child the legal question of who is financially responsible for it and how wealth is passed on from generation to generation becomes an issue.
That issue becomes complicated (without DNA testing) if a woman has had more than one sexual partner at the time of the child’s conception.
For ancient feeling runs deep that a child is valued more if its parentage is within the bonds of holy matrimony, that determines whether the child will be loved or rejected for the circumstances of their conception beyond the child’s control.
Not for nothing are the illegitimate labelled bastards.
Above: Human DNA
Religion tolerates heterosexuality as it could lead to families, but even this normalcy is merely tolerated, for the core essence of religion is a total adherence without distraction to that religion.
I think religion fears that a love of God could be supplanted by a love for another person.
I think faith tells us that God is love itself and can be expressed in a multitude of ways.
The essence of faith is that we come to God as individuals of our own free will.
Religion suggests that we are not free to deny its tenets or practices even if these rituals and traditions violate the very spirit of the faith the religion is supposed to represent.
It is believed that God loves the world.
Is this world limited to only those who practice a religion or is God’s love available to everyone?
Above: Sunirse, Percé, Québec
I think that one reason why the LGBT movement frightens people is the irrational fear that the traditional family has lost its relevance.
I think we confuse relevance with reality.
In many countries the rate of divorce can be as high as every two out of three marriages failing.
Many of these marriages have produced offspring who are deeply affected by the separation of their parents.
How relevant is a heterosexual marriage that ends in divorce?
The inability of men and women to co-exist is not the fault of the LGBT community.
The blame lies with the men and women involved.
I will admit it.
I too have doubts as to the importance of men when all that seems to be required to produce a family is his semen.
But this insecurity denies the role that men play in the lives of children.
Above: Complete diagram of a human sperm
Girls need fathers for affirmation and assurance that there are good men in the world and that she can find the courage (if she is straight) to love a man despite his qualities and foibles.
The quality of her parents’ relationship is important to a girl.
Knowing that her father aligns with her mother at a deep level and that he can’t be seduced or that his love can’t be undermined means that she recognizes boundaries.
A good father is a man who is seen as trustworthy, who teaches her strength and belief in herself, who tries to teach her how to protect herself for the eventuality of her moving out to lead her own adult life.
A father teaches her that a man seeks to protect a woman not because she can’t defend herself but because she is valued for her existence.
Above: Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans, Paternal Advice
Boys need fathers to teach them that strength embodies kindness, conviction, irony, humour, wisdom, righteous anger at injustice and protectiveness.
What makes being a father difficult is the societial pressure to keep men working more than being physically present at home for their families.
Girls learn to be women from their mothers.
Boys often don’t have fathers around to teach them how to be men.
Men believe that we show our love for spouse and children by working hard and long, and we are confused as to why we are not appreciated for this.
Too many men forget that it is their presence, not their bounty, that is sought by their wives and children.
Women convey the message, in their search for financial security, that a poor provider is undeserving of their love and respect.
The average man works hard to provide the standard of living she demands and then he is shocked when she abandons him citing a lack of emotional security from him.
Women need to convey to men that their contribution to the world is not defined by their earning capacity but by their character.
Sons cannot learn to be men from their fathers if their fathers are not emotionally and physically around, available and interested in sharing time with them.
Fathers need to do things with their sons, enjoy spending time together, challenging and testing their development, but never wounding or belittling them.
Fathers teach their sons that not only do they possess physical and moral strength but as well how to contain that strength from the example of a father who never hurts him nor allows him to hurt others.
Fathers need to take a more direct role, be more involved, in the parenting of their children and not leave the entirety of their upbringing upon the shoulders of their spouse.
I am in no way, shape or form, diminishing the role of single parents or same-sex couples in the rearing of children.
All I seek to say is that we must not forget the importance of men as parents.
The media has moved forward in equally representing members of the LGBT community.
While there may still not be many prominent LGBT characters in the mainstream media, the community has completed many milestones in the recent years.
In 2016, the coming-of-age drama film Moonlight became the first LGBT movie to win the Best Picture Oscar.
In 2018, Love, Simon also became the first film from a major studio that focused on the hardships of being a closeted gay teenager.
LGBT members continue to be underrepresented and typecast.
Of the 118 films released in 2019 by Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, STX, United Artists, Universal and Warner Bros, only about 19% included an LGBT character.
While an argument could be made that the percentage of gays to straights is lower, that being said we are all human and worthy of having our stories being told.
LGBT rights activists have fought against fictional representations of LGBT people that depict them as violent and murderous.
Columnist Brent Hartinger observed that “big-budget Hollywood movies until, perhaps, Philadelphiain 1993 that featured major gay male characters portrayed them as insane villains and serial killers”.
Above: Brent Hartinger
Community members organized protests and boycotts against films with murderous gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters, including Cruising (1980), Silence of the Lambs (1991), and Basic Instinct (1992).
Theatre scholar Jordan Schildcrout has written about the recurrence of the “homicidal homosexual” in American plays, but notes that LGBT playwrights themselves have appropriated this negative stereotype to confront and subvert homophobia.
Such plays include The Lisbon Traviata (1985), Porcelain(1992), The Secretaries (1993) and The Dying Gaul (1998).
Above: Scene from the play Porcelain
As difficult as it is for straight teenagers and young adults to deal with their emerging sexuality, I cannot begin to imagine the problems there may be for gay teenagers seeking love and respect in an environment that discourages people from being non-conformists.
Perhaps the lack of honest representation of the LGBT community is that we are not comfortable with sexuality we do not comprehend.
But discomfort does not justify disrespect.
A lack of comprehension will never be resolved if there is a lack of representation of every individual’s rights to lead a life of dignity.
You may not understand others but you should not undervalue or underestimate others.
Many 20th-century films put a negative connotation on the lesbian community.
The 1961 drama The Children’s Hour gives viewers the idea that lesbians live a “dark” and almost depressing lifestyle.
The television series The L Word portrays a long-term lesbian couple attempting to start a family, and counters the negative “U-Haul” lesbian stereotype, which is that lesbians move in on the second date.
However, at the same time, the series came under heavy criticism for reinforcing numerous other negative stereotypes, such as:
lesbians preying on and seducing straight women in relationships with men
mistreating bisexual women or outright shunning them if they had a history of sleeping with men (to the point where Alice Piezsecki, a bisexual character, refers to bisexuality as “gross“)
Above: Leisha Hailey (Alice Pieszecki)
for downplaying the main characters’ misdeeds and unexplained tendency for adultery and instead focusing on their physical beauty and sex scenes
for randomly killing off main characters for no specific reason (referred to as “bury your gays“)
for downplaying a rape scene as “angry sex“
reportedly attempting to “reify heteronormativity”
for depicting lesbianism or bisexuality as a gene passed from mothers to daughters which sometimes caused both to fight over the same woman (as demonstrated in the cases of Lenore and Alice Piezsecki, Cherie and Clea Jaffe, Peggyand Helena Peabody, Phyllis and Molly Kroll, an instance when Shane had sex with a mother and her two daughters separately on one of the daughters’ wedding day, which led to all three of them falling in love with Shane and subsequently falling out with each other, and ultimately Tina and Angelica Kennard in the sequel series, The L Word:Generation Q)
showing lesbian relationships as destined to fail due to lesbians’ apparent struggles with monogamy and commitment.
Series creator Ilene Chaiken was labeled as “shameless in her professional upbringing” for her depiction of lesbians in general.
Above: Ilene Chaiken
In the television series Gotham, the character Renee Montoya is a lesbian and recovering drug addict, while the characters Fish Mooney, Barbara Kean and Tabitha Galvan are bisexual.
Fish Mooney is introduced as the second-in-command of mafia boss Carmine Falcone, with a penchant for ruthlessness and ambition to overthrow both Falcone and Sal Maroni and become Gotham’s sole crime boss.
Above: Jada Pinkett Smith (Fish Mooney), GothamAbove: John Doman (Carmine Falcone), GothamAbove: David Zayas (Sal Maroni), Gotham
Montoya does not hide her grudge against James Gordon for being in a relationship with Barbara, her former lover.
Above: Victoria Cartagena (Renee Montoya), GothamAbove: Ben Mackenzie (James Gordon), GothamAbove: Erin Richards (Barbara Kean), Gotham
When rumors surface that Gordon may be corrupt, it is implied that Montoya is not entirely convinced, but she nevertheless becomes determined to put Gordon behind bars in the hopes of winning Barbara back rather than enforcing justice, even though it will cost the Gotham City Police Department one of its few honest cops determined to bring Falcone and Maroni down, and after she briefly succeeds in resuming her affair with Barbara, she pushes Barbara away when Barbara appears to be going back to depression and drug addiction.
After Gordon begins a relationship with Leslie Thompkins, Barbara is driven insane with jealousy and eventually progresses to become one of the series’ main antagonists.
Above: Morena Baccarin (Leslie Thompkins), Gotham
The second season introduces Tabitha Galvan, the bisexual sister of Theo Galvan, and who is also depicted as a ruthless, sadistic mercenary who has an on-again-off-again relationship with Barbara.
Above: Jessica Lucas (Tabitha Galvin), GothamAbove: James Frain (Theo Galvin), Gotham
Many lesbians are associated with short hair, wearing baggy clothes and playing sports.
Further, news coverage of LGBT issues reinforces stereotyped portrayals of lesbians.
Often news broadcasts highlight stories on more “masculine” lesbians and fail to give equal coverage to other more faceted lesbian identities.
Thus, the populations who receive information about marginalized communities from a news source begin to equate lesbian sexuality with a masculine presentation.
The way lesbians are portrayed leads people to make assumptions about individuals in everyday life.
Typically, lesbians are stereotyped as belonging to one of the two following categories: butch and femme.
Butch lesbians dress in a more masculine manner than other women.
“Dykes” (a pejorative term that the lesbian community has reclaimed, to an extent) are considered members of a community that is perceived as being composed of strong and outspoken advocates in wider society.
Actress Portia de Rossi has been credited for significantly countering the general societal misconception of how lesbians look and function when, in 2005, she divulged her sexual orientation in intimate interviews with Details and The Advocate which generated further discussion on the concept of the “lipstick lesbian” (“femme” women who tend to be “hyper-feminine“).
These stereotypes play out within the LGBT community itself, with many women reporting feeling rejected by the queer community for not appearing or acting in the accepted way.
Lesbian feminists assert that a sexual component is unnecessary for a woman to declare herself a lesbian if her primary and closest relationships are with women, on the basis that, when considering past relationships within an appropriate historical context, there were times when love and sex were separate and unrelated notions.
Above: Portia de Rossi
In 1989, an academic cohort called the Lesbian Herstory Archives wrote:
“Because of society’s reluctance to admit that lesbians exist, a high degree of certainty is expected before historians or biographers are allowed to use the label.
Evidence that would suffice in any other situation is inadequate here.
A woman who never married, who lived with another woman, whose friends were mostly women, or who moved in known lesbian or mixed gay circles, may well have been a lesbian.
But this sort of evidence is not ‘proof’.
What our critics want is incontrovertible evidence of sexual activity between women.
This is almost impossible to find.”
Honestly, I understand the attraction of lesbianism more than homosexuality, for lesbianism seems to me to be rooted in the natural networking of women already well-versed in emotional support, in relating woman-to-woman at an intimate level.
Men have few skills, if any, in relating man-to-man.
Above: John Ratzenberger (Cliff Clavin) and George Wendt (Norm Peterson), Cheers
In fact, one can almost believe in the stereotype that gay men have an advantage over straight men in regards to relating to others.
Above: Kevin Kline (Howard Brackett) and Tom Selleck (Peter Malloy), In and Out
Gay men are often equated interchangeably with heterosexual women by the heterocentric mainstream and are frequently stereotyped as being effeminate, despite the fact that gender expression, gender identity and sexual orientation are widely accepted to be distinct from each other.
Above: Willie Garson (Stanford Blatch) and Mario Cantone (Anthony Marantino)
I remember how confused I was when “Courtney“, a businessman by day whom I knew in the same Montréal apartment block I lived in, cross-dressed in the evenings and yet was sexually attracted to the women he imitated.
Transvestites are often assumed to be homosexuals.
The word transvestism comes from the combination of Latin words trans meaning “across, over” and vestitus meaning dressed.
Most transvestites are heterosexual.
Although many people use the words interchangeably, transvestite has increasingly become a derogatory term.
Most prefer to use the term cross-dresser or cross-dressing.
Above: Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army, Mr. Jones cross-dressers
The “flaming queen” is a characterization that melds flamboyance and effeminacy, remaining a gay male stock character in Hollywood.
Theatre, specifically Broadway musicals, are a component of another stereotype, the “show queen“, which generalizes that gay men are involved with the performing arts, and are theatrical, overly dramatic, and camp.
The bear subculture of the LGBT community is composed of generally large, hairy men, referred to as bears.
They embrace their image, and some will shun more effeminate gay men, such as twinks, and vice versa.
Gay men are often associated with a lisp or a feminine speaking tone.
Fashion and effeminacy have long been seen as stereotypes of homosexuality.
They are often based on the visibility of the reciprocal relationship between gay men and fashion.
Designers, including Dolce & Gabbana, have made use of homoerotic imagery in their advertising.
Some commentators argue this encourages the stereotype that most gay men enjoy shopping.
A limp wrist is also a mannerism associated with gay men.
Recent research by Cox and colleagues demonstrated that “gaydar” is often used as an alternate label for using stereotypes, especially those related to appearance and mannerisms, to infer orientation.
Research also suggests that lesbians may be slightly more likely than gay men to be in steady relationships.
In terms of unprotected sex, a 2007 study cited two large population surveys as showing that “the majority of gay men had similar numbers of unprotected sexual partners annually as straight men and women“.
Another study found that gay men sometimes faced social boundaries because of this stereotype.
Participants in the study reported finding it difficult to befriend other gay men on a platonic basis.
They found that when they would engage with other gay men there would be an assumption of sexual motivations, and when it became clear that this was not the case the other men would not be interested in continuing socialising.
These stereotypes permeate throughout all facets of society, even influencing those subjected to it.
Another persistent stereotype associated with the gay male community is excessive partying.
Before the Stonewall riots in 1969, most LGBT people were extremely private and closeted, and house parties, bars, and taverns became some of the few places where they could meet, socialize, and feel safe.
The riots represented the start of the modern LGBT social movement and acceptance of sexual and gender minorities, which has steadily increased since.
Above: Police force people back outside the Stonewall Inn as tensions escalate the morning of 28 June 1969
Festive and party-like social occasions remain at the core of organizing and fundraising in the LGBT community.
In cities where there are large populations of LGBT people, benefits and bar fundraisers are still common, and alcohol companies invest heavily in LGBT-oriented marketing.
Ushered in by underground gay clubs and disc jockeys, the disco era kept the “partying” aspect vibrant and ushered in the more hardcore circuit party movement, hedonistic and associated with party and play.
The relationship between gay men and female heterosexual “fag hags” has become highly stereotypical.
The accepted behaviors in this type of relationship can predominantly include physical affections (such as kissing and touching), as in the sitcom Will & Grace.
Film scholar Robin Wood called David Lynch’s Dune (1984) “the most obscenely homophobic film I have ever seen“, referring to a scene in which Baron Harkonnen sexually assaults and kills a young man by bleeding him to death–charging it with “managing to associate with homosexuality in a single scene physical grossness, moral depravity, violence, and disease.”
Above: Robin Wood (1931 – 2009)
Gay writer Dennis Altman suggested that the film showed how “AIDS references began penetrating popular culture” in the 1980s, asking:
“Was it just an accident that in the film Dune the homosexual villain had suppurating sores on his face?“
Above: Dennis AltmanAbove: Kenneth Macmillan (Baron Vladimir Harkonnen)(right), Dune (1984)
The term party and play (PNP) is used to refer to a subculture of gay men who use recreational drugs and have sex together, either one-on-one or in groups.
The drug chosen is typically methamphetamine, known as crystal or tina in the gay community.
Above: Methamphetamine
Other “party drugs” such as MDMA (ecstasy) and GHB (acid) are less associated with this term.
Above: Ecstasy pillsAbove: LSD white blotters
While PNP probably has its genesis in the distinct subculture of methamphetamine users, and is most associated with its use, it has become somewhat generalized to include partying with other drugs thought to enhance sexual experiences, especially MDMA, GHB, and cocaine.
Above: Cocaine lines
A report from the National HIV Prevention Conference (a collaborative effort by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other governmental and non-government organizations) describes PNP as “sexual behaviorunder the influence of crystal meth or other ‘party’ drugs.”
It has been referred to as both an “epidemic” and a “plague” in the gay community.
A meta-analysis of studies between 1996 and 2012 found that “some studies report that gay men are more likely to use alcohol and illicit drugs than heterosexual men, while other studies report that gay and heterosexual men do not differ in alcohol and illicit drug use, alcohol-related problems, or treatment utilization, and still other studies report that gay men in college are less likely to binge drink than their heterosexual counterparts.”
Research shows stigma toward gay men may contribute to elevated substance use.
Representatives for Drugscope state that methamphetamine use is relatively unknown in the UK outside this PNP subculture, and it largely occurs in the heavy-end party scene.
It is a common stereotype that gay men are sexual predators or pedophiles.
The former perception can lead to a knee-jerk reaction that created the “gay panic defense“, usually in straight men, who fear being hit on by gay men, and can be either a cause or an expression of homophobia.
This is something I never worry about, for the one stereotype that remains within me is that those with good taste tend to favour younger, fitter and wealthier men than me.
Above: Scene from Saturday Night Fever (1977)
The perception that a greater proportion of gay than straight men are pedophiles or child sexual abusers is one contributing factor of discrimination against gay teachers, despite the stark contrast to statistical figures, which have generally revealed most male child sexual abusers, including those who target boys, are heterosexual and usually married with children of their own, and research on child sexual abuse shows that most instances of child sexual abuse (one cited percentage being over 90%) are perpetrated by heterosexual males raping underage females.
Research has consistently indicated that a significant minority of child sex abuse perpetrators are female (5% – 20%), but other research has indicated that almost 40% of child sexual abuse against boys, and 6% of abuse against girls, is committed by women.
Social scientists have attempted to understand why there are such negative connotations associated with the lesbian community.
William James assumed that it was a repulsive instinct that came naturally to each woman and that, when an individual enjoyed same-sex interaction, it was because it became a habit.
In short, he assumed that “tolerance is learned and revulsion is inborn“.
Above: William James (1842 – 1910)
In 1908, James and Edward Westermack attempted to understand the violent actions taken toward homosexuals by Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian religions.
They believed hostility existed because of the historical association between homosexuality and idolatry, heresy, and criminal behavior.
Sigmund Freud asserted in 1905 that homophobia was shaped by society, an individual’s environment, and the individual’s exposure to homo-eroticism.
Above: Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Sandor Ferenczi (1914) believed that heterosexual women’s feelings of repulsion toward those identifying as lesbians was a reaction formation and defense mechanism against affection from the same sex.
In other words, he believed heterosexual females feared being labeled as lesbians.
Above: Sándor Ferenczi
Taking an individual that adheres to stereotypes of LGBT people and putting them in face-to-face interaction with those of the LGBT community tends to lessen tendencies to rely upon stereotypes and increases the presence of individuals with a similar ethnic, religious, or geographical background, and who are accepting of homosexuals.
I think of Valour Road and wonder if what I am doing, if the life I am leading, could be considered to possess some bravery, some courage, of those who risked their lives for their country, or even those true to themselves.
Certainly not worthy of a monument.
I think of Thelma and Louise and I marvel at both my nation’s and my acceptance of folks without fear expressing their emotions openly.
Above: Winnipeg lesbian couple (not the Donut Duo)
I think of the dead I never knew and of the living that I may never meet.
Above: American military cemetery
I think of those who receive too much attention and those who don’t receive enough.
I think of how far the world has come and of how much further it needs to go.
Winnipeg is a cold place this morning.
With around 700,000 inhabitants, Winnipeg accounts for more than half of Manitoba’s population, but the windswept icy roads do not lend creedence to this statistic.
Winnipeg lies at Canada’s centre, but the city feels like a hinterland or the 9th Circle of Dante’s Inferno:
Above: Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321)Above: Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Domenico di Michelino’s 1465 fresco
At the base of the well, Dante finds himself within a large frozen lake: Cocytus the Ninth Circle of Hell.
Trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships.
The lake of ice is divided into four concentric rings (or “rounds“) of traitors corresponding, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of lords.
This is in contrast to the popular image of Hell as fiery.
As Ciardi writes:
“The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth.
Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures.
As they denied God’s love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun.
As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice.“
This final, deepest level of hell is reserved for traitors, betrayers and oathbreakers.
Above: John Ciardi (1916 – 1986)
(Its most famous inmate is Judas Iscariot: a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ.
According to all four canonical Gospels, Judas betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin (local tribunal) in the Garden of Gethsemane (a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem) by kissing him and addressing him as “rabbi” to reveal his identity in the darkness to the crowd who had come to arrest him.)
I half expect to see through the frosted bus windows street names like Cocytus, Caina, Antenora, Ptolomaea, and Judecca – the 9th Circle of Hell and the names of its regions.
Instead Bus 14 (Direction South St. Vital via Dakota) follows Ellice Street and crosses streets with names such as Strathcona, Ashburn, Spruce, Erin….
Names that say nothing to the stranger in town, none that evoke images of anything to anyone who is not a history buff.
No hint of the character behind the names, no inkling of whether one of these was worthy of the punishments that Dante described.
The bus ride is long and the heater induces sleep as I ride past 23 stops to finally disembark north of the Legislative Building.
Let the tourism begin….
Above: Manitoba Legislative Building, Winnipeg
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Steve Biddulph, Manhood / The Rough Guide to Canada / Albert and Theresa Moritz, The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Canada
Dobelli studied philosophy and business administration at the University of St. Gallen where he graduated with a doctorate on the “Deconstruction of Economic Discourse” in 1995.
He then went to work as the CFO and Managing Director in various Swissair subsidiaries.
In 1999 he co-founded getAbstract.
From 2001 to 2009 Dobelli hosted a weekly television show Seitenweise Wirtschaft for the Swiss newspaper and media company, NZZ.
He also wrote a weekly column on the art of thinking clearly.
Dobelli founded World.Minds in 2008 to create a bridge between the science, business and cultural communities.
He resigned from getAbstract in 2011 so that he could dedicate himself to writing.
Dobelli’s increasing dissatisfaction with the world of pure business was already reflected in his 2003 novel titled 35 – A Midlife Story.
In 2003, Diogenes Verlag (Switzerland) published his first novel, Fünfunddreissig (“Thirty-five“), followed by Und was machen Sie beruflich? (“And What Do You Do for a Living?“) in 2004, Himmelreich (The Heavens) in 2006, Wer bin ich?(“Who am I?“) and Turbulenzen (“Turbulence“) in 2007 and Massimo Marini in 2010.
The major themes in Dobelli’s novels are the meaning of success and the role of randomness in business and in life.
Dobelli is the author of The Art of Thinking Clearly (Die Kunst des klaren Denkens), originally published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2011, which was an instant success, entering Germany’s Der Spiegel bestseller list as #1.
It was the bestselling non-fiction book in Germany and Switzerland in 2012.
It was translated into English in 2013 by Nicky Griffin and hit the top ten bestseller lists in the UK, South Korea, India, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore.
In 2019 former Chief of Staff of the US Air Force Ronald Fogleman added the book to the top CSAF required reading program.
Above: Ronald Fogleman
In 2020 Dobelli’s published Stop Reading the News, A Manifesto for a Happier, Calmer and Wiser Life.
Martin Newman, reviewing the book for the Financial Review wrote:
“Stop Reading the Newsexplores the explosion of opinion-based news, the elevation of mediocrity over substance (the Kardashians!), the way news creates the illusion of empathy, can elevate stress levels and builds a mindset that reinforces negativity.”
Above: the Kardashians
Dobelli advises his readers to “avoid news consumption“.
He cited “fifteen reasons to avoid news” in a 2013 blog post.
Dobelli’s writings are sometimes….controversial.
The Guardian newspaper columnist Madeleine Bunting has even gone so far as accusing his ideas on news of being “dangerous“.
In 2020, Dobelli stated on China Television that news is “a disease for the brain“, stating further:
“Ten years ago I decided to go completely without news – no newspapers, no online news, no television, no radio – and it’s been a very rewarding journey for me.
I’ve saved a lot of time.
I have more concentration…and have less anxiety.“
Above: Logo of China Television
In 2020, in a conversation with Rob Wijnberg, Dobelli said:
“News focuses mainly on exceptional events.
It doesn’t help you to fundamentally to understand the world.
And it makes you cynical and anxious.”
Above: Rob Wijnberg
Generally, I disagree with Dobelli.
We cannot improve the world, we cannot understand the world, without being exposed to the world.
Certainly he is correct in suggesting that the news focuses mainly on exceptional events, for routine does not sell newspapers or air time.
But we are nevertheless affected by both the routine and the extraordinary, (though the true observer can see the extraordinary within the routine).
A Facebook friend in Canada recently asked me whether I was cognizant of events currently occurring in the States:
“No idea if you’re keeping up with daily news in the States?
But it’s become an absolute “war zone”: daily mass shooting everywhere – schools, shopping centers, places of work.
There seems to be nowhere safe.
Makes wanting to visit questionable.“
I responded:
“The ability is get news from the States is somewhat limited over here, but things do filter through.
I recently learned of 6 June events of a Muslim family struck down in London (Ontario) by a young man deliberately running them down with his pick-up.
That caught the attention of Turkish papers and politicians.
Beyond this, much print is devoted to Turkey and its relations with the world.
Sometimes I consider this a good thing.
Sometimes I don’t.”
Above: Flag of Turkey
As an example, today’s front page of the Hürriyet Daily News – (I can pick up The Economist in Eskisehir, but other English language news publications are practically non-existent.) – reads:
NATO preparing for key leaders’ summit
Antalya to host major forum (Antalya Diplomacy Forum: 18 – 20 June)
Mucilage in Marmara threatening Black Sea
Turkey expanding its vaccination campaign
Mardin’s historic neighbourhood, a TV series favourite, to host tourists
Hundreds arrested in encrypted phone sting
Spain hit by COVID at Euros
Green sea turtles start laying eggs in south
FA names Hewitt as 1st chairwoman
Two detained after Macron slapped
Israel MPs to vote on new government on 13 June
US strike force to go after China
Ankara condemns attack on Muslim family in Canada
Dobelli is right in suggesting that much of what the media reports is extraordinary, outside of the average Joe’s experience.
No one cares what the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) leaders will say or do, for the average man will not be directly affected.
The diplomats gathered together in Antalya will not be concerned with what the man on the street might think – if indeed they believe that the man on the street can think.
Mucilage (sea snot) – caused by manmade pollution – in Marmara may be affecting marine life in the Black Sea, but Joe Q. Public will go about his day unaffected by and unaffecting the environmental situation which will only concern him on the day it directly affects him and his loved ones.
Certainly, vaccination matters to everyone, but it remains a mystery to most as to how or if an appointment can be made to get vaccinated or even if it will really matter if the COVID-19 unaffected actually need the vaccine.
Mardin for vacation?
Sure, we’ll think about it, for as long as it takes to not be distracted by some other destination.
Above: The old city of Mardin, Turkey
Certainly it is nice to read that global underworld figures in 100 countries were prevented from the commission of drug deals, arms transfers and gangland hits as a result of law enforcement agencies planting encrypted devices on the phones of members of crime syndicates.
How this information aids the average family with maintaining a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and food in their bellies is not so clear.
Spain seems far away, though Covid is universal.
Above: Flag of Spain
That green sea turtles are having sex and producing offspring is of little comfort to the Eleanor Rigby folks of the world.
(Where DO all the lonely people come from?)
Above: Green sea turtleAbove: Statue of Eleanor Rigby, Stanley Street, Liverpool
So, a woman is now head of the English Football Association.
Does her gender affect her ability?
No?
If a person can do the job, should it matter what their gender is?
Above: Logo of the FAAbove: Debbie Hewitt, Chairwoman
Yes, slapping a person is defined as assault, but let’s be honest.
Within each of us, is there not a secret desire to slap particularly offensive politicians?
I cannot really judge whether Macron deserves a slap in the face (or a kick in the arse), but the cost of the slap to the freedom of the angry French protester in Tain-l’Hermitage seems not that satisfying.
That being said, it would be nice if the politicians were more afraid of the people than the opposite reality.
Above: Macron slapped
Could Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be finally on the way out after 12 consecutive years in power?
Considering his record, many wish for his departure.
Above: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Problem is, who will follow?
And, for those not resident in Israel do the politics of Israel actually matter?
Above: Flag of Israel
If the news media did not inform us of the ongoing, never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine, would we care?
We should care, but would we?
As for the Biden administration’s planned “supply chain trade strike force” against China, show me how all of this affects the average consumer’s ability to afford to feed their family and I will pay attention to all the rhetoric choking the media, similar to….
Well, sea snot.
Dobelli is right in suggesting that reading the news does make the reader cynical and anxious, for I am bothered by the events of 6 June in London (Ontario), for I have both visited and lived in London.
Senseless murder in familiar surroundings always saddens me.
And I am also saddened by how such out-of-the-ordinary situations are made to appear as routine and cause for the condemnation of entire societies for the actions of the few or even the one.
Perhaps it might have been better had I not learned of this circumstance, for, truly, ignorance can be bliss.
Yet if learning of this reminds me of my humanity through the awareness of the loss of life outside my experience than perhaps there is some benefit to the awareness of the horrible side of existence.
Above: Images of London, Ontario, Canada
According to the Hürriyet Daily News:
Turkish officials condemned a terrorist attack targeting a Muslim family in London, Canada, which left four dead and one critically injured late on 7 June.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu extended his condolences to the loved ones of the family, before declaring that Islamophobia, racism and discrimination all amount to terrorism, which must be fought.
“The international community needs to mobilize against this terrorism before it is too late.”, said Cavusoglu.
Above: Mevlut Cavusoglu
Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also urged an immediate stop to the demonization of Muslims as he strongly condemned the terrorist attack.
Noting that the attack was motivated by Islamophobia, Kalin said constructed fear leads to hatred, animosity and violence.
Above: Ibrahim Kalin
A man driving a pick-up slammed into and killed four members of a Muslim family in what police and officials said was a premeditated attack motivated by “hatred“.
A 20-year-old suspect wearing a vest “like body armor” fled the scene.
He was arrested at a mall seven kilometres from the intersection in London where the attack happened, said Detective Paul Waight.
“There is evidence that this was a planned, premeditated act, motivated by hate.
It is believed that these victims were targeted because they were Muslims.”, he said.
Above: People gather at a makeshift memorial at the scene where a man driving a pick-up truck ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a hate crime
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that he was “horrified” by the attack.
“To the loved ones of those who were terrorized by yesterday’s act of hatred, we are here for you.”, he said, singling out the 9-year-old in hospital.
“To the Muslim community in London and to Muslims across the country, know that we stand with you.
Islamophobia has no place in any of our communities.
This hate is insidious and despicable.
And it must stop.”, he added.
Above: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Reuters / BBC, 8 June 2021
Police in London, Ontario, citing witnesses, said that 20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman, jumped the curb in his vehicle on Sunday, struck five members of the family, ranging in age from 9 to 74, and then drove off at high speed.
Veltman, a resident of London who was arrested after the incident, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
Police in London – 200 km (120 miles) southwest of Toronto – were consulting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and prosecutors about potentially filing terrorism charges, he said.
The suspect does not have a criminal record, and is not known to be a member of a hate group, police said.
He was arrested in a mall parking lot without incident while wearing a body-armor-type vest, police said.
There is no evidence he had any accomplices.
It was not immediately known if the suspect had hired a lawyer.
Veltman worked at an egg-packing facility, and lived in an apartment on Covent Market Place in downtown London.
A co-worker said he was home-schooled before leaving home as a teen.
Two described him as a proud Christian, and one, a Muslim, noted he seemed to treat Muslims normally during those four years.
(And God so loved the world….?)
As recently as two days prior, Veltman seemed happy and friendly to him, while they fished and drove together, before asking him to take his Friday shift because of a relative’s recent death.
Above: Nathaniel Veltman
Police have not released the victims’ names, but the London Free Press said that among the dead were Syed Afzaal, 46, his wife, Madiha Salman, 44, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yumnah Afzaal.
Syed Afzaal’s 74-year-old mother, whose name has not been confirmed, also died.
Their 9-year-old son, Faez Afzaal, is in the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
The family immigrated from Pakistan about 14 years ago, according to media reports.
Above: the Afzaal family
Officials added that there was good weather and high visibility conditions when the black truck was seen mounting the kerb on Hyde Park Road at around 20:40 local time on Sunday.
It was the intersection of Hyde Park Road and South Carriage Road.
Above: Abdullah Alzureiqi and his daughter Hala say a prayer at the scene in London, Canada
One witness told CTV News she had to shield her young daughter’s eyes from the bodies.
Another witness told CTV the scene was “just chaos“.
“There were people everywhere and running,” said Paige Martin.
“Citizens were trying to direct the emergency vehicles where to go.
There was a lot of pointing and screaming and arm waving.“
Above: A makeshift memorial at the crime scene where a man drove a truck over a Muslim family
A 2016 census found that London – a city about 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Toronto – is growing increasingly diverse.
One in five people was born outside of Canada, with Arabs being the area’s largest minority group, and South Asians coming in a close second.
Above: Downtown London in winter
Witness Paige Martin told reporters a black truck blasted past her and ran a red light as she was walking, and then she came upon the scene and saw “chaos“:
“It was just absolutely like something that younever want to see.”
The attack was the worst against Canadian Muslims since a man gunned down six members of a Quebec City mosque in 2017.
Above: Victims of the Québec City mosque shooting, 29 January 2017
London Mayor Ed Holder said it was the worst mass murder his city had ever seen.
“We grieve for the family, three generations of whom are now deceased,” Holder told reporters.
“This was an act of mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims, against Londoners, and rooted in unspeakable hatred.”
The Mayor’s statement added that he had ordered flags outside London City Hall to be lowered for three days of mourning.
Above: London Mayor Ed Holder
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said in a statement that the attacker should face terrorism charges.
“A man allegedly got in his car, saw a Muslim family walking down the street, and made the decision that they do not deserve to live,” said the organisation’s CEO Mustafa Farooq.
“He did not know them.
This is a terrorist attack on Canadian soil, and should be treated as such,” his statement continued.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Twitter that “justice must be served for the horrific act of hatred that took place.”
Above: Ontario Premier Doug Ford
By late evening on Monday, a steady stream of mourners was seen arriving near the scene of the attack, dropping off flowers and saying prayers.
One placard read:
“When does it stop? Enough.”
A GoFundMe campaign in support of members of the victims’ family had already raised almost C$120,000 ($99,000) in one hour.
A vigil has been organized at a local mosque on Tuesday night to remember the victims.
“This is a terrorist attack on Canadian soil, and should be treated as such,” said Mustafa Farooq, head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
London, which has about 400,000 residents, has a large Muslim community and Holder said Arabic is the second-most-spoken language after English in the city.
Above: Mustafa Farooq
The teenage girl who was killed “will be deeply missed by fellow students and staff at Oakridge Secondary School,” the school said in a statement.
A man who described himself as a neighbor said in an interview with Global News he met with the family on holidays.
“He was a family guy, very much involved in the community, a regular member of our mosque, a really, really great father,” the neighbor, who was not identified, said of Syed Afzaal.
“He loved to walk with his family.
Almost every evening, they walked.”
Nawaz Tahir, a London lawyer and representative of the Muslim community, said during the police news conference:
“These were innocent human beings who were killed simply because they were Muslim.“
We will stand strong against Islamophobia.
We will stand strong against terror with faith, with love, and a quest for justice.
Hate will never overshadow the light of love.”
Above: Nawaz Tahir
It is not the first time members of the Muslim community in Canada have come under attack.
In January 2017, a Canadian man fatally shot six worshippers at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre, and seriously injured five others.
The perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison.
Above: Québec Islamic Cultural Centre
Canada’s deadliest vehicle-ramming attack happened in 2018, when a self-described “incel” (involuntary celibate) ploughed his van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people.
Above: Toronto van attack victims, 23 April 2018
In Pakistan, Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the London attack, saying it indicated “growing Islamophobia” in Western countries.
“Islamophobia needs to be countered holistically by the international community,” Khan said on Twitter.
Above: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
The House of Commons (of the Parliament of Canada in Ottawa) held a moment of silence for the victims.
The attack was condemned by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan:
All of whom called it an act of terrorism motivated by hatred.
Above: Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi
A vigil was held on 8 June 2021, at the London Muslim Mosque.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford temporarily lifted provincial Covid-19 restrictions in London for it to proceed.
Trudeau, Ford and London Mayor Ed Holder attended, among thousands more.
Above: London Muslim Mosque
From Immanuel Wallerstein’s Chaotic Uncertainty:
Debate about something called multiculturalism is very widespread and passionate these days throughout the world.
Both its advocates and those who denounce it seem to be under the illusion that multiculturalism is something very new.
But it isn’t new at all.
Multiculturalism is as old as human cultures have existed.
And it has always been the subject of passionate debate.
Wherever humans resided, there have always been groups that consider themselves somehow more indigenous to the region than others.
The “indigenous” have tended to use a rhetoric of cultural purity, which they see as being defiled, or threatened, by others who are marginal or newly-arrived in the region, and who have therefore fewer rights (or no rights whatsoever) than the indigenous groups.
The response of this latter group has always been to claim some version or other of multiculturalism.
That is, they have argued in favour of according equal rights to all (or most) residents, whether or not they share some of the cultural practices of the self-styled “indigenous” population.
Humans have always been on the move for many reasons.
One is ecological exhaustion of the area from which they are moving.
Another is the attraction of a higher standard of living elsewhere.
A third is that for some reason they are being chased out of the area from which they are moving.
The reality is that, of we trace descent far enough into the past, no one is where their ancestors once were.
We are all migrants.
We are none of us indigenous except by suppressing historical reality.
To be sure, this issue has caused more acute strife in recent decades for two simple reasons:
Technological advances in transport and communications make it far easier to migrate further and faster than in earlier times.
And the polarization of the world system is much greater, making it considerably more tempting for persons in poorer countries to move to richer countries.
In addition, the fact that we are living amid the structural crisis of the modern world system has meant that the rate of real unemployment has mounted very sharply.
Hence the search for scapegoats has led to focusing on the migrants who are supposedly the cause of the high unemployment rates in the wealthier countries.
In every case, there is always a reaction from the receiving country demanding the exclusion or expulsion of the immigrants, ostensibly to preserve jobs in the receiving country as well as to preserve the so-called indigenous culture.
Rhetoric against multiculturalism serves (and is intended to serve) to get normally left voters in any country to support those who use the xenophobic language of the right and far right movements.
And no doubt it often succeeds in doing this.
Rhetoric in favour of multiculturalism serves (and is intended to serve) to get normally relatively centrist voters to support movements further left as a bulwark about xenophobia.
And no doubt it often succeeds in doing this.
What do we know about what really happens in most countries?
In one way or another, all countries are multicultural.
That is, there are groups of persons who have distinguishable cultural practices.
They have different religions or languages or marriage customs.
These different customs are practiced with different degrees of diligence.
In periods that are not too stressful in economic terms, there is a good deal of neighbourly interaction between persons of different groups, and often considerable intermarriage, further rendering the group distinction less important and more difficult to discern.
In times, however, of economic stress, xenophobic themes grow more important in popular discourse and often lead to acute strife.
Neighbours turn against neighbours.
Children of intergroup marriages are forced to avow allegiance to one or the other group.
Countries become more protectionist.
Legal freedom of movement across frontiers becomes more difficult.
There is a considerable increase in violence of all kinds.
To be sure, we need to distinguish between different situations in terms of the demographics.
There have been zones in which an existing population was submerged by a relatively large and strong immigrating population, which wiped out (or totally subordinated) the groups that had been there.
Think of the Taino in the Caribbean or the Fijians faced with a Hindu immigration in the Pacific.
Above: Statue of Agüeybaná Il, “El Bravo“, in Ponce, Puerto Rico Above: Fiji
(Hell, think of the Original Peoples of the Americas faced with the influx of Europeans.)
And then there are immigrations of wealthy persons into zones where they buy out the desirable land, raise costs generally, and force groups that had been previously there into marginal existences.
This is now happening around the globe in zones that are climatically more desirable.
(It is even a complaint of the Swiss about the Germans.)
Above: Flag of Switzerland
The claims of the “indigenous” groups to maintaining their cultural patterns and collective values has a quite different tonality in the case of resistance to immigration of groups at the bottom of some social scale than of persons at the top of some social scale.
And herein precisely are the dilemmas.
Are we capable of understanding and acting on this distinction?
Can we pursue sensibly different policies in the two cases?
Can we in effect support the inevitable and desirable form of multiculturalism that is the basis of a fruitful peaceful interchange of cultural values?
Or will we succumb to xenophobic ethnic cleansings around the world?
Above: Refugees at Taurus Pass during the Armenian genocide – The Ottoman government aimed to reduce the number of Armenians below 5–10% of the population in any part of the empire, which necessarily entailed the elimination of a million Armenians.
There will always be people like Nathaniel Veltman.
Let me blunt:
Every community has its emotionally and psychologically disturbed.
Killing the Afzaal family had as its excuse Islamophobia.
But to be fearful of those we do not understand and to deliberately murder those we do not understand are not the same thing, nor does the former necessarily lead to the latter.
To kill other human beings is not a rational decision, is not a psychologically sound-of-mind motion.
Veltman wanted to kill.
The Afzaal family were easy to hate, because they were obviously different than Veltman was, despite their shared humanity.
The Afzaal family were fine members of both their ethnic/religious community as well as the nation of Canada.
They were law-abiding, hard working and compassionate people much beloved by all who knew them.
Above: Flag of Canada
Every community harbours those who desire to hurt others.
I cannot speak to what led them to hate.
I can only say that those who have learned to hate seek expression of that hate.
But besides the mindless murder of a family, what did Veltman accomplish?
If convicted, he will spend the rest of his days behind bars where he cannot kill innocent pedestrians out for an evening stroll.
Veltman made the news, because he is not routine, he is not representative of anyone but himself.
Most people simply want to love and be loved.
Veltman chose to hate and a family paid the price of that hate.
Is Canada a better place with one less Muslim family?
No.
The reverse is true.
Above: Yumna Afzaal, 15, left, Madiha Salman, 44, centre left, Talat Afzaal, 74, and Salman Afzaal, 46, right, were out for an evening walk when they were run over by a man who police say was motivated by anti-Muslim hate.
Canada is a poorer place for their deaths, for a nation famous for its tolerance and liberalism has once again been forced to acknowledge that within its shores are those who are not so tolerant and who are willing to demonstrate their hate for others in a violent manner when the opportunity presents itself.
It is my hope that there is at least a growing resistance among Canadians to refuse to give into fear and hate, but rather to embrace everyone within its borders, much like a stained glass window is comprised by individually separate parts that form a most beautiful mosaic of light and colour that enhances the lives of those who view it.
Islamophobia in Canada refers to set of discourses, behaviours and structures which express feelings of anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Islam or Muslims in Canada.
Members of the Sikh, Christian Arab, Jewish Arab and Hindu communities have all reported incidents of harassment which, while intended towards Muslims, was traumatic and broader in its scope than just Muslims.
Particularly since the 9/11 attacks in the US, a variety of surveys and polls, as well as reported incidents, have consistently given credence to the existence of Islamophobia in Canada.
The number of police-reported hate crimes targeting Muslims in Canada more than tripled between 2012 and 2015, despite the overall number of such crimes decreasing over the same period, according to Statistics Canada data.
Statistics Canada does state, however, that “an increase in numbers may be related to more reporting by the public“.
In 2015, police across the country recorded 159 hate crimes targeted at Muslims, up from 45 in 2012, representing an increase of 253%.
Islamophobia has manifested itself as vandalism of mosques and physical assaults on Muslims, including violence against Muslim women wearing the hijab or niqab.
In January 2017, six Muslims were killed in a shooting attack at a Québec City mosque.
The number of Islamophobic incidents have significantly increased in the last two years.
Islamophobia has been condemned by Canadian governments on the federal, provincial and municipal level.
The Canadian media have played a mixed role in their coverage of Islamophobia, and have been described as having perpetuated it and/or countered it for Canadian audiences.
Canada’s public education system has also been scrutinized for its role as the site of Islamophobic incidents and of the development of Islamophobic attitudes in youth.
Above: Grand Mosque, Ottawa, Ontario
The Canadian media have been criticized for their role in perpetrating Islamophobia, both generally and in their news coverage of specific events.
Canadian professor of journalism Karim H. Karim asserts that in the post-9/11 era an “Islamic peril” has replaced the “Soviet threat” of the Cold War years (1945 – 1989) in Canada.
After comparing Canadian mainstream media coverage of religious minority communities in Canada, Mahmoud Eid concludes that the Canadian media commonly apply the frames of dehumanization, extremism, fanaticism, inequality and Islamophobia to Muslims.
The stereotypes of Muslims, Arabs and Middle Easterners are: terrorists, savage, a fifth column.
These stereotypes are then said to fuel suspicion of Muslims in general, which then results in hate crimes against them.
In fact, a study found a similarity between media myths on Muslims and the hate-text of many documented anti-Muslim incidents.
Nevertheless, Barbara Perry argues that Canadian media is more balanced and objective in its coverage of Muslims than that of UK, US and Australia.
She cited the case of the 2006 “Toronto 18” terrorist plot where outlets like the Toronto Star recognized that the suspects were at the fringe of the Muslim community and gave coverage to Muslim leaders, allowing them to present a more peaceful side of Islam.
Above: The Toronto 18
(The 2006 Toronto 18 terrorist plot refers to the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in southern Ontario, and the 2 June 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that resulted in the arrest of 14 adults and 4 youths (the “Toronto 18“).
These individuals have been characterized as having been inspired by al-Qaeda.
They were accused of planning to detonate truck bombs, to open fire in a crowded area, and to storm the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, the Canadian Parliament Buildings, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) headquarters, and the Parliamentary Peace Tower to take hostages and to behead the Prime Minister and other leaders.)
Above: Canadian Broadcasting Centre, Toronto, OntarioAbove: Parliament Hill, Ottawa, OntarioAbove: The Peace Tower, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario
Denise Helly of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique writes that the media often falsely gives an impression that “Muslims are incessantly demanding recognition of special practices“, by giving widespread coverage to trivial incidents.
She cites examples such as the debate on the skirt length of a female employee at Pearson airport, or the wearing of a headscarf on a soccer team in Edmonton.
Above: Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Québec City, Québec
Toronto Star’s publisher, John Cruickshank, claimed that “a big segment of the Canadian media has been peddling ‘flat-out racism and bigotry’ against Canadian Muslims.”
The now-defunct Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) started to monitor Canadian media coverage for Islamophobic sentiment in 1998.
The CIC opposed the use of expressions such as “Muslim militants” and “Islamic insurgency” by arguing that no religion endorses terrorism or militancy.
Jonathan Kay of the National Post argued that in recent years both Stephan Harper’s Conservative federal government and Pauline Marois’ Parti Québecois provincial government have been voted out of office due to “Islamophobic fearmongering” in their campaigns, and that the Canadian media played a key role in denouncing their Islamophobic messages to Canadians.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ‘s internationally acclaimed television sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007 – 2012), has been described as having “opened up a public space for Muslim Canadians to express their traditions, rituals, culture, and religion on primetime Canadian television.”
However, others have argued that the underlying assumptions of the show continue to reaffirm, rather than challenge, certain Canadian hegemonic values and expectations about Muslims.
In the past, certain media outlets have been criticized for their perceived bias in coverage of Muslims.
Likewise, certain media outlets have been praised for covering Islam and Muslims in a balanced way.
In 1998, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) singled out the newspaper the National Post as a leading consistently Islamophobic media outlet in Canada.
A 2006 study at the University of Alberta reported that during the 2006 federal election, 42% of the National Post‘s election-time articles associated Islam and Muslims with terrorism, compared to 9% of stories in The Globe and Mail and 14% of stories in the Toronto Star.
The National Post‘s Jonathan Kay has argued that the media are fascinated with the subject of terrorism because that is what their audience, the Canadian public, are interested in.
Kay also argues that Islam is conflated with terrorism in the media only because prominent terrorist groups consistently commit atrocities in the name of Islam, which the media is obliged to report as such.
Above: Jonathan Kay
In 2016, the Toronto Star‘s former columnist Haroon Siddiqui accused the National Post and the Postmedia group of newspapers of perpetuating Islamophobia.
Above: Haroon Siddiqui
In 2007, the CIC filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) against Maclean’s Magazine, accusing the magazine of publishing 18 Islamophobic articles between 2005 and 2007, including a derogatory article titled “The Future of Islam” by Mark Steyn.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed the CIC’s complaint.
BCHRT found that while the article contained “factual inaccuracies” and may have used exaggeration to cause the reader to fear Muslims, it did not violate anti-hate laws.
BCHRT argued that “fear is not synonymous with hatred and contempt.”
OHRC described Maclean’s articles as xenophobic, Islamophobic and promoting prejudice.
However, the Commission maintained that it did not have the jurisdiction to actually hear the complaint.
The CIC has praised the Toronto Star and La Presse for their sympathetic and comprehensive coverage.
A 2005 survey of 120 Canadian Muslims showed that 66% of respondents trusted the Toronto Star as their source for information, compared to 12% who trusted The Globe and Mail and 4% who trusted the National Post.
In 2007, the Quebec town of Hérouxville adopted an “immigrant code of conduct“, even though the town had no immigrants.
The code warned the town’s non-existent immigrant population against stoning women and told them about the importance of Christmas trees.
The code was widely considered Islamophobic and xenophobic, and caught the attention of media around the world.
The author of the code, André Drouin, later called for all mosques in Canada to be temporarily shut down.
Above: Hérouxville, Québec
(Quite frankly, I think Canada should have exiled Drouin to a region where anti-West sentiment is high and give him a taste of his own medicine.)
Above: André Drouin (1947 – 2017)
In 2010, the Québec Liberal government of Jean Charest introduced Bill 94, which would have required people to uncover their faces to identify themselves before receiving any government services.
According to a 2010 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll, the bill was supported by 95% of Quebecers at the time.
The legislation ultimately failed to pass when the Liberals were defeated in the 2012 election.
Above: Jean Charest
In 2013, the Parti Québecois government of Pauline Marois introduced a much stricter bill known as the Québec Charter of Values, which would have banned public servants from wearing any “conspicuous” religious symbols including turbans, kippahs, and hijabs.
The Charter was widely denounced for targeting Muslim women, and it failed to become law before another election
The announcement was followed by a string of attacks against Muslims, particularly Muslim women who wear the hijab.
Many blamed the attacks on the divisive rhetoric surrounding the debate, and accused the PQ of exploiting the debate for political gain.
Above: Pauline Marois
(Strangely, no mention of Catholic priests’ robes, nuns’ habits or crucifixes were mentioned.)
In 2015, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, while answering questions about terrorism suspects, said:
“It doesn’t matter what the age of the person is, or whether they’re in a basement, or whether they’re in a mosque or somewhere else.”
Above: Stephen Harper
The remarks were seen as casting mosques as “venues of terrorism“, by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who expressed concerns about increased attacks on mosques as a result of this perception.
The then Leader of the Opposition Justin Trudeau said the remarks were Islamophobic, and noted that mosques actually work closely with security agencies in preventing radicalization.
In response, Harper released a statement recognizing the Muslim community’s efforts in fighting terror.
On 18 October 2017, the Assemblée Nationale de Québec successfully passed legislation titled Bill 62.
The law was to take effect on 1 July 2018.
According to the Associated Press, the law “bans the wearing of face coverings for people giving or receiving a service from the state” and “offers a framework outlining how authorities should grant accommodation requests based on religious beliefs.”
In effect, this prohibits Muslim women who wear face veils from receiving or giving public services, including riding public transportation.
The law also prohibits public workers like doctors and teachers from covering their faces at work.
The bill passed 65-51 with every MP in favor of the law being a member of the Québec Liberal Party.
Above: Logo of the Québec Liberal Party
Quebec’s two main opposition parties, the Parti Québecois and Coalition Avenir Québec, opposed the bill, arguing it didn’t go far enough in restricting the presence of conspicuous symbols of all religions in the public sphere.
Stéphanie Vallée, Québec’s Minister of Justice, sponsored the bill and said it would foster social cohesion.
Above: Stéphanie Vallée
Québec Premier Philippe Couillard supported the law, saying:
“We are in a free and democratic society.
You speak to me, I should see your face, and you should see mine.
It’s as simple as that.“
Above: Pierre Couillard
Proponents of the law argue it ensures state neutrality, but critics of the law argue it is unfairly directed at Muslim women who wear niqabs or burqas.
Face coverings in Canada are rare, with about 3% of Muslim women wearing some type of face veil nationwide.
Shaheen Ashraf, a board member of Canadian Council of Muslim Women said Muslim women “are feeling targeted” by the law.
She added:
“The message they’re sending to those women is that you stay home and don’t come out of your house because they are choosing to cover their faces and they cannot board a bus or use any public transportation or receive any services.“
Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims said the legislation is “an unjustified infringement of religious freedoms.”
The NCCM also claimed the legislation violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and planned on challenging it in court.
Fo Niemi of the Centre for Research Action on Race Relations said the law could be challenged at the United Nations as “a violation of certain rights protected by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.”
Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), stated he was “completely opposed” to the law.
Above: Jagmeet Singh
Montréal Mayor Denis Coderre accused the provincial government of overstepping its jurisdiction and Montreal-based civil rights lawyer Julius Grey called Bill 62 a “terrible law.”
Above: Denis CoderreAbove: Julius Grey
When asked by reporters, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said:
“I don’t think it’s the government’s business to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t be wearing.”
With regards to public opinion, on 27 October an Ipsos poll found that 76% of Quebecers backed Bill 62, with 24% opposing it.
The same survey found the 68% of Canadians in general supported a law similar to Bill 62 in their part of Canada.
On 27 October an Angus Reid Institute poll found that 70% Canadians outside of Quebec supported “legislation similar to Bill 62” where they lived in the country, with 30% opposing it.
However, a judge ruled that the face-covering ban cannot enter into force pending judicial review, due to irreparable harm it will cause Muslim women.
For the second time since December 2017 a Quebec judge suspended that section of the law, challenged in court by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
In the courts’ judgement, that law violates the freedoms guaranteed by the Quebec and Canadian Charters of Human Rights and Freedoms.
The implications of Bill 62 not only affected Québec residents as a whole, but also additionally created a contradictory visualization of Canada.
The nation often is considered to be a “multicultural mosaic“, however, the implementation of Bill 62 left Canadians questioning this term.
One Canadian citizen added:
“Just as every woman has the right to reveal herself, the woman next to her has the right to conceal herself.
If the government is going to impact our basic rights, I don’t want to be a part of it.”
The Bill contains many implications for Muslim women, as it affects all aspects of private services, such as, schooling, transportation and medical.
Canadian Muslim women who are looking to further their education have publicly stated that Bill 62, is not only an oppressive law on their education, but also a driving force behind considering other schools.
Ultimately, the future of Canada as a whole appears rather murky as it is estimated that 68% of Canadians are in favour of this ban in their own province.
Thus leaving Muslim women feeling as though they are being restricted from obtaining a higher education.
(Personally, I have nothing against anyone’s attire, if it is that person’s choice.)
I don’t fully understand Muslims, Hindus, and many other religions.
I don’t have to.
I simply have to love and respect everyone for our shared humanity, judging them solely by individual character rather than collective prejudice.
I don’t fully understand other ethnicities different from my own.
I don’t have to.
I simply have to love and respect everyone for our shared humanity, judging them solely by individual character rather than collective prejudice.
Above: The Beatles – John Lennon (1940 – 1980), Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison (1943 – 2001)
I don’t fully understand other sexualities different from my own.
I don’t have to.
I simply have to love and respect everyone for our shared humanity, judging them solely by individual character rather than collective prejudice.
Above: The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community flag
We must not let politicians who claim to represent us delude us into thinking that those who are different from us are, thus by extension, against us.
We must not let politicians delude us into thinking that the actions of the irrationally violent are characteristic of entire societies.
We must not let politicians delude us into thinking that governments truly represent the mindset of the entire population.
We must not let politicians delude us into thinking our dignity and rights are somewhat superior to the dignity and rights of others.
A nine-year-old boy lies in a London hospital.
His parents are gone, his sister is gone, his grandmother gone.
He is a victim of a world that took his family from him for practicing a faith unlike the majority of Canadians and for wearing a face dissimilar to many other Canadians.
This should not be in a country the world looks to as being a humane and just model among nations.
Above: Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Winnipeg, Manitoba
It is bad enough that there are those among us who would tell us how we should live, but it is a tragedy of massive proportions that there are those among us who would determine whether we will live.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / “Ankara condemns attack on Muslim family in Canada“, Hürriyet Daily News, 9 June 2021 / “Motivated by hate“, Al Jazeera, 7 June 2021 / “Muslim family killed in ‘premeditated’ hit and run in London, Ontario, driver charged with murder, police say“, CBCNews, 7 June 2021 / “Muslim family in Canada killed in ‘premeditated’ truck attack“, BBC, 8 June 2021 / Stop Reading the News, Rolf Dobelli
Sometimes the words pour out off of my fingertips into the keyboard of my computer like raging rivers that shrug their shoulders impervious to any notion of resistance.
Other times they seep slowly out of an unremitting rock steadfast set against release.
This latter condition is my present plight as I attempt to weave a tapestry of images between events of the past and present moments.
As always I seek a theme, a common skein, that runs through times and places universally intertwined with the human condition.
Some dates and destinations write themselves.
Others require coaxing, prodding, prising from beneath a surface of amphorous lack of definition.
Tapestries are not easy to weave and the first threads do not immediately reveal the tableau complete.
Above: A portion of the Bayeux Tapestry
He who would write a symphony must first hear the music from within.
I can only hope I strike the proper chords as the tune is coaxed into composition.
Above: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
As I did my research of this day and sought to graft it to the Canadian town I am trying to evoke for you, my gentle reader, the common denominator upon which what follows seemed to rest is the idea of perception, the notion that we see something the way we are determined to see it and not necessarily the reality of what something truly is.
Take, for example, two commemorations that are traditionally celebrated on this calendar date.
Propose Day is celebrated in India on 8 February as a day to propose to your significant other, a day when large numbers of young people give roses to propose to their prospective girlfriend or boyfriend.
It is the second day of Valentines Week.
Although Valentine’s Day (14 February) is celebrated across the whole world, Valentines Week is something celebrated in India only, marked by various festivities across India.
Perception is everything on Propose Day, for how your prospective life partner is perceived determines the outcome of the proposal.
Perhaps a more apt description might be “misperception“, seeing what we want to see and denying the real evidence before us.
To further complicate appearances is the distortion that time plays upon the surface of images.
How something is seen today might not be how that same something is seen tomorrow.
Travel in your mind’s eye with me to another place, another time.
Prešeren Day (Slovene: Prešernov dan), full name Prešeren Day, the Slovene Cultural Holiday (Slovene: Prešernov dan, slovenski kulturni praznik), is a public holiday celebrated in Slovenia on 8 February.
It is marking the anniversary of the death of the Slovene national poet France Prešeren on 8 February 1849 and is the celebration of the Slovenian culture.
It was established in 1945 to raise the cultural consciousness and the self-confidence of the Slovene nation, and declared a work-free day in 1991.
On 7 February, the eve of the holiday, the Prešeren Awards and the Prešeren Fund Awards, the highest Slovenian recognitions for cultural achievements, are conferred.
Prešeren Day continues to be one of the most widely celebrated Slovene holidays.
During the holiday all state and municipal museums and galleries offer free entry, and various other cultural events are held.
The holiday is celebrated not only in Slovenia, but also by Slovene communities all around the world.
Above: France Prešeren (1800 – 1849)
The anniversary of Prešeren’s death first became a prominent date during World War II in 1941, when 7 February was celebrated as the day of all-Slavic unity.
The proposal to celebrate 8 February as the Slovene cultural holiday was put forward in January 1945, in Crnomeli by the Slovene Liberation Front’s cultural worker Bogomil Gerlanc.
It was officially proclaimed a cultural holiday with a decree passed by the Presidency of the Slovne national Liberation Council on 28 January 1945 and published in the newspaper Slovenski porocevalec on 1 February 1945.
It remained a public holiday during the era of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia within the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia and was celebrated also by the Carinthian Slovenes (living in the Austrian state of Carinthia) and Slovenes in Italy (many near Venice).
It was marked with many cultural festivals and remembrances and with school excursions to culturally significant institutions.
The declaration of Prešeren Day as a work-free day in 1991 was opposed by many, claiming it would bring the banalisation of a holiday designed to be dedicated to cultural events.
As a result, 3 December, the anniversary of the poet’s birth, has also become widely celebrated as an alternative holiday.
Today both days are almost equally celebrated, with no antagonism between the two, although only Prešeren Day in February is officially recognised as a national holiday.
Since it became a work-free day, it has become even more highly valued.
But what of the man for whom this day was named?
Why is he perceived as pride in Slovene heritage?
Above: Flag of Slovenia
France Prešeren (3 December 1800 – 8 February 1849) was a 19th-century Romantic Slovene poet whose poems have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Bengali, as well as to all the languages of former Yugoslavia, and in 2013 a complete collection of his Poezije (Poems) was translated into French.
He has been generally acknowledged as the greatest Slovene classical poet and has inspired virtually all later Slovene literature.
He wrote some high quality epic poetry, for example the first Slovene ballad and the first Slovene epic.
After his death, he became the leading name of the Slovene literary canon.
He tied together the motifs of his own unhappy love with that of an unhappy, subjugated homeland.
Especially after World War II in the Slovene lands, one of Prešeren’s motifs, the “hostile fortune“, has been adopted by Slovenes as a national myth, and Prešeren has been described being as ubiquitous as the air in Slovene culture.
During his lifetime, Prešeren lived in conflict with both the civil and religious establishment, as well as with the provincial bourgeoisie of Ljubljana.
He fell victim to severe drinking problems and tried to take his own life on at least two occasions, facing rejections and seeing most of his closest friends die tragically.
His lyric poetry dealt with the love towards his homeland, the suffering humanity, as well as his unfulfilled love towards his muse, Julija Primic.
Above: France Prešeren
France Prešeren was born in the village of Vrba, Slovenia, as the third of eight children and the first son in the family of a well-off farmer and an ambitious and better educated mother who taught her children to write and read and soon sent them to their uncles who were Roman Catholic priests.
Already as a child, France showed considerable talent, and so his parents decided to provide him with a good education.
Above: Preseren’s birthplace, Vrba
At the age of eight, he was sent to elementary schools in Grosuplje and Ribnica, run by the local Roman Catholic clergy.
Above: Ribnica
In 1812, he moved to Ljubljana, where he attended the State Gymnasium (high school).
Already at a very young age, he learned Latin, Ancient Greek, and German, which was then the language of education, administration, and high culture in most areas inhabited by Slovenes.
Above: Images of modern Ljubljana
In Ljubljana, Prešeren’s talent was spotted by the poet Valentin Vodnik, who encouraged him to develop his literary skills in Slovene.
Above: Valentin Vodnik (1758 – 1819)
As a high school student, Prešeren became friends with the future philologist (a person who studies literary texts) Matija Cop, who would have an extremely important influence on the development of Prešeren’s poetry.
Above: Matija Kop (1797 – 1835)
In 1821, Prešeren enrolled at the University of Vienna, where he studied law, against the wishes of his mother, who wanted him to become a priest.
In Vienna, he became acquainted with the western canon from Homer (800 – 701 BC) to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832), but he was most fascinated by Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) and the Italian trecentists (of the 14th century), especially Petrarch (1304 – 1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375).
He also read contemporary Romantic poets.
He was even fired from a teaching post at missionary Joseph von Klinkowström (1813 – 1876)’s Jesuit institute for having loaned a booklet of banned poetry to his friend Anastasius Grün (1806 – 1876).
Above: Logo of the University of Vienna
Prešeren’s first serious poetic attempts date from his student years in Vienna.
In 1824, he wrote some of his most popular poems, still under the influence of Valentin Vodnik and the rich tradition of Slovene folk poetry.
In 1825, he completed a collection of Carniolan poems, which he showed to the philologist Jernej Kopitar (1780 – 1844).
Kopitar was very critical of the young man’s literary attempts, and so Prešeren destroyed the entire collection.
Kopitar’s rejection hindered the development of Prešeren’s creativity.
Above: Coat of arms of Carniola
Preseren did not publish anything more until 1827, when his satirical poem Dekletom (To Maidens) was published by the German language journal Illyrisches Blatt (Illyrian Paper).
After acquiring a law degree in 1828, he returned to Ljubljana, where he was employed as an assistant in the firm of the lawyer Leopold Baumgartner.
He constantly strove to become an independent lawyer, filing as many as six applications, but he was not successful.
In 1828, Prešeren wrote his first important poem, “A Farewell to Youth“.
However, it was published only in 1830, in the literary almanac Krajinska cbelica (The Carniolan Bee), established the same year by the librarian Miha Kastelic in Ljubljana.
The journal published another well-known poem by Prešeren that year, the first Slovene ballad.
It was titled “Povodni moz” (the water man) and was a narration about Urška, a flirt from Ljubljana that ended in the hands of a handsome man who happened to be a water man (a male water spirit).
In 1830, his friend from high school, Matija Čop, returned to Ljubljana and re-established contacts with Prešeren.
Čop soon recognized his friend’s poetic talent and persuaded him to adopt Romantic poetic forms.
Following Čop’s advice, Prešeren would soon become a master of the sonnet.
His poems were noticed by the Czech scholar Frantisek Celakovsky, who published several highly positive critiques of it. Čelakovský’s praise was extremely important for Prešeren’s self-esteem and gave him the strength to continue in the path on which Čop had orientated him.
Above. František Ladislav Čelakovský (1799 – 1852)
In 1832, Preseren briefly moved to Klagenfurt in the hope of furthering his career, but returned to Ljubljana after less than a year.
Above: Klagenfurt
In the spring of 1833, he met Julija Primic, the daughter of a rich merchant, who would become the unfulfilled love of his life.
Above: Julija Primic
In 1833, Preserin became a member of the Ljubljana high society’s social club, called the Casino Society (Slovene: Kazinsko društvo, German: Casino-Gesellschaft), and met Julija in 1834 and 1835 at the theatre and at the dances in Kazina, but did not have the courage to directly show her his feelings towards her.
Above: Casino Building, Ljubljana
In 1834, he began working as an assistant to his friend Blaž Crobath, who gave Prešeren enough free time to engage in his literary activities.
In the same year, he met the Czech romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha (1810 – 1836) and the Slovene-born Croatian poet Stanko Vraz (1810 – 1851) and had long and fruitful discussions on poetry with them.
Between 1830 and 1835, Prešeren composed his esthetically most accomplished poems, which were inspired by the setbacks in his personal life, especially by his unrequited love for Julija Primic.
Prešeren followed Čop’s advice and transformed Julija into a poetic figure, reminiscent of Dante’s Beatrice and Petrarch’s Laura.
Sonetni venec (A Wreath of Sonnets) is Prešeren’s most important poem from his early period.
It is a crown of 15 sonnets.
It was published on 22 February 1834 in the Illyrisches Blatt.
In it, Prešeren tied together the motifs of his own unhappy love with that of an unhappy, subjugated homeland.
The poem was recognized as a masterpiece by Matija Čop, but it did not gain much recognition beyond the small circle around the journal Krajnska čbelica.
Moreover, Julija was unimpressed.
Understandably, Prešeren moved to more bitter verses.
Another important work from this period are the Sonetje nesreče (sonnets of misfortune), which were first drafted already in 1832, but were published in the 4th volume of Krajnska čbelica only in July 1834, with some changes.
They are the most pessimistic of Prešeren’s works.
This is a group of six (initially seven) sonnets expressing the poet’s despair over life.
In the first sonnet, titled “O Vrba“, Prešeren reflects on what his life could have been like, had he never left his home village.
The other sonnets from the circle have not gained such a widespread popularity, but are still considered by scholars to be among Prešeren’s most genuine and profound works.
1835 was Prešeren’s annus horribilis.
His closest friend Matija Čop drowned while swimming in the Sava River, Julija Primic married a wealthy merchant, and Prešeren became alienated from his friend and editor of the literary journal Krajnska čbelica, Miha Kastelic.
Above: Sava River, Belgrade
Following his best friend’s death, Prešeren wrote the epic-lyric poem Krst pri Savici (the baptism on the Savica), dedicating it to Čop.
Set during the forced Christianization of the predecessors of Slovenes, the Carantanians, in the late 8th century, the poem addresses the issues of collective identity and faithfulness to the ancestors’ ways, as well as the issue of individual and his hope and resignation.
The philosopher Slavoj Zizek interpreted the poem as an example of the emergence of modern subjectivity.
Above: Slavoj Zizek
Around 1836, Prešeren finally realized that his love for Julija would never become mutual (she had married another man the previous year).
The same year, he met Ana Jelovšek, with whom he entered into a permanent relationship.
They had three children, but never married.
Prešeren supported Ana financially and treated her as his rightful mate, but engaged in several other love affairs at the same time.
He also spent a lot of time travelling throughout Carniola, especially to Lake Bled, from the scenery of which he drew inspiration for his poems.
Above: Lake Bled
In 1837, Prešeren met Emil Korytko, a Polish political activist from Galicia, confined by the Austrian authorities to Ljubljana.
Korytko introduced to Prešeren the work of Adam Mickiewicz, which had an important influence on his later works.
The two even jointly translated one of Mickiewicz’s poems (“Resygnacja“) from Polish to Slovene and started collecting Slovene folk songs in Carniola and Lower Styria.
Above: Adam Mickiewicz (1798 – 1855)
In 1839, Korytko died, leaving Prešeren without an important interlocutor after Čop’s death.
Above: The gravestone of Emil Korytko at Navje, with the German verses written by France Prešeren
In the autumn of the same year, Andrej Smole, one of Prešeren’s friends from his youth, returned home after many years of living and travelling abroad.
Smole was a relatively rich young intellectual from a well-established merchant family, who supported the development of Slovene culture.
The two spent much of the winter of 1839 – 1840 on Smole’s estate in Lower Carniola, where they planned several cultural and literary projects, including the establishment of a daily newspaper in the Slovene language and the publishing of Anton Tomaz Linhart’s comedy Matiček’s Wedding which had been prohibited as “politically inappropriate” in 1790, due to the outbreak of the French Revolution.
Above: Prezek Castle, where the friends often met
Both projects failed:
The planned journal Ilirske novice was blocked by the Viennese censorship, and Linhart’s play would be staged only in 1848, without Prešeren’s assistance.
Above: Anton Tomaz Linhart (1756 – 1795)
Smole died suddenly in 1840, literally in Prešeren’s arms, while celebrating his 40th birthday. Prešeren dedicated a touching, yet unexpectedly cheerful and vitalist poem to his late friend.
After 1840, Prešeren was left without any interlocutor who could appreciate his works, but continued to write poetry, although much less than in the 1830s.
Above: Andrej Smole (1800 – 1840)
Preseren gradually departed from the typical romantic trend, adopting an increasingly diverse and innovative style.
In 1843, an important breakthrough for Prešeren happened:
Janez Bleiweis started publishing a new daily journal in the Slovene language and invited Prešeren to participate in its cultural section.
The two men came from rather different backgrounds:
Bleiweis was a moderate conservative and staunch supporter of the ecclesiastical and imperial establishments and alien to the Romantic culture.
He nevertheless established a fair relationship with the poet.
Prešeren’s participation in Bleiweis’ editorial project was the closest he would come to public recognition during his lifetime.
Above: Janez Bleiweis (1808 – 1881)
In 1844, Preseren wrote the patriotic poem “Zdravlijca” (A Toast), the most important achievement of his late period.
In 1847, a volume of his collected poems was published under the simple title Poezije Dr. Franceta Prešerna (Poems of Dr. France Prešeren).
In 1846, Prešeren was finally allowed to open his own law firm and moved to Kranj with his family.
Prešeren spent the last two years of his life occupied with private life and his new job as a lawyer in Kranj.
According to some accounts, he was planning several literary projects, including a novel in the realistic style and an experimental play, but he was struck with liver disease caused by his excessive drinking in prior years.
The revolution of 1848 left him rather indifferent, although it was carried out by the young generation who already saw him as an idol of democratic and national ideals.
Before his death, he did however redact his Zdravljica, which was left out from the 1847 volume of poems, and made some minor adjustments for a new edition of his collected poems.
He died in Kranj on 8 February 1849.
Upon his deathbed he confessed that he had never forgotten Julija.
In general, Prešeren’s life was an unhappy one.
Above: Kranj
Today, Prešeren is still considered one of the leading poets of Slovene literature, acclaimed not only nationally or regionally, but also according to the standards of developed European literature.
Prešeren was one of the greatest European Romanticists.
His fervent, heartfelt lyrics, intensely emotional but never merely sentimental, have made him the chief representative of the Romantic school in Slovenia.
Nevertheless, recognition came slowly after his death.
It was not before 1866 that a real breakthrough in the reception of his role in Slovene culture took place.
In that year, Josip Jurcic and Josip Stritar published a new edition of Prešeren’s collection of poems.
In the preface, Stritar published an essay which is still considered one of the most influential essays in Slovene history.
In it, he showed the aesthetic value of Prešeren’s work by placing him in the wider European context.
From then on, his reputation as the greatest poet in the Slovene language was never endangered.
Prešeren’s legacy in Slovene culture is enormous.
He is generally regarded as the national poet.
In 1905, his monument was placed at the central square in Ljubljana, now called Preseren Square.
By the early 1920s, all his surviving work had been catalogued and numerous critical editions of his works had been published.
Several scholars were already dealing exclusively with the analysis of his work and little was left unknown about his life.
In 1945, the anniversary of his death, called Preseren Day, was declared as the Slovene cultural holiday.
In 1989, his Zdravljica was declared the national anthem of Slovenia, replacing the old Naprej zastava slave.
In 1992, his effigy was portrayed on the Slovene 1000 tolar banknote, and since 2007, his image is on the Slovene €2 coin.
The highest Slovene prize for artistic achievements, the Preseren Award, is named after him.
By many standards, Preseren had a good life and yet his perception of his life was anything but positive.
He defined his life, his nation, his sense of self, through his failed relationship with Julija, granting her power over him that she neither sought nor deserved.
Fast forward with me to another time, another place, another life.
Neal Leon Cassady (8 February 1926 – 4 February 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
He was prominently featured as himself in the “scroll” (first draft) version of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road, and served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of that book.
In many of Kerouac’s later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray.
Cassady also appeared in Allen Ginsberg’s poems, and in several other works of literature by other writers.
Above: Neal Cassady
Cassady was born to Maude Jean (née Scheuer) and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City, Utah.
His mother died when he was 10, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado.
Cassady spent much of his youth either living on the streets of skid row, with his father, or in reform school.
Above: Neal’s Skid Row
As a youth, Cassady was repeatedly involved in petty crime.
He was arrested for car theft when he was 14, for shoplifting and car theft when he was 15, and for car theft and fencing stolen property when he was 16.
In 1941, the 15-year-old Cassady met Justin W. Brierly, a prominent Denver educator.
Brierly was well known as a mentor of promising young men and was impressed by Cassady’s intelligence.
Over the next few years, Brierly took an active role in Cassady’s life. Brierly helped admit Cassady to East High School where he taught Cassady as a student, encouraged and supervised his reading, and found employment for him.
Cassady continued his criminal activities, however, and was repeatedly arrested from 1942 to 1944; on at least one of these occasions, he was released by law enforcement into Brierly’s safekeeping.
In June 1944, Cassady was arrested for possession of stolen goods and served 11 months of a one-year prison sentence.
Brierly and he actively exchanged letters during this period, even through Cassady’s intermittent incarcerations.
This correspondence represents Cassady’s earliest surviving letters.
In October 1945, after being released from prison, Cassady married 16-year-old Lu Anne Henderson.
Above: Luanne Henderson Cassady
In 1946, the couple traveled to New York City to visit their friend, Hal Chase, another protégé of Brierly’s.
Above: Hal Chase (aka Chad King)
While visiting Chase at Columbia University, Cassady met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Although Cassady did not attend Columbia, he soon became friends with them and their acquaintances, some of whom later became members of the Beat Generation.
Above: Logo of Columbia University
While in New York, Cassady persuaded Kerouac to teach him to write fiction.
Cassady’s second wife, Carolyn, has stated:
“Neal, having been raised in the slums of Denver amongst the world’s lost men, was determined to make more of himself, to become somebody, to be worthy and respected.
His genius mind absorbed every book he could find, whether literature, philosophy, or science.
Jack had a formal education, which Neal envied, but intellectually he was more than a match for Jack, and they enjoyed long discussions on every subject.”
Above: Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969)
Carolyn Robinson met Cassady in 1947, while she was studying for her master’s in theater arts at the University of Denver.
Five weeks after Lu Anne’s departure, Neal got an annulment from Lu Anne and married Carolyn, on 1 April 1948.
Above: Carolyn Robinson Cassady (1923- 2013)
Carolyn’s book, Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg (1990), details her marriage to Cassady and recalls him as, “the archetype of the American man“.
Cassady’s sexual relationship with Ginsberg lasted off and on for the next 20 years.
During this period, Cassady worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad and kept in touch with his “Beat” acquaintances, even as they became increasingly different philosophically.
The couple eventually had three children and settled down in a ranch house in Monte Sereno, California, 50 miles south of San Francisco, where Kerouac and Ginsberg sometimes visited.
This home, built in 1954 with money from a settlement from Southern Pacific Railroad for a train-related accident, was demolished in August 1997.
In 1950, Cassady entered into a bigamous marriage with Diane Hansen, a young model who was pregnant with his child, Curtis Hansen.
Above: Diane Hansen and Neal Cassady
Cassady traveled cross-country with both Kerouac and Ginsberg on multiple occasions, including the trips documented in Kerouac’s On the Road.
Following an arrest in 1958 for offering to share a small amount of marijuana with an undercover agent at a San Francisco nightclub, Cassady served a two-year sentence at California’s San Quentin State Prison in Marin County.
After his release in June 1960, he struggled to meet family obligations, and Carolyn divorced him when his parole period expired in 1963.
Above: San Quentin State Prison
Carolyn stated that she was looking to relieve Cassady of the burden of supporting a family, but “this was a mistake and removed the last pillar of his self-esteem“.
After the divorce, in 1963, Cassady shared an apartment with Allen Ginsberg and Beat poet Charles Plymell, at 1403 Gough Street, San Francisco.
Above: Allen Ginsberg (1926 – 1997)Above: Charles Plymell
Cassady first met author Ken Kesey during the summer of 1962.
Above: Ken Kesey (1935 – 2001)
Cassady eventually became one of the Merry Pranksters, a group that formed around Kesey in 1964, who were vocal proponents of the use of psychedelic drugs.
During 1964, Cassady served as the main driver of the bus named Furthur on the iconic first half of the journey from San Francisco to New York, which was immortalized by Tom Wolfe’s book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968).
Cassady appears at length in a documentary film about the Merry Pranksters and their cross-country trip, Magic Trip (2011), directed by Alex Gibney.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe.
The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style.
Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, who travelled across America in a colorfully painted school bus, the Furthur, whose name was painted on the destination sign, indicating the general ethos of the Pranksters.
Kesey and the Pranksters became famous for their use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD in order to achieve expansion of their consciousness.
The book chronicles the Acid Tests (parties with LSD-laced Kool-Aid), encounters with notable figures of the time (Hells Angels, the Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg) and describes Kesey’s exile to Mexico and his arrests.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is remembered as an accurate and “essential” book depicting the roots and growth of the hippie movement.
The use of New Journalism yielded two primary responses:
Amazement or disagreement.
While The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was not the original standard for New Journalism, it is the work most often cited as an example for the revolutionary style.
Wolfe’s descriptions and accounts of Kesey’s travel managed to captivate readers and permitted them to read the book as a fiction piece rather than a news story.
Those who saw the book as a literary work worthy of praise were amazed by the way Wolfe maintains control.
Despite being fully engulfed in the movement and aligned with the Prankster’s philosophy, Wolfe manages to distinguish between the realities of the Pranksters and Kesey’s experiences and the experiences triggered by their paranoia and acid trips.
Wolfe is in some key ways different from the Pranksters, because despite his appreciation for the spiritual experiences offered by the psychedelic, he also accepts the importance of the physical world.
The Pranksters see their trips as a breach of their physical worlds and realities.
Throughout the book Wolfe focuses on placing the Pranksters and Kesey within the context of their environment.
Where the Pranksters see ideas, Wolfe sees Real World objects.
As proponents of fiction and orthodox nonfiction continued to question the validity of New Journalism, Wolfe stood by the growing discipline.
Wolfe realized that this method of writing transformed the subjects of newspapers and articles into people with whom audiences could relate and sympathize.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Testreceived praise from some outlets.
Others were not as open to its effects.
A review in The Harvard Crimson identified the effects of the book, but did so without offering praise.
The review, written by Jay Cantor, who went on to literary prominence himself, provides a more moderate description of Kesey and his Pranksters.
Above: The Merry Pranksters
Cantor challenges Wolfe’s messiah-like depiction of Kesey, concluding that:
“In the end the Christ-like robes Wolfe fashioned for Kesey are much too large.
We are left with another acid-head and a bunch of kooky kids who did a few krazy things.”
Cantor explains how Kesey was offered the opportunity by a judge to speak to the masses and curb the use of LSD.
Kesey, who Wolfe idolizes for starting the movement, is left powerless in his opportunity to alter the movement.
Cantor is also critical of Wolfe’s praise for the rampant abuse of LSD.
Cantor admits the impact of Kesey in this scenario, stating that the drug was in fact widespread by 1969, when he wrote his criticism.
He questions the glorification of such drug use however, challenging the ethical attributes of reliance on such a drug, and further asserts that:
“LSD is no respecter of persons, of individuality”.
Above: Tom Wolfe (1930 – 2018)
In January 1967, Cassady traveled to Mexico with fellow prankster George “Barely Visible” Walker and Cassady’s longtime girlfriend Anne Murphy.
Above: Anne Murphy and George Walker
In a beachside house just south of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, they were joined by Barbara Wilson and Walter Cox.
All-night storytelling, speed drives in Walker’s Lotus Elan, and the use of LSD made for a classic Cassady performance — “like a trained bear,” Carolyn Cassady once said.
Cassady was beloved for his ability to inspire others to love life, yet at rare times he was known to express regret over his wild life, especially as it affected his family.
At one point, Cassady took Cox, then 19, aside and told him:
“Twenty years of fast living — there’s just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up.
Don’t do what I have done.“
During the next year, Cassady’s life became less stable, and the pace of his travels more frenetic.
He left Mexico in May, travelling to San Francisco, Denver, New York City, and points in between.
Cassady then returned to Mexico in September and October (stopping in San Antonio, on the way to visit his oldest daughter, who had just given birth to his first grandchild), visited Ken Kesey’s Oregon farm in December, and spent the New Year with Carolyn at a friend’s house near San Francisco.
Finally, in late January 1968, Cassady returned to Mexico once again.
Above: Flag of Mexico
On 3 February 1968, Cassady attended a wedding party in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Above: Images of San Miguel de Allende
After the party, he went walking along a railroad track to reach the next town, but passed out in the cold and rainy night wearing nothing but a T-shirt and jeans.
In the morning, he was found in a coma by the tracks, reportedly by Anton Black, later a professor at El Paso Community College, who carried Cassady over his shoulders to the local post office building.
Cassady was then transported to the closest hospital, where he died a few hours later on 4 February, four days short of his 42nd birthday.
The exact cause of Cassady’s death remains uncertain.
Those who attended the wedding party confirm that he took an unknown quantity of secobarbital, a powerful barbiturate sold under the brand name Seconal.
The physician who performed the autopsy wrote simply, “general congestion in all systems.”
When interviewed later, the physician stated that he was unable to give an accurate report because Cassady was a foreigner and there were drugs involved.
“Exposure” is commonly cited as his cause of death, although his widow believes he may have died of kidney failure.
Cassady is credited with helping Kerouac break with his Thomas Wolfe-influenced sentimental style, as seen in The Town and the City (1950).
After reading Cassady’s letters, Kerouac was inspired to write his story in Cassady’s communication style:
“In a rush of mad ecstasy, without self-consciousness or mental hesitation”.
This fluid writing style, reading more like a stream of consciousness or hypermanic rapid-fire conversation than written prose, is best demonstrated within Cassady’s letters to family and friends.
In a letter to Kerouac from 1953, Cassady begins with the following fervent sentence:
Well, it’s about time you wrote, I was fearing you farted out on top that mean mountain or slid under while pissing in Pismo, beach of flowers, food and foolishness, but I knew the fear was ill-founded, for balancing it in my thoughts of you, much stronger and valid if you weren’t dead, was a realization of the experiences you would be having down there, rail, home, and the most important, climate, by a remembrance of my own feelings and thoughts (former low, or more exactly, nostalgic and unreal, latter high) as, for example, I too seemed to spend time looking out upper floor windows at sparse, especially night times, traffic in females — old or young.
On the Road became a sensation.
By capturing Cassady’s voice, Kerouac discovered a unique style of his own that he called “spontaneous prose“, a stream of consciousness prose form.
Cassady’s own written work was never formally published in his lifetime, and he left behind only a half-written manuscript and a number of personal letters.
Cassady admitted to Kerouac in a letter from 1948:
“My prose has no individual style as such, but is rather an unspoken and still unexpressed groping toward the personal.
There is something there that wants to come out.
Something of my own that must be said.
Yet, perhaps, words are not the way for me.”
Above: Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac
I am in no way condoning nor condemning the use of recreational drugs, though I never relished the notion of experimenting with substances I could not predict.
I cannot claim to comprehend the Beat Generation nor its epitome Neal Cassady.
On some levels, Cassady inspired others.
On other levels, he was the antithesis of what a good man could be.
As is inevitable when writing of the lives of those such as Preseren and Cassady, my mind compares my life with theirs.
Unlike Preseren, I don’t want to be reduced to relying on the good graces of a relationship to define who I am.
Unlike Cassady and Kesey, I appreciate the spiritual within the Real World without feeling the need to escape from the latter in a Quixotic quest for the former.
I confess that writing in a stream of consciousness is not something that appeals to me, for within myself there runs a conservative cautious man who, though unafraid of what others may think of him (or so I tell myself), senses the power of prose to influence others and does not see the value in illuminating the darker nature of my thoughts.
I try to write as I try to teach:
life-affirming and compassionate
welcoming people on their merits, regardless of their sex, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, religious, or political and personal beliefs, even if they differ from my own
to support, motivate, advise, and never judge or criticize, unless harm is being done to others
respecting the significant investment made by others to assimilate what I might wish to impart
There is a certain appeal for me in the type of New Journalism that Wolfe espouses, but intermingled with a kind of reflective travel writing where I try to humanize the places I describe.
It is this mix that I am trying to emulate in this year’s blogposts, though the works that, as yet, have seen no other eyes but my own, seek to express myself in other ways.
As I sit myself down at my laptop computer and seek to capture the essence of yet another place encountered in my travels, I find myself wondering how Preseren and Cassady might have perceived them…..
St. Thomas, Ontario to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Monday 13 January 2020
Another day, another station, a halt between where I was and where I wanted to be.
Another town that is at first glance like any other town, seen by a man who at first glance appears to be a man like any other man.
The traveller, that brave intrepid soul with courage to spontaneously disembark, looks around and wonders where to begin.
There is no inkling of what might be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched, known, enjoyed and felt.
Guelph (population 131,794) is just another city in southwestern Ontario.
Like Kingston or Regina or Victoria or any number of Anglo communities in Canada, Guelph is a Royal City, roughly 28 km (17 mi) east of Kitchener and 100 km (62 mi) west of downtown Toronto, at the convergence of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wellington County Road 124.
It is the seat of Wellington County, but is politically independent of it, which already hints that there may be something different about the place.
The city is built on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Above: Modern downtown Guelph aerial view
Naming a First Nation “Credit” seems as uninspiring as naming a community “Guelph“, for neither “Credit” nor “Guelph” evoke any images that excite the imagination.
Above: Flag of Guelph
“Guelph” comes through the Italian Guelfo from the Bavarian-Germanic Welf, in reference to the House of Welf and chosen to honour King George IV — the reigning British monarch at the time of the city’s founding—whose family, the Hanoverians, descended from the Welfs.
Above: Coat of arms of the House of Welf (Brunswick-Lüneburg)Above: George IV (1762 – 1830)
It is for this reason that the city has the nickname The Royal City.
The only “royals” to actually visit were John Campbell, the Marquis of Lorne, and his wife was Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, one of Queen Victoria’s daughters.
Above: John Campbell (1845 -1914)Above: Princess Louise (1848 – 1939)
Downtown Guelph is situated above the confluence of the Speed River and the Eramosa River, which have numerous tributaries.
The Speed River enters from the north and the Eramosa River from the east.
The two rivers meet below downtown and continue southwest, where they merge with the Grand River.
There are also many creeks and smaller rivers creating large tracts of densely forested ravines, providing ideal sites for parks and recreational trails.
The city is built on several drumlins and buried waterways, the most notable being an underground creek flowing below the Albion Hotel, once the source of water used to brew beer.
This region of Ontario has cold winters and warm, humid summers.
It is generally a couple of degrees cooler here than in lower elevation regions on the Great Lakes shorelines, especially so in winter.
Above: Speed River, Guelph
Above: Eramosa River, Guelph
By European standards south of Scandanavia or beneath Alpine heights, Guelph has cold winters.
By much of the standards of the rest of Canada, Guelph’s complaints of the cold are laughable.
Above: Guelph in winter
Before colonization, the area was considered by the surrounding indigenous communities to be a “neutral zone” and was inhabited by the Neutral Nation.
According to the University of Guelph, “the area was home to a First Nations community called the Attawandaron who lived in longhouses surrounded by fields of corn“.
The majority of this Nation, about 4,000 people, lived in a village near what is now the Badenoch area of Puslinch, near Morriston, just south of downtown Guelph.
There is an odd mindset regarding the First Nations that all was love and roses amongst these peoples before white Europeans came along like serpents in Eden to create an animosity that had not previously existed.
I don’t subscribe to this point of view.
I think that rivalries existed before the white man came a-knockin’ and that their arrival simply intensified pre-existing conflicts.
Above: Indigenous peoples in modern Canada and the US
A remarkable man would begin to colonize this remarkable place.
John Galt (1779 – 1839) was a Scottish novelist, entrepreneur, and political and social commentator.
Above: John Galt
Galt has been called the first political novelist in the English language, due to being the first novelist to deal with issues of the Industrial Revolution.
Galt was the first superintendent of the Canada Company (1826-1829).
The company had been formed to populate a part of what is now southern Ontario (then known as Upper Canada) in the first half of the 19th century.
It was later called “the most important single attempt at settlement in Canadian history“.
In 1829, Galt was recalled to Great Britain for mismanagement of the Canada Company (particularly incompetent bookkeeping), and was later jailed for failing to pay his son’s tuition.
Galt’s Autobiography, published in London in 1833, includes a discussion of his life and work in Upper Canada.
Above: Bust of John Galt, downtown Guelph
There is another equally bizarre mindset among too many European-descended North Americans that this land is their land and should be defended against foreign usurpers.
The obvious irony of this belief is never acknowledged.
Born in Irvine, in Ayrshire, Scotland, Galt was the son of a naval captain involved in the West Indies trade.
John was educated at Irvine Grammar School.
Galt spent a few months with the Greenock Custom House, at age 17, then became an apprentice and junior clerk under his uncle, Mr. Ewing, also writing essays and stories for local journals in his spare time.
Above: Irvine, Scotland
He moved to London in 1804 to join his father and seek his fortune.
In 1809 he began studying law at Lincoln’s Inn (one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers (lawyers) of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar).
Above: New Hall, Lincoln’s Inn, London
During a subsequent trip to Europe, Galt met and befriended Lord Byron in Gibraltar.
He travelled with Byron and his companion, John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton to Malta.
He met them again in Greece.
Above: John Hobhouse (1786 – 1869)
Lord Byron is one of those individuals for whom I have difficulty knowing how to evaluate him, in the sense that I appreciate the talent but I am uncertain if I would have liked the person.
As he himself described:
“I am such a strange mélange of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me.“
I have no opinion about his bisexuality, but a casual glance at his life seems to suggest he went through people’s lives like a scythe through chaff.
Certainly I sympathize with his club foot and his early death, but I find myself pondering why so many artists find it difficult to live more upright lives than they do.
We admire their courage to be themselves and yet we disparage their character for having the audacity of being different.
Above: Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)
Parting company, Galt continued alone to Constantinople (Istanbul), Adrianople (Edirne) and then Sophia (Sofia).
He returned to his family home in Greenock (Scotland) via Ireland.
He then embarked to London to pursue business plans, but these did not come to fruition and he took to writing.
Galt wrote an account of his travels, (Voyages and Travels, 1812) which met with moderate success.
Can the world and humanity be ever understood without exploring as much of them as we can?
Decades later, Galt would also publish the first full biography of Lord Byron (The Life of Lord Byron, 1830).
He also published the first biography of the painter Benjamin West, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West (1820).
In 1813, Galt attempted to establish a Gibraltaran trading company, in order to circumvent Napoleon’s embargo on British trade.
However, Wellington’s victory in Spain made this no longer necessary.
Above: Aerial view of Gibraltar
I think Galt was attracted to the lives of self-determining men.
West, for example, succeeded as an artist even though he was entirely self-taught.
Above: Self-portrait, Benjamin West (1738 – 1820)
Galt then returned to London and married Elizabeth Tilloch.
They had three boys.
Above: Covent Garden, London, 1820
Let me cautiously wonder whether getting married automatically makes for a good spouse or whether being a father or mother automatically ensures being good parents.
In 1815, Galt became Secretary of the Royal Caledonian Asylum in London.
He also privately consulted in several business ventures.
Above: Royal Caledonian Asylum, 1828
The way Wikipedia places Galt’s asylum position in the same context as his other business ventures makes me wonder if the electronic encyclopedia is suggesting that Galt’s motives as asylum secretary were more mercantile than humanitarian.
Above: Logo of Wikipedia
Galt started to submit articles to Blackwood’s Magazine in late 1819, and in March 1829 he sent Blackwood the publishers the plan for The Ayrshire Legatees.
Concentrating on his writing for the next several years, Galt lived at times in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere, writing fiction and a number of school texts under the pseudonym Reverend T. Clark.
Pseudonyms puzzle me.
I can understand the need for noms de plume when wishing to express opinions that run contrary to the politics or morals of the reigning classes, but I wonder if writers such as Mark Twain would have been any less popular had their own names, like Samuel Clemens, been used to market their works.
Above: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) (1835 – 1910)
Around 1821, Galt moved his family from Greenock to Eskgrove near Musselburgh.
In addition to moving his residence frequently during this period, he also switched publishers several times, moving from Blackwood’s Magazine to Oliver and Boyd and then back again.
In 1821 Annals of the Parish was published as were two installments of The Steam Boat and he started work on the novel Sir André Wylie.
Annals of the Parish established Galt’s reputation overnight.
Few folks achieve the fame of Shakespeare or Goethe beyond their lifetimes.
Few writers see the entirety of their works garner fame within their lifetimes.
Above: William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)Above: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832)
Annals of the Parish (full title: Annals of the parish: or, The chronicle of Dalmailing; during the ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder, written by himself) is an 1821 novel of Scottish country life by John Galt.
Micah Balwhidder, considered to be the finest character created by Galt, reveals himself in the fictional first-person account to have human failings including conceit and vanity, as well as a keen interest in how the economy prospers.
The book provides a humorous and realistic account of a typical parish minister of the late 18th and early 19th century, the way of life in rural Scotland, and the social changes of the Industrial Revolution.
As Balwhidder proudly notes in his introduction, theAnnals begin with Balwhidder’s appointment as minister on 25 October 1760, the same day that King George III came to the throne, and end with 1810 when the King “was set by as a precious vessel which had received a crack or a flaw, and could only be serviceable in the way of an ornament”, and Balwhidder’s ministry ends.
Annals of the Parish, written in Scots and English, is part of a series of Scottish stories written by Galt in the 1820s, which he referred to as ‘theoretical histories’ or ‘Tales of the West’.
Perhaps the success of Galt’s Annals of the Parish can be attributed to that human need to see ourselves in the literature we read?
In his entry for 1793, Balwhidder recalls having a remarkable dream on the first night of the year, in which dead nobles and commoners rose from a graveyard to witness a mighty battle, the scene of the fighting then changing to a wasteland with a distant city around a tower with the fiery letters “Public Opinion“, a perplexing vision which appeared prophetic when he heard of the execution of Louis XVI (1754 – 1793).
In 1794, people of the parish favouring radical Jacobins emulating the reforms of the French Revolution become insolent and divided from the gentry, whose pride prevented them from showing any affability to these democrats.
Above: The execution of King Louis XVI, 21 January 1793
Revolutions have always been difficult for me to embrace, for so much bloodshed and destruction is done in the name of freedom while the tyrants toppled are often merely replaced by equally repugnant successors.
Concerned by this division, Balwhidder noted:
“A bruit and a sound about universal benevolence, philanthropy, utility, and all the other disguises with which an infidel philosophy appropriated to itself the charity, brotherly love, and welldoing inculcated by our holy religion“.
He preached to his congregation that he “thought they had more sense than to secede from Christianity to become Utilitarians, for that it would be a confession of ignorance of the faith they deserved, seeing that it was the main duty inculcated by our religion to do all in morals and manners to which the new-fangled doctrine of utility pretended.“
The term utilitarian was taken up by John Stuart Mill, whose 1861 book Utilitarianism included a footnote that, though “believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use, he did not invent the term, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt’s Annals of the Parish.”
Above: John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)
Taking the notion of utilitarianism to its extreme, dare we ask whether God made man or man made God, for dark designs under the heavens?
Sir Andrew Wylie was published in 1822.
In 1824, Galt was appointed Secretary of the Canada Company, a charter company established to aid in the colonization of the Huron Tract in Upper Canada along the eastern shore of Lake Huron.
Above: Canada Company Office, 1834
Even in days of yore the notion of escape to a better life was used as a lure to generate profits.
The area, known as the Huron Tract on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, was 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) in size and had been acquired from the Ojibwe (Chippewa) by the British government.
The company surveyed and subdivided this massive area, built roads, mills, and schools and advertised it at affordable prices to buyers in Europe.
The company then assisted in the migration of new settlers, bringing them to the area by means of a boat, which the company also owned.
Above: The Huron Tract (in yellow)
New World hopes, Old World greed?
After the Canada Company was incorporated by royal charter on 19 August 1826, Galt traveled across the Atlantic on the man-of-war HMS Romney, arriving at New York City and then travelling by road.
Sadly, soon after arriving, word was sent that his mother had suffered a stroke.
He returned to her (in Musselburgh) in 1826.
She died a few months later.
He returned to Canada in 1826.
While in Canada, Galt lived in York in Upper Canada, but located the headquarters of the Canada Company at Guelph, a town he founded in 1827.
Later that year, he co-founded the town of Goderich with Tiger Dunlop.
Above: Goderich, 1941Above: William “Tiger” Dunlop (1792 – 1848)
The community of Galt (ON) was named after him.
Above: Old Post Office, Galt (now Cambridge)
No one seems to found communities anymore.
Galt’s three sons played prominent roles in Canadian politics:
One of them, Alexander, later became one of the ‘Fathers of Confederation‘, and Canada’s first Minister of Finance.
Above: Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt (1817 – 1893)
Think of Canada as a North American British United Provinces.
Today it is difficult to imagine Canada and the United States not being the identities they are today instead of the hodge-podge of territories they once were.
Above: Map of the Eastern British Provinces in North America at the time of Canadian Confederation, 1867
During his tenure with the Canada Company, Galt ran afoul of several colonial authorities.
He was heavily criticised by his employers for his lack of basic accounting skills and failure to carry out their established policies.
This resulted in his dismissal and recall to Great Britain in 1829.
Soon after his return to Great Britain, he spent several months in King’s Bench Prison (London) for failure to pay his debts.
Above: Kings Bench Prison
One of Galt’s last novels, The Member, has political corruption as its central theme.
It remains saddening to me that the value of a man is still too often judged by the size of his assets and his management of them, rather than his character or accomplishments beyond his financial acumen.
In 1831, Galt moved to Barn Cottage in Old Brompton (London).
Despite failing health (following a trip over a tree root whilst in Canada), Galt was involved in another colonial business venture, the British American Land Company, which was formed to develop lands in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada (Québec).
Galt served as secretary but was forced to resign in December 1832 because of his health.
By this stage his spinal injury was not only crippling him but also affecting his speech and handwriting.
In 1834, he moved to Edinburgh following the publishing of his two-volume Autobiography in 1833.
It is an obsession with us mere mortals in that we wished to be remembered beyond the span of our lives.
The reality is, despite all our efforts, that if most of us are remembered at all, it shan’t be for long.
Galt here met the travel writer Harriet Pigott (1775 – 1846).
Pigott persuaded Galt to edit her Records of Real Life in the Palace and the Cottage.
She received some criticism for this as it was suspected that she was just taking advantage of Galt.
However, her unfinished biography of him which is in the Bodleian Library (Oxford) implies that it was more of mutual respect than her critics allowed.
Records of Real Life in the Palace and the Cottage had an introduction by Galt, and this three-volume work was published in 1839.
Sadly, Pigott is better remembered for suspiciously seeking Galt’s help than for the quality work she produced.
Above: Harriet Pigott
Galt retired to his old home in Greenock in August 1834 following the departure of three of his sons to Canada.
Finding the accommodation unsuitable he lived temporarily in Gourock before returning to a more comfortable house in December 1834.
Galt died on 11 April 1839.
He was buried in the family tomb of his parents in the New Burying Ground in Greenock (now called the Inverkip Street Cemetery).
Above: Final resting place of John Galt
It is an odd hobby for some to seek out the final resting places of the celebrated deceased.
Honestly, I cannot decide what respect, if any, is truly manifested by a visit to a gravesite of someone who never knew you.
And yet untold numbers flock to ghostly Gracelands and tumbledown tombs seeking some symbiosis with the Zeitgeist of the past by standing on the graves of the senseless dead.
Above: The Old Greenock Cemetery
Galt designed the town to attract settlers and farmers to the surrounding countryside.
His design intended the town to resemble a European city centre, complete with squares, broad main streets and narrow side streets, resulting in a variety of block sizes and shapes which are still in place today.
The street plan was laid out in a radial street and grid system that branches out from downtown, a technique which was also employed in other planned towns of this era, such as Buffalo, New York.
Above: Map of Buffalo, 1854 (Inset: 1804)
I have never been a fan of the grid or the radial planning of a place.
Perhaps this is what lured me out of North America:
The random chaos of the evolving Eurasian community.
Certainly there is a fear and a danger in the uncertainty of winding ways and archaic alleys, but this same fear, this same risk, offers an excitement and a serendipity that no organized metropolis can ever truly emulate.
Above: Paris
Galt constructed what was one of the first buildings in the community to house early settlers and the Canada Company office, “The Priory” (built 1828), located on the banks of the Speed River near the current River Run Centre for Performing Arts and could house up to 100 people.
Above: The Priory
The building eventually became the Canadian Pacific Railway Priory Station on the Guelph Junction Railway before it was eventually torn down and removed.
A historical plaque commemorates John Galt’s role.
Above: Guelph Railway Station
I would never classify myself as a train spotter, but I cannot deny that there is within me a great affection for train stations that no bus terminal has ever successfully imitated.
Above: Liverpool Lime Street Station’s frontage resembles a château and is the world’s oldest used terminus
The Guelph Junction Railway is a shortline railway owned by the City of Guelph and serves the city’s northwest industrial park.
The railway was the first federally chartered railwayin the Commonwealth of Nations to be owned by a municipality.
It is one of only two in all of Canada, the other being the Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway in Manitoba.
It never ceases to amuse me how we view the modern world as something that always was and always will be.
So many of us cannot imagine a world without highways carving swathes across the landscape.
So many of us cannot imagine a world before and without computers.
Perhaps this inability to picture the past handicaps our ability to imagine the future?
By the fall of 1827, 70 houses had been built, though some were primitive.
In that year, the community had hired its first police constable.
The first police station would be opened in 1856 at the Town Hall.
It was moved in 1900 to the Annex building behind the Court House.
Above: Old Town Hall, Guelph
There is a question that I, as a Canadian living abroad, am often asked:
That of what distinguishes Canadians from Americans.
Of the many long and ponderous distinctions that I could list, one that stands out revolves around law and order.
From this Canadian’s perspective, when I view how “the West was won” in our distinct nations, American settlers expanded out and the law followed, while in Canada the law went out first and settlement followed.
This one distinction, coupled with the idea of revolution versus evolution wherein the US revolted against Britain while Canada over time evolved its own self-determination, might explain our different values and attitudes towards law and order and government.
Also in 1827, the first Guelph Farmers’ Market was built.
The Market House was located in the downtown area.
The Guelph Farmers’ Market has served as a cultural and commercial anchor in downtown Guelph since the first Market House was built in 1827.
After 180 years it is still going strong and remains a popular stop on Saturday mornings for both locals and visitors.
The Guelph Farmers’ Market’s website proclaims “Buy Local – Buy Fresh“, reflecting the growing trend to “eat where you live” which is supported by local, national, international organizations and popular opinion.
The Farmers Market occupies a single building and surrounding outdoor space, housing approximately 60 vendors in winter, with numbers swelling to over 120 vendors during the summer and early fall.
Vendors at the market offer a variety of products and services, including fresh produce, baked goods, crafts, personal care products, clothing, photography and a collection of works by local artists.
The venue also plays host to a number of charitable events throughout the year.
The market currently stands at the corner of Gordon St and Waterloo Ave in what was previously the show horse barn.
It was relocated to this location in 1968.
I like farmers’ markets and bazaars, for there is something far more communal than any modern shopping mall or supermarket can offer.
As I write these words here in Eskisehir, Turkey (18 – 26 March 2021), I smile at one aspect of the little street where I have been living these past three weeks.
Every Monday, from dawn to dusk, my wee street is transformed into a farmers’ market, necessitating my squeezing between market stalls to exit my apartment building as I once again walk to work.
A two-block length is filled with the cacophony and clamour of vendors hawking their wares.
I do not know, because of my present inability to converse in Turkish, whether or not buyers and sellers barter and bargain over the prices on display.
Above: My street’s Monday market, Esksehir, Turkey
Nonetheless, there is a sense of the primal and the pleasurable in seeing fruit and vegetables stacked upon unsteady wooden tables that evokes pleasant memories of other farmers’ markets I have seen, from that of Lachute (Québec) where I spent much of my youth to the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul visited in the summer of a Turkish wedding four years ago.
Above: Lachute MarketAbove: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul
In my Canadian trip of 2020 I would later find myself visiting one of Canada’s largest malls, the (in)famous West Edmonton Shopping Mall, and I remember how sterile, how inhuman, everything felt.
I am no “Robin Sparkles” of How I Met Your Mother fame.
I will never sing “Let’s Go to the Mall“.
Above: Cobie Smulders (centre) (as Robin Sparkles)
There is a shopping mall (ES Park), a mere five minutes’ walk away from my apartment, I frequent, as little language fluency in Turkish is required to shop at the Migros supermarket there and where the Hürriyet Daily News is the only English language daily I can find in Eskisehir.
But I visit ES Park as an engineer visits a hardware store.
I go in, I find my desired purchase, I go out.
My curiosity is not drawn to the latest or the newest wares on display.
I linger not in the valley of the shadow of consumerism, for I do not feel that it is there where I belong.
Above: ES Park Shopping Mall, Eskisehir
Founded in 1827, James Hodgert’s brewery was managed by John Sleeman until he bought a property and opened the Silver Creek Brewery in 1851.
(In 1843, there were nine breweries serving the 700 people living in Guelph.)
Here begins a quirk about Guelph that becomes curiouser and curiouser over time.
One would think that a place with so many breweries would be a far more turbulent town than it has been and yet Guelph unexpectedly defies this kind of preconception.
Above: Stone Hammer Brewing (1995 – 2018
The first Board of Commerce also started in 1827, to stimulate economic growth.
In 1866, it would be renamed the Board of Trade, and in 1919, it became the Chamber of Commerce.
In order to eliminate the need for farmers to take their grain to Galt or Dundas for grinding, the Canada Company built the first grist mill.
The Guelph Mill was sold to William Allen in 1832.
Above: The Spring Mill Distellery, part of Allan’s Mill, Guelph
Waxing poetic about a mill is a skill I have yet to acquire.
Allan’s Mill was a mill located on both banks of the Speed River in Guelph.
Part of the site is now listed under the Ontario Heritage Act.
The first industrial establishment in Guelph, the original wooden mill was built in 1830 for the Canada Company by Horace Perry, who sited it on the west (right) bank of the Speed River.
Above: Allan’s Mill
(Lest there be confusion, let us not imagine that the Speed River is a misplaced Parisian Seine!)
Above: Speed River, Guelph
The mill was sold to William Allan in 1832, who operated it as a grist and flour mill.
By 1836, the mill complex was expanded on both sides of the river to include a distillery, a brewery, and a woolcarding house operated by William and his son David Allan.
Around 1850, the original wooden structure was removed and replaced with one made of limestone, and a bridge was added across the river, connecting the two halves of the mill.
Old reports state that the new grist mill building had cylindrical turrets, such as those found in Scotland.
The distillery sold large quantities of whisky and other spirits.
Around 1877, the Allan family sold the mill to David Spence of Brantford.
It remained in operation as a flour mill until a series of fires gutted the building.
Everything burns.
The site on the west bank of the River later became home to several industries, including the Flexible Conduit Company (later the Dalyte Electric Co.) which occupied the site between 1909 and 1929.
In the 1960s, the site was home to a feed and seed business and a plastics firm, until the buildings were destroyed by fire in 1966.
The ruins of the stone building are now a part of Guelph’s Heritage Park.
Yes, everything burns.
On the east bank of the river, the Arthur Street building which had previously housed the distillery became home to a variety of companies:
It first housed the McCrae Woollen Company until 1900 when the A.R. Woodyatt (later Taylor-Forbes) foundry purchased the site.
Taylor-Forbes occupied the site until its 1955 bankruptcy.
The site was sold to the W. C. Wood Company and was then used to manufacture appliances until the business was shut down in 2010.
After a period of brownfield restoration, construction began in 2014 on The Metalworks, a new condominium apartment complex on the site of the old W. C. Wood factory.
In 2019, as part of the Metalworks development, the Spring Mill Distillery was opened on the site, occupying the same building originally built for the Allan Distillery nearly two centuries before.
A sawmill was erected in 1833 by Charles Julius Mickle, originally from Scotland, on the Marden Creek which runs into the Speed River.
Its ruin survives today.
The Mickle family also built a home nearby, a year earlier.
Both properties were off what is now Highway 6, an area that was Guelph Township at the time.
In 1831, Guelph had approximately 800 residents.
For several years, the economy of the village suffered and some residents moved away.
Relief came in the form of wealthy immigrants from England and Ireland who arrived in 1832.
The Smith’s Canadian Gazetteer of 1846 indicates that the town had a jail and court house made of cut stone, a weekly newspaper, five churches/chapels and a population of 1,240 – most were from England and Scotland with a few from Ireland.
In addition to many tradesmen, the community had 15 stores, seven taverns, and some industry, tanneries, breweries, distilleries and a starch factory.
The Post Office was receiving mail daily.
And now we live in an age where the Post Office is becoming increasingly obsolete.
Guelph was incorporated as a town in 1855 and the first mayor elected was John Smith.
Above: Mayor John Smith?
Despite optimism, the population growth was very slow until the Grand Trunk Railway reached it from Toronto, en route to Sarnia, in 1856.
The town was also served soon thereafter by the Great Western Railway branch from Harrisburg.
Above: Map of Guelph, 1855
It is pure folly the way the name of John Smith makes me think of David Tennant’s time as the BBC Doctor Who character, especially the episodes where he travels to Scotland of Queen Victoria’s day and England just prior to WW1 (Tooth and Claw / Human Nature – The Family of Blood).
John Smith was often the Tenth Doctor’s alias.
I can somehow picture Tennant as the Town of Guelph’s first mayor.
Above: David Tennant as the Doctor
In 1856, the village of Guelph became a town.
Two years later, the population was estimated at 4,500, up from 2,000 in 1853.
The first city hall, now called the Old City Hall, was built in 1856 of Guelph stone.
The building contained a market house, offices and an assembly hall.
Modifications were made in 1870, 1875 and 1961.
The building is now used as the Provincial Offences Courthouse, which handles matters such as traffic tickets, trespassing and liquor license violations.
Above: Guelph City Hall, 1920
The new Guelph City Hall opened in 2009 beside the older building, which was declared a National Historic Site in 1984.
The national document refers to the historic building as being “in the Italian Renaissance Revival style“.
Above: New City Hall, Guelph
Two very successful major mills operated in Guelph for many years in the 1800s.
The first was the aforementioned Allan’s Mill.
In 2019, the current John Sleeman reinstated the Spring Mill Distillery on the site which also includes a condominium apartment complex.
Though my days of drinking gluten-laden beer are past me now, I still vividly and warmly recall the taste of a Sleeman’s beer.
The more recent business, a sawmill known as the Goldie Mill, was also on the Speed.
This building was constructed in 1866 by James Goldie, replacing an earlier mill known as the Wellington Mill and later as the People’s Mill.
The property, a ruin, was listed on the Canadian Register as a historic place in 2009.
Goldie was a perennial Conservative candidate for the riding of Wellington South and his son Thomas Goldie was mayor of Guelph from 1891 to 1892.
Above: James Goldie (1824 – 1912)
The limestone Goldie mill structure was damaged by fire in 1953 and a part of it was removed in 1969.
The remaining part still stands today, in Goldie Mill Park at Cardigan Street and London Road East.
The ruins, owned by the Grand River Conservation Authority, were stabilized in 2020 to solve a problem created by sinkholes.
Above: Goldie Mill Ruins
Nature is always baying at the door.
The Grand River provided transportation, water supply, and waterpower attracting settlement to the valley in the 19th century.
The combined deforestation and urban settlement aggravated flood and drought conditions.
Perhaps as man creates his own hell, there is also hope that he may one day create his own heaven?
A main part of the Grand River’s course flows through the Carolinian life zone, which contains a southern type of forest that is found only in this area of Canada.
A wide variety of rare plants and animals are found here.
Above: Canada warbler (Cardellina canadensis) who use the Carolinian forests as their breeding grounds.
Which mostly go unnoticed as we rush past them in our automobiles and train wagons….
The water quality in the river started to deteriorate to the point where it was a major public health concern.
To deal with these problems, a group of eight municipalities came together in 1934 to form the Grand River Conservation Commission.
The Commission completed the Shand Dam, the first multi-purpose dam in Canada, in 1942.
It was built for flood control and the low flow augmentation to improve water quality during the dry summer months.
The Commission also started planting trees to re-vegetate the landscape along the river.
Prior to World War II, renewable natural resources were exploited to encourage economic and industrial expansion and growth.
As a result of public concern over the state of the environment in Ontario, the Province passed the Conservation Authorities Act, 1946.
The Act was based on three main principles:
Initiative for the establishment and support of a conservation authority must come from the local people (all watershed municipalities).
The best unit for dealing with renewable resource conservation is the watershed.
If initiative and support were shown locally, the Ontario government would provide technical advice and financial assistance in the form of grants.
The Grand River Conservation Authority is a corporate body established to enable municipalities to jointly undertake water and natural resource management on a watershed basis – for the benefit of all.
The broad goal of all conservation authorities in Ontario is specified in Section 20 of the Conservation Authorities Act:
The objects of the Authority are to establish and undertake in the area over which it has jurisdiction, a program designed to further the conservation, restoration, development and management of natural resources other than gas, oil, coal and minerals.
Under the terms of the Act, the Grand Valley Conservation Authority was formed in 1948.
This allowed all watershed municipalities to work collaboratively to address a broad range of resource management issues.
The practicality of two conservation organizations operating in the same watershed was closely scrutinized in the 1960s.
To avoid potential conflict over roles and responsibilities and to eliminate duplication of programs the Grand River Conservation Authority was established in 1966 through the amalgamation of the Grand River Conservation Commission and the Grand Valley Conservation Authority.
I am reminded of the 1990s Canadian group Moxy Früvous’s song River Valley:
Above: Moxy Früvous (1989 – 2001) (left to right: Dave Matheson, Jian Ghomeshi, Murray Foster, Mike Ford)
Who will save the river valley? That’s my drinking water This was once a sacred place, now look at what we’ve got here I’ll pretend there isn’t any problem, just do my job And if I don’t like the standard of living, go move to Russia
Me and Pete went swimming last night, he’s my friend from Boy Scouts All the fish were floating upright, we got scared, and we got out Mother says don’t play down where your father does his job He’s got to make a living, or move to Russia
This is my world, this is my world, don’t let it go away Is it a crime, spending my time, dreaming of yesterday?
Meet me in the river valley, you can tell me stories ‘Bout a time before pinstripe suits, dippers, Grits and Tories
My mother sang the songs her mother taught her And we’d be swimming off in cool, cool water And when she’d call us from the yard Running home it felt like God
This is my world Don’t take it away
Is your favourite place controlled by developing ambitions? Do you think you’ll have some power signing a petition? Are you fine with your surroundings? Are they gonna crumble? I’m living in the river valley, come and join me for a tumble
High up above, see the cars up on the viaduct From sunrise to the last call – they push their luck And that would be fine If the world was yours, and you were mine
Who will save the river valley? (this is my world) Who will save the river valley? (this is my world) Who will save the river valley? (this is my world)
Who will save the river valley?
The board of the Guelph General Hospital was incorporated in 1861, with James Massie as the chairman.
The building was completed in 1875, at the cost of $9,869, and opened on August 16, 1875, with 2 beds, a small infectious room and a dispensary.
Guelph General Hospital is a medical care facility, a 165-bed facility employing 224 doctors among a total staff of about 1,200.
Prior to cutbacks in the 2008/2009 fiscal year, the hospital operated 181 beds.
This hospital rated as one of the safest in Canada in terms of the hospital standardized mortality ratio (the lower the better) at 78 in 2017, compared to the national average of 91.
By comparison, Cambridge Memorial Hospital had a score of 95.
Also in 2017, the facility was among the best in Ontario in terms of wait times at the emergency department.
Which, of course, begs the question why is the Guelph General Hospital so much safer than other hospitals?
St. Joseph’s Health Centre was previously a hospital, but is now a 240-bed long-term care home with a 91-bed specialty unit for complex continuing, rehabilitation and palliative care.
Various outpatient services are also provided at this facility.
Another major facility, Homewood Health Centre offers treatment for mental health and addiction issues.
The facility was founded in 1883 by the Homewood Retreat Association of Guelph as “a private asylum for the Insane and an Asylum for Inebriates” on a 19-acre property which included the Donald Guthrie house.
The first patients were admitted in December of that year.
Homewood grew to a 312-bed mental and behavioural health facility and also formed a partnership with R.B. Schlegel Holdings Inc.to operate Oakwood Retirement Communities Inc., a long-term care facility.
Keep this mental health and addiction info in your mind…..
The Gothic Revival style Roman Catholic church on Norfolk Street, called the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate since 8 December 2014, was built between 1876 and 1888.
When John Galt founded Guelph on 23 April 1827, he allocated the highest point in the centre of the newly founded town to Roman Catholics as a compliment to his friend, Bishop Alexander Macdonell, who had given him advice in the formation of the Canada Company.
Above: Bishop Alexander Macdonell (1762 – 1840)
A road was also later cleared leading up to the hill and named after the Bishop, called Macdonell Street.
According to the Guelph Public Library archives, Galt wrote the following statement in the deed transferring the land on which the Church of Our Lady would one day stand:
“On this hill would one day rise a church to rival St. Peter’s in Rome.”
Above: Church of Our Lady, Guelph
Is there a prize for such a competiton?
Less time spent in Purgatory?
Better mansions in Heaven if better churches on Earth?
Above: Inscription on the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome: Indulgentia plenaria perpetua quotidiana toties quoties pro vivis et defunctis (“Perpetual everyday plenary indulgence on every occasion for the living and the dead“)
The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Immaculate is the 3rd church to stand on this site, high above the streetscape, overlooking the city of Guelph.
The first church, a framed wooden church named St. Patrick’s, had been built on the hill by 1835 and was the first structure in Guelph that was painted on both its interior and exterior.
It burned to the ground on 10 October 1844.
Construction on St. Bartholomew’s Church began shortly after St. Patrick’s was destroyed.
The new building was completed in 1846.
The following inscription appeared on the cornerstone of St. Bartholomew’s Church:
“To God, the best and greatest.
The faithful of Guelph, of the diocese of Toronto have built this new Church, in honour of the blessed Apostle Bartholomew, the first church having been consumed in flames.”
Construction of the new church, based on the Cologne Cathedral, was accomplished between 1876 and 1888 by architect Joseph Connolly and is considered Connolly’s best work.
The monumental church contains decorative carving and stained glass executed by skilled craftsmen.
The design was inspired by the medieval cathedrals of France, and includes twin towers, a large rose window, pointed windows and an interior design where the chapels radiate from the polygonal apse.
Matthew Bell, a well-known Guelph artisan, was responsible for some of the carvings on the exterior as well as on the interior pillars of the church.
He died in 1883 as a result of injuries sustained in a fall while working on the building.
In 1888, almost 12 years after construction commenced, the church was dedicated to Our Lady Immaculate.
The twin towers, which rise to a height of over 200 feet (61 m), were not completed until 13 November 1926.
The completed church stands at the head of MacDonell Street as an imposing view terminus.
In 1958, the parish added a new entrance from Macdonell Street, but aside from this, the exterior appearance has changed little since 1926.
The complete construction of the church took more than 50 years, probably qualifying it as the longest construction project in the city’s history.
The 100th anniversary was celebrated on 10 October 1988.
The Church of Our Lady is one of the 122 parishes in the Diocese of Hamilton and currently has 2,600 families in the congregation.
In 1990, the Church was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Pope Francis designated the Church a Basilica on 8 December 2014.
Above: Pope Francis
I confess to some confusion.
If God created the heavens and the Earth in all their majesty, then isn’t it a wee bit arrogant to believe that God can be contained within a manmade structure regardless of its garishness?
The city of Guelph is mostly Christian (61.8%), almost evenly split among Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The largest non-Christian religion is Islam (2.6%), followed by Buddhism (1.9%), Hinduism (1.5%) and Sikhism (1.0%).
In 2017, Scientology Canada announced it would move its Canadian headquarters to Guelph.
Some residents protested the plan.
The facility was opened in the autumn of the year at 40 Baker Street.
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement.
Above: L. (Lafayette) Ron Hubbard (1911 – 1986)
It has been variously defined as a cult, a business and a new religious movement.
Hubbard initially developed a set of ideas, which he represented as a form of therapy, called Dianetics.
This he promoted through various publications, and through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, which he established in 1950.
The foundation soon entered bankruptcy, and Hubbard lost the rights to his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1952.
He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of “auditing” (a process whereby the auditor takes an individual through times in their current or past lives with the purpose of ridding the individual of negative influences from past events or behaviours).
I agree with Canadian comedian Lorne Elliot who found it fascinating that those who claim to be descended from or previously lived former lives tend to say that they are descended from royalty, while no one rushes to claim their genetic or spiritual heritage as that as Clive the Goat Boy or Karen the Camp Follower of the War Of Jenkin’s Ear.
Do we really need relics of the past to define who we are today?
Above: Lorne Elliott
Within a year, Hubbard regained the rights to Dianetics and retained both subjects under the umbrella of the Church of Scientology.
Scientology followers believe that a human is an immortal, spiritual being (Thetan) that is resident in a physical body.
The Thetan has had innumerable past lives and it is observed in advanced (and – within the movement – secret) Scientology texts that lives preceding the Thetan’s arrival on Earth were lived in extraterrestrial cultures.
Above: The Founding Church of Scientology, Washington DC
Is this really more far-fetched than the Christian notion of Heaven and Hell or the Indian idea of reincarnation?
Above: Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven aboveAbove: Illustration of reincarnation in Hindu art
Scientology doctrine states that any Scientologist undergoing auditing will eventually come across and recount a common series of events.
Above: Church of Scientology, Los Angeles
Perhaps the idea that we all share a common humanity?
Hubbard described the etymology of the word “Scientology” as coming from the Latin word scio, meaning “know or distinguish“, and the Greek word logos, meaning “the word or outward form by which the inward thought is expressed and made known“.
Hubbard wrote that “Scientology means knowing about knowing, or the science of knowledge“.
Above: Scientology Mexico
Sadly, I don’t know what it is that I don’t know.
From soon after their formation, Hubbard’s groups have generated considerable opposition and controversy, in some instances due to their illegal activities.
In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners brought proceedings against the Dianetic Research Foundation on the charge of teaching medicine without a license.
During the 1970s Hubbard’s followers engaged in a program of criminal infiltration of the US government, resulting in several executives of the organization being convicted and imprisoned for multiple offenses by a US Federal Court.
In 1992, a court in Canada convicted the Scientology organization in Toronto of spying on law enforcement and government agencies, and criminal breach of trust, later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
The Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud by a French court in 2009, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013.
The Church of Scientology has been described by government inquiries, international parliamentary bodies, scholars, law lords, and numerous superior court judgements as both a dangerous cult and a manipulative profit-making business.
Germany classifies Scientology groups as an “anti-constitutional sect“, while in France the government classify the group as a dangerous cult.
Above: Hubbard conducting a Dianetics seminar in Los Angeles in 1950
Apparently, it is easier to found a religion than a community these days.
I cannot say that I have ever been remotely curious about Scientology, but I think I can comprehend a community’s reluctance to have this contentious congregation as part of its religious ranks.
Above: Scientology Canada HQ, Guelph
For those keeping track, we have an inordinate amount of breweries, mentally unwell and addicts, and Scientologists in Guelph…..
Above: Guelph
By 1869, the community’s manufacturing companies were served by both the Grand Trunk Railway and the Great Western Railway.
The first section of the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway, between Guelph and Elora, opened in 1870.
The line would eventually run as far as Southampton (ON), with stations in communities such as Palmerston, Harriston, Listowel and Wingham.
The company was not very successful, and never did reach Owen Sound as planned, partly because of stiff competition from the Northern Railway of Canada as well as the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway.
By the mid 1870s, the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Railway was in financial trouble.
It eventually became part of the Grand Trunk system, and later, the Canadian National Railway.
By January 1871, some residents of the town had access to gas, provided by the Guelph Gas Company via pipes, initially to about 100 homes.
Electricity would not become commonly available until the early 1900s, from the Guelph Light and Heat Commission.
An 1877 plan to start the Guelph Street Railway, using horse-drawn vehicles to deliver freight and passengers within Guelph, never came to fruition.
How the world forgets that the railroad was once an amazing innovation in its day before the automobile became part and parcel of our civilization!
A poor house with a farm, the Wellington County House of Industry and Refuge, opened in December 1877 in a rural area near Guelph.
Many orphans from Guelph were admitted.
The building still stands, as the Wellington County Museum and Archives.
Above: Wellington County Museum and Archives, Guelph
Along with breweries, Scientologists, the mentally ill and the addicted, Guelph has also had the destitute and the orphan, and yet…..
Above: Guelph
Guelph was incorporated as a city in 1879 with a Special Act of the Ontario Legislature.
At this time, Guelph became politically separated from Wellington County and was no longer represented on the Wellington County Council.
At separation, the population was about 10,000.
Above: Coat of arms of Guelph
Another Guelphian quirk:
The seat of the County is in the City, which is not considered part of the County.
By 1886, telephones were quite common in the city.
An April news article described the situation as follows.
“Telephones are rapidly being introduced into private homes, where they prove a great convenience.
Ladies order their groceries, consult their medical advisers, call their husbands home from the club and gossip with their friends by telephone.”
Some things change over time, some things do not.
In 1903 the City purchased the Guelph Light & Power Company, and four years later created the Board of Light and Heat Commissioners.
Guelph was one of 13 municipalities that helped to create the provincial entity that became Ontario Hydro.
Above: Logo of Ontario Hydro (1906 – 1999)
“Let there be light!“
The Canadian Communist Party began as an illegal organization in a barn behind a farmhouse on Metcalfe Street in Guelph in 1921.
Above: Logo of the Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada (French: Parti communiste du Canada) is a communist party in Canada founded in 1921 under conditions of illegality.
Although it is now a federal political party without any parliamentary representation, the party’s candidates have been elected to the Parliament of Canada, the Ontario Legislature, the Manitoba Legislature and various municipal governments across the country.
The party has also contributed significantly to trade union organizing and labour history in Canada, peace and anti-war activism, and many other social movements.
Above: Parliament Hill, Ottawa
The Communist Party of Canada is the second oldest active party after the Liberal Party of Canada.
In 1993 the party was de-registered and had its assets seized, forcing it to begin a successful thirteen-year political and legal battle to maintain registration of small political parties in Canada.
The campaign culminated with the final decision of Figueroa v. Canada, changing the legal definition of a political party in Canada.
Despite its continued presence as a registered political party, the CPC places the vast majority of its emphasis on extra-parliamentary activity that it calls “the labour and people’s movements“, as reflected in its programme “Canada’s future is socialism“.
The Canadian Communist Party began as an illegal organization in a barn behind a farmhouse (owned by Elizabeth Farley) at Metcalf Street, then in the “outskirts” of the city of Guelph, during meetings held between 23 May and 25 May 1921.
An RCMP officer, working undercover, attended the meetings.
His report states that delegates attended from “Winnipeg, Vancouver, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal, Sudbury and Regina” and that Russia had offered to provide funding for the group.
In addition to Guelph resident Fred Farley, a member of the United Communist Party of America, the attendees named in the RCMP report included Thomas J. Bell (a lithographer born in Ireland), Lorne Cunningham (an alderman), Trevor Maguire (one of the few in the group who was born in Canada) and Florence Custance (a teacher from Toronto).
The group was “incessantly praising the Soviet government of Russia, and urging the overthrow of the government of Canada“, according to the police report.
Above: The first meeting place of the Communist Party of Canada
Many of its founding members had worked as labour organizers and as anti-war activists and had belonged to groups such as the Socialist Party of Canada, One Big Union, the Socialist Labour Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and other socialist, Marxist or Labour parties or clubs and organizations.
The first members felt inspired by the Russian Revolution, and radicalized by the negative aftermath of World War I and the fight to improve living standards and labour rights, including the experience of the Winnipeg General Strike (15 May – 26 June 1919).
Above: Winnipeg General Strike, 21 June 1919
The Comintern accepted the party affiliation as its Canadian section in December 1921, and thus it adopted a similar organizational structure and policy to Communist parties around the world.
The party alternated between legality and illegality during the 1920s and 1930s.
Because of the War Measures Act in effect at its time of creation, the party operated as the “Workers’ Party of Canada” in February 1922 as its public face, and in March began publication of a newspaper, The Worker.
When Parliament allowed the War Measures Act to lapse in 1924, the underground organization was dissolved and the party’s name was changed to the Communist Party of Canada.
Above: Logo of the Comintern
The party’s first actions included establishing a youth organization, the Young Communist League of Canada, and solidarity efforts with the Soviet Union.
Above: Logo of the Young Communist League of CanadaAbove: Flag of the Soviet Union / USSR (1955 – 1991)
By 1923 the party had raised over $64,000 for the Russian Red Cross, a very large sum of money at that time.
It also initiated a Canadian component of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) which quickly became an organic part of the labour movement with active groups in 16 of 60 labour councils and in mining and logging camps.
Above: March 1923 issue of The Labor Herald, official organ of the Trade Union Educational League
By 1925 party membership stood at around 4,500 people, composed mainly of miners and lumber workers, and of railway, farm, and garment workers.
Most of these people came from immigrant communities like Finns and Ukrainians.
The party, working with the TUEL, played a role in many bitter strikes and difficult organizing drives, and in support of militant industrial unionism.
From 1922 to 1929, the provincial wings of the WPC/CPC also affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party, another expression of the CPC’s “united front” strategy.
The CLP operated as a federated labour party.
The CPC came to lead the CLP organization in several regions of the country, including Quebec, and did not run candidates during elections.
Above: Logo of the Canadian Labour Party
The CLP itself, however, never became an effective national organization.
The Communists withdrew from the CLP in 1929 following a shift in Comintern policy, as the organization folded.
From 1927 to 1929, the party went through a series of policy debates and internal ideological struggles in which advocates of the ideas of Leon Trotsky, as well as proponents of what the party called “North American Exceptionism“, were expelled.
Above: Leon Trotsky (1879 – 1940)
Expellees included Maurice Spector, the editor of the party’s paper The Worker and party chairman, and Jack MacDonald (who had supported Spector’s expulsion) who resigned as the party’s general secretary for factionalism, and was expelled.
Above: Maurice Spector (1898 – 1968)
The Secretary of the Women’s Bureau and later, general editor of the Woman Worker (1926–1929) Florence Custance was only saved from expulsion from the Party due to her untimely death in 1929.
Her feminism and advocacy of birth control, for example, were well known to the mainstream press, but her radical contemporaries questioned her political sympathies and gave her few chances to shine.
MacDonald, also sympathetic to Trotskyist ideas, joined Spector in founding the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) Canada, which formed part of Trotsky’s so-called Fourth International Left Opposition.
The party also expelled supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and of Jay Lovestone’s Right Opposition, such as William Moriarity (1890 – 1936).
Above: Nikolai Bukharin (1888 – 1938)Above: Jay Lovestone (1897 – 1990)
The communists disagreed over strategy, tactics, the socialist identity of the Soviet Union, and over Canada’s status as an imperialist power.
While some communists like J.B. Salsberg expressed sympathy with these positions, after debates that dominated party conventions for a couple of years by the early 1930s, the vast majority of members had decided to continue with the party.
The stock market crash in late 1929 signalled the beginning of a long and protracted economic crisis in Canada and internationally.
Above: A solemn crowd gathers outside the New York Stock Exchange after the crash, 25 October 1929
The crisis quickly led to widespread unemployment, poverty, destitution, and suffering among working families and farmers.
Above: Unemployed men march in Toronto
The general election of 1930 brought to power the R.B. Bennett Conservative government who attacked the labour movement and established “relief camps” for young unemployed men.
Above: Richard Bedford (R.B.) Bennett (1870 – 1947)
The CPC was the only party to make a systemic critique of the Depression as an alleged crisis of capitalism.
It was also the first political party in Canada to call for the introduction of unemployment insurance, a national health insurance scheme, making education universally accessible, social and employment assistance to youth, labour legislation including health and safety regulations, regulation of the working day and holidays, a minimum wage for women and youth, and state-run crop insurance and price control for farmers.
In 1931, eight of the CPC’s leaders were arrested and imprisoned under Section 98 of Canada’s Criminal Code, which outlawed advocacy of force or violence to bring about political change.
The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization.
In 1934 a massive campaign pushed back against the imprisonment, which many characterized as political repression of the party.
The prisoners were released.
On the release of Tim Buck (1891 – 1973) from prison, a mass rally attended by an overflow crowd of over 17,000 supporters and sympathizers was held in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens.
Above: Tim Buck (left) and others, Dominion Communist – Labour Total War Committee meeting, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, 13 October 1942
Although the party was banned, it organized large mass organizations such as the Workers’ Unity League (WUL), and the Canadian Labour Defence League that played an important role in historic strikes like that of miners in Estevan, Saskatchewan.
From 1933 to 1936, the WUL led 90% of the strikes in Canada.
Already, conditions had taught social democrats, reformists, and the communists important lessons of cooperation.
In 1934, in accordance with the re-examined position of the Comintern, the CPC adopted a strategy and tactics based on a united front against fascism.
Above: The fasces – a symbol of fascism
In the prairies, Communists organized the Farmers Unity League, which mobilized against farm evictions.
They rallied hundreds or thousands of farmers into demonstration Hunger Marches that encountered police brutality.
In 1936, James Litterick was elected as an MLA for Winnipeg, the first CPC member to be elected to Manitoba’s legislature.
Above: James Litterick (1901 – 1943?)
Party members were also active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO) attempt to unionize the auto and other industrial sectors including Steelworkers, the Canadian Seamen’s Union, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, the International Woodworkers of America, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.
Among the poor and unemployed, Communists organized groups like the left-wing Workers Sports Association, one of the few ways that working-class youth had access to recreational programmes.
The Relief Camp Workers’ Union and the National Unemployed Workers Association played significant roles in organizing the unskilled and the unemployed in protest marches and demonstrations and campaigns, such as the “On to Ottawa Trek” and the 1938 Vancouver Post Office sit-down strike.
Above: Relief Projects No. 62: Road construction at Kimberly-Wasa, British ColumbiaAbove: Strikers of the On-to-Ottawa TrekAbove: 1938 Vancouver Post Office Sit-Down Strike
Internationally, the party initiated the mobilization of the over 1,500-person Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (1937 – 1938) to fight in the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) as part of the International Brigade.
Above: Mackenzie – Papineau Battalion Monument, OttawaAbove: Images of the Spanish Civil WarAbove: Emblem of the International Brigades
Among the leading Canadian Communists involved in that effort was Dr. Norman Bethune (1890 – 1939), who is known for his invention of a mobile blood transfusion unit, early advocacy of Medicare in Canada, and work with the Communist Party of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 – 1945).
Above: Dr. Norman Bethune (left) in ChinaAbove: Canadian Blood Transfusion Unit which operated during the Spanish Civil War. Dr Norman Bethune is to the right
Solidarity efforts for the Spanish Civil War and many labour and social struggles during the Depression resulted in much cooperation between members of the CPC and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF).
After 1935, the CPC advocated electoral alliances and unity with the CCF on key issues.
The proposal was debated in the CCF, with the 1936 BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan conventions generally supporting cooperation while the Ontario convention opposed.
While the motion was defeated at that Parties third federal convention, the Communists continued to call for a united front.
The call was particularly urgent in Quebec, where in 1937 the Duplessis government passed “an act to protect Québec against communist propaganda” giving the police the power to padlock any premises used by “communists” (which was undefined in the legislation).
Above: Maurice Duplessis (1890 – 1959)
Although the Communist Party had worked hard to warn Canadians about what it considered to be a growing fascist danger, after some debate the Party saw the opening of World War II not as an anti-fascist war but a battle between capitalist nations.
Most likely this conclusion was supported by the policies of the big powers.
Many voices in the British establishment, for example, called loudly for support of Adolf Hitler against the USSR.
Above: Adolf Hitler
Meanwhile, having failed in reaching agreement with Britain and other world powers, the USSR signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, to bide time before an inevitable war between the two.
Above: Russia’s Vyacheslav Molotov and Germany’s Joachim von Ribbentrop after the Pact was signed, 23 August 1939
The Communist Party’s opposition to World War II led to it being banned under the Defence of Canada Regulations of the War Measures Act in 1940 shortly after Canada entered into the war.
In many cases Communist leaders were interned in camps, long before fascists.
As growing numbers of Communist Party leaders were interned, some members went underground or exile in the United States.
Conditions in the camps were harsh.
A civil rights campaign was launched by the wives of many of the interned men for family visits and their release.
With Germany’s 1941 invasion of the USSR and the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the party argued that the nature of the war had changed to a genuine anti-fascist struggle.
The CPC reversed its opposition to the war and argued the danger to the working class on the international level superseded its interests nationally.
During the Conscription Crisis of 1944, the banned CPC set up “Tim Buck Plebiscite Committees” across the country to campaign for a “yes” vote in the national referendum on conscription.
Following the vote, the committees were renamed the Dominion Communist-Labour Total War Committee and urged full support for the war effort, a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war and increased industrial production.
The National Council for Democratic Rights was also established with A.E. Smith as chair in order to rally for the legalization of the Communist Party and the release of Communists and anti-fascists from internment.
Above: Albert Edward (A.E.) Smith (1871 – 1947)
The party’s first elected Member of Parliament (MP) was Dorise Nielsen (1902 – 1980).
Nielsen was elected in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1940 under the popular front Progressive Unity label, with the support of many CCF individuals.
Nielsen kept her membership in the party a secret until 1943.
The Communist Party remained banned, but with the entry of the Soviet Union into the war and the eventual release of the Canadian party’s interned leaders, Canadian Communists founded the Labour-Progressive Party (LPP) in 1943 as a legal front and thereafter ran candidates under that name until 1959.
At its height in the mid-1940s, the party had 14 sitting elected officials at the federal, provincial and municipal level.
In 1945, Igor Gouzenko (1919 – 1982), a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy, defected to Canada alleging several Canadian communists were operating a spy ring which provided the Soviet Union with top secret information.
The (Justice Roy) Kellock- (Justice Robert) Taschereau Commission was called by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to investigate the matter.
This led to the convictions of Fred Rose and other communists.
Above: Roy Kellock (1893 – 1975)Above: Robert Tascherau (1896 – 1970)Above: William Lyon Mackenzie King (1875 – 1950)Above: Fred Rose (1907 – 1983)
Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 Secret Speech exposing the crimes of Joseph Stalin and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary shook the faith of many Communists around the world.
Above: Nikita Khrushchev (1894 – 1971) on Time 1953 magazine coverAbove: O kulcie jednostki i jego następstwach (On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences), Warsaw, March 1956, first edition of “the Secret Speech“, published for the inner use in the Polish United Workers Party. CIA Director Allen Dulles remembered how “the speech, never published in the USSR., was of great importance for the Free World. Eventually the text was found – but many miles from Moscow, where it had been delivered. I have always viewed this as one of the major coups of my tour of duty in intelligence.”Above: Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953)Above: Soviet tanks in Budapest, 31 October 1956
As well, the party was riven by a crisis following the return of prominent party member J.B. Salsberg from a trip to the Soviet Union where he found rampant party-sponsored antisemitism.
Salsberg reported his findings but they were rejected by the party, which suspended him from its leading bodies.
The crisis resulted in the departure of the United Jewish Peoples’ Order (UJPO), Salsberg, Robert Laxer and most of the party’s Jewish members in 1956.
Many, perhaps most, members of the Canadian party left, including a number of prominent party members.
In the mid-1960s the US State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 3,500.
The Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party.
Above: During the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovaks carry their national flag past a burning tank in Prague, 1 January 1968
Many women were likewise deterred from engaging with Canadian Communism as the Party was somewhat resistant to their politics.
The Party may have countered that the discussions of sex, gender, and women’s politics held the potential to veer away from the overarching goal of class revolution, for example, many radical women recalled the hypocrisy of Party men who refused to discuss sex despite carrying on numerous extramarital affairs.
The party was also active in indigenous people’s struggles.
For example, James P. Brady and Malcom Norris were founders of the Metis Associations of Saskatchewan and Alberta in the 1940s and 1950s.
In common with most communist parties, the CPC went through a crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and subsequently split.
Under then general secretary George Hewison (1988–1991), the leadership of the CPC and a segment of its general membership began to abandon Marxism–Leninism as the basis of the Party’s revolutionary perspective, and ultimately moved to liquidate the Party itself, seeking to replace it with a left, social democratic entity.
Above: George Hewison
The protracted ideological and political crisis created much confusion and disorientation within the ranks of the Party, and paralysed both its independent and united front work for over two years.
The Hewison-led majority in the Central Committee (CC) of the party voted to abandon Marxism–Leninism.
An orthodox minority in the CC, led by Miguel Figueroa, Elizabeth Rowley and former leader William Kashtan, resisted this effort.
At the 28th Convention in the fall of 1990, the Hewison group managed to maintain its control of the Central Committee of the CPC, but by the spring of 1991, the membership began to turn more and more against the reformist policies and orientation of the Hewison leadership.
Above: Miguel FigueroaAbove: Elizabeth RowleyAbove: William Kashtan (1909 – 1993)
Key provincial conventions were held in 1991 in the two main provincial bases of the CPC — British Columbia and Ontario.
At the BC convention, delegates threw out Fred Wilson, one of the main leaders of the Hewison group.
A few months later in June 1991, Ontario delegates rejected a concerted campaign by Hewison and his supporters, and overwhelmingly reelected provincial leader Elizabeth Rowley and other supporters of the Marxist–Leninist current to the Ontario Committee and Executive.
The Hewison group moved on 27 August 1991 to expel 11 of the key leaders of the opposition, including Rowley, Emil Bjarnason, and former central organizer John Bizzell.
The Hewison-controlled Central Executive also dismissed the Ontario provincial committee.
The vast majority of local clubs and committees of the CPC opposed the expulsions, and called instead for an extraordinary convention of the party to resolve the deepening crisis in a democratic manner.
There were loud protests at the CC’s October 1991 meeting, but an extraordinary convention was not convened.
With few remaining options, Rowley and the other expelled members threatened to take the Hewison group to court.
After several months of negotiations between the Hewison group and the opposition “All-Canada Negotiating Committee“, an out-of-court settlement resulted in the Hewison leadership agreeing to leave the CPC and relinquish any claim to the party’s name, while taking most of the party’s assets to the Cecil-Ross Society, a publishing and educational foundation previously associated with the party.
Following the departure of the Hewison-led group, a convention was held in December 1992 at which delegates agreed to continue the Communist Party (thus the meeting was titled the 30th CPC Convention).
Delegates rejected the reformist policies instituted by the Hewison group and instead reaffirmed the CPC as a Marxist–Leninist organization.
Since most of the old party’s assets were now the property of the Hewison-led Cecil Ross Society, the CPC convention decided to launch a new newspaper, the People’s Voice (“the news the corporate media won’t print“), to replace the old Canadian Tribune.
The convention elected a new central committee with Figueroa as Party Leader.
The convention also amended the party constitution to grant more membership control and lessen the arbitrary powers of the Central Committee, while maintaining democratic centralism as its organizational principle.
Meanwhile, the former Communists retained the Cecil-Ross Society as a political foundation to continue their political efforts.
They also sold off the party’s headquarters at 24 Cecil Street, having earlier liquidated various party-related business such as Eveready Printers (the party printshop) and Progress Publishers.
The name of the Cecil-Ross Society comes from the intersection of Cecil Street and Ross Street in Toronto where the headquarters of the party was located.
Above: 24 Cecil Street, Toronto
The Cecil-Ross Society took with it the rights to the Canadian Tribune, which had been the party’s weekly newspaper for decades, as well as roughly half of the party’s assets.
The Cecil-Ross Society ended publication of the Canadian Tribune and attempted to launch a new broad-left magazine, New Times which failed after a few issues and then Ginger which was only published twice.
The renovated party, although with a much smaller membership and resources (such as the former headquarters at 24 Cecil Street in Toronto and party printing press) now faced further challenges and threats to its existence.
Changes to the Canada Elections Act, introduced by the Mulroney Conservative government and passed by Parliament in the spring of 1993, required that any political party which failed to field 50 candidates in a general federal election would be automatically de-registered and its assets seized.
Above: Brian Mulroney
The CPC was not in a position to run 50 candidates in the 1993 federal election (it fielded only eight candidates during that election), and therefore its assets were seized and the party was de-registered.
The CPC had sought an interim injunction to prevent its imminent de-registration, but this legal action failed.
A prolonged ten-year political and legal battle, Figueroa v. Canada ensued, which won the support of widespread popular opinion, reflected in a number of members of parliament openly supporting the challenge and other small political parties joining the case, most notably the Green Party.
Never before had a single court challenge resulted in legislative action on three separate occasions to amend a standing law.
Bill C-2 (2000) amended the Canada Elections Act to (among other things) remove the unconstitutional seizure of party assets for failure to field 50 candidates in a general election and provided for the full refund of candidates’ deposits.
The party had its deregistration overturned and its seized assets restored.
Bill C-9 (2001) reduced the threshold from 50 to 12 candidates for the party identifier to appear on the ballot.
After the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to strike down the 50-candidate threshold as unconstitutional, the Chretien government was forced to introduce and pass Bill C-3 (2003), which scrapped the rule altogether for party registration.
This victory was celebrated by many of the other small parties – regardless of political differences – on the principle that it was a victory for the people’s right to democratic choice.
(Even if that choice is sometimes the wrong one…..)
Above: The Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa
During this time the CPC began to publish a fortnightly newspaper called People’s Voice.
Its Quebec section, le Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ), was reorganized.
The CPC also began periodically publishing a theoretical/discussion journal Spark!.
In 2001 the party adopted a comprehensive update to its party programme and renamed it “Canada’s future is socialism“.
The CPC re-invigorated its long-standing involvement in and contribution to the labour movement and support of trade union organizing and campaigns, in the civic reform movement, and in a number of social justice, anti-war and international solidarity groups and coalitions.
Communism (Latin: communis, ‘common, universal’) is a philosophical, social, political and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.
Communism includes a variety of schools of thought which broadly include Marxism and anarcho-communism as well as the political ideologies grouped around both, all of which share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system and mode of production, namely that in this system there are two major social classes, conflict between these two classes is the root of all problems in society and this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution.
The two classes are the proletariat (the working class), who make up the majority of the population within society and must work to survive; and the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), a small minority who derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production.
According to this analysis, revolution would put the working class in power and in turn establish social ownership of the means of production which is the primary element in the transformation of society towards communism.
Along with social democracy, communism became the dominant political tendency within the international socialist movement by the 1920s.
The emergence of the Soviet Union as the world’s first nominally communist state led to communism’s widespread association with Marxism – Leninism and the Soveit economic model.
Almost all communist governments in the 20th century espoused Marxism–Leninism or a variation of it.
Some economists and intellectuals argue that, in practice, the model under which these nominally communist states operated was in fact a form of state capitalism or a non-planned administrative or command economy and not an actual communist economic model in accordance with most accepted definitions of “communism” as an economic theory.
If communism the theory could actually work creating a harmonious society where everyone was equal I believe there are aspects of it worth considering, but like some dictatorships add the name “Democratic” to their nation’s title creating a place that is anything but a democracy, the same can be said about so-called Communist nations.
Just as I have never been and nor shall ever likely be a believer in Scientology, I have never been and nor shall ever be a Communist.
But even those we disagree with have, on occasion, an idea or two worth listening to that may contain a kernel of wisdom we can use.
Communism – an equality of everyone – may sound great in theory, but is impracticable in practice, but the notions of human rights and human dignity regardless of economic status that communism claims to espouse are worth considering and adapting to our own imbalanced systems.
Above: UN Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms
Breweries, the mentally unwell, addicts, orphans, the destitute, Scientologists and the birthplace of Canadian communism, Guelph clearly cannot be called conventional, and yet…..
Above: Guelph
Guelph was the home of North America’s first cable TV system.
Fredrick T. Metcalf created MacLean Hunter Television (now part of Rogers Communications) and their first broadcast was Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.
Above: Official Coronation photo of Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Philip, 2 June 1953
Cable television is a system of delivering TV programmes to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre optic cables.
This contrasts with broadcast television (also known as terrestrial television), in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a TV antenna attached to the TV; or satellite television, in which the TV signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth, and received by a satellite dish antenna on the roof.
FM radio programming, high speed Internet, telephone services, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables.
Analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation.
A “cable channel” (sometimes known as a “cable network“) is a television network available via cable television.
When available through satellite television, including direct broadcast satellite providers, this is referred to as a “satellite channel“.
Alternative terms include “non-broadcast channel” or “programming service“, the latter being mainly used in legal contexts.
Examples of cable/satellite channels/cable networks available in many countries are HBO, Cinemax, MTV, Cartoon Network, AXN, E!, FX, Discovery Channel, Canal+, Eurosport, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, PBS Sports, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, CNN International, PSN and ESPN.
The abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television.
It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, from cable television’s origins in 1948.
In areas where over-the-air TV reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large “community antennas” were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes.
In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television.
The number increased to 7.5% in 1978.
By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable.
The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994.
Look If you had One shot To sit on your lazy butt And watch all the TV you ever wanted Until your brain turned to mush Would you go for it? Or just let it slip? Yo
Above: “Weird” Al Yankovic
Remote is ready Eyes wide, palms are sweaty There’s Flintstones on the TV already Wilma ‘n’ Betty No virgin to channel surfin’ And I’m HD-ready So I flip Garbage is all I’m getting…..
Above: The Flintstones
“You’re gonna lose your mind watchin’ TV” They told me, they’d scold me But I’d still tune in every show (show) My cable gets C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The Travel Channel, Discovery, and Lifetime (yo)
“You’re gonna lose your mind watchin’ TV” They told me, cajoled me, “Turn off those music videos” (no) I’m gonna watch C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The History Channel and QVC and Lifetime (yo)…..
“You’re gonna lose your mind watching TV” They told me, they’d scold me But I’d still tune in every show (show) My cable gets C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The Disney Channel and A&E and Lifetime (yo)
“You’re gonna lose your mind watching TV” They told me, cajoled me But I still love Lisa Kudrow (drow) I’m looking at C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The Playboy Channel and Court TV and Lifetime (yo)…..
Above: Lisa Kudrow
I love shows with or without a plot I’ll stare ’til my legs are numb, my eyes bloodshot Because I only have got One brain to rot I’m gonna spend my life watching television a lot
“You’re gonna lose your mind watching TV” They told me, they’d scold me But I’d still tune in every show (show) My cable gets C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The Sci-Fi Channel and AMC and Lifetime (yo)
“You’re gonna lose your mind watching TV” They told me, cajoled me, “Turn off that Oprah Winfrey show” (no) I got it on C-SPAN, TV-Land, and HBO The Learning Channel and MTV and Lifetime (yo)
Above: Logo of the Oprah Winfrey Show (1986 – 2011)
You can watch anything you want to, man
Add couch pototoes to the already ecletic Guelph list…..
Above: Guelph
Other news-making items include the fact that the jockstrap was invented here, in 1922, by the Guelph Elastic Hosiery Company and that the man who invented five pin bowling in 1909, Tom Ryan, was originally from Guelph.
A jockstrap (also known as a jock, strap, cup, groin guard, supporter, or athletic supporter) is an undergarment for protecting the testes and penis during contact sports, or other vigorous physical activity.
A jockstrap consists of a waistband (usually elastic) with a support pouch for the genitalia and two elastic straps affixed to the base of the pouch and to the left and right sides of the waistband at the hip.
The pouch, in some varieties, may be fitted with a pocket to hold an abdominal guard (impact resistant cup, box) to protect the testicles and the penis from injury.
The word jockstrap has purportedly been in use at least since 1891, a likely contraction of “jockey strap“, as the garment was first designed for bicycle-riding messengers and deliverymen, or ‘bike jockeys‘.
The Bike Jockey Strap was the first jockstrap manufactured in America in 1874.
Jockey meaning ‘rider’, primarily a race horse rider, has been in use since 1670.
Jockey itself is the diminutive form of the Scots nickname Jock (for John) as Jackie is for the English nickname Jack.
The nicknames Jack and Jackie, Jock and Jockey have been used generically for ‘man, fellow, boy, common man‘.
From 1650 to 1850, ‘jock’ was used as slang for penis.
The more recent American slang term ‘jock‘, meaning an athlete, is traced to 1959 and is itself derived from ‘jockstrap‘.
The Americans claim it is they who invented the jockstrap, in 1874 by C. F. Bennett of a Chicago sporting goods company, Sharp & Smith, to provide comfort and support for bicycle jockeys working the cobblestone streets of Boston.
In 1897, Bennett’s newly-formed Bike Web Company patented and began mass-producing the Bike Jockey Strap.
The Bike Web Company later became known as the Bike Company.
(I wonder how long it took for them to come up with the name.)
Bike, until 2003, was a stand-alone company.
In that year, the company and its trademarks were purchased by Russell Athletic.
Russell Athletic continued to produce jockstraps using the Bike brand and logos until 2017 when they retired the brand.
Russell had become a Fruit-of-the-Loom subsidiary, and Fruit-of-the-Loom is owned by and part of Berkshire Hathaway.
The jockstrap was also influential in early 20th-century medicine with the invention of the Heidelberg Electric Belt, a low-voltage electric powered jockstrap that claimed to cure kidney disorders, insomnia, erectile dysfunction and other ailments.
Today, jockstraps are still worn mostly by adolescent and adult men for sports, weightlifting, medical purposes, and for recovery from injury or surgery for such conditions as hematocele, inguinal hernia, hydrocele or spermatocele.
According to Wikipedia, jockstraps have also become popular as a form of lingerie for men, particularly among gay and bisexual men.
I will just have to take their word on this.
Five-pin bowling is a bowling variant which is played in Canada, where many bowling alleys offer it, either alone or in combination with ten pin bowling.
It was devised around 1909 by Thomas F. Ryan (1872 – 1961) at the Toronto Bowling Club, in response to customers who complained that the ten pin game was too strenuous.
He cut five tenpins down to about 75% of their size, and used hand-sized hard rubber balls, thus inventing the original version of five pin bowling.
Other noteworthy items: the city’s covered bridge (now part of a walking trail), built by the Timber Framers’ Guild in 1992, is one of only two of its type in Ontario, using wooden pins to hold it together.
Note too that the Yukon Gold potato was first bred at the University of Guelph in 1966.
It became available on the market in 1981.
Yukon Goldis a large cultivar of potato most distinctly characterized by its thin, smooth, eye-free skin and yellow-tinged flesh.
This potato was developed in the 1960s by Garnet (“Gary“) Johnston in Guelph, with the help of Geoff Rowberry at the University of Guelph.
The official cross was made in 1966 and ‘Yukon Gold‘ was finally released into the market in 1980.
In 1953, Johnston was a lab technician in the potato development laboratory at the Ontario Agriculture College and he led a team that cross-bred two varieties to create the new type.
In 1959, one of Johnston’s graduate students, a young man originally from Peru, told him of a small, rough, deep-yellow-fleshed potato (Solanum goniocalyx, known as papa amarilla, Spanish for “yellow potato“) that was grown by the many indigenous communities in the Peruvian Andes.
In Lima, this cultivar is considered a delicacy for its bright colour and distinct flavour.
After trying these Peruvian potatoes, Johnston set out to breed a potato with the same colour and flavor characteristics, but larger in size and with a smoother shape, similar to the potatoes being grown in that part of southwestern Ontario.
Above: Gary Johnston
In 1966, the development team made their first cross between a W5289-4 (2× cross between ‘Yema de huevo‘ and 2× Katahdin) and a ‘Norgleam‘ potato native to North Dakota.
After the 66th cross that year, true breeding seed was produced, and the G6666 was created.
The early name for the new cultivar was “Yukon“, for the Yukon River and gold rush country in northern Canada.
Charlie Bishop, or Walter Shy according to some sources, suggested adding “Gold” to describe the colour and appearance.
“It was a revolutionary concept.
He was a pioneer.
Johnston had the vision for yellow-fleshed potatoes“, said Hielke De Jong, a potato breeder with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Johnston also developed and brought 15 other potato varieties to market while at the Ontario Agriculture College lab, where he had been seconded by his employer, Agriculture Canada.
A University publication states that:
“Yukon Gold was the first Canadian-bred potato variety to be promoted, packaged and marketed with its name right on the pack.”
Guelph’s police force had Canada’s first municipal motorcycle patrol.
Chief Ted Lamb brought back an army motorcycle he used during the First World War.
Motorcycles were faster and more efficient than walking.
Guelph has several buildings on the National Historic Sites of Canada register:
the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate
McCrae House
the Old City Hall
The McCrae House, located in Guelph, is the birthplace of John McCrae (1872 – 1918), doctor, soldier and author of the famous First World War poem “In Flanders Fields“.
The house is a National Historic Site of Canada.
Above: The birthplace of John McCrae (1872 – 1918) author of In Flanders Fields
This small limestone cottage, built in 1858, was owned by the McCrae family from 1870 to 1873.
Other families occupied the house until 1966, when a group of Guelph citizens purchased the building with the intention of preserving it as a museum.
This group formed the Lt. Col. John McCrae Birthplace Society and began to raise money for its restoration.
The federal government through the Historic Sites and Monuments Board designated both John McCrae as a person of national significance, and the house as a place of national significance.
Above: McCrae House – John McCrae’s medals
McCrae House contains both permanent and temporary exhibition space that interprets the life and times of John McCrae.
Yearly themes are offered.
Summer activities include Poppy Push, Canada Day, Teddy Bear Picnic, History Camp and special teas in the garden.
The gardening volunteers have worked to create an award-winning garden reflecting the time period of the mid-to-late 19th century.
In 2019, Guelph Museums announced that the House would again host a Backyard Theatre in July 2020, with a show that would not be a “literal telling of McCrae’s story” but would contain a “significant amount of McCrae-specific content.”
Revenue from ticket sales would cover at least part of the cost of the production.
A one-person show was presented in summer 2019 dramatizing the life of McCrae and the 2018 show was a love story set during WW I.
Above: Scenes of World War 1
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I, and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium.
He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem “In Flanders Fields“.
McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war.
Above: John McCrae
McCrae was born in McCrae House in Guelph to Lieutenant-Colonel David McCrae and Janet Simpson Eckford.
McCrae attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute, but took a year off his studies due to recurring problems with asthma.
Among his papers in the John McCrae House in Guelph is a letter he wrote on 18 July 1893, to Laura Kains while he trained as an artilleryman at Tête-de-Pont Barracks, today’s Fort Frontenac, in Kingston (ON):
“I have a manservant.
Quite a nobby place it is, in fact.
My windows look right out across the bay, and are just near the water’s edge.
There is a good deal of shipping at present in the port and the river looks very pretty.”
Above: Fort Frontenac, Kingston
He was a resident master in English and Mathematics in 1894 at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.
McCrae returned to the University of Toronto and completed his BA, then returned again to study medicine on a scholarship.
At medical school, McCrae had tutored other students to help pay his tuition.
Two of his students were among the first female doctors in Ontario.
McCrae graduated in 1898.
Above: Painting of University College, University of Toronto
He was first a resident house-officer at the Toronto General Hospital, then in 1899 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
Above: Toronto General Hospital, 1895Above: Logo of John Hopkins School of Medicine
In 1900, McCrae served in South Africa as a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Artillery (RCA) during the Second Boer War (1899 to 1902), and upon his return was appointed professor of pathology at the University of Vermont, where he taught until 1911.
Above: Crest of the Royal Regiment of Canadian ArtilleryAbove: Logo of the University of Vermont
He also taught at McGill University in Montréal.
Above: Logo of McGill University
In 1902, he was appointed resident pathologist at the Montréal General Hospital and later became assistant pathologist to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montréal.
In 1904, he was appointed an associate in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital.
Above: Royal Victoria Hospital, Montréal
Later that year, he went to England where he studied for several months and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians.
In 1905, McCrae set up his own practice although he continued to work and lecture at several hospitals.
The same year, he was appointed pathologist to the Montreal Foundling and Baby Hospital.
In 1908, he was appointed physician to the Alexandria Hospital for Contagious Diseases.
In 1910, he accompanied Lord Grey, the Governor General of Canada, on a canoe trip to Hudson Bay to serve as expedition physician.
Above: Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey (1851 – 1917)
McCrae was the co-author, with J.G. Adami, of a medical textbook, A Text-Book of Pathology for Students of Medicine (1912).
When Britain declared war on Germany because of the latter’s invasion of neutral Belgium at the beginning of WWI (1914), Canada, as a Dominion within the British Empire, was at war as well.
McCrae was appointed as Medical Officer and Major of the 1st Brigade CFA (Canadian Field Artillery).
Above: McCrae House – John McCrae’s officer’s cap badge
He treated the wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, from a hastily dug, 8-by-8-foot (2.4 m × 2.4 m) bunker dug in the back of the dyke along the Yser Canal about 2 miles north of Ypres.
Above: Before the battleAbove: After the battle
McCrae’s friend and former militia pal, Lt. Alexis Helmer, was killed in the battle, and his burial inspired the poem, “In Flanders Fields“, which was written on 3 May 1915, and first published in the magazine Punch.
Above: Alexis Helmer (29 June 1892, Hull, Québec, Canada – 2 May 1915, Ypres, Belgium)
From 1 June 1915, McCrae was ordered away from the artillery to set up No. 3 Canadian General Hospital at Dannes-Camiers near Boulogne sur Mer, northern France.
Above: Église St. Martin, Dannes-Camier
C.L.C. Allinson reported that McCrae “most unmilitarily told me what he thought of being transferred to the medicals and being pulled away from his beloved guns.
His last words to me were:
‘Allinson, all the goddamn doctors in the world will not win this bloody war:
What we need is more and more fighting men.'”
Above: Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps button
“In Flanders Fields” appeared anonymously in Punch on 8 December 1915, but in the index, to that year McCrae was named as the author.
The verses swiftly became one of the most popular poems of the war, used in countless fund-raising campaigns and frequently translated (a Latin version begins In agro belgico…).
“In Flanders Fields” was also extensively printed in the US, whose government was contemplating joining the war, alongside a ‘reply’ by R.W. Lillard:
(“Fear not that you have died for naught, / The torch ye threw to us we caught“).
Above: “In Flanders Fields” memorial on the John McCrae Memorial Site, Boezinge, Ypres, Belgium
For eight months the hospital operated in Durbar tents, but after suffering from storms, floods, and frosts it was moved in February 1916 into the old Jesuit College in Boulogne sur Mer.
McCrae, now “a household name, albeit a frequently misspelt one“, regarded his sudden fame with some amusement, wishing that “they would get to printing ‘In F.F.’ correctly: it never is nowadays“; but (writes his biographer) “he was satisfied if the poem enabled men to see where their duty lay.“
Above: Boulogne sur Mer
On 28 January 1918, while still commanding No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia with “extensive pneumococcus meningitis” at the British General Hospital in Wimereux, France.
Above: Modern Wimereux
He was buried the following day in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Wimereux Cemetery, just a couple of kilometres up the coast from Boulogne, with full military honours.
Above: Canadian war graves near Ypres: The crosses identify the graves as those of soldiers of the 14th Canadian Battalion who were killed over several days in May 1916.
His flag-draped coffin was borne on a gun carriage and the mourners – who included Sir Arthur Currie and many of McCrae’s friends and staff – were preceded by McCrae’s charger, “Bonfire“, with McCrae’s boots reversed in the stirrups.
Bonfire was with McCrae from Valcartier (Québec) until his death and was much loved.
Above: John McCrae’s funeral procession
McCrae’s gravestone is placed flat, as are all the others in the section, because of the unstable sandy soil.
A collection of his poetry, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (1918), was published after his death.
“In Flanders Fields“
In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead, short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
–John McCrae
Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem, the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote “In Flanders Fields” on 3 May 1915, the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres.
The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm, just north of Ypres.
The poppy, which was a central feature of the poem, grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders.
An article by Veterans Administration Canada provides this account:
The day before he wrote his famous poem, one of McCrae’s closest friends was killed in the fighting and buried in a makeshift grave with a simple wooden cross.
Wild poppies were already beginning to bloom between the crosses marking the many graves.
The Canadian government has placed a memorial to John McCrae that features “In Flanders Fields” at the site of the dressing station which sits beside the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Essex Farm Cemetery.
The Belgian government has named this site the “John McCrae Memorial Site“.
The Cloth Hall of the city of Ieper (Ypres in French and English) in Belgium has a permanent war museum called the “In Flanders Fields Museum“, named after the poem.
There are also a photograph and a short biographical memorial to McCrae in the St George Memorial Church in Ypres.
Above: Grand Place, Ypres
Institutions that have been named in McCrae’s honour include John McCrae Public School in Guelph, John McCrae Public School in Markham, John McCrae Senior Public School in Toronto, and John McCrae Secondary School in Ottawa.
A bronze plaque memorial dedicated to Lt. Col. John McCrae was erected by the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.
McCrae House was converted into a museum.
The current Canadian War Museum has a gallery for special exhibits, called The Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae Gallery.
Above: Canadian War Museum, Vimy Place, Ottawa
In May 2015, a statue of McCrae was erected on Green Island in the Rideau River in Ottawa.
McCrae is dressed as an artillery officer and his medical bag nearby, as he writes.
The statue shows the destruction of the battlefield and, at his feet, the poppies – a symbol of Remembrance of World War I and all armed conflicts since.
A copy of that statue was erected at the Guelph Civic Museum in 2015.
Above: Colonel John McCrae statue at the Guelph Civic Museum, unveiled in 2015 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his poem “In Flanders Fields“
The street next to the cemetery where he is buried is named in his honour, although the street is called “Rue Mac Crae“.
Mount McCrae in British Columbia, is named for him.
A few comments…..
Why wasn’t the story of McCrae literally told by the Museum which honours him?
There is something unsettling in the notion that a man who devoted his life to the Hippocratic Oath, the physicians’ creed to “Do no harm.” advocated the recruitment of more men to replace those who had fallen in warfare.
There is something essentially amiss in the use of poetry to advocate bloodshed, even if it is in the name of duty or honour.
Perhaps the discrepancy is connected to the poppies…..
One species of this plant is the source of that powerful narcotic, opium.
The city is home to:
the University of Guelph, established in 1964
Sleeman Breweries Ltd
The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), the oldest part of the Univesity of Guelph, began in 1874 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto.
According to Macleans (Canada’s national news magazine), the current University of Guelph, founded in 1964, “grew out of three founding colleges: the Ontario Agricultural College (1874), the Ontario Veterinary College (1862) and the Macdonald Institute (1903)”.
The Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute (GCVI), established in the 1840s, is one of the province’s oldest high schools.
The former Canadian National Railways (VIA Rail/GO Transit) Station at 79 Carden Street was listed in 1992.
Above: Guelph Civic Museum
The city of Guelph’s diversified economy helped Guelph obtain the country’s lowest unemployment rate at 4.2% in 2011 and at 3.9% in February 2016.
The great diversity in the types of employers is a significant factor too.
The city is not dependent on a single industry.
The workforce participation rate of 72% was the best in Canada in December 2015, according to BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic.
The job growth of more than 9% at the same time was also of great value to the community.
At the time, the BMO economist also rated Guelph as the top city in Canada for those looking for work.
Over subsequent months, the rate increased steadily and the jobless rate was at a more typical 5.9% by October 2017, compared to 5.1% in nearby Kitchener-Waterloo.
The rate in June 2018 had decreased to 4.5%.
By December 2018, StatsCan was indicating an unemployment rate of only 2.3%, down from 4% in November, and the lowest in Canada at that time.
The overall economy of the Guelph region (including the city and the townships of Eramosa and Puslinch) grew at an average of 3.5% per year over the previous five years and was expected to be 2.1% in 2019 and also in 2020, according to the Conference Board of Canada’s August 2019 report.
Guelph’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.6% per cent in 2018, the highest among medium-sized cities in Canada.
“Although economic growth is poised to moderate in 2019, Guelph will maintain its place as one of Canada’s economic growth leaders,” the report predicted.
Manufacturing is the leading sector of the economy of the city with the most significant sector being auto parts manufacturing.
The Conference Board of Canada’s August 2019 report stated that the Guelph region’s manufacturing was experiencing significant growth, averaging 5.9% over the past five years and expected to be 4.2% in 2019.
Linamar is the city’s leader in this sector, with 22 manufacturing plants.
The company has received government funding for expansion that would create additional jobs, most recently in 2015 ($101 million) and in 2018 ($99 million).
The latter would create 1,500 additional jobs and maintain 8,000 others in the Canadian operation.
According to research completed by the City of Guelph in 2010, fabricated metal product manufacturing accounted for 26.1% of the types of industries, followed by machinery manufacturing for 12.8% and miscellaneous manufacturing for 10.4%.
The city’s Economic Development Strategy identified life science, agri-food and biotechnology firms, environmental management and technology companies as growth industries on which to focus economic development activities.
The city also touts the importance of advanced manufacturing which is its largest employer.
The roughly 360 businesses of this type employ approximately 14,755 people (roughly 25% of Guelph’s labour force).
The category includes “high precision manufacturing and auto parts assembly to plastic injection moulding machines manufacturing and automation devices. This enables advanced manufacturing to be a strong driver of the local economy.“
The second largest industry is educational services, accounting for 11.3%.
Guelph is very attractive to the agri-food and biotechnology market sector, according to the city.
It was ranked as the top cluster in Ontario and one of the top two in Canada.
This sector includes over 90 companies in Guelph-Wellington, employing approximately 6,500 people.
Above: Flag of Ontario
Here is a place that should be by all accounts be a far worse place than it is.
So, how should one perceive Guelph?
Perhapy, gentle reader, you have already seen Guelph and didn’t know it…..
The City encourages movie and television filming.
Parts of several productions have been filmed here, including:
Agnes of God (1985) is about a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virginal conception. A psychiatrist (Jane Fonda) and the mother superior (Anne Bancroft) of the convent clash during the resulting investigation.
Dream House (2011) is an American psychological thriller film, starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts and Marton Csokas.
Total Recall (2012)
Episodes of Murdoch Mysteries (2013 / 2015), a Canadian television drama series, which takes place in Toronto starting in 1895 and follows Detective William Murdoch of the Toronto Constabulary, who solves many of his cases using methods of detection that were unusual at the time, including fingerprinting, blood testing, surveillance, and trace evidence.
11.22.63 (2016) is an American science fiction thriller miniseries starring James Franco as a recently divorced English teacher, who is presented with the chance to travel back in time to 1960, in an attempt to prevent the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
Dead Rush (2016), a cancelled video game where a massive earthquake has destroyed most of humanity and the world is now overflowing with zombies.
American Gods (2017) is an American fantasy drama television series a hidden world where magic is real.
The Heretics (2017) is a feature-length, documentary film that focuses on a group of New York-based feminist artists called the Heresies Collective and their influential art journal, Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, which was published from 1977 to 1992.
According to the Bank of Montréal’s fourth quarterly 2018 report, Guelph was the leading city in Canada in terms of job growth and low unemployment.
In January 2019, the city had the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.
The top five occupations in Guelph in terms of numbers are:
Sales and service (16,195)
Education, law and social, community and government services (10,205)
Business, finance and administration (10,150)
Trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations (9,170)
Manufacturing and utilities (8,205)
The City of Guelph’s published 2016 data sorts occupations in a different manner:
Professional, scientific and technical jobs employed 39,141
Advanced manufacturing employed 20,735
Retail and services employed 11,345
Agri-Innovation employed 11,345
Culture and entertainment employed 7,711
Distribution, warehousing and wholesale employed 5,909
The largest private enterprise employers in Guelph (2016) include:
Linamar Corporation
Cargill Meat Solutions
Polycon Industries
The Co-operators
Guelph Manufacturing Group Inc.
Blount Canada Ltd.
The Cooperators was one of the Platinum Winners in Canada’s Best Employers 2017 report.
The company has been on this list for 14 years.
The largest public sector employers (2016) include:
the Upper Grand District School Board
the University of Guelph
the City of Guelph
the Wellington Catholic District School Board
Guelph General Hospital
Homewood Health Centre
The University’s staffing fell into three categories in 2015:
2,600 regular full-time faculty and staff
1,890 temporary (full-time and part-time)
3,690 student employees.
The University was among Canada’s Best Employers in 2016 according to Forbes magazine, making the top 20 in the list.
Reid’s Heritage Group of Companies, a home builder with 212 full-time employees, “supports employees who are new mothers with maternity leave top-up payments provides flexible work hours, helps employees balance work and their personal commitments with up to 10 paid personal days and offers referral bonuses for staff hires.”
Sleeman Breweries Limited, with 991 full-timers, offers “generous tuition subsidies, opportunities for the next generation to gain meaningful experience through summer employment and co-op placements, as well as retirement planning assistance and phased-in work options” and bonuses for salaried staff and profit-sharing for those who are unionized.
For many years, Guelph ranked at or near the bottom of Canada’s crime severity list.
The national average for the crime severity index was 70.96 per 100,000 people in 2016 while Guelph’s was much lower at 55 per 100,000 people according to a study published by Maclean’s.
Violent crime severity index: 49 per 100,000 people compared to 75.25 for the national index.
Homicide rate: The city had only one homicide in 2016 for a rate of 0.76 per 100,000 people, compared to the national average of 1.68.
Assault rate: Guelph was at 181.87 versus the national average of 370
Sexual assault rate: This aspect was quite high with 64.22 per 100,000 people compared to the national rate of 56.6.
Robbery rate: Guelph had 21.91 per 100,000 people, much lower than the national average of 60.9.
Fraud: This aspect has increased notably since 1996; it was at 260.67 per 100,000 people in 2016, versus the national rate of 299.05.
Drug offences: The city is well below the national average in all categories.
Youth Criminal Justice Act offences: The rate was 8.31 per 100,000 in Guelph, substantially lower than the national average of 16.74.
The Wellington County Jail (in Late Gothic Revival Style) and the Governor’s Residence (in Georgian style) at 74 Woolwich Street were built in 191.
They were designated by the city for “historic and architectural value” and as a National Historic Site in 1983.
The property is now an Ontario Court of Justice.
Above: the former Wellington County Jail, Guelph
Guelph was home to a major correctional institution from 1911 until 2001, originally the Ontario Reformatory with subsequent names including Wellington Detention Centre and, after 1972, Guelph Correctional Centre.
The first inmates had been transferred to the Guelph reformatory from Toronto’s Central Prison when it closed in 1915.
By 1910 however, a prison farm beside the Eramosa River had begun receiving prisoners.
The farm inmates constructed a concrete bridge, a spur line to the CPR and a wooden trestle bridge.
The official opening of the farm was 25 September 1911.
By 1912, the various buildings on the site housed 300; the correctional operations on the site were fully operational by 1914.
Between 1911 and 1915, prisoners had built the administration building, the cell blocks, ponds and waterways, dry stone walls, stairs, gates, bridges and terraced gardens.
By 1916, this was the largest correctional facility in Ontario, housing 660.
During World War I, the property served as the Guelph Military Convalescent Hospital a convalescent hospital for over 900 veterans, from 1917.
The prisoners returned in January 1921.
The farm and reformatory were used to teach inmates useful skills, including agriculture, dry cleaning, metalworking, and other trades.
By the late 1940s the facility produced food for all of Ontario’s prisons, and also made blankets, wood and metal products.
There was a stone quarry stone on site.
By 1962 the prison farm accommodated a dairy, piggery, horses, cattle and vegetable farming.
The farm area eventually included barns, a woolen mill, abattoir, tailor shop, laundry, bakery, metal shop, broom shop and other facilities.
The prison abattoir was eventually sold off and became the privately owned company, later known as Better Beef (purchased by Cargill Canada in 2005), a massive meat processing plant.
In 2001, the Ministry of Correctional Services closed the entire facility; the remaining inmates were transferred to larger jails.
Afterwards, the property was used for some film shoots and for training emergency personnel.
Above: the former Guelph Correctional Centre
The University of Guelph, (with approximately 25,300 students) is one of Canada’s top comprehensive universities, and home to the Ontario Agriculutral Collega and the Ontario Veterinary College.
Conestoga College operates a small campus in Guelph but in late 2019, the College advised the news media that a major expansion was planned.
“Within five or six years, we will have at least 5,000 students there with full-service programming,” said College President John Tibbits.
At the time, the Guelph campus had approximately 1,000 students.
Guelph was the first municipality in Canada to have its own federally chartered railway, the Guelph Junction Railway.
This 25-kilometre (16-mile) link to the CPR is still municipally owned.
Built in 1911, the Guelph Central Station (still in use), was constructed by the Grand Trunk Railway which had arrived in Guelph in 1856.
Years later, it was taken over by the Canadian National Railway.
It is a classic example of early 20th century Canadian railway station design and has been designated as a heritage structure under the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act.
The Romanesque Revival building, with its Italianate tower, has been listed on the Canadian Register since 2006 and was formally recognized as one of Canada’s Historic Places in November 1992.
A renovation project in 2017 provided various benefits, including repairs to maintain and restore heritage aspects.
Above: Guelph Central Station
Guelph Central Station is currently an Intermodal Transit Terminal that includes bus and railway services in one facility.
The following is a summary of its purpose from an April 2017 report:
“Guelph Central Train Station is a busy transit hub that accommodates Guelph Transit, GO Transit and Via Rail operations.
Each weekday, more than 5,000 passengers board Guelph Transit, to travel on one of the 15 different routes that operate out of the bus bays adjacent to the train station.“
Guelph is the 3rd fastest-growing city in Ontario with a 5-year growth of 8.3% from 2011 to 2016.
According to the Ontario Places to Grow Plan, Guelph’s population is projected to be about 144,500 by the year 2021 and 175,000 by 2031.
The actual number of residents varies throughout the year because of variations in the University of Guelph student population.
The most common mother tongue in 2016 was English at 77.2%, followed by Chinese at 2.7%, Italian at 1.7%, Vietnamese at 1.3%, French at 1.3%, Punjabi at 1.2%, Tagalog at 1.2%, Spanish at 1.1%, and Polish at 1%.
1.5% claimed both English and a non-official language as their first languages.
Approximately 78.2% of residents were European Canadians in 2016, whereas 18.8% were visible minorities and 3% were aboriginal.
The largest visible minority groups in Guelph were South Asian (5%), Chinese (3.2%), Black (2.2%), Filipino (2.2%), Southeast Asian (1.9%), West Asian (1.2%), and Latin American (1.0%).
Above: The Tower of Babel
The 2016 Census indicated that 14,430 Italian Canadians lived in Guelph.
Many Italians from the south of Italy, particularly from Monforte San Giorgio, had immigrated to the area in the early 1900s, and also in later years.
Above: Monforte San Giorgio, Italy
Historically however, Guelph’s population has been principally British in origin, with 92% in 1880 and 87% in 1921.
Heffernan Street Footbridge, spanning the Speed River behind St. George’s Anglican Church, was built in 1913, and replaced an earlier steel bridge.
The Footbridge was designated a heritage site and was restored in 1991 to more closely resemble its original design.
From a bell organ factory to the opera singer Edward Johnson, Guelph has been a source of musical contribution.
Above: Edward Johnson (1878 – 1959)
Today, Guelph has a thriving indie rock scene, which has spawned some of Canada’s more well-known indie bands, many of which are highlighted in the annual Kazoo Festival.
Guelph is also home to the Hillside Festival, a hugely popular music festival held at nearby Guelph Lake during the summer, as well as the Guelph Jazz Festival.
Guelph is also home to the Guelph Symphony Orchestra and two yearly classical music festivals.
The Kiwanis Music Festival of Guelph showcases students from Guelph and surrounding areas, while the Guelph Musicfest offers performances by local professional classical musicians.
The Sleeman Centre is a sports and entertainment venue in Guelph.
The large, modern facility allows for a variety of events such as concerts, sporting and family events, trade shows and conferences, and it is home to the local hockey team, the Guelph Storm.
Notable Guelph personalities (at least those I personally find interesting)(besides those already mentioned):
Edward Robert Armstrong(1876–1955) was a Guelph-born engineer and inventor who in 1927 proposed a series of “seadrome” floating airport platforms for airplanes to land on and refuel for transatlantic flights.
While his original concept was made obsolete by long-range aircraft that did not need such refueling points, the idea of an anchored deep-sea platform was later applied to use for floating oil rigs.
Above: Edward Robert Armstrong and a scale model of his seadrome
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Guelph-born Canadian actress and producer,
Campbell has had starring roles in films such as the neo-noir film Wild Things (1998), the crime films Drowning Mona and Panic (both 2000), the drama films The Company (2003) and When Will I Be Loved (2004), the comedy films Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004) and Relative Strangers (2006), the romantic-drama film Closing the Ring (2007), the comedy-drama film Walter (2015), the action film Skyscraper (2018), and the biographical film Clouds (2020).
Campbell also appeared in the action drama series The Philanthropist (2009) and starred in the Netflix political thriller series House of Cards.
James Cockman (1873 – 1947) was a third baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the New York Highlanders in 1905.
He stood at 5′ 6″ and weighed 145 lbs.
He was born and died in Guelph.
Above: Jim Cockman
Arthur William Cutten (1870 – 1936) was a businessman who gained great wealth and prominence as a commodity speculator in the United States.
He was called to appear before the Banking and Currency Committee in regard to the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
He was under indictment for tax evasion upon his death in Chicago in 1936.
He was born and is buried in Guelph.
Above: Cutten Obelisk, Guelph
Ken Danby (1940 – 2007) was a Canadian painter in the realist style.
Danby is best known for creating highly realistic paintings that study everyday life.
Above: Ken Danby
His 1972 painting At the Crease, portraying a masked hockey goalie defending his net, is widely recognized and reproduced in Canada.
Early in his career, Danby experimented with abstract expressionism.
In August 1961, Danby participated in the first Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (TOAE) in the parking lot of the Four Seasons hotel, located at that time on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
Danby won the “Best of Exhibition” prize with an untitled abstract, currently in the collection of the artist.
Danby later focused on realism in most of his work, and developed his skill with watercolour.
His first solo exhibition in 1964 sold out.
He designed three coins for the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
He also received the Jessie Dow Prize, the 125th Anniversary Commemorative Medal of Canada, the City of Sault Ste. Marie’s Award of Merit and both the Queen’s Silver and Golden Jubilee Medals.
In the 1980s, Danby painted a number of watercolours about the America’s Cup and portrayed Canadian athletes at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.
In 1999 Danby had a studio near Guelph.
A school on Grange Road in Guelph was named after Danby.
In 2016, the Art Gallery of Hamilton organized a retrospective of Danby’s work, entitled Beyond the Crease.
For approximately three decades until his death, Danby lived and painted in a rural property near Guelph and spent years restoring the historic Armstrong Mill.
Some of his art work features the property.
Above: Armstrong Mill
From November 2016 to January 2017, the Guelph Civic Museum exhibited examples of Danby’s work including his Wayne Gretzky portrait, The Great Farewell.
On 23 September 2007, Danby collapsed while on a canoe trip in Algonquin Park near North Tea Lake with his wife Gillian Danby and friends.
The party summoned help, but paramedics were unable to revive him.
Danby is the second famous Canadian artist to die in Algonquin Park.
Tom Thomson (1877 – 1917) died on Canoe Lake in the Park.
Above: Thomson fishing in Algonquin Park: Enamoured with the Park, many of his works were painted in the area.
Canadian writer Blair Frazer also drowned in the Park on the Petawawa River’s Rollaway Rapids in May 1968.
Victor Davis (1964 – 1989) was a Canadian Olympic and world champion swimmer who specialized in the breast stroke.
He also enjoyed success in the individual medley and the butterfly.
Above: Victor Davis
Victor Davis was born in Guelph.
As a boy, Davis learned how to swim in the lakes around his home.
He then joined the Guelph Marlin Aquatic Club at the age of 12.
During his career, Davis held several world records as the winner of 31 national titles and 16 medals in international competition.
At the 1982 world championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, he set his first world record while winning the gold medal in the 200-metre breast stroke.
At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he won a silver medal in the 100-meter breaststroke event, then captured the gold medal in the 200-metre breast stroke, in the process establishing another world record.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Davis was named Swimming Canada’s Athlete of the Year three times.
A star of Canada’s national swim team for nine years, he retired from competitive swimming in July 1989.
He was voted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame (Toronto) in 1985, and posthumously into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (Calgary) in 1990, and the International Swimming Hall of Fame (Fort Lauderdale) in 1994.
A few months after his retirement, on 11 November 1989 while outside a nightclub in the Montréal suburb of Sainte Anne de Bellevue, Davis was struck by a car driven by Glen Crossley, who fled the scene.
Crossley told police he hit Davis while trying to avoid a juice bottle Davis threatened to throw at the vehicle and didn’t realize he made contact with the swimmer.
However, other testimony showed that Davis was actually hit from behind and thrown 14 meters in the air before hitting his head on a parked car and a street curb.
Two days later, the 25-year-old swimmer died of a severe skull fracture as well as brain and spinal hemorrhage in hospital.
In February 1992, Crossley was found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident and sentenced to ten months in prison, ultimately serving four months.
In January 2017, Crossley was charged in the death of 70-year-old Albert Arsenault after an altercation at the Station 77 bar in September 2016.
Crossley pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Arsenault’s death.
Above: Glenn Crossley
Davis’s parents fulfilled his express wish that his organs be donated to help save the lives of others.
The swimmer’s heart, liver, kidneys and corneas were transplanted.
Each year since his death, awards are made by the Victor Davis Memorial Fund to help young Canadian swimmers continue their education while training.
Thirteen recipients of this award participated in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.
In 2002, Victor Davis was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame (Toronto).
In Guelph, the city named the 50-metre swimming pool in honour of Victor Davis.
Above: Victor Davis Memorial Pool, Guelph
Robert Daniel Emslie(1859 – 1943) was a Canadian pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) who went on to set numerous records for longevity as an umpire.
Above: Bob Emslie
Born in Guelph, Emslie had a brief professional playing career with the Baltimore and Philadelphia clubs in the American Association.
His professional umpiring career began in 1888, and after spending a couple of seasons in the minor leagues, he was promoted to the major leagues as an umpire in 1890.
Emslie was nicknamed “Wig” due to his premature receding hairline, which was a result of the stress of umpiring games single-handedly in the rough-and-tumble 1890s.
He was derisively called “Blind Bob” by the New York Giants following his role in the infamous “Merkle’s Boner” play during the 1908 National League pennant race.
The play involved a force out when a Giants player stopped running to second base upon seeing that the game’s winning run would score.
When “Merkle’s Boner” occurred, Emslie had already worked more major league games than any umpire in MLB history, then later served as the National League’s chief of umpires upon retiring from active umpiring.
He retired to St. Thomas, Ontario and died there on Monday, 26 April 1943.
In 1946 he was included in the Honor Rolls of Baseball (Cooperstown, NY).
In 1986 he was named to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (St. Marys, ON).
Above: Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, St. Marys
Emslie was the base umpire on 23 September 1908, when controversy erupted at the end of the NY Giants – Chicago Cubs game at the Polo Grounds.
With the score tied and two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Giants had Moose McCormick on third base and Fred Merkle on first base.
Above: Fred Merkle (1888 – 1956)
Al Bridwell smashed a single to center to drive home McCormick with the apparent winning run, but Merkle failed to touch second base.
Cubs second baseman Johnny Evans noticed this error, and tagged second base and appealed to Emslie.
Emslie claimed that he had to duck out of the way of Bridwell’s line drive and did not see the play, and home plate umpire Hank O’Day declared Merkle out and the game a tie.
New York manager John McGraw, with whom Bob had a long and tempestuous history, bestowed upon Emslie his nickname “Blind Bob” after the controversy.
The incident is often referred to as “Merkle’s Boner.“
Notably, Emslie and O’Day were the two most experienced umpires in Major League Baseball history at that point, with Emslie having worked nearly 2,500 games and O’Day nearly 1,700.
Above: Umpire Emslie
Later, Emslie showed up at a Giants’ practice with a rifle, placed a dime on the pitching mound and shot it from behind home plate, sending the coin spinning into the outfield.
Reportedly, McGraw never again challenged his eyesight.
Above: John McGraw (1873 – 1934)
Charles William Fox (1920 – 2008) was a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in WW2.
Above: Charley Fox
Born in Guelph, Fox attended Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.
Fox, the son of an Irish immigrant, joined the RCAF in 1939 at the beginning of the war.
He graduated near the top of his class in 1941 and was offered a job as a flight instructor in Dunnville (ON).
He remained in this position until 1943 when he began combat training in Bagotville (QB).
He flew Spitfires over Europe, destroying or damaging 153 enemy vehicles (mostly trains), and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
In 1944, he began his tour of duty with the Canadian 412 Squadron.
On D-Day (6 June 1944), he flew three patrols off the coast of France.
On 17 July 1944, he flew from the Allied air base at Beny sur Mer in Normandy and strafed an unknown black car.
He later learned that one of the passengers was German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was seriously injured in the attack.
As Rommel was soon afterwards implicated in the assassination plot against Adolf Hitler, he was allowed to commit suicide and his death was announced as a result of injuries from the air attack.
In 2004, Fox was officially credited with injuring Rommel, although he has expressed some regret about the attack, as Rommel was supposedly planning to secretly negotiate an earlier end to the war with the Allies.
Fourteen of Fox’s planes were judged to be no longer usable after returning from missions due to excessive damage from enemy fire.
Charles Fox was noted as an educator of youth and spokesperson for veterans.
He founded Torch Bearers, a non-profit organization aimed at educating young people about Canadian military exploits.
He regularly took on speaking engagements to keep veterans’ stories alive and fought with school boards to ensure Remembrance Day ceremonies were held annually.
According to Fox’s family, he spent his life wondering why he survived numerous dates with death and was in the process of telling his story and those of other veterans in a book titled Why Not Me?, which the family hopes to finish.
“It did give him a purpose in life and he was searching for that,” according to his son.
Fox ended his tour of duty in January 1945, and served in the 420 Reserve after the war.
He retired in 1956 and began to work at a shoe factory, from which he retired in 1998.
On 30 April 2004, he was named honorary colonel of 412 Squadron in Ottawa, ultimately belonging to 8 Wing/CFB Trenton.
For his long service in the RCAF, he was awarded the Canadian Forces Decoration.
He died in a car accident near Tillsonburg (ON) on 18 October 2008.
Above: The Canadian Forces Decoration
Jessica Marie (J.M.) Frey is a Guelph-born science fiction and fantasy author.
While she is best known for her debut novel Triptych, Frey’s 2011 work encompasses poetry, academic and magazine articles, screenplays, and short stories.
Above: Ms. Frey
The novel follows three narrators as they recount the events surrounding major turning points in the life of Gwen Pierson, (a languages specialist): Evvie Pierson (Gwen’s mother a housewife in rural southern Ontario), Kalp, an alien refugee from a dead planet living in England and Gwen’s lover), and Basil Grey (a Welsh computer engineer).
Triptych has been described as both science fiction and as literary fiction, and has been praised for blending both genres.
It has also been praised for the distinctive voices of the narrators, and for its structure:
The novel, rather than chapters, is segmented into three novella-length parts (each narrated by a different character – Evvie, Kalp, and Basil) which hinge together to tell the whole story.
Frey deliberately chose this structure to mimic the artistic triptych technique (art in three parts).
Frey calls herself a “professional geek“.
Frey has appeared at Toronto-area science fiction conventions and is involved with charity and community fan groups and initiatives.
She regularly appears on radio shows, television talk shows, and podcasts discussing fandom and genre works.
Above: Ms. Frey
Guelph resident Gregory Gallant, better known by his pen name Seth, is a Canadian cartoonist.
Above: Gregory Gallant (aka Seth)
He is best known for his series Palookaville and his mock-autographical graphic novel It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken (1996).
Seth draws in a style influenced by the classic cartoonists of The New Yorker.
His work is highly nostalgic, especially for the early-to-mid-20th Century period, and of southern Ontario.
His work also shows a great depth and breadth of knowledge of the history of comics and cartooning.
Beth Goobie is a Canadian poet and fiction writer.
Goobie grew up in Guelph.
After working one year in Holland as an au pair, she spent the next four years earning a BA in English Literature from the University of Winnipeg and a BA in Religious Studies from the Mennonite Brethren Bible College.
She then worked as a front line residential treatment worker in both Winnipeg and Edmonton.
Her work has appeared in many Canadian literary journals, including Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Event, Grain, Prairie Fire and The Prairie Journal.
As of 2017, she has 25 published books to her credit, including the genres of young adult fiction (18 books), children’s (one book), one adult novel, two collections of short fiction and three collections of poetry.
She lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Above: Beth Goobie
Paddy Johnson is a New York-based art critic, blogger, curator and writer.
Johnson was born in Guelph.
She was educated at Mount Allison University in Sackville (NB) and continued her education at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ).
She has slowly gained notoriety as an art critic in the New York art scene.
She is also known for her live coverage of major art fairs such as the Armoury Show (NYC), Venice Biennale, Frieze Art Fair (Miami) and Art Basel (Switzerland).
Johnson is the founder and editor of the art blog Art F City.
Art F City publishes an annual calendar titled “Nude Artists as Pandas“, featuring naked artists dressed up in panda costumes.
She pens a regular column for L Magazine in New York.
Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Art Review, Art & Australia, Art in America, artkrush, The Daily Beast, Flash Art, Flavorpill, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, More Intelligent Life, New York Press, NYFA Current, Print Magazine, The Reeler, Time Out NY.
She has worked with Location One as a visiting critic and attended the 2007 iCommons conference in Croatia as a blogger.
In 2008, she served on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation New Media Fellowships and became the first blogger to earn a Creative Capital Arts Writers grant from the Creative Capital Foundation, which is part of the Andy Warhol Foundation.
She has also served on a panel for Art Prize.
She contributed to the book what’s the deal with all the peanut centric aeroplane snacks? published by Paper Monument.
In November 2010, Johnson released an LP called “Now That’s What You Call Net Art“, a DJ battle record that compiles mixes based from sounds recorded in art spaces, galleries, and museums in Manhattan and Brooklyn, pitting the neighboring boroughs against each other.
Johnson raised over $11,000 with a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, calling upon sound art lovers and a cadre of collectors, even offering a dinner with herself and artist Glass Popcorn , a former art critic, to the highest bidder.
Johnson predicts the project will spawn follow-up records, including East Coast vs. West Coast, and Canada vs. USA.
Johnson told WNYC’s Carolina Miranda that the Brooklyn recordings sound more DIY.
In December 2011, Johnson was named in a federal libel lawsuit in US District Court for a May, 2011 article she published in Art F City, which suggested an art restorer was a forger and committed crimes.
Above: Paddy Johnson
Thomas King, who was born in Sacramento on 24 April 1943, self-identifies as being of Cherokee, German, and Greek descent.
Above: Thomas King
King says his father left the family when the boys were very young, and that they were raised almost entirely by their mother.
In his series of Massey Lectures, eventually published as a book The Truth About Stories (2003), King tells that after their father’s death, he and his brother learned that their father had two other families, neither of whom knew about the third.
(The Massey Lectures is an annual five-part series of lectures given in Canada by distinguished writers, thinkers and scholars who explore important ideas and issues of contemporary interest.
Created in 1961 in honour of Vincent Massey, the former Governor General of Canada, it is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed lecture series in the country.
As a child, King attended grammar school in Roseville, California, and both private Catholic and public high schools.
After flunking out of Sacramento State University, he joined the US Navy for a brief period of time before receiving a medical discharge for a knee injury.
Following this King worked several jobs, including as an ambulance driver, bank teller, and photojournalist in New Zealand for three years.
King eventually completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chico State University in California.
He moved to Utah, where he worked as a counselor for aboriginal students before completing a PhD program in English at the University of Utah.
His 1971 MA thesis was on film studies.
His 1986 PhD dissertation was on native studies, one of the earliest of works to explore the oral storytelling tradition as literature.
Around this time, King became interested in aboriginal oral traditions and storytelling.
He left the reservation in 1980.
After moving to Canada in 1980, King taught native studies at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta) in the early 1980s.
He also served as a faculty member of the University of Minnesota’s American Indian studies department.
He is currently an English professor at the University of Guelph and lives in Guelph.
Above: Johnston Clock Tower, University of Guelph
King was chosen to deliver the 2003 Massey Lectures, entitled The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.
King was the first Massey lecturer of self-identifying aborginal descent.
King explored the native experience in oral stories, literature, history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest in order to make sense of North America’s relationship with its aboriginal peoples.
King has criticized policies and programs of both the United States and Canadian governments in many interviews and books.
He is worried about aboriginal prospects and rights in North America.
He says that he fears that aboriginal culture, and specifically aboriginal land, will continue to be taken away from aboriginal peoples until there is nothing left for them at all.
In his 2013 book The Inconvenient Indian, King says:
“The issue has always been land.
It will always be land, until there isn’t a square foot of land left in North America that is controlled by native people.”
King also discusses policies regarding aboriginal status.
He noted that legislatures in the 1800s withdrew aboriginal status from persons who graduated from university or joined the army.
King has also worked to identify North American laws that make it complicated to claim status in the first place, for example, the US Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 or Canada’s 1985 Bill C-31.
Bill C-31 amended the Indian Act in 1985 to allow aboriginal women and their children to reclaim status, which the Act had previously withdrawn if the woman married a non-status man.
King claims that the amended act, though progressive for women who had lost their status, threatens the status of future generations because of its limitations.
Above: Thomas King
King has been writing novels, and children’s books, and collections of stories since the 1980s.
His notable works include A Coyote Columbus Story (1992) and Green Grass, Running Water (1993).
King’s writing style incorporates oral storytelling structures with traditional Western narrative.
He writes in a conversational tone.
For example, in Green Grass, Running Water, the narrator argues with some of the characters.
In The Truth About Stories(2003), King addresses the reader as if in a conversation with responses.
King uses a variety of anecdotes and humorous narratives while maintaining a serious message in a way that has been compared to the style of trickster legends in Native North American culture.
Within this story, King also integrates the recently popularized idea of turtles all the way down in an anecdote introducing this narrative, calling into the relevancy of this ideology in Native history.
(“Turtles all the way down” is an expression of the problem of infinite regress.
The saying alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports the flat earth on its back.
It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly large world turtles that continues indefinitely (hence, “turtles all the way down“).
The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain.)
Henry Kock (1952 – 2005) was a noted horticulturalist, eco-activist, and founder of the Elm Recovery Project in Ontario.
Born in Sarnia (ON), Kock grew up working for the family business, Huronview Nurseries.
A graduate of the University of Guelph in 1977 with an emphasis on horticulture, he stayed connected to the University until his death.
Affectionately known as “Mr. Arboretum“, he was diagnosed with brain cancer in July 2004.
He finally succumbed to the disease on Christmas Day 2005 at the age of 53.
Above: Henry Kock
After the devastating effects of Dutch elm disease on the provincial elm population, Kock created the Elm Recovery Project, collecting scions from the survivors, developing a breeding program and raising the young trees for eventual restoration of DED-tolerant elms in the wild.
Another notable legacy left by Kock is the guelph Hillside Festival, which he co-founded.
Celebrated every year in July at Guelph Lake, just north of the city, folk and other musical acts gather for a three-day weekend event attended by hundreds of people.
Above: Guelph Lake
Kock was also known for his many activist activities, especially those regarding plants.
He helped to organize the first Guelph Organic Conference, which has increased in popularity each year.
He rallied for peace in Iraq, renewable energy, public transit and urban cycling, as well as being a regular attendee of the International Women’s Day in Toronto each year with his wife.
At the time of his death he was working on a book on growing native trees from seed, a project which some of his botany colleagues at the University of Guelph Arboretum completed.
Additionally, Kock often travelled the province with talks and slide shows about protecting wild placing, propagating native plant species, and alternatives to garden pesticides.
Most notably, however, Kock is recognized for establishing gene banks for rare native plants, including elms.
Above: Guelph Arboretum
Jean Little (1932 – 2020) was born in Formosa, the daughter of Flora (Gauld), a doctor, and John Llewellyn Little, a physician.
Her parents were Canadian doctors serving as medical missionaries under the United Church of Canada.
The Little family came home to live in Canada in 1939, moving to Guelph in 1940.
Above: Jean Little
After teaching disabled children for several years, Little wrote her first children’s novel, Mine for Keeps, about a child with cerebral palsy.
It won the Little, Brown Canadian Children’s Book Award and was published in 1962.
She has subsequently written over 50 published works, which include novels, picture books, poetry, short stories, and two autobiographical books.
Her novel His Banner Over Me is based on her mother’s childhood.
Little won literary awards for her work and has been published internationally.
Little taught Children’s Literature at the University of Guelph, where she was an Adjunct Professor in the Department of English.
Jean Little Public School in Guelph is named in her honour.
She journeyed widely talking to both adults and children themselves about the joys to be found through reading and writing.
In March 2004, she went to India and in November 2006 to Bulgaria.
Little gave the 2016 Margaret Lawrence Lecture at the Canadian Writers Summit in June.
As of 2016, Little resided in Guelph with her sister Pat deVries, her great-niece Jeanie, and her great-nephew Ben.
She continued to write through the aid of a voice-activated computer and travelled with her guide dog Honey.
Several of Little’s books, such as Mine for Keeps and From Anna, focus on children who have a disability or are affected by a person with a disability.
As many of her books were written several decades ago, they now serve as examples of how children with disabilities were previously raised and treated by society.
Another frequent theme is adoption and foster care, as shown in Home from Far and Willow and Twig.
Children often find homes and families throughout the course of the novel, whether it consists of rediscovering the importance of their family, being reunited with family or creating a new family in their new situation.
While the novels often touch on very sad events, ranging from serious illness, abuse and death, the endings are usually positive and show the resilience of children.
Douglas Grant Lochhead (pronounced Lock–heed)(1922 – 2011) was a Guelph-born poet, academic librarian, bibliographer and university professor who published more than 30 collections of poetry over five decades, from 1959 to 2009.
Above: Douglas Lochhead
Lochhead’s best-known book, High Marsh Road, a collection of 122 short poems chronicling his daily walks across the Tantramar Marshes in southeastern New Brunswick, earned him a nomination for a Governor General’s Award in 1980.
The first 30 poems in High Marsh Road are posted on telephone poles leading from Sackville’s main downtown intersection toward the marshes that so often stirred “the red sea of his singing“.
“I think Douglas thought of poetry as a form of resistance,” his friend and fellow poet Pete Sanger told The Globe and Mail following Lochhead’s death in 2011.
“A form of resistance to non-poetic thinking, to tyranny, to unimaginative views of the world.“
Lucy Christiana, Lady Duff-Gordon (née Sutherland) (1863 – 1935) was a leading British fashion designer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who worked under the professional name Lucile.
The first British-based designer to achieve international acclaim, Lucy Duff-Gordon was a widely acknowledged innovator in couture styles as well as in fashion industry public relations.
In addition to originating the “mannequin parade“, a precursor to the modern fashion show, and training the first professional models, she launched slit skirts and low necklines, popularized less restrictive corsets, and promoted alluring and pared-down lingerie.
Opening branches of her London house, Lucile Ltd, in Chicago, New York City, and Paris, her business became the first global couture brand, dressing a trend-setting clientele of royalty, nobility, and stage and film personalities.
Duff-Gordon is also remembered as a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, and as the losing party in the precedent-setting 1917 contract law case of Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, in which Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo wrote the opinion for New York’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, upholding a contract between Duff-Gordon and her advertising agent that assigned the agent the sole right to market her name.
It was the first case of its kind, clothes labeled and sold at a lowered cost in a cheaper market under an expensive “brand name“.
Above: The Lady
The daughter of civil engineer Douglas Sutherland (1838 – 1865) and his Anglo-French-Canadian wife Elinor Saunders (1841 – 1937), Lucy Christiana Sutherland was born in London, England, and raised in Guelph, after her father’s death from typhiod fever.
When her mother remarried in 1871 to the bachelor David Kennedy (d. 1889), Lucy moved with them and her sister, the future novelist Elinor Glyn, to Saint Helier on the Channel Isle of Jersey.
Above: Elinor Glyn (1864 – 1943)
Lucy acquired her love of fashion through dressing her collection of dolls, by studying gowns worn by women in family paintings, and by later making clothes for herself and Elinor.
Returning to Jersey, after a visit to relatives in England in 1875, Lucy and Elinor survived the wreck of their ship when it ran aground in a gale.
In 1884, Lucy married for the first time, to James Stuart Wallace, with whom she had a child, Esme (1885–1973).
Wallace was an alcoholic and regularly unfaithful, and Lucy sought consolation in love affairs, including a long relationship with the famous surgeon Sir Morell Mackenzie.
Above: Dr. Morell Mackenzie (1837 – 1892)
The Wallaces separated circa 1890 and Lucy started divorce proceedings in 1893.
In 1900, Lucy Sutherland Wallace married a Scottish baronet, landowner and sportsman Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon.
Above: Cosmo Duff-Gordon (1862 – 1931)
In order to support herself and her daughter after the end of her first marriage, Lucy Duff-Gordon began working as a dressmaker from home.
In 1893, she opened Maison Lucile at 24 Old Burlington St., in the heart of the fashionable West End of London, having worked for a year previously from her mother’s flat at 25 Davies Street.
In 1897, Lucy Duff-Gordon opened a larger shop at 17 Hanover Square, Westminster, before a further move (1904) to 14 George Street, Oxford.
In 1903, the business was incorporated as “Lucile Ltd” and the following year moved to 23 Hanover Square, where it operated for the next 20 years.
Duff-Gordon was eventually bankrupted after she revealed in the American press that she was not designing much of the clothing that was attributed to her name.
She spent her later years selling imported clothing and smaller collections in a succession of unsuccessful small ‘boutiques‘.
Above: Lucile nightgown, 1913
Lucile Ltd served a wealthy clientele including aristocracy, royalty, and theatre stars.
The business expanded, with salons opening in New York City in 1910, Paris in 1911, and Chicago in 1915, making it the first leading couture house with full-scale branches in three countries.
Lucile was most famous for its lingerie, tea gowns and evening wear.
Above: A tea gown
Its luxuriously layered and draped garments in soft fabrics of blended pastel colors, often accentuated with sprays of hand-made silk flowers, became its hallmark.
However, Lucile also offered simple, smart tailored suits and daywear.
The dress illustrated below typifies the classically draped style often found in Lucile designs.
Lucy Duff-Gordon originally designed it in Paris, for Lucile Ltd’s spring 1913 collection, and later specially adapted it for London socialite Heather Firbank (1888 – 1954) and other well-known clients, including actress Kitty Gordon and dancer Lydia Kyasht of the Ballets Russes.
The example illustrated below was worn by Miss Firbank and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Lucy Duff-Gordon is also widely credited with training the first professional fashion models (called mannequins) as well as staging the first runway or “catwalk” style shows.
These affairs were theatrically inspired, invitation-only, tea-time presentations, complete with a stage, curtains, mood-setting lighting, music from a string band, souvenir gifts, and programmes.
Above: Western Canada Fashion Week, 2014
Another innovation in the presentation of her collections was what she called her “emotional gowns“.
These dresses were given descriptive names, influenced by literature, history, popular culture and her interest in the psychology and personality of her clients.
Some well-known clients, whose clothing influenced many when it appeared in early films, on stage, and in the press, included: Irene Castle, Lily Elsie, Gertie Millar, Gaby Desyls, Billie Burke and Mary Pickford.
Above: Dancer Irene Castle (1893 – 1969) in a Lucile dress for Watch Your Step (1914)Above: Actress / singer Lily Elsie (1886 – 1962) in Lucile dress, The Merry Widow (1907)Above: Actress / singer Gertie Millar (1879 – 1952)Above: Actress / singer Gaby Deslys (1881 – 1920)Above: Actress Billie Burke (1884 – 1970)Above: Actress Mary Pickford (1892 – 1979)
Lucile costumed numerous theatrical productions, including the London première of Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow (1907), the Ziegfield Follies revues on Broadway (1915 – 1921), and the D.W. Griffith silent movie Way Down East (1920).
Lucile creations were also frequently featured in Pathé and Gaumont newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s, and Lucy Duff-Gordon appeared in her own weekly spot in the British newsreel “Around the Town” (1919 – 1921).
Early Lucile Ltd sketches, archived at the Victoria and Albert Museum, provide evidence that in 1904 the salon employed at least one sketch artist to record Lucy Duff-Gordon’s designs for in-house use.
Above: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
As demands grew on her time, especially in the US during WW1, she was aided by various sketch artists who created ideas based on the “Lucile look“.
In her memoir, Lucy Duff-Gordon credited her corps of assistants for their contributions to the success of the New York branch of Lucile Ltd.
Many of these assistants’ drawings were published in the press and signed “Lucile“, though occasionally the signature of the artist appeared.
It was general practice for couture houses to use professional artists to execute drawings of designs as they were being created, as well as of the artist’s own ideas for each season’s output and for individual clients.
These drawings were overseen by Lucy Duff-Gordon, who often critiqued them, adding notes, instructions, dates, and sometimes her own signature or initials, indicating she approved the design.
Like many couturiers, Lucy Duff-Gordon designed principally on the human form.
Her surviving personal sketchbooks indicate her limited technical ability as a sketch artist, but a skill at recording colour.
Surviving Lucile Ltd sketches reveal numerous artists of varying talent levels, and these are often mis-attributed to herself.
Howard Greer admitted in his autobiography that the sketches he and his colleagues executed were often confused interpretations of the Lucile style that did not match their employer’s vision.
Moreover, he claimed customers were not always pleased by the actual dresses created from the sketches he and the other assistants submitted.
Unprecedented for a leading couturière, Lucy Duff-Gordon promoted her collections journalistically.
In addition to a weekly syndicated fashion page for the Hearst newspaper syndicate (1910–22), she wrote monthly columns for Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping (1912 – 1922).
A Hearst writer ghost wrote the newspaper page after 1918, but the designer herself penned the Good Housekeeping and Harper’s Bazaar features throughout their duration, although the responsibility of producing a regular piece proved difficult, and she missed several deadlines.
Lucile fashions also appeared regularly in Vogue, Femina, Les Modes, L’art et la Mode, and other leading fashion magazines (1910 – 1922).
Along with Hearst publications, Lucile contributed to Vanity Fair, Dress, The Illustrated London News, The London Magazine, Pearson’s Magazine and Munsey’s.
In addition to her career as a couturière, costumier, journalist, and pundit, Lucy Duff-Gordon took significant advantage of opportunities for commercial endorsement, lending her name to advertising for brassieres, perfume, shoes, and other luxury apparel and beauty items.
Among the most adventurous of her licensing ventures were a two-season, lower-priced, mail-order fashion line for Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1916 –1917), which promoted her clothing in special de luxe catalogues, and a contract to design interiors for limousines and town cars for the Chalmers Motor Co., later Chrysler Corporation (1917).
In 1912, Lucy Duff-Gordon travelled to America on business in connection with the New York branch of Lucile Ltd.
She and her husband, Sir Cosmo, booked first class passage on the ocean liner RMS Titanic under the alias “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan“.
Her secretary, Laura Mabel Francatelli, nicknamed “Franks“, accompanied the couple.
Above: The RMS Titanic leaving Southampton harbour
On 14 April, at 11:40 pm the Titanic struck an iceberg and began to sink.
During the evacuation, the Duff-Gordons and Francatelli escaped in Lifeboat #1.
Although the boat was designed to hold 40 people, it was lowered with only 12 people aboard, seven of them male crew members.
Some time after the Titanic sank, while afloat in Lifeboat #1, Lucy Duff-Gordon reportedly commented to her secretary:
“There is your beautiful nightdress gone.”
A fireman, annoyed by her comment, replied that while the couple could replace their property, he and the other crew members had lost everything in the sinking.
Sir Cosmo then offered each of the men £5 (equivalent to £499 in 2019) to aid them until they received new assignments.
While on the RMS Carpathia, the Cunard liner that rescued Titanic‘s survivors, Sir Cosmo presented the men from Lifeboat #1 with cheques drawn on his bank, Coutts.
Above: The RMS Carpathia
This action later spawned gossip that the Duff-Gordons had bribed their lifeboat’s crew not to return to save swimmers out of fear the vessel would be swamped.
These rumours were fuelled by the tabloid press in the US and, eventually, in the UK.
On 17 May, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon testified at the London hearings of the British Board of Trade inquiry into the disaster.
Above: Cosmo at the Titanic inquiry
On 20 May, Lady Duff-Gordon took the stand.
The couple’s testimony attracted the largest crowds during the inquiry.
While Sir Cosmo faced tough criticism during cross-examination, his wife had it slightly easier.
Dressed in black, with a large, veiled hat, she told the court she remembered little about what happened in the lifeboat on the night of the sinking, due to seasickness, and she could not recall specific conversations.
Lawyers did not seem to have pressed her very hard.
Lucy Duff-Gordon noted that for the rest of her husband’s life he was brokenhearted over the negative coverage by the “yellow press“, during his cross-examination at the inquiry.
Above: “The Yellow Press“, by L.M. Glackens, portrays newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst as a jester distributing sensational stories
The final report by the inquiry determined that the Duff-Gordons did not deter the crew from any attempt at rescue through bribery or any other method of coercion.
In 2012, a box of documents and letters concerning the Titanic sinking belonging to the Duff-Gordons was rediscovered at the London office of Veale Wasborough Vizards, the legal firm that merged with Tweedies, which had represented the couple.
Among the papers was an inventory of the possessions Lucy Duff Gordon had lost, the total value listed as £3,208 3s 6d.
One letter detailed what she wore when leaving the ship:
two dressing gowns “for warmth“
a muff
her “motor hat“.
(A faded grey silk kimono with typical Fortuny-style black cord edging, for some time thought to have been worn by her that night, is now understood to have belonged to her daughter Esme, Countess of Halsbury, as its distinctive print dates the item to post World War 1)
An apron said to have been worn by Francatelli can be seen at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
Her life-jacket was sold, along with correspondence about her experiences in the disaster, at Christie’s auction house, London, in 2007.
Above: Titanic wreck bow
Lucy Duff-Gordon had another close call three years after surviving the Titanic, when she booked passage aboard the final voyage of the RMS Lusitania.
It was reported in the press that she cancelled her trip due to illness.
The Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo on 7 May 1915.
Above: The RMS Lusitania
In 1917, Lucy Duff-Gordon lost the New York Court of Appeals case of Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, in which Judge Benjmin N. Cardozo established precedent in the realm of contract law when he held the designer to a contract that assigned the sole right to market her professional name to her advertising agent, Otis F. Wood, despite the fact that the contract lacked explicit consideration for her promise.
Above: Lady Duff-Gordon, 1917
Cardozo noted that:
“A promise may be lacking, and yet the whole writing may be ‘instinct with an obligation'” and, if so, “there is a contract.”
Cardozo famously opened the opinion with the following description of the designer:
The defendant styles herself “a creator of fashions.”
Her favor helps a sale.
Manufacturers of dresses, millinery, and like articles are glad to pay for a certificate of her approval.
The things which she designs, fabrics, parasols, and what not, have a new value in the public mind when issued in her name.
Although the term “creator of fashions” was part of the tagline in ‘Lucile’s‘ columns for the Hearst papers, some observers have claimed that Cardozo’s tone revealed a certain disdain for her position in the world of fashion.
Others accept that he was merely echoing language used by the defendant in her own submissions to the court as well as in her publicity.
Above: Benjamin Cardozo (1870 – 1938)
Lucy Duff-Gordon’s connection to her design empire began to disintegrate following a restructuring of Lucile, Ltd in 1918–19.
An acrimonious battle emerged in the press, culminating in her public acknowledgement that many Lucile dresses were not designed by her.
Lucy Duff-Gordon’s autobiography acknowledges that this had been the case since at least 1911.
By September 1922, she had ceased designing for the company, which effectively closed.
A completely new ‘Lucile’ was formed, using the same premises in Paris, and different designs, but it gradually failed.
Meanwhile, its founder (who continued to be known as ‘Lucile‘) worked from private premises designing personally for individual clients.
She was briefly associated with the firm of Reville, Ltd., maintained a ready-to-wear shop of her own and lent her name to a wholesale operation in America.
Lucy Duff-Gordon also continued as a fashion columnist and critic after her design career ended, contributing to London’s Daily Sketch and Daily Express (1922 – 1930), and she penned her best-selling autobiography Discretions and Indiscretions (1932).
Dorothy Maclean (1920 – 2020) was a Canadian writer and educator on spiritual subjects who was one of the original three adults at what is now the Findhorn Foundation in northeast Scotland.
Maclean was born in Guelph.
Above: Dorothy Maclean (open eyes)
From 1941 onwards she worked for the British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York City.
(The BSC was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
Its purpose was to investigate enemy activities, prevent sabotage against British interests in the Americas, and mobilise pro-British opinion in the Americas.
As a ‘huge secret agency of nationwide news manipulation and black propaganda‘, the BSC influenced news coverage in the Herald Tribune, the New York Post, the Baltimore Sun and radio New York Worldwide.
The stories disseminated from the organisation’s offices at Rockefeller Center would then be legitimately picked up by other radio stations and newspapers, before being relayed to the American public.
Through this, anti-German stories were placed in major American media outlets to help turn public opinion.)
Above: BSC operated from the 35th and 36th floors of the International Building, Rockefeller Center, New York during World War II
After being posted to Panama, she met and married John Wood, though the couple would divorce in 1951.
On her way to New York City in 1941, Maclean had met spiritual teacher Sheena Govan, and it was through her that she would later meet Peter Caddy.
Living in England in the 1950s, Maclean became involved in the spiritual practices of Govan and Caddy and eventually Peter’s wife Eileen Caddy.
When the Caddys were appointed to manage a hotel in Scotland, Maclean joined them as the hotel’s secretary.
After the Caddys became unemployed in 1962, they moved into a caravan near the village of Findhorn.
In 1963, an annex was built so that Maclean could continue to work with them.
A community eventually grew up around the Caddys and Maclean, and this community has since 1972 been known as the Findhorn Foundation.
The Findhorn Foundation and the surrounding community have no formal doctrine or creed.
The Foundation offers a range of workshops, programmes and events in the environment of a working ecovillage.
The programmes are intended to give participants practical experience of how to apply spiritual values in daily life.
Approximately 3,000 participants from around the world take part in residential programmes each year.
Above: The Findhorn Foundation community
Maclean was known for her work with devas, said to be intelligences overseeing the natural world.
Her book To Hear the Angels Sing gives an overview of this work and also provides autobiographical materials.
A full-length biography, Memoirs of an Ordinary Mystic was published in 2010.
Maclean left Findhorn in 1973 and subsequently founded an educational organization in North America with David Spangler.
Her childhood home, Woodside, at 40 Spring Street, Guelph has since been designated a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act.
Maclean retired from public life in 2010 and lived again at Findhorn.
She turned 92 years old during Findhorn Foundation’s 50-year anniversary celebration in 2012.
She turned 100 in January 2020 and died shortly after on 12 March 2020, in Findhorn.
Robert Munsch was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He graduated from Fordham University in 1969 with a Bachelop of Arts degree in history and from Boston University in 1971 with a Master of Arts degree in anthropology.
He studied to become a Jesuit priest, but decided he would rather work with children after having jobs at orphanages and daycare centres.
In 1973, he received a Master of Education in Child Studies from Tufts University.
In 1975, he moved to Canada to work at the preschool at the University of Guelph.
He also taught in the College of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Guelph as a lecturer and as an assistant professor.
Above: Munsch signing an autograph for a young fan
In Guelph, he was encouraged to publish the many stories he made up for the children he worked with.
One of Munsch’s best-known books, Love You Forever, was listed 4th on the 2001 Publishers Weekly All-Time Bestselling Children’s Books list for paperbacks at 6.97 million copies (not including the 1.049 million hardcover copies).
It has since sold more than 30 million copies and has been featured on the episode “The One With the Cake” from the TV show Friends, as well as being mentioned by Oprah Winfrey on Late Night with David Letterman as being her favorite children’s book.
His other famous book The Paper Bag Princess has sold more than seven million copies and is considered to be a feminist story, as well as a literary classic.
Munsch and his wife Ann discovered they couldn’t have biological children after two pregnancies ended with still-birth.
They have three adopted children.
Munsch has publicly talked about his bipolar disorder and addiction issues.
In August 2008, Munsch suffered a stroke that affected his memory.
He has since retired; however, he continues to publish two previously written books each year.
On 15 May 2010, Munsch revealed that he has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive and manic-depressive disorder, and that he had a cocaine addiction that started in 2005 and was an alcoholic.
At the time, he had been clean for four months, and had regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for the previous 25 years and Narcotics Anonymous meetings more recently.
Above: Robert Munsch (pre-beard)
Munsch is known for his exuberant storytelling methods, with exaggerated expressions and acted voices.
He makes up his stories in front of audiences and refines them through repeated tellings.
His stories do not have a recurring single character.
Instead, the characters are based on the children to whom he first told the story, including his own children.
He often performs at children’s festivals and appears at elementary schools, sometimes unannounced.
In 1991, some of his books were adapted into the cartoon series A Bunch of Munsch.
He is also the most stolen author at the Toronto Public Library.
Born in Guelph, Brendan Myers was raised in Elora, a small village north of Guelph in Wellington County.
He was born the eldest son of an Irish-Canadian family and completed a bachelor’s degree in drama and philosophy in 1996 and then a master’s degree in philosophy in 1999, both from the University of Guelph.
While at university, he became more involved in ethics and environmentalism and he converted from Catholicism to paganism, becoming an activist member of the neo-pagan community.
Myers continued his academic career in Ireland, and eventually completed a doctoral dissertation entitled “Time and the Land” at the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Normative in their conception, Myers’ works fundamentally examine ideas regarding the interconnectedness of creation and emphasize the importance of strong moral character as vital to the health and well-being of the world and society.
Myers criticizes utilitarian views, especially “negative” utilitarianism, which holds that ethics require nothing more than the minimization of harm, and of deontological views, which emphasize social duties and adhering to social norms, i.e. rules.
As an alternative to utilitarianism and deontology, Myers explores the ethics of character and identity, self-knowledge and shared life.
Above: Brendan Myers
In 1848, George Pirie (1799 – 1870) became the publisher of the Guelph Herald newspaper after his attempt at farming in the Bon Accord community.
The farm was sold and the family moved to Guelph where he ran the Guelph Herald publishing and printing office on Wyndham Street.
The elder Pirie was a staunch conservative and Scottish Canadian poet.
As a young man, Alexander Fraser Pirie (1849 – 1903) assisted at his father’s newspaper office.
The paper struggled to maintain circulation and relied upon job printing work. Imprint magazine later described these early days in a profile of Pirie:
“He first saw the light of publication day in his father’s office, the Guelph Herald, in 1849, and was brought up to the sound of the mallet and planer, the hammering of wooden quoins in the chases and the incessant cry of “Colour!” on the part of the man who pulled the lever of the Washington press.
The principal event of his early life was stirring the glue and molasses over a hot fire when the foreman decided to cast a new roller, the making of a new roller being at that time regarded as an epoch in the history of all well-regulated country printing offices.“
Above: A.F. Pirie
At 21 years of age, after his father’s death in 1870, Pirie became publisher of The Herald.
During this time he took on the numerous duties of a local newspaper which included the issuing of marriage licenses.
At this time he received a letter from Prime Minister John A. Macdonald authorizing him as the local agent for these licenses.
Above: John A. Macdonald (1815 – 1891)
However, Pirie had a great desire to work as a journalist in a larger city, and two years later moved on to Toronto.
In 1924, The Herald was absorbed by the Guelph Mercury (1853 – 2016).
By 1874, Pirie was working at The Toronto Sun as a columnist.
From a circa 1876 article:
“The Sun still retains one of the most fertile humorists in Canada in the person of Mr. Alexander Pirie, commonly known as the “Sun Skit Urchin”.
This gentleman, who is still very young, finds plenty of work for the scissors of his contemporaries in a daily column of “Sun Skits.”
They abound in reckless humor, sparing no one, and have just the pleasant bitterness of a dry curacoa.
They have now flowed forth in an uninterrupted stream for nearly two years, and neither the supply nor quality shows any signs of falling off“.
A caricature of Pirie as the “Sun Skit Urchin” appeared in Grip magazine at this time.
Grip magazine was Canada’s version of the satirical British magazine Punch.
While Pirie was also a contributor to Grip, these contributions were submitted anonymously.
He also penned several articles for Saturday Night (1887 – 2005).
“Rambles About Rimouski” was a story of the history of Rimouski (QB).
Above: Rimouski
Pirie was a popular editorial columnist, as well as social figure and public speaker.
During the 1870s, he lived with his mother and other family members on Mutual Street in Toronto.
This house, now demolished, was in the vicinity of where Ryerson University now stands.
Above: Crest of Ryerson University, famous for its joiurnalism programme
He was in demand as a public speaker, and known for his use of political humour.
Throughout his years in Toronto Pirie was present at many of the city’s social events, such as an 1885 reading by Robert Kirkland “the Khan” Kernighan (1854 – 1926).
His speaking engagements ranged from reviews of his European travels to speeches in support of Liberal political candidates.
Above: The Khan lecture
In 1876, Pirie joined the Toronto Telegram (1876 – 1971).
He was best known as the second editor of the Telegram, a role he held until 1888.
The Telegram was founded in 1876 by John Ross Robertson (1841 – 1918) as a paper devoted to Toronto’s interests, and, as Robertson described it, devoted to “today’s news today“.
Above: Last edition of the Toronto Telegram
Pirie spent his first year at the Telegram working under the historian John Charles Dent (1841 – 1888).
After that he took on the role of editor which he held until 1888.
A 1923 review of the history of Toronto newspapers commented on Pirie’s time at the Telegram:
“Then came Mr. A. F. Pirie, one of the wittiest and most companionable of men, whose paragraphs, straight-flung and barbed at the point, enlarged public interest in the enterprise“.
In 1886, Pirie participated in a literary debate relating to Canada’s role in North America and her relationship with the United States.
Articles under the heading “Canadian Prospects and Politics” were submitted to The North American Review for the January 1886 issue (Volume 142, Issue 350) by the Marquis of Lorne and A. F. Pirie with a brief note from Sir John A. Macdonald.
Above: 1st issue of the North American Review, the first literary magazinne in the United States
In February 1893, Pirie was elected president of the Canadian Press Association.
In this capacity he spoke on behalf of Canadian interests at the World Press Conference in Chicago.
In a 29 May 1893, article from the Toronto Mail (1872 – 1895), “Good Words for Canada: Plain Talk at the Press Convention“, it was reported that Canada had the “honor of closing the proceedings of the 9th annual convention of the National Editorial Association” with the last address delivered by A. F. Pirie.
Mr. Pirie also represented the Canadian Press Association at the World’s Press Congress.
The reporter felt that:
“He said some good words for Canada, reminding his hearers that there were a hundred thousand Canadians in Chicago alone.”
Also, that Pirie had noted the role women had been taking in the press congress and stated that as the public journals were made for men and women, “there seemed to be no good reason that women as well as men should not bear a part in making them”.
Finally, he made a strong plea for closer trade relations between the U.S. and Canada:
“Holding it to be a shame and an outrage that Canadian workmen should be shut out of the United States, and Canadian products subjected to a high duty, after all the Canadians had done for the United States at the time of the civil war, when 40,000 took up arms for the union, and all that Canadians in the States are still doing in building up that country“.
He appealed to the journalists of America for fair play for Canada.
Pirie’s work attracted many admirers.
Imprint magazine, in profiling the new President of the Canadian Press Association wrote in reference to his 1889 William Notman portrait which was published within the article:
“The portrait does not do justice to its subject:
To do so it would require to be a “speaking likeness”, for our friend is just as handy with his tongue as he is with his pen — he is a born orator as well as journalist.”
Above: Photographer / businessman William Notman (1826 – 1891)
Commenting on his career, Imprint noted:
“Mr. Pirie is a writer of great versatility, a capital speaker, one of the best-natured men in the profession, and publishes a model country weekly.”
And on his popularity:
“He is one of the most popular of our Canadian journalists, a believer in his country and its future, and is a good representative of the men who make Canadian newspapers.“
Above: A.F. Pirie
He married Hester Emma McCausland (1858 – 1901) in Toronto on 12 June 1889, at her father’s home on Jarvis Street.
Miss McCausland’s father Joseph McCausland had been in Toronto since the 1820s and was a native of Armagh, Ireland, and founder of a successful Toronto stained glass window firm.
The newly married couple moved to Montreal where Pirie briefly worked as an Editor at the Montreal Star.
At this time, they were photographed by Canada’s top portrait photographer William Notman.
Above: Alex and Hester
By 1889, they returned to Dundas (ON) and purchased a home on Sydenham Street that they named “Sydenham Lodge”.
Four children were born in Dundas during the 1890s: Russell Fraser, Elsie Gowan, Jean Booth and Goldwin McCausland.
In recent years, this home was used for the filming of one episode in Season Six of The West Wing.
Above: Sydenham Lodge
In 1895, Pirie lost his mother, Jane (Booth) Pirie, who fell ill after a visit to Dundas from her Toronto home.
Jane Pirie had actively assisted in her husband’s publishing and printing business in Guelph, and in the 1890s had drafted an account of her travels to Western Canada which Mr. Pirie published in the Dundas Banner.
Above: Downtown Dundas, 2005
Pirie was interested in politics and during the Parliamentary session of 1888 he had represented the Montreal Star (1869 – 1979) in the press gallery at Ottawa.
Above: Parliamentary Press Gallery, 1917
In the Provincial General Election of 1898, Pirie had received a Reform nomination as a candidate for North Wentworth.
This was not successful, and afterwards he worked for the Liberal Party of Canada, often appearing as a public speaker, or editing work destined for publication.
He appeared in Brantford (ON), on behalf of the Honourable William Paterson for the election of 1900.
At that time, the audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation.
Pirie began his speech noting that his reputation as a humorist preceded him, however, in this case, he had some serious issues to cover.
Above: Images of modern Brantford
Pirie’s wife died of pneumonia in 1901 after a brief illness.
She was only 43 years old.
After this time, Pirie’s health broke down and he limited his public engagements.
He continued some of his work for the Liberal Party of Canada and public speaking engagements.
According to newspaper accounts after his death, his relatives noted that he began to stay indoors for much of the time.
His cousin, Robinson Pirie of Hamilton, began to visit him to urge him to get out.
In 1901, he attended a conference for the Canadian Press Association held in Charlottetown (PEI), Pirie wrote to his sister-in-law in Toronto (Mrs. Boyce Thompson) that many events had lost their lustre.
He told her that he and his wife had always dreamt of returning to Toronto after the children grew up.
He described the regular visits he made to his wife’s grave on Sundays.
In July 1903, Pirie visited relatives in Brandon (MB), in conjunction with some work for the Liberal party.
Relatives hoped that this trip might improve his state of mind.
Above: Burlington Gazette, 3 August 1903
After his return to Dundas, he died at home on 15 August 1903.
This event shocked the community.
In a letter preserved at the Whitehern Museum Archives, Mrs. McQuesten wrote to her son Reverend Calvin McQuesten in Montreal about the event.
Pirie’s pallbearers included John Ross Robertson of the Toronto Telegram.
He was buried in Grove Cemetery next to his wife.
Four children were left without parents.
The children’s guardian was their paternal aunt, Ada L. Pirie (Mrs. Walpole Murdoch), who had been assisting Pirie since the death of her sister-in-law.
In 1918, The Hamilton Review published an article on Pirie by Sir John Willison (of The Globe) who had been profiling political and public personalities from Canada’s past.
He wrote:
“But Mr. Pirie was more than a jester.
He had qualities of heart and mind which were seldom revealed and only to those who had his affection and confidence.
These were few, for beneath an apparent openness and spontaneity there was a reserve which was not easily penetrated.
He got much out of life, but not all that he desired.
Happy but often anxious and foreboding.
When I think of Pirie I recall what was said of Shelley:
‘He passed through life like a strange bird upon a great journey, singing always of the paradise to which he was travelling, and suddenly lost from the sight of men in the midst of his song.‘ “
Above: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
Sandra Sabatini is a Canadian writer.
Born in Guelph, Sabatini is a graduate of the doctoral program in English Literature at the University of Waterloo.
She also has a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Guelph where she currently teaches.
Above: Sandra Sabatini
Her first collection of short stories, The One with the News (2000), a collection of linked stories exploring the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on a family, was shortlisted for the McClelland Stewart Writers Trust Journey and for the Upper Canada Writers’ Craft Award.
Sabatini’s second book, Making Babies: Infants in Canadian Fiction (2004), explored how babies are becoming more predominant in contemporary Canadian fiction and developing their own literary identity.
Her second collection of short stories, The Dolphins at Sainte-Marie (2006), explores small town living in southern Ontario and the curiosities of youth and inexperience.
Her latest book, Dante’s War, a novel, is about an Italian soldier stationed in Africa during the Second World War.
It is said to be the first novel written in English to present the Italian point of view on World War II.
Joe Sawyer (né Joseph Sauers)(1906 – 1982) was a Canadian film actor.
He appeared in more than 200 films between 1927 and 1962, and was sometimes billed under his birth name.
He was born in Guelph.
Sawyer gained acting experience in the Pasadena Playhouse.
Popular roles that he portrayed included Sergeant Biff O’Hara in the Rin Tin Tin TV program, a film, and on radio.
On Stories of the Century in 1954, he portrayed Butch Cassidy, a role which he repeated in the 1958 episode “The Outlaw Legion” of the syndicated western series Frontier Doctor.
Sawyer also appeared on ABC’s Maverick, Sugarfoot, Peter Gunn and Surfside 6, as well as NBC’s Bat Masterson.
Sawyer died 21 April 1982, in Ashland, Oregon from liver cancer.
He was 75.
Above: Joe Sawyer
David Troy Somerville (1933 – 2015) was a Canadian singer operating primarily in the United States, best known as the co-founder, and original lead singer, of The Diamonds, one of the most popular vocal groups of the 1950s.
Above: Dave Somerville
Born in Guelph, Somerville grew up in a musical family in the nearby farming village of Rockwood, 50 miles west of Toronto.
In 1947, at the age of 14, he moved to Toronto with his parents and brother Marc, where he entered Central Tech to study architecture and building construction.
He changed the focus of his studies to radio, and in 1952, at the age of 19, secured a position at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in the engineering department as a radio operator while concurrently studying voice at the University of Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music.
In 1953, Somerville, while working as a sound engineer for the CBC in Toronto, met three other young singers: Ted Kowalski, Phil Levitt and Bill Reed.
They decided to form a stand-up quartet called The Diamonds.
The group’s first performance was in the basement of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Toronto singing in a Christmas minstrel show.
The audience’s reaction to the Somerville-led group was so positive that they decided that night they would turn professional.
After 18 months of rehearsal, they drove to New York and tied for 1st place on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.
The prize of being guest artist for a week on Godfrey’s show led to a recording contract with Coral Records.
Professional musician Nat Goodman became their manager.
Coral released four songs, the most notable being “Black Denim Trousers & Motorcycle Boots“, written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.
The next big step was an audition with Cleveland radio disc jockey Bill Randle, who had aided in the success of some popular groups, such as The Crew Cuts.
Randle was impressed with The Diamonds and introduced them to a producer at Mercury Records who signed the group to a recording contract.
The Diamonds’ first recording for Mercury was “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” (originated by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers), which reached #12 in the US as their first hit, and their follow-up hit single, “The Church Bells May Ring” (originally by The Willows), reached #14 in the US.
The Diamonds‘ biggest hits were 1957’s “Little Darlin’” (originally recorded by The Gladiolas, written by Maurice Williams) and “The Stroll” (1957), an original song written for the group by Clyde Otis, from an idea by Dick Clark.
Although they were signed to do rock and roll, Mercury also paired them with jazz composer and arranger Pete Rugolo, in one of his Meet series recordings.
The album, entitled The Diamonds Meet Pete Rugolo, allowed them to return to their roots and do some established standards.
Above: Pete Rugolo (1915 – 2011)
The group sang “Little Darlin’” and “Where Mary Go” in the film The Big Beat.
They sang the theme song to the 1958 film, Kathy O’.
Their television appearances included the TV shows of Steve Allen, Perry Como, Vic Damone, Tony Bennett, Eddy Arnold and Paul Winchell.
They also appeared on American Bandstand.
Above: Logo of American Bandstand
In the late 1950s, Reed, Kowalski and Levitt left the group and were replaced by Mike Douglas, John Felten, and Evan Fisher.
There were no more hit records by The Diamonds after Somerville left.
Despite the ever-changing style of rock & roll and their Mercury contract expiring, The Diamonds continued touring the country.
After Dave Somerville left the group in 1961 to pursue a folk singing career as “David Troy“, he was replaced by Jim Malone.
After leaving the Diamonds, Somerville married Judy Corns of Evansville (IN) and began a six-year solo career as a folk artist, using the stage name David Troy.
During this period, Somerville also studied acting, with Leonard Nimoy as his teacher, and made numerous guest-starring appearances, often credited as “David Troy“, on various television programs.
Around this time, he became one of the clients of the William Morris Agency, which has since merged with the Endeavor Talent Agency to become the present-day William Morris – Endeavor Agency.
As such, he did extensive voiceover work and was heard in hundreds of radio, television and cable advertisements.
Above: William Morris monogram on fireplace
In 1967, Dave joined The Four Preps as a replacement for Ed Cobb, the original bass singer.
In 1969, he and Bruce Belland, the Four Preps‘s original lead singer, concentrated on a folk/comedy act as the duo of Belland & Somerville.
As such, they appeared in concert with Henry Mancini and Johnny Mathis and were regulars on The Tim Conway Show, a CBS-TV prime-time comedy series.
As songwriters, Bruce and Dave co-wrote “The Troublemaker“, which became the title track of two Willie Nelson albums.
The duo sang in a later roster of the Four Preps with Jim Pike of The Lettermen.
Above: Willie Nelson
In 1972, Somerville formed the group WW Fancy, which also included Keith Barbour and Gail Jensen as members.
In the late 1980s, he again sang with original members of The Diamonds and also returned to The Four Preps with Bruce Belland, Ed Cobb and Jim Yester of The Association.
In 1972, Somerville sang background vocals along with The Blossoms in B.J. Thomas’ version of “Rock and Roll Lullaby“.
Above: B. J. Thomas
Somerville’s song “The Ballad of the Unknown Stuntman“, jointly written and composed with Jensen, inspired Glen Larson, who had been the Four Preps‘s original baritone vocalist, to create the central characters and develop the core format of The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors, for 20th Century Fox Television, which became a highly successful television series for ABC TV.
With additional lyrics which Larson wrote for it, “The Unknown Stuntman” became the theme for The Fall Guy.
Somerville’s own home in the Hollywood Hills was used as the set for the home of Majors’ character, Colt Seavers.
His first children’s album was titled The Cosmic Adventures of Diamond Dave.
It contained many original songs and characters and received critical acclaim in the US and Canada.
The Diamonds have been honored and inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame, The Doo Wop Hall of Fame, The Rockabilly Hall of Fame and are recipients of Canada’s Juno Award.
Somerville’s last stage show, On The 1957 Rock & Roll Greyhound Bus, was based on rock and roll’s first major tour.
In it, he told road stories and sang the songs of such pioneer jukebox giants as Buddy Holly & The Crickets, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and Chuck Berry.
Ned Sparks was born in Guelph, but moved to St. Thomas, where he grew up.
Sparks left home at age 16 and attempted to work as a gold prospector on the Klondike Gold Rush.
After running out of money, he won a spot as a singer on a traveling musical company’s tour.
At age 19, he returned to Canada and briefly attended a Toronto seminary.
After leaving the seminary, he worked for the railroad and worked in theater in Toronto.
In 1907, he left Toronto for New York City to try his hand in the Broadway theatre, where he appeared in his first show in 1912.
While working on Broadway, Sparks developed his trademark deadpan expression while portraying the role of a desk clerk in the play Little Miss Brown.
His success on the stage soon caught the attention of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) studio head Louis B. Mayer who signed Sparks to a six-picture deal.
Sparks began appearing in numerous silent films before finally making his “talkie” debut in the 1928 film The Big Noise.
In the 1930s, Sparks became known for portraying dour-faced, sarcastic, cigar-chomping characters.
He became so associated with the type that, in 1936, The New York Times reported that Sparks had his face insured for $100,000 with Lloyd’s of London.
The market agreed to pay the sum to any photographer who could capture Sparks smiling
(Sparks later admitted that the story was a publicity stunt and he was only insured for $10,000).
Sparks was also caricatured in cartoons including the Jack-in-the-Box character in the Disney short Broken Toys (1935), and the jester in Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), a hermit crab in both Tex Avery’s Fresh Fish (1939) and Bob Clampett’s Goofy Groceries (1941), a chicken in Bob Clampett’s Slap Happy Pappy (1940), Friz Freleng’s Warner Brothers cartoon Malibu Beach Party (1940), and Tex Avery’s Hollywood Steps Out (1941).
Sparks also voiced the cartoon characters Heckle and Jeckle from 1947 to 1951.
Sparks appeared in ten stage productions on Broadway and over 80 films.
He retired from films in 1947, saying that everyone should retire at 65.
Donna Theo Strickland is a Canadian optical physicist and pioneer in the field of pulsed lasers.
She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, together with Gérard Mourou, for the practical implementation of chirped pulse amplification.
She is a professor at the University of Waterloo.
Above: Donna Strickland
Strickland was born in Guelph, to Edith J. (née Ranney), an English teacher, and Lloyd Strickland, an electrical engineer.
After graduating from Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute, she decided to attend McMaster University because its engineering physics program included lasers and electro-optics, areas of particular interest to her.
At McMaster, she was one of three women in a class of twenty-five.
Strickland graduated with a degree in engineering physics in 1981.
Strickland studied for her graduate degree in the Institute of Optics, receiving a Ph.D degree from the University of Rochester in 1989.
She conducted her doctoral research at the associated Laboratory for Laser Energetics, supervised by Gérard Mourou.
Strickland and Mourou worked to develop an experimental setup that could raise the peak power of laser pulses, to overcome a limitation, that when the maximal intensity of laser pulses reached gigawatts per square centimetre, self-focusing of the pulses severely damaged the amplifying part of the laser.
Their 1985 technique of chirped pulse amplification stretched out each laser pulse both spectrally and in time before amplifying it, then compressed each pulse back to its original duration, generating ultrashort optical pulses of terawatt to petawatt intensity.
Using chirped pulse amplification allowed smaller high-power laser systems to be built on a typical laboratory optical table, as “table-top terawatt lasers“.
The work received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Above: Gérard Mourou
Charles Tatham is a Canadian screenwriter and TV producer best known for his work on Arrested Development, How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family.
Tatham was born in Listowel (ON).
He grew up in Guelph and later lived in Waterloo, London (ON) and Toronto.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1991 with his brother Jamie to pursue a career in writing in the film and television industry after working in the advertising business for fifteen years in Toronto.
Above: Chuck Tatham
Tatham’s first writing job was in 1992 on the sitcom Full House, for which he wrote eight episodes with his brother and writing partner, Jamie, who later quit and returned to Vancouver, while Chuck went on to become a producer in 1994.
He then went on to a number of simultaneous writer-producer jobs on sitcoms including Suddenly Susan, Oh, Grow Up, Less Than Perfect, The Jake Effect and Andy Barker, P.I., the latter four of which he served as a co-executive producer.
His most notable (and acclaimed) role, however, has been as a writer and co-executive producer for the comedy series Arrested Development from 2005 to 2006.
He was nominated for two Emmys in 2006; the first shared with the show’s other producers in the category of Outstanding Comedy Series, and the second shared with three other writers of the episode “Development Arrested” in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category.
He has also, with the rest of the Arrested Development writing crew, been nominated for two Writers guild of America Awards, in 2005 and 2006, both in the Comedy Series category.
He fully supported the 2007 – 2008 Writers Guild of America strike, which stalled a project he had with Ron Howard developing a new series, The Church of Reggie, about a man who starts his own religion on his porch.
In 2020, he signed on as an executive producer on the forthcoming Canadian sitcom Children Ruin Everything.
He is married to Joanne Tatham, a jazz singer, with whom he has two sons.
He enjoys hockey and slow marathons and is allergic to bananas.
Percy Algernon Taverner (1875 – 1947) was a Canadian ornithologist and architect.
He was born Percy Algernon Fowler in Guelph.
When his parents separated and his mother remarried, he took on his new parent’s surname, Tavernier, which he later changed to Taverner.
Taverner, a self-taught naturalist, was the first ornithologist at the National Museum of Canada, now the Canadian Museum of Nature, from 1912 to 1942.
Above: Percy TavernerAbove: The Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
Taverner was in correspondence with Alberta’s first female naturalist and ‘keen observer‘ of birdlife Elsie Cassels.
Taverner was one of a handful of federal bureaucrats who convinced the Canadian government to sign the 1916 Canada – US Migratory Birds Convention.
He helped establish Point Pelee National Park and a number of bird sanctuaries across Canada, including Bonaventure Island.
Above: Boardwalk in Point Pelee National ParkAbove: Cliffs of Bonaventure Island
As an architect, Taverner designed in Chicago, Detroit and Ottawa, including homes on Rosedale Avenue and Leonard Avenue in Ottawa.
A pillar of the Ottawa naturalist community, he was president of the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club in the 1930s and was substantially responsible for the survival of this organization and its journal, The Canadian Field-Naturalist, which he founded.
Taverner is the subject of a biography titled “A Life With Birds: Percy A. Taverner, Canadian Ornithologist“.
What is the visitor to Guelph supposed to think?
How can the place be defined?
The answer is a combination of France Preseren and Neal Cassady.
Things are not as bad as they first look: breweries, mental health and addiction patients, orphans, Scientologists, communists, tax evading criminals, largest correctional institutes…..
They can be seen as they are.
We can judge Guelph by its wealth, by its reputation (low unemployment, low crime, best employers, safest hospitals).
And between the bad and the good that Guelph is, there are the folks who are themselves contradictions that make this place so difficult to pigeon-hole, so difficult to define, so problematic to perceive.
Guelph is an author rejected for his financial acumen and forgotten for his talent.
Guelph is a place that accommodates Scientologists and Communists, philosophers, poets and prophets.
This is a city that brought the world cable TV, the jockstrap, five-pin bowling, Yukon Gold potatoes, the nation’s first motorcycle patrol, floating platforms, high calibre athletes in baseball and swimming, a doctor who advocated war and a pilot mystified that he survived a war that so many didn’t, Hollywood stars too few remember and a writer who has brought entertainment to the couch potatoes that cable TV seduced, a remarkable woman who survived sinking ships and scandal and brought the world fashion and its models, a man struggling through his personal demons to bring children joy and a woman who despite her blindness could see the strength of children, men who saw the beauty and fragility of the world and sought to preserve it, music that still moves us decades after it was released, and a man gifted with words that could not save him from his sorrow.
Guelph is the living embodiment of the realization that some places defy description and that folks will define a place the way that they want to.
Nothing before and since Guelph has completely defined the town for me and I doubt anything will.
It is the ultimate Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test town and how you see Guelph says little about what Guelph is and volumes about who you are.
Anytime I think of singing that ole sad song of “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrows” all I need to do is to pick up a newspaper or read some historical tome to be reminded of how great my life really is.
Problem is, it is this same reading of the news or historical accounts that reminds me of my humble status on this little blue marble sailing through space.
This is the day where back in Canada, back in Ottawa, I would have been tempted to attend a Burns Supper (if it wasn’t already held on the Saturday night before), a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robbie Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), the author of many Scots poems.
Above: Robert Burns (1759 – 1796)
My family name is that of a Scottish clan so attendance at a Burns night is highly encouraged.
Oh, to see obese men strutting about in kilts!
Oh, to pretend to like a traditional meal of haggis (a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach), neeps (mashed turnip) and tatties (potatoes)!
Oh, to feign being a fan of the bagpipes that echoes the screams of a feline frying in flames and leaves no one wondering why bagpiping soldiers were sent to the front of the battle lines – either frightening the foe away or being the first to fall to the fury of those who for inexplicable reasons don’t like the pipes!
Oh, to fake enjoyment of Burns classics like “Selkirk Grace“, “To a Mouse“, “To a Louse” and the “Address to a Haggis“, wondering to oneself whether watching Ross Geller of Friends playing “Celebration” on the pipes might not be funnier at home rather than in the cinema of memory!
Oh, to celebrate Scottish heritage and yet never have seen Scotland itself!
Ach, so tragic it be that the scourge of the pandemic and the many miles twixt Canada and Switzerland have prevented my attendance at Burns Night 2021!
On this day:
King Henry VIII of England (1497 – 1547) secretly married Anne Boleyn (1501 – 1531) (1533)
Moscow University was established on Tatiana Day (1755)
Above: Coat of arms of the University of Moscow
the largest fray of Shay’s Rebellion (29 August 1786 – June 1787) (an armed uprising in western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government’s increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades) resulted in the killing of four rebels and the wounding of 20 (1787)
the London Corresponding Society (a British radical organization, inspired by Thomas Paine’s defence of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man, dedicated to the introduction in Britain of universal male suffrage and annual parliaments, drawing largely upon working men: artisans, tradesmen, and shopkeepers (1792)
Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922) completed her round-the-world journey in 72 days (1890)
Above: Nellie Bly
the first Winter Olympic Games, Chamonix, France (1924)
the first electronic game is patented (1947)
the first Emmy Awards are presented in Hollywood (1949)
President John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) delivers the first live presidential television news conference in Washington DC (1961)
Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile. (1995)
Meanwhile, in the here and now….
Cyclone Eloise left at least thirteen people dead and more than 8,000 people homeless after making landfall in central Mozambique.
Nine of the miners who went missing during a mine collapse in Qixia, Shandong, China, are found dead by rescue workers.
The article of impeachment for former US President Donald Trump wasbrought to the US Senate, officially triggering the trial, which is scheduled to begin on 8 February.
Above: Impeachment managers (L-R) Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and others walk through Statuary Hall while heading to vote to impeach President Trump for the second time in little over a year in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 13, 2021 in Washington, DC. The House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump on the charge of Òincitement of insurrection” after a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol where Congress was working to certify the Electoral College victory of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 6. 10 Republicans voted to impeach.
The second shipment of CoronaVac, an inactive vaccine against the corona virus, arrived in Turkey on Monday.
Above: Flag of Turkey
The shipment, comprised of 6.5 million doses of the vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech, coincides with the start of inoculation of people at the age of 80 and above.
An initial consignment of 3 million doses of CoronaVac arrived last month and the country has so far vaccinated 1.27 million people, mostly health workers and elderly people, according to Health Ministry data.
The latest shipment, part of a second consignment which will total 10 million doses, arrived at Istanbul Airport early in the morning on a Turkish Airlines flight from Beijing.
About 600,000 people were vaccinated in just two days when the vaccine rollout began in mid-January, but the pace later slowed as it moved beyond health care workers.
Nursing home residents and staff were next to be inoculated.
The drive later expanded to people, age 90 and older, who are unable to go to vaccination centers.
Medical crews had visited them at home for first jabs.
The Health Ministry will test the new shipment, which medics say takes around two weeks, before the vaccines are administered.
That means Turkey would be constrained to around 100,000 inoculations per day for the next two weeks.
People who received the first jabs will have to wait for four weeks before the second jabs.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca and other eligible top officials have already received their first shots of the Sinovac vaccine.
Above: Turkish President Recep Erdogan
Turkey has recorded more than 2.4 million infections and 25,073 deaths due to COVID-19.
(According to the Turkish Ministry of Health, as of 4 February 2021, there have been 2,508,988 corona cases and 26,467 deaths.)
Above: #38, face masks, 5.00 TL
A rise in cases over recent months led the government to introduce weekend lockdowns since December, but daily cases have dropped to below 6,000 in recent days, from a high of more than 33,000 in early December.
A website set up by the Health Ministry following the arrival of vaccines offers up-to-date information about the vaccination process.
A map on the website shows the highest number of vaccinations were conducted in Istanbul, the country’s most populated city.
A total of 232,113 people were vaccinated as of Monday.
Istanbul is followed by the capital Ankara where 126,219 people were inoculated and Izmir, the country’s third-largest province where 79,031 people received first jabs.
The map shows vaccines were administered to thousands of people in all 81 provinces.
A report by the Sabah newspaper says that the country plans to vaccinate at least 4.4 million people by the end of March.
The Health Ministry has drafted a road map on vaccination priorities.
According to the plan, the elderly, who are at higher risk from the disease, are prioritized.
After people in their eighties, those in the age bracket of between 70 and 79 will be inoculated.
People working in critical jobs, like soldiers and police officers, will be next in the vaccination drive after the elderly.
Whether this means I might get vaccinated during my six months there remains unknown….
Malka Leifer, the former principal of a Melbourne school who faces 74 charges of child sexual abuse, was extradited to Australia following a six-year delay of the case that allowed for her to be a fugitive in Israel.
Canada’s House of Commons voted to call on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to label the Proud Boys as “a terrorist organization“.
Not much for me to do: no restaurants, no cafés, no museums, no cinema, no teaching….
But there is time to read, there is time to write.
London, Ontario, Canada, Sunday 12 January 2020
Finally, I arrive at London, the cornerstone of southwestern Ontario, with an area population of over 400,000 people.
London appears as an affluent and booming city.
It has a well-developed downtown, with tall buildings, wide streets, a large shopping mall and a convention centre.
The ever-expanding suburbs are full of the usual large modern homes, malls and big box stores.
Above: Images of London
London is located on the Thames River.
Can there be any doubt that this region was first settled by the British United Empire Loyalists?
Cities are called London, Stratford, Cambridge and Chatham.
Rivers are named the Thames and the Avon.
The townships are Oxford, Perth, Norfolk, Essex and Middlesex.
Every town in these parts has a familiar King, Queen, George and Charlotte Street.
I respect tradition and I honour the notion that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but calling yourself, for example, “London” brings up the expectation that the Canadian town should emulate the English capital, and therein lies my problem.
Firstly, Canada’s London and its Thames does not remotely resemble Britannia’s London and the river that flows through it.
Secondly, why should it?
Personally, I feel indigenous placenames are more appropriate to the New World, for, after all, the indigenous peoples of the Americas were there first.
I have no problem with settlements being named after those who first settled there, or with descriptive nomenclature that identifies the place by its natural features.
The area was formed during the retreat of the glaciers during the last Ice Age, which produced areas of marshland, notably the Sifton Bog, as well as some of the most agriculturally productive areas of farmland in Ontario.
The Thames River dominates London’s geography.
The North and South branches of the Thames River meet at the centre of the city, a location known as “The Forks” or “The Fork of the Thames.”
The North Thames runs through the man-made Fanshawe Lake in northeast London.
Fanshawe Lake was created by Fanshawe Dam, constructed to protect the downriver areas from the catastrophic flooding which affected the city in 1883 and 1937.
Would it have been so terrible had this town been named Iroquois Forks or Hagerman Marsh?
London and the Thames were named in 1793 by John Graves Simcoe, who proposed the site for the capital city of Upper Canada (Ontario).
Above: John Graves Simcoe (1752 – 1808)
The first European settlement was between 1801 and 1804 by Peter Hagerman.
The village was founded in 1826 and incorporated in 1855.
Since then, London has grown to be the largest southwestern Ontario municipality and Canada’s 11th largest metropolitan area, having annexed many of the smaller communities that surrounded it.
Above: Coat of arms of London
As aforementioned, the current location of London was selected as the site of the future capital of Upper Canada in 1793 by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, who also named the village which was founded in 1826.
It did not become the capital Simcoe envisioned.
Rather, it was an administrative seat for the area west of the actual capital, York (now Toronto).
Locally, it was part of the Talbot Settlement, named for Colonel Thomas Talbot (1771 – 1853), the chief coloniser of the area, who oversaw the land surveying and built the first government buildings for the administration of the western Ontario peninsular region.
Together with the rest of southwestern Ontario, the village benefited from Talbot’s provisions not only for building and maintaining roads but also for assignment of access priorities to main routes to productive land.
Crown and clergy reserves then received preference in the rest of Ontario.
In 1814, the Battle of Longwoods near London during the War of 1812.
In 1832, the new settlement suffered an outbreak of cholera.
London proved a centre of strong Tory support during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, notwithstanding a brief rebellion led by Charles Duncombe.
Above: Charles Duncombe (1792 – 1867)
Consequently, the British government located its Ontario peninsular garrison there in 1838, increasing its population with soldiers and their dependents, and the business support populations they required.
London was incorporated as a town in 1840.
On 13 April 1845, a fire destroyed much of London, which was then largely constructed of wooden buildings.
One of the first casualties was the town’s only fire engine.
The fire burned nearly 30 acres (12 ha) of land, destroying 150 buildings, before it burned itself out later that day.
One fifth of London was destroyed in the province’s first million-dollar fire.
Sir John Carling (1828 – 1911), Tory MP for London, gave three events to explain the development of London in a 1901 speech:
the location of the court and administration in London in 1826
the arrival of the military garrison in 1838
the arrival of the railway in 1853
Above: Sir John Carling
The population in 1846 was 3,500.
Brick buildings included a jail and court house, and large barracks.
London had a fire company, a theatre, a large Gothic church, nine other churches or chapels, and two market buildings.
In 1845, a fire destroyed 150 buildings but most had been rebuilt by 1846.
Connection with other communities was by road, using mainly stagecoaches that ran daily.
Also, a weekly newspaper was published and mail was received daily by the post office.
St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Anglican seat for the Huron Diocese, was built in 1846.
Built in 1854, the Metropolitan United Church is a downtown church of red brick.
On 1 January 1855, London was incorporated as a city (10,000 or more residents).
In the 1860s, a sulphur spring was discovered at the forks of the Thames River while industrialists were drilling for oil.
The springs became a popular destination for wealthy Ontarians, until the turn of the 20th century when a textile factory was built at the site, replacing the spa.
Records from 1869 indicate a population of about 18,000 served by three newspapers, churches of all major denominations and offices of all the major banks.
Industry included several tanneries, oil refineries and foundries, four flour mills, the Labatt Brewing Company and the Carling brewery in addition to other manufacturing.
Both the Great Western and Grand Trunk railways had stops here.
Several insurance companies also had offices in the city.
The Crystal Palace Barracks, an octagonal brick building with eight doors and 48 windows built in 1861, was used for events such the Provincial Agricultural Fair of Canada West (Ontario) held in London that year.
It was visited by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathern (1850 – 1942), Governor General John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar (1807 – 1876) and Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (1815 – 1891).
Above: Prince Arthur
Above: Lord Lisgar
Above: John A. Macdonald
Nothing like naming a town London to get royal attention.
Since 1939, London has been visited by British royalty at least seven times.
Long before the Royal Military College of Canada was established in Kingston in 1876, there were proposals for military colleges across Canada.
Above. Flag of the Royal Military College
Staffed by British Regulars, adult male students underwent three-month-long military courses from 1865 at the School of Military Instruction in London.
Established by Militia General Order in 1865, the school enabled officers of militia or candidates for commission or promotion in the militia to learn military duties, drill and discipline, to command a company at battalion drill, to drill a company at company drill, the internal economy of a company and the duties of a company’s officer.
The school was not retained at Confederation, in 1867.
Nevertheless, London’s role as a military centre continued into the 20th century during the two World Wars, serving as the administrative centre for the Western Ontario district.
In 1905, the London Armoury was built and housed the First Hussars until 1975.
A private investor purchased the historic site and built a new hotel (Delta London Armouries, 1996) in its place, preserving the shell of the historic building.
In the 1950s, two reserve battalions amalgamated and became London and Oxford Rifles (3rd Battalion), Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) (Canada’s oldest regular infantry regiment).
This unit continues to serve today as the 4th Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment.
Above: Badge of the Royal Canadian Regiment
The regimental headquarters of the Royal Canadian Regiment remains in London at Wolseley Barracks on Oxford Street.
The barracks are home to the First Hussars militia regiment as well.
The RCR Museum in Wolseley Barracks has more than 700 exhibits showing the RCR’s role in Canadian history from the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 to modern UN peacekeeping.
On Victoria Day, 24 May 1881, the stern-wheeler ferry SS Victoria capsized in the Thames River close to Cove Bridge in West London.
Approximately 200 passengers drowned in the shallow river, making it one of the worst disasters in London’s history, and is now dubbed “the Victoria Day Disaster“.
At the time, London’s population was relatively low.
Therefore it was hard to find a person in the city who did not have a family member affected by the tragedy.
There is a memorial in Riverside Park to the Victoria sinking.
St. Peter’s Basilica, seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of London, dates from 1881.
Two years later, on 12 July 1883, a devastating flood in London killed 17 people.
On 3 January 1898, the floor of the assembly hall at London City Hall collapsed, killing 23 people and leaving more than 70 injured.
Testimony at a coroner’s inquest described the wooden beam under the floor as unsound, with knots and other defects reducing its strength by one fifth to one third.
The fortress-like stone courthouse was built in 1827.
On 26 April 1937, another flood destroyed more than a thousand houses across London, and caused over $50 million in damages, particularly in West London.
Annexations (1961 – 1993) made London one of the largest urban municipalities in Ontario.
Intense commercial and residential development continues in the southwest and northwest areas of the city.
Opponents of this development cite urban sprawl, destruction of rare Carolinian zone forest and farm lands, replacement of distinctive regions by generic malls, and standard transportation and pollution concerns as major issues facing London.
As previously stated, the City of London is currently the 11th largest urban area in Canada and the sixth-largest city in Ontario.
London is a regional centre of healthcare and education, home to the University of Western Ontario (which brands itself “Western University“), Fanshawe College, and several hospitals (including a University Hospital).
Now, it is easy to be confused here, for western Ontario is not really in the west, but this is how folks in southwestern Ontario describe it.
The name goes back to the early days of the province when it was limited to a narrow band of land across the north shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
Thus, Kingston was in the east, London and Windsor in the west, the shores of Georgian Bay in the north and Toronto in the centre.
Heaven forbid that you thought Toronto might have been in the south, rather than the centre.
By definition, there is no south here.
The city hosts a number of musical and artistic exhibits and festivals, which contribute to its tourism industry, but its economic activity is centred on education, medical research, insurance, and information technology. London’s university and hospitals are among its top ten employers.
London lies at the junction of Highway 401 and 402, connecting it to Toronto, Winsor and Sarnia.
It also has an international airport and train and bus stations.
The campus of the University of Western Ontario is one of the most impressive in Canada.
Its large limestone buildings are similar to Queen’s (Kingston, ON), McGill (Montréal) and Saskatchewan (Saskatoon), but there seems to be more open space and parks here.
Academic quality and physical beauty are combined on this 500-acre campus.
A plaque on the administration building honours the Reverend Isaac Hellmuth, Anglican Bishop of Huron (1872 – 1873), primarily responsible for founding the University in 1878.
The University’s McIntosh Memorial Art Gallery has over 500 works, most of them by Canadians.
Among these are:
Michael Snow’s beach-hcaeb
David Milne’s Jesus in the House of Mary and Martha
Edward Hughes’ Museum Ship
Osowetok’s Eskimo Mother and Child
London is also home to the Museum of Ontario Archaeology, owned and operated by Western University.
It is Canada’s only ongoing excavation and partial reconstruction of a prehistoric village — a Neutral Nation village (Lawson site)in this case.
This is the land of winter and cold weather, smack dab in the middle of an area that stretches from Western Ontario to Québec that is filled with huge volumes of wet snow.
A town often intimate and inanimate with buses stalled, traffic stopped, cars buried in snow banks, airport closed….
And then there is the Highway 401 phenomenon.
For reasons difficult to define simply, it seems as one travels from Montréal to Windsor along Highway 401, the north side of the freeway in winter is usually covered in snow, while the south lanes are often snow-free.
Long lengthy explanations about winds off the lake and all that….
London’s economy is dominated by medical research, insurance, manufacturing, and information technology.
Much of the life sciences and biotechnology-related research is conducted or supported by the University of Western Ontario, which adds about C$1.5 billion to the London economy annually.
Since the economic crisis of 2009, which gutted many of London’s manufacturing jobs, the city has transitioned to become a technology hub with a focus on the digital creative sector.
As of 2016, London is home to 300 technology companies that employ 3% of the city’s labour force.
Many of these companies have moved into former factories and industrial spaces in and around the downtown core, and have renovated them as modern offices.
For example, Info-Tech Research Group’s London office is in a hosiery factory, and Arcane Digital moved into a 1930s industrial building in 2015.
The Historic London Roundhouse, a steam locomotive repair shop built in 1887, is now home to Royal LePage Triland Realty, rTraction, SmartWebPros.com and more.
Its redesign, which opened in 2015, won the 2015 Paul Oberman Award for Adaptive Re-Use from the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.
London is also home to Diply, video game companies Big Viking Games, Big Blue Bubble and Digital Extremes.
Voices.com provides voiceover artists a platform to advertise and sell their services to those looking for voiceover work.
Other local tech companies include HRDownloads, Mobials, Race Roster and Zomaron.
The largest employer in London is the London Health Sciences Centre, which employs 10,555 people.
The headquarters of the Canadian division of 3M are in London.
The London Life Insurance Company was founded here, as was Imperial Oil, GoodLife Fitness, and both the Labatt and Carling breweries.
The Libro Financial Group was founded in London in 1951 and is the second largest credit union in Ontario, employing over 550 people.
Canada Trust was also founded in London in 1864.
General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) builds armoured personnel carriers in the city.
GDLS has a 14-year $15-billion deal to supply light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.
There are 2,400 workers at GDLS Canada.
McCormack Canada, formerly Club House Foods, was founded in 1883 and currently employs more than 600 Londoners.
Once upon a time, London employed an old friend of mine at Western and I was later employed here at a Goodyear Tire processing plant to finance my walking adventures.
London is also the site of employment of my friend and fellow LRHS (Lachute, QC) alumni Terry, for whom I had come to visit.
I have few memories of my time in London.
It was winter 1991, the job was stacking tires, and a co-worker – a Hungarian named Milosh – I would later help find a job that summer at a winery on Pelee Island.
(He may still be there for all I know.)
1991 was the final year of the Cold War that had begun in 1947, the Gulf War, the South Ossetia War and the Yugoslav Wars began, there was a coup d’état in Haiti and another in Thailand, a successful Singing Revolution in Lithuania, Eastern Airlines and Pan Am ceased their operations, a civil war ended in Papua New Guinea and another began in Somalia, there were plane crashes and earthquakes, violence and protests….
Just another year on Planet Earth….
I recall visiting Western and I remember parks and walking Main Street, but beyond that London did not make a huge impression on me and I cannot even recall where I lived at the time.
I was young and London was merely a pit stop to replenish my wallet and finance further travels.
London is home to many festivals including:
SunFest (a world music festival, that is the second largest in Canada after the Toronto Caribbean Carnival (Caribana) and is among the top 100 summer destinations in North America)
the London Fringe Theatre Festival
the London Ontario Live Arts Festival (LOLA)
the Home County Folk Festival
Rock the Park London
the Western Fair (Ontario’s oldest fall fair, dating from 1868, is held in Queen’s Park in September)
Pride London
the London Rib Fest (the second largest barbecue rib festival in North America)
Oktoberfest is a German carnival held the first week in October at the Western Fairgrounds with much beer and Bavarian music.
London has a rich musical history.
Guy Lombardo, the internationally acclaimed Big-Band leader, was born in London, as was jazz musician Rob McConnell, country music legend (Canada’s country gentleman) Tommy Hunter, singer-songwriter Meaghan Smith, pop icon Justin Bieber, the heavy metal band Kittie and DJ duo Lord Luxury.
Above: Guy Lombardo (1902 – 1977)
Above. Rob McConnell (1935 – 2010)
Above: Meaghan Smith
Above: Justin Bieber
Above: Lord Luxury
It is also the adopted home-town of hip-hop artist Shad Kabango, rock music producer Jack Richardson and 1960s folk-funk band Motherlode.
Above: Shad
American country-music icon Johnny Cash proposed to his wife June Carter onstage at the London Gardens — site of the famous 26 April 1965, 15-minute Rolling Stones concert — during his 22 February 1968 performance in the city (the home-town of his manager Saul Holiff).
Above: Johnny Cash and June Carter
Above: The Rolling Stones
Avant-garde noise-pioneers the Nihilist Spasm Band formed in downtown London in 1965.
(Between 1966 and 1972, the group held a Monday night residency at the York Hotel in the city’s core, which established it as a popular venue for emerging musicians and artists.
The York Hotel, now known as Call the Office, served as a hotbed for punk music in the late 1970s and 1980s and continues to host college rock bands and weekly alternative-music nights).
Above: Nihilist Spasm Band
In 2003, CHRW-FM developed the London Music Archives, an online music database that chronicled every album recorded in London between 1966 and 2006.
In 2019 the CBC released a documentary entitled “London Calling” which outlined “the Secret Musical History of London, Ontario” (including its importance for the massively popular electronic music duo Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva).
London also had (and still has, in an unofficial capacity) a professional symphony orchestra — Orchestra London — founded in 1937.
Although the organization filed for bankruptcy in 2015, members of the orchestra continue to play self-produced concerts under the moniker London Symphonia.
In addition, the city is home to the London Community Orchestra, the London Youth Symphony, and the Amabile Choirs of London, Canada.
London artists Jack Chambers and Greg Curnoe co-founded The Forest City Gallery in 1973 and the Canadian Artists’ Representation Society in 1968.
Museum London, the city’s central Art Gallery, was established in 1940 (initially operated from the London Public Library, until 1980, when renowned Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama was commissioned to design its current home at the forks of the Thames River).
Museum London occupies a chunkily modernist structure that looks like a giant bicycle shed.
A permanent collection of paintings is displayed here, including:
Cornelius Krieghoff’s Niagara Falls from the British Side
G.R. Dartnell’s London Gaol and Courthouse
Paul Peel’s Covent Garden Market
Jean Paul Lemieux’s L’été
Jean Paul Riopelle, Le Trou des Fées
John Chambers’ Olga and Mary Visiting
A plaque on the museum grounds honours Paul Peel (1859 – 1992), a Londoner who was a prominent early Canadian painter.
Above: Self-portrait, Paul Peel
The Secrets of Radar Museum was opened at Parkwood Hospital in 2003, and tells the story of the more than 6,000 Canadian WW2 veterans who were recruited into a top-secret project involving….wait for it…. radar.
The London Regional Children’s Museum in South London provides hands-on learning experiences for children and was one of the first children’s museums established in Canada.
The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame has its headquarters in downtown London and features a medical history museum.
Eldon House is the former residence of the prominent Harris Family and the oldest surviving building in London.
This white frame house was built in 1834 by Captain John Harris (Royal Navy) whose descendants gave it to the city.
It now is a memorial to 19th century London, its rooms furnished with Harris family household goods and personal possessions.
An English bed in the blue bedroom was made in 1780, the dining room’s copper tea urn in 1795.
The dining table and chairs are Canadian.
Fine examples of Waterford glass adorn a mahogany sideboard.
In a room decorated with shields, spears and horns is a walking stick stand made from an elephant’s foot.
The entire property was donated to the city of London in 1959 and is now a heritage site.
An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected by the province to commemorate the Eldon House’s role in Ontario’s heritage.
The Banting House National Historic Site of Canada is the house where Sir Frederick Banting thought of the idea that led to the discovery of insulin.
Banting lived and practised in London for ten months, from July 1920 to May 1921.
Above: Frederick Banting (1891 – 1941)
The life style of the pre-railroad era of the 19th century is reproduced in the crossroads Fanshawe Pioneer Village.
Here are the log cabins, barns and general store, the blacksmith, the weaver, the barber and carriage make shops from more than a century ago.
On Village grounds stands the Labatt’s Pioneer Brewery, a 18th century brewery that has been restored to its original appearance with kegs, brew kettle, hop jack and fermenter.
London is also the site of the Flame of Hope, which is intended to burn until a cure for diabetes is discovered.
A plaque in front of his London residence honours Sir Adam Beck (1857 – 1925), who pioneered Ontario’s hydroelectric power system.
Beck was mayor of London (1902 – 1904).
In Sir Adam Beck Collegiate is Herbert Ariss’ mural The Image of Man through the Ages.
In addition to Museum London and the Forest City Gallery, London is also home to a number of other galleries and artspaces, including the London ARTS Project, and various smaller galleries such as the Thielsen Gallery, the Westland Gallery, the Michael Gibson Gallery, the Jonathon Bancroft Snell Gallery, the Art Exchange, the DNA ArtSpace, the VibraFusionLab, and others.
London also hosts an annual Nuit Blanche every June.
Once upon a time, London had a Centennial Museum, a social and cultural centre completed in 1969 in the shape of Canada’s centennial (1867 – 1967) symbol.
It was demolished on 31 August 2005.
London is home to the Grand Theatre, a professional proscenium arch theatre in Central London.
The building underwent renovations in 1975 to restore the stage’s proscenium arch and to add a secondary performance space.
The architectural firm responsible for the redesign was awarded a Governor General’s award in 1978 for their work on the venue.
In addition to professional productions, the Grand Theatre also hosts the High School Project, a program unique to North America that provides high school students an opportunity to work with professional directors, choreographers, musical directors and stage managers.
The Palace Theatre, in Old East Village, originally opened as a silent movie theatre in 1929 and was converted to a live theatre venue in 1991.
It is currently the home of the London Community Players.
The Original Kids Theatre Company, a nonprofit charitable youth organisation, currently puts on productions at the Spriet Family Theatre in the Covent Garden Market.
London serves as a core setting in Southern Ontario Gothic literature, most notably in the works of James Reaney (1926 – 2008).
Reaney was a Canadian poet, playwright, playwright, librettist, and professor, “whose works transform small-town Ontario life into the realm of dream and symbol.”
Reaney won Canada’s highest literary award, the Governor General’s Award, three times and received the Governor General’s Award for Poetry or Drama for both his poetry and his drama.
Reaney was born on a farm in Easthope near Stratford to James Nesbitt Reaney and Elizabeth Henrietta Crerar.
Almost all of Reaney’s poems, stories, and plays are articulations of where he grew up.
At a young age he was interested in theatre, and created a puppet show for children while in his early teens.
Reaney studied English at the University of Toronto, receiving his MA in 1949.
Above: James Reaney
The same year he also received the Governor General’s Award, the first of three, at the age of 23, for his first book of poetry, Red Heart.
After teaching English at the University of Manitoba (1949 – 1956), Reaney returned to the University of Toronto to complete a doctorate awarded in 1958.
Also in 1958 Reaney released a second book of poetry, A Suit of Nettles, which again won the Governor-General’s Award.
During the 1940s and 1950s Reaney also wrote and published short stories.
While not published in book form until years later, his stories were influential in establishing the style of writing later called Southern Ontario Gothic (later made world-famous by Alice Munro).
In 1960 Reaney began teaching in Western University’s English Department.
Also in 1960 he put out the first issue of his journal, Alphabet: A Semi-Annual Devoted to the Iconography of the Imagination, which he would edit until 1971.
This journal published a variety of poets.
For Reaney, the new decade also coincided with “a shift of emphasis from poetry to the public and communal form of drama” starting with The Killdeer.
Though he had been interested in drama since childhood, he was encouraged by a friend to write a piece for the University of Toronto’s Alumnae Theatre and the work he created, The Killdeer, launched his drama career (and won a prize in the Dominion Drama Festival).
In 1962 he won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry or Drama a third time, this time for both his newest book of poetry, Twelve Letters to a Small Town, and his first book of plays, The Killdeer and Other Plays.
Reaney followed up The Killdeer with Colours in the Dark (1969), Listen to the Wind (1972), Masks of Childhood (1972) and plays for children.
His play Colours in the Dark was produced at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1967.
From 1973 to 1975 Reaney wrote the trilogy The Donnellys, which the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia calls “one of the nation’s most important dramas.”
The three plays debuted at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre.
The St. Nicholas Hotel, Part II of the trilogy, won the Chalmers Award.
The Donnellys toured nationally in 1975, from Halifax to Vancouver with the NDWT Theatre Company.
(The Donnellys is about the murders of an Irish immigrant family in Lucan (ON)(north of London on Highway 4) in the 1880s.
On 4 February 1880 about 30 people attacked the James Donnelly farm – killing Donnelly, his wife, a son and a niece – and then destroyed the farm buildings.
Another son was killed on the same night in a nearby town.
Although the alleged perpetrators were twice tried, no one was ever convicted of the deaths, which had resulted from a blood feud that James Donnelly had brought to Canada from his home in Tipperary, Ireland.
In 1857, Donnelly had killed a neighbour in the Lucan district over land rights and although he served seven years for the murder, his sons continued to conduct violent disputes with local farmers while he was in prison.
In Lucan’s St. Patrick Cemetery, a granite tombstone marks the original black marker that had identified the family members as victims of murder.)
As well, Reaney coauthored several operas with musician John Beckwith, including Night-Blooming Cereus (1960), The Shivaree (1982), and Crazy To Kill(1988).
Other notable Reaney plays include Names and Nicknames, which premiered at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1963, and Alice Through the Looking Glass, which played at the Stratford Festival in 1994, 1995 and in 2014.
Reaney also enjoyed painting and drawing and his art works, from the 1940s to 1990s, were put on exhibit at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg (ON) in 2008.
Reaney died on 11 June 2008, in London.
His books from London include Twelve Letters to a Small Town (1962), The Dance of Death at London (1972), Selected Shorter Poems (1975) and Selected Longer Poems (1976).
In 1995, rockstar David Bowie based his “Nonlinear Gothic Drama Hypercycle” Outside in London, subtly and suggestively reaffirming its status as a core setting of Southern Ontario Gothic works.
Author David Southwell (perhaps in reference to David Bowie’s character in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks) likened London to the setting of Lynch’s weird and wonderful TV show and a woodsy “Mirror London” akin to China Miéville’s underworld-wonderworld UN Lun Dun.
Above: David Bowie (1947 – 2016)
Pioneering psychologist Richard Maurice Bucke, author of Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind and Walt Whitman’s literary executor, lived and worked in London, where he was often visited by Whitman.
Above: Maurice Bucke
Bucke was raised on a farm near London, where his family had settled in 1838 after emigrating from England.
Richard Maurice Bucke was born in 1837 in Methwold, England, the son of Rev. Horatio Walpole Bucke (a parish curate) and his wife Clarissa Andrews.
The parents and their children emigrated to Canada when he was a year old, settling near London.
Horatio W. Bucke had given up the profession of religious minister, and trusted his family’s income to their Ontario farm.
A sibling in a large family, Richard Maurice Bucke was a typical farm boy of that era.
He was an athletic boy who enjoyed a good ball game.
When he left home at the age of 16, he travelled to Columbus (OH) and then to California.
Above: Modern Columbus, Ohio
Along the way, Bucke worked at various odd jobs.
He was part of a travelling party who had to fight for their lives when they were attacked by Shosone natives, on whose territory they were trespassing.
In the winter of 1857–1858, he was nearly frozen to death in the mountains of California, where he was the sole survivor of a silver-mining party.
He had to walk out over the mountains and suffered extreme frostbite.
As a result, a foot and several of his toes were amputated.
He then returned to Canada via the Isthmus of Panama, probably in 1858.
Bucke attended London Grammar School, but studied at home before entering McGill University’s medical school, graduating in 1862.
Above: Logo of McGill University, Montréal
After studying abroad, Bucke practised medicine in Sarnia and London, settling here in 1877, when he was appointed superintendent of the city’s Asylum for the Insane.
He held that position until his death in 1902, by which time he had become one of the world’s leading alienists (psychiatrists).
In Bucke’s time the London Asylum for the Insane was on Governor’s Road, two miles outside the city.
Bucke’s home was on the Asylum grounds.
None of the Asylum’s 19th century buildings remain, but the Asylum’s successor institution, the London Psychiatric Hospital, commemorates Bucke in its Teaching and Research Museum, which contains a re-creation of the famous alienist’s office.
(The Maurice Bucke Archive is part of the Special Collections in the Weldon Library of Western University, as Bucke was associated with the University for many years as professor of mental and nervous diseases.)
A student of mysticism and an avid admirer of Walt Whitman, Bucke attributed to Whitman’s poetry a mystical experience that convinced him of the hopeful order in the universe – which he proceeded to describe in his later writings.
Above: Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
Whitman visited Bucke in London twice:
His first visit in 1880 is described in Walt Whitman’s Diary in Canada with Extracts from Other of His Diaries and Literary Notebooks (1904).
In 1883, Bucke published the first biographical study of his friend, Walt Whitman, which incorporated revisions made by the poet.
As one of Whitman’s literary executors, Bucke prepared several posthumous volumes of the poet’s work and was one of the editors of the Complete Writings of Walt Whitman (10 volumes, 1902).
Cosmic Consciousness was Bucke’s most ambitious presentation of his conviction that mystical illumination about cosmic order united all the world’s great thinkers and provided hope of a future millenial age of universal harmony.
According to Bucke:
This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law.
It shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive.
It shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life.
It shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it.
A great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd.
It is nevertheless undoubtedly true.
For Bucke, cosmic consciousness is an interconnected way of seeing things “which is more of an intuitive knowing than it is a factual understanding“.
He pointed out that, for scholars of the purist camp, the experience of cosmic consciousness is incomplete without the element of love, “which is the foundation of mystical consciousness“:
Mysticism, then, is the perception of the universe and all of its seemingly disparate entities existing in a unified whole bound together by love.
Bucke died in 1902 and is buried in London’s Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.
I wonder if he found the future he was seeking.
Another childhood resident of London was the novelist Arthur Stringer (1874 – 1950), who moved here in 1884 from Chatham (ON) at the age of ten.
In 1886, he entered London Collegiate Institute with the highest entrance examination marks ever recorded.
While there Stringer founded a school magazine called Chips.
The brick house to which Stringer’s family moved in 1890 still stands at 64 Elmwood Avenue.
Stringer’s first book of poetry, Watchers of Twilight and Other Poems, was published in 1894.
After studying at the University of Toronto and at Oxford, Stringer began his newspaper career with the Montréal Herald.
At this time he was also publishing in Saturday Night and the Canadian Magazine.
In 1898 he got a job with the American Press Association, moved to New York City, and began publishing in The Atlantic and Harper’s.
His first poem in Harper’s, “Remorse“, appeared in February 1899.
His first novel, The Silver Poppy, came out in 1903.
In the same year he bought a farm at Cedar Springs (on the shore of Lake Erie, on Highway 3 east of Leamington) and married actress Jobyna Howland (1880 – 1936), known as the original Gibson girl.
They divorced in 1914.
(The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by the pen-and-ink illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson (1867 – 1944) during a 20-year period that spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States.
The artist saw his creation as representing the composite of “thousands of American girls“.)
Stringer married his cousin, Margaret Arbuthnott.
In 1921, the Stringers moved to Mountain Lakes (NJ), where Arthur continued to write.
Stringer wrote crime fiction and wilderness adventures, mainly using conventional formulae.
He wrote as well in many other genres, from social realism (his “Prairie” trilogy, 1915 – 1921) to psychological fiction (The Wine of Life – 1921).
He wrote early science fiction novels, The Story Without a Name (1924) with Russell Holman, and The Woman Who Couldn’t Die (1929).
Much of his writing was for films.
Film scripts (22 in total) on which he worked include:
The Perils of Pauline (1914)
The Hand Of Peril (1916)
The House Of Intrigue (1919)
Unseeing Eyes(1923)
Empty Hands(1924)
The Canadian(1926)
The Purchase Price (1932)
The Lady Fights Back (1937)
Buck Benny Rides Again (1940)
The Iron Claw (1941)
Stringer remained a resident of New Jersey until his death in 1950, aged 76.
Stringer’s novel, Lonely O’Malley (1905), follows the career of an orphan boy growing up in Ontario in the 1880s, based on the author’s childhood in Chatham and London.
Stringer’s crime and adventure stories were later criticized as stereotypical and containing inaccurate representation of Canadian settings.
However, his prairie trilogy – Prairie Wife (1915), Prairie Mother (1920), and Prairie Child (1921) – has been called “an enduring contribution to Canadian literature.”
The trilogy uses a diary form to tell the tale of its narrator, a New England socialite who marries a Scots-Canadian farmer.
The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature described Stringer’s poetry as “undistinguished verse.”
However, author John Garvin said of his poetry “there is maintained a standard of beauty, depth of feeling, and technical power, which in Canada have had all too little recognition.”
Garvin also similarly praised Stringer’s blank verse drama Sappho in Leucadia.
Stringer’s chief claim to poetic fame today rests on his 1914 book, Open Water, the first book by a Canadian poet to use free verse.
In its preface he proclaimed that the modernist movement of which he was part was a “natural evolution“.
Louis Dudek and Michael Gnarowski, who reprinted the Open Water preface in their anthology The Making of Modern Poetry In Canada, remarked on it:
This book must be seen as a turning point in Canadian writing if only for the importance of the ideas advanced by Stringer in his preface.
In a carefully presented, extremely well-informed account of traditional verse-making, Stringer pleaded the cause of free verse and created what must now be recognized as an early document of the struggle to free Canadian poetry from the trammels of end-rhyme, and to liberalize its methods and its substance.
Stringer is commemorated by Arthur Stringer Public School in London, which opened in 1969.
The house in which Stringer lived as a boy in London, Ontario has been preserved as a historic site, Arthur Stringer House.
Peter Gilchrist McArthur (1866 – 1924) was a farmer and writer.
A national historic marker dedicated to McArthur can be seen in a roadside park on Highway 2, east of the Highway 80 intersection and west of London.
McArthur grew up and spent the last years of his life on his family’s farm in Ekfrid Township near Appin (ON).
He left the University of Toronto in 1889 to become a reporter for the Toronto Daily Mail (1872 – 1895).
The following year, McArthur moved to New York City.
He was editor of Truth (1881 – 1905) from 1895 to 1897 and also wrote articles, poems, and humour for various publications.
In 1902, he moved to London, England, where he contributed to Punch (1841 – 1992), the Review of Reviews (1890 – 1936) and The Daily Paper.
In 1903, he published To be taken with salt: being an essay on teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs.
McArthur returned to New York in 1904, working as a partner in an advertising agency.
In 1907, he published The prodigal, and other poems.
He subsequently moved back to Ontario, settling in Ekfrid in 1908.
There he worked a small farm and contributed to the Toronto Globe (1844 – 1936) and the London Farmer’s Advocate and Home Magazine.
He published selected articles from those publications as In pastures green in 1915 and The red cow and her friends in 1919.
From 1910 to 1912, he published eight issues of a journal called Ourselves: a Magazine for Cheerful Canadians.
The poet Anne Wilkinson (1910 – 1961) was born in Toronto, but spent much of her childhood in London, where she was privately educated by tutors.
She was part of the modernist movement in Canadian poetry in the 1940s and 1950s, one of only a few prominent women poets of the time.
By 1946, several of Wilkinson’s poems had appeared in literary journals and subsequently she published two collections of poetry: Counterpoint to Sleep (1951) and The Hangman Ties the Holly (1955), the latter has been described as a volume of “poetry of particular importance“.
She also published two books of prose before her untimely death from lung cancer in 1961:
Lions in the Way(1956), a history of her maternal family in London, the Oslers
Swann and Daphne (1960), a modern fairy tale for children
A founding editor and patron of the literary quarterly The Tamarack Review, her work appeared in several prominent Canadian publications of the day, including Northern Review.
It was anthologized in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse (1960), The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse (1975), Canadian Poetry 1920 to 1960 (2010) and was broadcast on CBC Radio’s Anthology, and was recorded on the album Six Toronto Poets.
Her close friend A.J.M. Smith edited and introduced The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, which was posthumously published in 1968.
Her writing was celebrated by artist/filmmaker Joyce Wieland and author Michael Ondaatje, and set to music by composer Oskar Morawetz.
In the early 1990s it was re-examined by Joan Coldwell, who edited a new edition of the poems, as well as a volume of Wilkinson’s autobiographical writings.
Wilkinson’s work has enjoyed a revival since the publication in 2003 of Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961, with appearances and discussion in more recent anthologies such as An Anthology of Canadian Literature in English, Modern Canadian Poets, Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women’s Poetry, and Earth and Heaven, An Anthology of Myth Poetry.
Selwyn Hanington Dewdney (1909 – 1979) was a Canadian author, illustrator, artist, activist and pioneer in both art therapy and pictography.
He was born in Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) and was the son of the Anglican bishop of the diocese of Keewatin.
His family moved to Kenora (ON) in 1924 and received his secondary education there.
He attended the University of Toronto where he received a BA in Astronomy and English.
In the summer of 1928, he accompanied his father on a 3,800 mile journey to visit the Ojibway and Cree missions in Northern Ontario.
Much of this venture was travelled by canoe.
This experience established his interest in native culture and love of the bush in the Canadian Shield.
In 1933, he was hired by the Geological Survey of Canada, assigned to survey the transition zone between the Precambrian formations of the Canadian Shield and the Hudson Bay lowlands.
Among the muskeg and the blackflies, he sketched the landscape and produced pencil portraits of the traverse crew at the survey camp.
His inspiration and dramatic style as an artist came from the great northern landscapes that he loved to visit.
In 1936, he began teaching at Sir Adam Beck Secondary School, London, Ontario, but resigned in protest at the demotion of a colleague in 1945.
This experience was the subject of his first novel, Wind Without Rain.
With a growing family of three sons, he turned to illustrating books, writing, researching, editing and painting commissioned murals to support them.
It was during this time that he became interested in art therapy when he was commissioned to illustrate Lionel Penrose’s psychiatric ‘M’ test.
In 1947, while working at Westminster Veterans Hospital in London, Dewdney began giving art instruction to some to the psychiatric patients.
The positive results of this eventually afforded him the position of Psychiatric Art Therapist.
He and his wife Irene were pioneers in the field of Canadian art therapy.
His work, and particularly his wife’s, led to the development of an art therapy training program at the University of Western Ontario in 1986.
During the 1950s, his ongoing exploration of Northern Ontario introduced him to the ancient native pictographs painted in red ochre on the rocks.
A chance meeting with Kenneth E. Kidd, curator of the ethnology department of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, led to an opportunity to join Kidd and help record the pictograph sites.
By 1957, eleven rock-painting sites were recorded in Quetico Provincial Park.
Between 1959 and 1965, with two of his sons as field assistants, he discovered and recorded rock art from the foothills of the Rockies to the Atlantic coast.
By 1978, he had visited 301 sites in Canada and the US.
In 1962, the first edition of Indian Rock Paintings of the Great Lakes was published, with Kenneth Kidd as co-author.
Dewdney learned of a secret society within the Ojibway, the Midewiwin, which purportedly embodied traditional ceremonial rituals of healing and sorcery and included four degrees of initiation.
It is believed that some essential elements of the Midewiwin, which was first documented by Europeans in the early 18th century, were “elaborations of traditional Anishinaabe beliefs and practices“.
Elements of this belief system were recorded on scrolls made of birchbark, sewn together with cedar roots.
His The Sacred Scrolls of the Southern Ojibway (1975), remains the only volume dedicated exclusively to this subject.
In 1978, Dewdney published his second novel, Christopher Breton.
He died in 1979, following heart surgery.
In 1980, two stands of white pine were planted at Agawa Bay in Lake Superior Provincial Park by the Ministry of Natural Resources to honor his memory.
A plaque erected by the family stands against the Shield rock he loved so much, a few meters away from the Ojibway pictograph Mishibizhiw, the great horned lynx.
In 1997, Selwyn’s son, Alex, published Daylight in the Swamp, based on his father’s bush diary, field notes and letters.
Selwyn had been working on the original manuscript for the book at the time of his death.
Christopher Dewdney, born and raised in London as the youngest son of Selwyn Dewdney, is a prize-winning Canadian poet and essayist.
His poetry reflects his interest in natural history.
His book Acquainted with the Night, an investigation into darkness was nominated for both the Charles Taylor Prize and the Governor General’s Award.
In 1988, when he published his book Last Flesh, he was teaching at the McLuhan Institute in Toronto.
In 1992 he was writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario.
In 2002, he published The Natural History, a book-length poem which brings together and interprets several scientific disciplines.
In 2007, he was presented with the Harbourfront Prize at the International Festival of Authors.
In 2008, he was writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto.
Soul of World, Unlocking the Secrets of Time was listed at #4 in the Globe and Mail′s 100 Books of 2008.
Acquainted with the Night was released as a feature documentary in 2010, and in 2011 the film received a Gemini Award.
Dewdney appeared in the classic documentary Poetry in Motion.
He is currently a professor at the Glendon Campus of York University.
Dewdney’s poetry has been described as post-modern and experimental.
He frequently uses poetry to highlight the wonders of science.
Author Karl Jirgens praises his ability to “articulate the link between the empirical and the mystic.”
In his 1986 book, The Immaculate Perception, Dewdney describes nature as “divine technology,” and language as a “cognitive prosthesis“.
In this same book he refers to language as an “organically derived software downloaded into a child’s mind at an early age“.
He writes that this process leaves a wound, “language acquisition trauma“, in the unconscious.
His two subsequent non-fiction books, The Secular Grail and Last Flesh, deal with consciousness, media and a possible future evolution of humans.
Dewdney credits his father with awakening him to the special aspects of nature that he emphasizes in his poetry:
“On a summer evening, as we drove down into the Grand River Valley near Paris (ON), he explained that the limestone was almost entirely composed of the shells and skeletons of underwater creatures, millions of years old, compacted and turned to rock.
His explanation transformed the rock into a miraculous substance.“
Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson (1934 – 2019) was a Canadian novelist.
He was a Member of the Order of Canada, a Senior Fellow of Massey College and one of the organizers of the Writers Union of Canada.
He was also a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada’s writing community.
Gibson’s family frequently moved around during his childhood, going from Halifax to Ottawa to Toronto where he attended Upper Canada College.
As an author, Gibson wrote both novels and non-fiction.
His first novel, Five Legs (1969), widely regarded as a breakthrough in Canadian experimental literature, is set in London on the university campus and follows the tragic careers of a professor and two of his students.
His other novels include Communion (1971) where one of the two Five Legs students reappears, Gentleman Death (1993), and Perpetual Motion (1982)(set in rural Ontario during the 19th century, the hero hopes to create a perpetual motion machine).
His non-fiction included Eleven Canadian Novelists (1973) and more recently, The Bedside Book of Birds (2005) and The Bedside Book of Beasts (2009).
Gibson was awarded the Toronto Arts Award (1990) the Harbourfront Festival prize in 1993, and he was made a member of the Order of Canada.
His environmental advocacy was largely focused around his longtime love of birds.
He was a founder and chair of the Pelee Island Bird Observatory, served on the Council of the World Wildlife Fund, and with Margaret Atwood, as co-chair of Birdlife International’s Rare Bird Club.
Above: Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, Pelee Island
He was a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, which awarded him a Gold Medal in 2015.
Gibson was married to publisher Shirley Gibson until the early 1970s, and together they had two sons, Matt and Grae.
He later began dating novelist and poet Margaret Atwood in 1973.
They moved to a semi-derelict farm near Alliston (ON), which they set about doing up and where according to Atwood they were making “attempts at farming, writing and trying to earn enough to live”.[10]
Their daughter Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson was born there in 1976.
The family returned to Toronto in 1980.
Atwood and Gibson stayed together until his death in 2019.
Modern writers from this city include:
fantasy-fiction authors R. Scott Bakker and Kelley Armstrong
Above: R. Scott Bakker
Above: Kelley Armstrong
Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton
Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Bonnie Burnard and distinguished nominee Joan Barfoot
Above: Bonnie Burnard (1945 – 2017)
Above: Joan Barfoot
Emma Donoghue, whose 2010 novel, Room, was adapted into a 2015 Academy Award-winning film of the same name, also lives in London.
WordFest is an annual literary and creative arts festival that takes place each November.
London is teeming with writers.
Let’s add Elizabeth Waterston to the list, an English professor turned novelist, member of the Order of Canada and the Royal Society, who is still writing and publishing at the age of 89.
And let’s not forget Barbara Haworth-Attard, award-winning author of 16 novels of historical fiction, fantasy and mystery for middle-grade and young adult readers.
Or Penn Kemp, London’s first poet laureate, celebrated as a foremother of Canadian poetry as well as an accomplished playwright and essayist.
And even still, that’s just scratching the surface.
Statistics Canada data indicates that over 500 people make their living exclusively from writing in London, which means writers are the single largest group of culture workers in the city.
That still doesn’t include writers who have a non-writing day job.
London writers have formed several highly-visible and successful communities, says Ben Benedict, a member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) London Chapter and a freelance journalist who has over 1,000 publishing credits on the arts.
In addition to PWAC, these groups include the London Writers’ Society, Poetry London and the London Poetry Slam.
The Writers’ Union of Canada, a national organization representing professional book writers, also has many local members.
Of the many media professionals, songwriters, playwrights, novelists, poets and academics in the city, Benedict points out that many work in isolation and obscurity.
“It’s this obscurity,” he maintains, “not being recognized at the grocery store for instance, that gives London its charm for many writers, along with its low cost of living and many amenities.”
According to Waterston, who has perhaps the longest publication history of anyone in the city, London has always nourished its writers.
When she retired, she moved back to the city from Guelph, partly because of the friendly artistic milieu.
Even though writers in London, like elsewhere, now have opportunities to connect electronically with colleagues around the world, many continue to value local, face-to-face contact both with each other and their readers.
As their numbers grow, London writers may not be able to enjoy their obscurity for long.
London is currently the home of the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, who play at the Budweiser Gardens.
The Knights are 2004–2005 and 2015–2016 OHL and Memorial Cup Champions.
During the summer months, the London Majors of the Intercounty Baseball League play at Labatt Park.
London City of the Canadian Soccer League of the Canadian Soccer League, is the highest level of soccer in London.
The club was founded in 1973.
It is the oldest active professional soccer franchise in North America.
The squad plays at Cove Road Stadium at the German Canadian Club.
Other sports teams include:
the London Silver Dolphins Swim Team
the Forest City Volleyball Club
London Cricket Club
the London St. George’s Rugby Club
the London Aquatics Club
the London Rhythmic Gymnastics Club
the London Rowing Club
Forest City London
Football teams include the London Beefeaters (Ontario Football Conference).
London’s basketball team, the London Lightning plays at Budweiser Gardens as members of the National Basketball League of Canada.
Finishing their inaugural regular season at 28–8, the Lightning would go on to win the 2011 – 2012 NBL Canada championship, defeating the Halifax Rainmen in the finals three games to two.
The University of Western Ontario’s teams play under the name Mustangs.
The university’s football team plays at TD Stadium.
Western’s Rowing Team rows out of a boathouse at Fanshawe Lake.
Fanshawe College teams play under the name Falcons.
The Women’s Cross Country team has won three consecutive Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National Championships.
In 2010, the program cemented itself as the first CCAA program to win both Men’s and Women’s National team titles, as well as CCAA Coach of the Year.
The Western Fair Raceway, about 85 acres harness racing track and simulcast centre, operates year-round.
The grounds include a coin slot casino, a former IMAX theatre, and a Sports and Agri-complex.
Labatt Memorial Park, the world’s oldest continuously used baseball grounds, was established as Tecumseh Park in 1877.
It was renamed in 1937, because the London field has been flooded and rebuilt twice (1883 and 1937), including a re-orientation of the bases (after the 1883 flood).
The Forest City Velodrome, at the former London Ice House, is the only indoor cycling track in Ontario and the third to be built in North America, opened in 2005.
London is also home to World Seikido, the governing body of the martial art Seikido, which was developed in London in 1987.
Research by Michael Andrew Arntfield, a police officer turned criminology professor, determined that on a per capita basis, London has had more active serial killers than any locale in the world from 1959 to 1984.
Arntfield determined there were at least six serial killers active in London during this era, some unidentified, but known killers in London included Russell Maurice Johnson (“the Bedroom Strangler“), Gerald Thomas Archer (“the London Chambermaid Slayer“) (1932 – 1995) and Christian Magee (“the Mad Slasher“).
Perhaps this is why the city’s cost of living is low compared to other southern Ontario cities.
According to the London St. Thomas Association of Realtors, the average price of a home in the London / St. Thomas area in 2016 was $274,383, which is substantially lower than the national average of $467,082.
It was also well below the average home prices of nearby cities including Toronto ($736,670), Hamilton ($510,204), and Kitchener-Waterloo ($364,290).
The 2015 average rental rate for a one-bedroom apartment was $781.
London has nine major parks and gardens throughout the city, many of which run along the Thames River and are interconnected by a series of pedestrian and bike paths, known as the Thames Valley Parkway.
This path system is 40 km (25 mi) in length, and connects to an additional 150 km (93 mi) of bike and hiking trails throughout the city.
The city’s largest park, Springbank Park, is 140-hectares (300 acres) large and contains 30 km (19 mi) of trails.
It has a bird sanctuary, flower gardens, a zoo and Storybook Gardens, a family attraction open year-round, a child’s fairyland of animals and nursery tale characters and scenes.
Covent Garden is a farmers’ market with fresh produce, home baking, flowers, ethnic specialities and handicrafts.
The Sifton Botanical Bog is not a swamp but a true bog, having existed for 10,000 years.
In the centre of the Bog is a floating mat of sphagnum moss which shelters bird, animal and insect life.
In the centre of this blog is a point I like to make:
There is more than meets the eye.
From Walt Whitman’s Diary in Canada:
London, Ontario, 18 June 1880
Calm and glorious roll the hours here – the whole twenty-four.
A perfect day (the third in succession), the sun clear, a faint fresh palpable air setting in from the southwest.
Temperature pretty warm at midday, but moderate enough mornings and evenings.
Everything growing well, especially the perennials.
Never have I seen verdure – grass and trees and bushery – to greater advantage.
All the accompaniments joyous.
Catbirds, thrushes, robins singing.
The profuse blossoms of the tigerlily mottling the lawns and gardens everywhere with their glowing orange red.
Roses everywhere too.
A stately show of stars last night.
As the train pulls into London Station, it is a perfect evening, the skies clear, a fresh invigorating air blowing in from the northeast.
Temperature here hovering around 0°C.
Everything feels new and promising.
Never have I travelled here by train.
In ’91, I walked into town, worked a bit, walked out.
All the emotions anticipatory.
Cars, taxis and trucks compete for parking space at the station.
Above, a stately show of stars.
Through the station and out into the night, my old friend Terry is waiting.
Calm and glorious is the night.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / “6.5m more doses from China add pace to Turkey’s vaccination drive“, Daily Sabah, 25 January 2021 / Paul Cavanagh, “London Ontario is teeming with writers“, http://www.notthatlondon.com, 7 December 2011 / Albert and Theresa Moritz, The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to Canada / Reader’s Digest Explore Canada / Rough Guide to Canada / Barry Stewart, Across the Land / http://www.londontourism.ca
Landschlacht, Switzerland, Saturday 5 December 2020
Jambo (hello).
Kenya beckons the traveller with a magical mix of incredible wildlife, rich cultural heritage, palm-fringed beaches and coastal towns seeped in Swahili history.
Above: Flag of Kenya
Few places can rival Kenya for the safari experience, though these days your big game hunting will thankfully be restricted to capturing trophies on film.
Nothing can prepare you for the incredible sight of the annual migration of the wildebeest and wherever you lay your head you will be romanced by the star-studded night sky and your imagination stirred by the noises of the African night.
Take a safari – by minibus, 4WD, truck, camel, small plane or hot air balloon.
Experience the wildebeest mass migration – the sight and sound of a million hoofs on the move with a host of eager predators in hot pursuit.
Wind down a notch or ten with a lazy spell in otherworldly Lamu.
Lamu is an island off the coast in the Indian Ocean.
Lamu Town is also Kenya’s oldest inhabited town that has barely changed in appearance or character over the centuries.
Access is exclusively by boat from the mainland or from nearby Manda Island where there is an airstrip.
The only car on Lamu is owned by the District Commander.
The streets are far too narrow and winding to accommodate anything other than pedestrains and donkeys.
Above: Lamu Town, Lamu Island, Kenya
There are probably more dhows here than anywhere else along the East African coast.
The beach at Shela remains majestic and uncluttered.
Lamu is so relaxing that many travellers never leave, “an island hideaway, the place a rebirth from life’s demise, where the world is still“.
One of the most outstanding features of the houses in Lamu Town is the intricately carved doors and lintels, which have kept generations of carpenters busy.
Sadly, many of the doors have disappeared in recent years, but the skill has not been lost – there are door carving workshops in the northern end of town.
Lamu Museum is an excellent introduction to the culture and history of Lamu.
Above: Lamu Museum
If this stokes your interest in Swahili culture, then visit the Swahili House Museum.
Above: Inside the Swahili House Museum
The massive fort at the main square was built by the Sultan of Paté Island nearby between 1810 and 1823.
It now houses the Lamu Fort Environmental Museum, complete with a library and aquarium.
Of interest to Teutonic philateists (stamp collectors) is the German Post Office Museum.
The Lamu Donkey Sanctuary is also worth a visit.
Take the Nairobi – Mombasa (from the capital to the coast) night train for a taste of the old colonial experience.
To truly get Kenya under your skin, you need to read Karen Blixen’s epic settler account, Out of Africa, a memoir by the Danish author.
The book, first published in 1937, recounts events of the 17 years when Blixen (née Dinesen) made her home in Kenya, then called British East Africa.
The book is a lyric meditation on Blixen’s life on her coffee plantation, as well as a tribute to some of the people who touched her life there.
It provides a vivid snapshot of African colonial life in the last decades of the British Empire.
Blixen wrote the book in English and then rewrote it in Danish.
Above. Baroness Karen Blixen (1885 – 1962)
Blixen moved to Kenya in late 1913, at the age of 28, to marry her second cousin, the Swedish Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, and make a life in the British colony.
The young Baron and Baroness bought farmland below the Ngong Hills about ten miles (16 km) southwest of Nairobi, which at the time was still shaking off its rough origins as a supply depot on the Uganda Railway.
The Blixens had planned to raise dairy cattle, but Bror developed their farm as a coffee plantation instead.
It was managed by Europeans, including, at the start, Karen’s brother Thomas – but most of the labour was provided by “squatters.”
Above: Karen Blixen and her brother Thomas Dinesen on the family farm in Kenya in the 1920s
This was the colonial term for local Kikuyu tribespeople who guaranteed the owners 180 days of labour in exchange for wages and the right to live and farm on the uncultivated lands which, in many cases, had simply been theirs before the British arrived and stole them.
When the First World War drove coffee prices up, the Blixen family invested in the business and in 1917 Karen and Bror expanded their holdings to six thousand acres (24 km²).
The new acquisitions included the site of the house which features so prominently in Out of Africa.
Above: Blixen’s African home, now the Karen Blixen Museum
The Blixens’ marriage started well – Karen and Bror went on hunting safaris which Karen later remembered as paradisiacal.
But it was not ultimately successful:
Bror, a talented hunter and a well liked companion, was an unfaithful husband and a poor businessman who squandered much of the money to be invested in the farm.
In 1921 the couple separated and in 1925 they were divorced.
Karen took over the management of the farm on her own.
She was well suited to the work – fiercely independent and capable, she loved the land and liked her native workers.
But the climate and soil of her particular tract was not ideal for coffee-raising.
The farm endured several unexpected dry years with low yields as well as a pestilence of grasshoppers one season – and the falling market price of coffee was no help.
The farm sank further and further into debt until, in 1931, the family corporation forced her to sell it.
The buyer, Remi Martin, who planned to carve it into residential plots, offered to allow Blixen to stay in the house.
She declined, and returned to Denmark.
Above: Flag of Denmark
Blixen moved back to the family’s estate of Rungstedlund and lived there the rest of her life.
Above: Karen Blixen’s grave in Rungstenlund, Denmark
There she took up again the writing career that she had begun, but abandoned, in her youth.
In 1934 she published a fiction collection, Nine Tales, now known as Seven Gothic Tales, and in 1937 she published her Kenyan memoir, Out of Africa.
The book’s title was likely derived from the title of a poem, “Ex Africa” she had written in 1915, while recuperating in a Danish hospital from her fight with syphilis.
The poem’s title is probably an abbreviation of the famous ancient Latin adage (credited to sages from Aristotle to Pliny to Eradmus) Ex Africa semper aliquid novi, which translates as “Out of Africa, always something new.“
Listen to benga, the contemporary dance music of Kenya, by Shirati Jazz, Victoria Kings and Them Mushrooms.
(The Luo of Kenya have long played an eight-string lyre called nyatiti and guitarists from the area sought to imitate the instrument’s syncopated melodies.
Above: Nyatiti
In benga, the electric bass guitar is played in a style reminiscent of the nyatiti.
Above: An electric bass guitar
As late as the turn of the 20th century, this bass in nyatiti supported the rhythm essential in transmitting knowledge about society through music.)
Watch Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in the big screen version of Out of Africa, as well as the equally emotional screen translation of Kiki Guillman’s I Dreamed of Africa.
In the 1985 film version of Out Of Africa, Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep) recalls her past life in Africa where she moved in 1913 as an unmarried wealthy Danish woman.
After having been being spurned by her Swedish nobleman lover, she asks his brother Baron Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) to get married out of mutual convenience, and they move to the vicinity of Nairobi.
Above: Blixen coat-of-arms
Using her funds, he is to set up a cattle ranch, with her joining him a few months later, at which time they will marry.
En route to Nairobi, her train is hailed by a big game hunter by the name of Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford) who knows her fiancé and entrusts his haul of ivory to her.
Above: Baron Bror Blixen, Edward Prince of Wales and Denys Finch-Hatton on safari in Kenya 1928
She is greeted at the train station by Farah (Malick Bowens), the Somali headman hired by Bror, who is nowhere to be found.
Above: Farah and Karen, Out of Africa
She is taken to the recently founded Muthaiga Club.
She enters the men-only bar to ask for her husband and, because of her gender, is asked to leave.
Karen and Bror marry before the day is out, with her becoming Baroness Blixen.
She then learns that Bror has changed their agreed-upon plan, and has spent her money on establishing a coffee farm.
She quickly learns that the farm is at too high an elevation to offer much of a chance of success.
She needs Bror’s help in building and managing this farm, but his interest is more in guiding game hunting safaris than in farming and he refuses.
Karen comes to love Africa and the African people, and is taken in by the breathtaking view of the nearby Ngong Hills and the Great Rift Valley beyond.
Meanwhile, she looks after the Kikuyu people who are squatting on her land.
Among other things, she establishes a school, looks after their medical needs, and arbitrates their disputes.
She also tries to establish a formal European homelife on par with the other upper class colonists in the area.
Meanwhile, she becomes friends with a young woman, Felicity (Suzanna Hamilton).
Eventually, Karen and Bror develop feelings for each other.
But Bror continues to pursue other sexual relationships as their marriage was still based on convenience.
As the First World War reaches East Africa, the colonists form a militia led by the colonial patriarch Lord Delamere (Michael Gough), which includes Denys and Bror among their number.
A military expedition sets out in search of the forces from the neighboring German colony of German East Africa.
Responding to the militia’s need for supplies, Karen leads a difficult expedition to find them and returns safely.
Above: the actual Lord Delamere (1870 – 1931)
Shortly after the end of the war, Denys acquires a Gipsy Moth biplane and often takes Karen flying.
In the evenings during his visits she makes up exotic and imaginative stories to entertain him.
Karen discovers that Bror has given her syphilis.
As she is unable to receive proper treatment in Nairobi, she returns to Denmark for treatment and recuperation and Bror agrees to manage the farm while she is away.
When she returns, now unable to bear children, Bror resumes his safari work and they begin to live separately.
The relationship between Karen and Denys develops and he comes to live with her.
Karen and Bror get a divorce on the grounds of Bror’s infidelity.
When Karen learns that Denys has taken one of her female acquaintances on a private safari, Karen comes to realize that Denys does not share her desire for a monogamous, domestic relationship.
He assures her that when he is with her he wants to be with her, and states that a marriage is immaterial to their relationship.
Eventually, this drives them apart and, refusing to be tied down, he moves out.
The farm eventually yields a good harvest, but a fire destroys much of the farm and factory, forcing her to sell out.
She prepares for her departure from Kenya to Denmark by appealing to the incoming governor to provide land for her Kikuyu workers to allow them to stay together, and by selling most of her remaining possessions at a rummage sale.
Denys visits the now-empty house and Karen comments that the house should have been so all along and, as with her other efforts, the returning of things to their natural state is as it should be.
Denys says that he was just getting used to her things.
As he is about to depart for a safari scouting trip in his airplane, they agree that the following Friday he will return and fly her to Mombasa, with Karen then continuing on to Denmark.
Friday comes and Denys does not appear.
Bror then arrives to tell her that Denys’ biplane has crashed and burned in Tsavo.
During Denys’ funeral Karen recites an excerpt of a poem by A.E. Housmann about a lauded athlete dying young who, as with Denys, is not fated to decline into old age.
Above: A.E. (Albert Edward) Housman (1859 – 1936)
Later, as she is about to depart, she goes to the Muthaiga Club to complete arrangements for forwarding any mail.
The members, who have come to admire her, invite her into the men-only bar for a toast.
At the train station, she says goodbye to Farah, then turns back to ask him to say her name so she can hear his voice one last time.
She was never to return to Africa.
I Dreamed of Africa is a 2000 American biographical drama film directed by Hugh Hudson, starring Kim Basinger and Vincent Perez, Eva Marie Saint, Garrett Strommen, Liam Aiken and Daniel Craig.
It is based on the autobiographical novel I Dreamed of Africa by Kuki Gallmann, an Italian writer who moved to Kenya and became involved in conservation work.
It was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
This film was both a commercial and critical failure.
Eat nyama choma (“roasted meat“) of any shape or form, but usually goat.
Drink Tusker – the elephant beer.
This is the land of spear-bearing Massai warriors, wiry marathon runners, strong-blend coffee, man-eating lions, gin-soaked colonials, and…..
Nairobbery.
Nairobbery: where you go to get your cash stolen
Nairobbery is used in reference to Nairobi’s high crime rate, with carjackings at gunpoint its notorious claim to fame.
For tourists, Kenya’s traffic-clogged capital, Nairobi, has traditionally been a short, overnight stop in a secure hotel compound before heading on out to some of East Africa’s most renowned safari parks and Indian Ocean beaches.
Like other major cities in sub-Saharan African, from Lagos to Accra and Johannesburg, crime, scams and other urban hassles have scared away many visitors.
The nickname “Nairobbery” does little to help the image of Kenya’s unruly capital.
Above: Images of Nairobi
That could be changing.
The region is witnessing rising visitor numbers and hotel building in metropolitan areas, driven heavily by the increased spending power and travel habits of Africa’s growing middle class.
On 26 May 2013, Nairobi visitors enjoyed the city’s first historical walking tours.
Two-hour trips now pass by the 1950s parliament buildings, Khoja Mosque and a bronze statue of Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta.
Above: Parliament Buildings
Above: Statue of Jomo Kenyatta, Father of the Nation
(Jomo Kenyatta (1897 – 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister (1963 – 1964) and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978.
He was the country’s first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic.
Kenyatta was a controversial figure.
Prior to Kenyan independence, many of its white settlers regarded him as an agitator and malcontent, although across Africa he gained widespread respect as an anti-colonialist.
During his presidency, he was given the honorary title of Mzee and lauded as the Father of the Nation, securing support from both the black majority and the white minority with his message of reconciliation.
Conversely, his rule was criticised as dictatorial, authoritarian and neo-colonial, of favouring Kikuyu over other ethnic groups, and of facilitating the growth of widespread corruption.)
Above. President Kenyatta, 1966
“There is so much in Nairobi, but we haven’t bothered to shine a light on it,” said Mutheu Mbondo, an organiser.
“Kenya’s colonial and post-colonial history is written into the fabric of the city.
It’s a shame that the tourists just skip it.“
Sharon Kyungu, spokesperson for the National Museums of Kenya, said the tours “offer visitors something more than just beaches and wildlife” and will help it compete with Africa’s destination cities, such as Cairo and Cape Town.
Walking tours have proved a hit in more tourist-friendly cities.
London visitors are escorted by guides dressed as the fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, while themed tours of New York focus on sights from television shows, such as Sex and the City and Seinfeld.
Francis Wambalaba, an economist at Nairobi’s United States International University, said walking tours should kick-start broader efforts to open up historic sites, eateries and bars in a city of more than three million people.
The city’s giraffe and elephant sanctuaries already attract small crowds.
“But there are so many other hidden treasures,” said Wambalaba.
“Our parliament’s architecture, the bombed-out remains of the US embassy.
Above: Aftermath of the US Embassy bombing, 7 August 1988
(The US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania was also bombed the same day.)
Above: Memorial park at the site of the embassy in Nairobi
Coffee plantations in the suburbs could be our version of wine-tasting tours.
The lack of tourists in this city starves us of important cultural exchanges.”
Above: Karen Blixen Museum
John Kester, who analyses travel industry trends for the UN’s World Tourism Organization, said that plans to get holidaymakers to spend a few days in Nairobi and other African cities were more than just wishful thinking.
Sub-Saharan Africa received more than 34 million international visitors last year, a 5.2% increase from 2011.
Almost half of these hail from within the continent, added Kester, driven by economic growth.
Nigerians, for example, spent more than $6bn on international travel last year, compared to less than $1bn in 2005.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that sub-Saharan Africa’s economy will continue to grow.
African cities are better connected nowadays, thanks to airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, added Kester.
In May 2013, an Ethiopian Airlines 787 Dreamliner flew from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, its first commercial flight since all 787s were grounded in January 2013.
Much of the growth is business hotels in regional trade hubs such as Nairobi.
South Africa, the region’s holiday heavyweight, saw an 18% rise in tourism receipts in 2012.
Above. Flag of South Africa
Transport and other infrastructure built for the 2010 soccer World Cup continue to boost arrival figures and helped open up destination cities including Johannesburg, Durban and Bloemfontein.
“South Africa has diversified a tourism product in which wildlife-spotting, scenery, beaches and cities all play a role,” said Kester.
“Other African destinations have a similar opportunity to increase their profile by marketing cities as a side attraction to the holiday.”
Tourism revenues have shown their worth by helping to regenerate cities in other parts of the developing world, he added.
Look at the refurbishment that is taking place in crumbling Havana, because tourism is such a big sector there,” said Kester.
Above: Havana (Habana), Cuba at night
“Improvements in central Bogota are seen elsewhere in Latin America.
Above: Bogotá, Colombia
In Seoul they opened up a river and pedestrian area that used to be under an eight-lane highway.”
Above: Seoul, South Korea
Back in Nairobi, James Asudi runs a travel firm called Victoria Safaris that has already imported ideas from South Africa.
He started showing tourists around Kibera, Kenya’s biggest slum, in 2005, after seeing similar trips offered in a Cape Town ghetto.
Nowadays he has ten guides working the overcrowded slum, and other firms offer tourists warts-and-all trips that showcase open sewers, close-up poverty and charities working to raise living standards in the metal-roofed huts.
Although the ghetto trips are just add-ons to more traditional tours of the Maasai Mara and other safari parks, Asudi notes growing interest among visitors to spend a bit more time – and money – in the much-maligned capital.
Above: Kibera
“Tourism is changing from wildlife to humans,” he said.
“We’ve got groups booked that won’t visit a single game park. They want to see the markets, culture, slums, villages.
Instead of eating in hotels, they want to eat ugali, nyama choma and other local food that we Africans eat.”
Above: Walking tour through Kibera
Above: Ugali (a type of maize flour porridge) and sukama wiki (collard greens cooked with onions and spices), staples of Kenyan cuisine
Tourism in Kenya is the second-largest source of foreign exchange revenue following agriculture.
The Kenya Tourism Board is responsible for maintaining information pertaining to tourism in Kenya.
The main tourist attractions are photo safaris through the 60 national parks and game reserves.
Other attractions include:
the wildebeest migration at the Masaai Mara (this migration is considered to be the 7th wonder of Africa)
historical mosques
Above: Jamia Mosque, Nairobi
Colonial-era forts at Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu
Above: Fort Jesus, Mombasa Island
Above: Malindi Fort
renowned scenery such as the white-capped Mount Kenya and the Great Rift Valley
Above: Mount Kenya
Above: Great Rift Valley
tea plantations at Kericho
Above: Tea country, Kericho
coffee plantations at Thika
a splendid view of Mount Kilimanjaro across the border into Tanzania
Above: Mount Kilimanjaro
the beaches along the Swahili Coast, in the Indian Ocean.
Tourists, the largest number being from Germany and the UK, are attracted mainly to the coastal beaches and the game reserves, notably, the expansive Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks.
Ecotourism is the responsible travel of people to natural areas while maintaining a high priority of the conservation of the host country’s environment and local community’s lifestyles.
This differs from mass tourism, which is a more organized and mainstream movement of larger numbers of people to specialized locations, or “popular destinations”, such as resorts.
Mass tourism is often offered in package deals where the tourist can purchase a plane ticket, hotel, activities, food, etc. from one single company.
This type of tourism is usually not concerned with environmental impact or climate change and puts business and revenue as its top priority, whereas the main goal of ecotourism is to make minimal impact on local communities while improving their state of well-being.
The rise of ecotourism has annually increased by 10 – 15% worldwide, and 20% of that tourism accounts for travel to the global south, with a 6% increase each year in tourism specifically to third world countries.
Kenya’s wildlife and unique landscapes have attracted a growth in ecotourism, and much of its economy is now primarily sustained by foreign revenue brought in by tourism, causing a myriad of positive and negative impacts to its culture, ecosystems, and the lifestyles of its local people.
Above: Masai guide sharing his vast knowledge
Kenya has considerable land area devoted to wildlife habitats, including the Masai Mara, where blue wildebeest and other bovids participate in a large-scale annual migration.
More than one million wildebeest and 200,000 zebras participate in the migration across the Mara River.
The “Big Five” game animals of Africa (lion, leopard, buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant) can be found in Kenya and in the Masai Mara in particular.
A significant population of other wild animals, reptiles, and birds can be found in the national parks and game reserves in the country.
The annual animal migration occurs between June and September, with millions of animals taking part, attracting valuable foreign tourism.
Two million wildebeest migrate a distance of 2,900 kilometres (1,802 mi) from the Serengeti in neighbouring Tanzania to the Masai Mara in Kenya, in a constant clockwise fashion, searching for food and water supplies.
This Serengeti Migration of the wildebeest is listed among the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa.
For travellers, ecotourism is an attractive alternative to the mass migration of vacationers and offers a more intimate interaction with local nature and culture.
Instead of spending leisure time inside the walls of a resort, ecotourists have a more “real” experience and are able to gain a better appreciation of the world’s natural resources, landscapes, and wildlife.
Ecotourism has also influenced businesses like hotels and lodges to be more environmentally conscientious in terms of recycling and providing eco-friendly products.
Besides majorly boosting the economy in host countries with foreign currency, tourism provides new job opportunities for locals such as tour guiding, craft making and selling, food services, and cultural performances, which in turn help reduce the need for people to resort to unsustainable practices like poaching or over hunting and fishing.
The construction of new medical facilities, cleaner water sources, new roads, and electricity to accommodate incoming tourists simultaneously provides a higher standard of living for the local communities as well.
Ecotourism assists in maintaining the environmental integrity and biodiversity of a country by providing an economic desire to preserve native land and wildlife in the form of reservations and game parks, which aid in the protection of threatened species.
The revenue from park fees, safari tours, camp fees, and local taxes often contribute to conservation work as well.
Rather than the quick fix of monetary donations or handouts, ecotourism potentially offers a more long-term solution to poverty.
But….
With the rise of tourism and the subsequent influx in economic opportunity in Kenya, also comes the gradual degradation of its environment and the very ecosystems that are supposedly preserved as the tourists’ main attractions.
The very construction of wildlife preservations and reserves as a means to conserve environmental biodiversity is, in and of itself, somewhat of a contradiction as it involves the commercial destruction of that unspoiled area to exist.
Deforestation is a hugely negative impact suffered in the building process of wildlife areas and the various accommodations needed for tourists, such as lodging, campsites, roads for safari tours, outhouses, firewood, etc.
This deforestation not only results in the loss of native flora, but it also causes a dramatic loss of habitat for animal species, resulting in a number of complications.
Without their natural habitat, dislocated animals are forced into surrounding areas, causing crowding and competition between previously unconflicted species.
During times of stress caused by drought or other natural changes, competition for food, shelter, and water becomes intense and the result could be potentially dire for an entire population.
Lack in training of tour guides and lack in ethics and guidelines for tourists contributes to many of the negative impacts ecotourism has had on Kenya’s environment.
In one day in the Maasai Mara National Park there could be up to 200 guide vehicles shuttling upwards of 700 tourists in and out of the park.
Besides the direct effect the trucks have on the soil, causing erosion, compaction, and mud pits, exciting events like the sighting of a leopard could cause major back ups and traffic jams in the middle of the African bush.
Although it is technically against the park rules, tour guides, sometimes encouraged with a bribe from their tourist passengers, will often stray off the designated dirt paths and onto the vegetation so as to let people get a closer look at the wildlife.
Not only does this harm the plants that are trampled, perhaps leading to a shortage in food supply for a certain animal species that could possibly rely on them for food, but it also poses a major stress for the animal that is being observed, and most likely photographed, by hordes of tourists.
Interaction between humans and wild animals in their natural habitat can lead to a number of unforeseen and unconscious complications.
The mere presence of humans can be sensed by most animals and, although not always visible, can change their physiology and behavior.
The sound of footsteps, an approaching vehicle, or the sight of human being is such a novel stimulus to most animals in the wild that it can cause major shifts in their actions, often resulting in them disrupting their feeding or breeding rituals to either hide or flee, sometimes even abandoning their young in the process.
In some cases, like with passing aircraft often carrying tourists for aerial tours in helicopters or hot air balloons, the intrusion is so alarming that it causes a mass scattering of the animals below, disturbing feeding groups, and in some cases the injury or death of an animal as it tries to flee.
More subtle noises caused by humans and vehicles, those even unable to be heard by the human ear, can still cause major disruption to the delicate signals used by snakes or some nocturnal animals to find prey or navigate, leading them to become confused or lost.
Another problem is caused by the sheer amount of foreign travel in and out of rural villages and reservations that otherwise are not exposed to certain bacteria which can sometimes lead to the introduction of foreign diseases into both human and animal communities.
Most of the negative effects tourism has on wildlife are short term changes in their behavior, but after repeated exposure to human induced stimuli they can become desensitized and habituated with the presence of tourists and lose aspects of their natural behavior, resulting in possible long-term effects to their entire population like reduced breeding or increased mortality.
Apart from the micro-effects of ecotourism on the native ecology of Kenya, the macro-effects of increased human presence in rural areas on the environment substantially contributes to climate change.
For instance, increased air travel and emissions, increased traffic congestion, exhaust from safari tours, and hot air balloon tours all contribute to air pollution.
Proper waste disposal precautions are often not set in place and excess sewage waste is tossed into cattle grazing grounds or rivers, resulting in polluted drinking water.
Although ecotourism is undoubtedly a greener approach to tourism, it still needs to be managed if it is to be sustainable and have a minimal impact on animals, ecosystems, and the environment as a whole.
On 21 September 2013, the world was shocked by terrorist group al-Shabaab’s killing of 67 people in Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.
But long before al-Shabaab’s brazen mall attack, in retaliation for Kenyan military intervention in Somalia, Nairobi already had a reputation for being one of the most dangerous cities in Africa.
So much so that it has earned the nickname “Nairobbery“.
Armed robberies in broad daylight, rapes, and recently terrorist attacks, and explosions in public spaces, seem to be the order of the day in the Kenyan capital.
And it’s clear that security measures have greatly increased after the Westgate attack.
Security in the city’s malls, hotels, matatus and compounds has intensified in recent months.
At the entrance to supermarket parking lots, security guards thoroughly check cars.
Commuters are searched for weapons before boarding the buses at rush hour.
At housing compounds, which are protected with electric fences, guards control who goes in and out.
Luxury hotel chains have introduced screening machines, and wherever you go there are signs warning of the presence of surveillance officers from major security firms.
Mercedes, a former employee of the Spanish embassy, does not rely on such security actions and says that “it only intimidates the crooks, but I sincerely doubt that these guards can prevent further attacks”.
Above: Spanish Embassy, Nairobi
Radar, Starlight, G4S, Lavington and KK are some of the main private security firms in the city.
A sector with clear benefits thanks to the widespread fear of Nairobi’s residents.
Eric is one of many security guards working in the city’s residential compounds.
He is 26, lives in the Kibera slum, and from 0600 to 1800 works as a guard in the Kilimani neighborhood.
The wealthy minority that lives here sleeps in cramped compounds that are monitored around the clock.
A cell phone, a baton and some prayers are this young Kenyan’s inseparable companions.
“They give us free training, teach us how to defend ourselves and how to ensure the security measures,” explains Eric.
“When you finish the course, you have a job guaranteed and that’s why I decided to devote myself to this.”
Eric says sometimes he is afraid because “you never know who may appear.”
But inside the security hut there is an emergency button, which will alert nearby patrol cars.
“So if something happens, I know someone would be here soon,” he says.
While residents in wealthy Nairobi neighborhoods enjoy this type of 24-hour security, the reality in the peri-urban areas is very different.
Kenya’s police to population ratio is 1:1,000, a figure that makes it impossible to combat violence and theft in most of the city, but especially in neighborhoods abandoned by the government, like the slums.
“It’s very difficult to live without fear at night in neighborhoods like Kibera,” says the young guard.
Most people in Nairobi can not afford a safe house.
Working 12 hours a day, six days a week, Eric says he earns 9,800 Kenyan shillings per month ($113).
But most secure apartments usually cost about 70,000 shillings per month ($810).
“I wish I could live in a safer place,” he says, pointing to the electric fence surrounding the apartments he protects.
Above: Unequal neighbourhoods, Nairobi
Not everyone believes that private security companies really work.
“I do not feel safe at home.
There are many cases of theft in these compounds.
Sometimes the guards and police are in cahoots.
You can not trust anyone,” says Dorcus, a mother and housewife who lives in the same compound where Eric works.
There are many factors tied to crime in Nairobi: low wages, high unemployment among urban youths, and social segregation between the low and middle- to upper-class.
The corruption that is prevalent among Nairobi’s police doesn’t help either.
Despite terrorist attacks widely publicized as major threats to safety, everyday crime is extensive.
And it’s like Nairobi is two cities in one.
Electrified fences, patrol cars, and armed guards are a reality for those able to afford private properties, while the dangers of living in “Nairobbery” remain very real for the majority of the city’s residents.
But does that mean you should avoid Nairobi?
Is it unsafe for tourists?
To suggest that there is no crime in Nairobi, that it is all sunshine and roses in Kenya’s capital, would be a falsehood.
There is crime here, just as there is crime in any major city in the world, so precautions one would take in London, Moscow, Chicago or Vienna, one takes when in Nairobi.
A few basic rules:
Never use an ATM after dark.
Walk with a friend whenever possible, as muggers move in gangs, single out their victim and surround the person leaving no room for escape. The larger your group, the less likely the attack.
Avoid dark alleys.
Read your surroundings.
Stop wearing headphones while walking in the streets. A lot of people are guilty of this. It allows the predator to close in on you without you knowing.
Leave your wallet at home. Have budgets for daily expenditures. It allows you to carry the exact amount. It also helps you to being disciplined and avoid overspending.
Learn some basic self-defense. It is important to be able to put down an attacker so as to allow you time to escape.
Do not use the same route twice. Routines are not good, they make you comfortable and that is what the attacker wants.
Avoid crowds that are not familiar to you.
(I myself have never been mugged, though I have been threatened and have felt danger at times in my travels.
It does help that I am a 194 cm / 6’5″ tall man, but nevertheless I try to never become complacent to my surroundings.)
To avoid Nairobi because of the bad that might happen is to miss the good that the city offers:
Above: Central Park, Nairobi
Every day at 1100 hours, you can watch baby elephants come to the mudhole for a bath and their bottles of milk at the Elephant Orphanage.
The guides will tell you all about each elephant and you can ask as many questions as you like.
The Giraffe Centre is a breeding centre for Rothschild’s giraffes where you can feed them.
Nairobi National Park is the only national park with free roaming wild animals inside a capital city.
If Nairobi is your point of arrival in Africa, perhaps here you may see your first lion here, black and white rhino, giraffe, buffalo, hippo, zebra, gazelle, or baboon.
The Park does offer visitors a tour in a bus, but being a tour you are restricted by rules and schedules.
Personally, this is my preference, as I assume that the guides know how to interact with the animals encountered better than the average tourist with their own transport.
Kazuri is a success story.
The ladies at this workshop all live in Kiberia (Nairobi’s – possibly Africa’s biggest – slums) and most are single mothers.
They create beads.
By hand.
And paint each bead.
By hand.
And once all these beads have been created. painted and fired in the kilns, they are transformed into the most exquisite jewellery.
Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, hair clips, Christmas tree ornaments….
All created, by hand, in this workshop.
Each different in style and colour.
They make unforgettable souvenirs and great gifts.
And if beaded jewellery isn’t your thing, they also make animal statues and a whole range of crockery.
The Marula Studio pays people to bring in rubber flip-flops and other rubber trash, which they turn into colourful, sculpted animals.
Amani ya Juu teaches ladies to make things with fabrics.
Tablet and ipad covers and handbags are the most popular items, with an assortment for Christmas and for kids.
At Matbronze, they make bronze artwork, with an excellent gallery of amazing pieces along with paintings and drawings.
All things glass are made at Kitengela, a quirky place with lots of art spread around.
You can see the artists at work, have a drink in the café and browse the many things for sale.
Sandstorm is a leather and canvas workshop where you can usually pick up a bargain on a beautiful travel bag.
The Maasai Market and the Triangle Market are for those who love the traditional style souvenirs and don’t mind bargaining for a good price.
And, yes, Nairobi has museums.
Besides the aforementioned Out of Africa Blixen house, another museum worth visiting is the Nairobi National Museum.
Their bird collection is impressive as are the hominid fossils.
(Say hello to my relatives!)
As well there is the Railway Museum and the Bomas of Kenya.
The Bomas is a great one to visit where you can learn more about Kenyan culture and its different tribes in an outdoor setting.
The thing to remember about Kenya is that it is not a uniform country.
It is a nation that surprises, a country of contrasts.
Nairobi’s cosmopolitan population mix and its western-style skyscapers and suburban sprawl exists in the same state as the shadowy, medieval architecture of spice-infused Swahili Lamu and old-town Mombasa and Malindi.
If you have ever fantasized about Africa – sleeping in the bush, surrounded by wildlife or walking with tribespeople beneath the broad African sky – then Kenya is for you.
You will also encounter the everyday beauty of African life: the swerving Kenyan matatu (minibus) filled to bursting, careening through the streets of Nairobi, hawkers peddling their wares on the street corner, a truckload of women singing and dancing.
This is a place simply too good to ignore forever.
Too good, but not quite Paradise.
Water resources in Kenya are under pressure from agricultural chemicals, urban and industrial waste, as well as from use for hydroelectric power.
The anticipated water shortage is a potential problem for the future.
For example, the damming of the Omo River by the Gilgel Gibe III Dam, together with the plan to use 30% to 50% of the water for sugar plantations will create significant environmental problems.
It is estimated that up to 50% of Lake Turkana’s water capacity will be lost.
Above: Lake Turkana
Had there been no planning of the irrigation of sugar plantations, the dam itself might have had a net positive effect to the environment, due to the emission-less power generation of the dam.
Water-quality in Kenya has problems in lakes, (including water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria), have contributed to a substantial decline in fishing output and endangered fish species.
Above: A hyacinth-choked lakeshore at Ndere Island, Lake Victoria, Kenya
Between 1970 and 1977, Kenya lost more than half of its elephants.
Though elephant hunting has been banned for 40-years in Kenya, poaching has not reduced.
Given the poverty of many of the people and the high value of elephant tusks, they are shipped overseas and sold on the black market.
Although Kenya has many national parks and reserves protecting wildlife, elephant populations are still at risk, a problem which is made worse by corruption and some officials supplementing their income with permitting poaching.
In 2020 February, poachers in Kenya killed two white giraffes.
The female white giraffe and her calf were found dead in Garrisa County in the northeast part of the country.
This left the country and the world with only one white male giraffe.
Forestry output has also declined because of resource degradation.
Overexploitation over the past three decades has reduced the country’s timber resources by one-half.
At present only 2% of the land remains forested and an estimated 50 square kilometres of forest are lost each year.
This loss of forest aggravates erosion, the silting of dams, flooding and the loss of biodiversity.
Among the endangered forests are Kakamega Forest, Mau Forest and Karura Forest.
In response to ecological disruption, activists have pressed with some success for policies that encourage sustainable resource use.
The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Kenyan environmentalist, Wangeri Maathai, best known for organizing a grassroots movement in which thousands of people were mobilized over the years to plant 30 million trees in Kenya and elsewhere and to protest forest clearance for luxury development.
Imprisoned as an opponent of Moi, Maathai linked deforestation with the plight of rural women, who are forced to spend untold hours in search of scarce firewood and water.
Above: Wangari Maathai (1940 – 2011)
(Daniel Toroitich arap Moi (1924 – 2020) was a Kenyan statesman and politician who was the second and longest-serving President of Kenya from 1978 to 2002.
Moi’s regime was deemed as dictatorial and autocratic, especially before 1992 when Kenya was a one-party state.
Human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, as well as a special investigation by the United Nations, accused Moi of human rights abuses during his presidency.
Inquiries held after the end of his presidency found evidence that Moi and his sons had engaged in significant levels of corruption.)
Above: President Moi, 1979
Widespread poverty in many parts of the country has greatly lead to over-exploitation of the limited resources in Kenya.
Cutting down of trees to create more land for cultivation, charcoal burning business, quarrying among other social and occupational practices are the major threats of environmental degradation due to poverty in rural Kenya.
Littering and the illegal dumping of rubbish is a problem in both urban and rural Kenya.
Almost all urban areas of Kenya have inadequate rubbish collection and disposal systems.
There is the risk of seasonal flooding from July to late August.
In September 2012, thousands of people were displaced in parts of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province as floodwaters submerged houses and schools and destroyed crops.
It was especially dangerous as the floods caused latrines to overflow, contaminating numerous water sources.
Floods can also cause mudslides.
Two children were killed in September 2012 following a mudslide in the Baringo District, which also displaced 46 families.
Climate change in Kenya is increasingly affecting Kenya’s citizens.
This is having effects on the people living in Kenya, creating water security challenges and putting pressure on major parts of the economy.
At the beginning of 2020, some part of the country was affected by massive locust infestation.
Climatic change impacts such as the increase in temperature and rainfall variability in desert areas, and the strong winds associated with tropical cyclones, offer a conducive environment for pest breeding, development and migration.
Attribution of infestation to climate change is however quite difficult.
Climate projections suggest an increase in temperature of up to 2.5°C between 2000 and 2050, and an increasing frequency of extreme events, such as floods and droughts.
Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) are hot and dry making them vulnerable to extreme weather changes, such as droughts or flooding.
Moreover, coastal communities are already experiencing sea level rise and associated issues such as saltwater intrusion.
These have impacts on many marginalized or at-risk communities, for example prolonged drought and food insecurity create risk for youth in Kenya.
Kenya’s armed forces, like many government institutions in the country, have been tainted by corruption allegations.
Because the operations of the armed forces have been traditionally cloaked by the ubiquitous blanket of “state security“, the corruption has been hidden from public view, and thus less subject to public scrutiny and notoriety.
This has changed recently.
In what are by Kenyan standards unprecedented revelations, in 2010, credible claims of corruption were made with regard to recruitment and procurement of armoured personnel carriers.
Further, the wisdom and prudence of certain decisions of procurement have been publicly questioned.
The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Kenya a “hybrid regime” in 2019.
The political terror scale gives the country a rating of 4, meaning that civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population.
Murders, disappearances and torture are a common part of life.
In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.
Child labour is common in Kenya.
Most working children are active in agriculture.
In 2006, UNICEF estimated that up to 30% of girls in the coastal areas of Malindi, Mombasa, Kilifi, and Diani were subject to prostitution.
Most of the prostitutes in Kenya are aged 9–18.
Women were economically empowered before colonialisation.
By colonial land alienation, women lost access and control of land.
They became more economically dependent on men.
A colonial order of gender emerged where males dominated females.
Median age at first marriage increases with increasing education.
Rape, defilement, and battering are not always seen as serious crimes.
Reports of sexual assault are not always taken seriously.
Public universities in Kenya are highly commercialised institutions and only a small fraction of qualified high school graduates are admitted on limited government-sponsorship into programs of their choice.
Most are admitted into the social sciences, which are cheap to run, or as self-sponsored students paying the full cost of their studies.
Most qualified students who miss out opt for middle-level diploma programs in public or private universities, colleges, and polytechnics.
38.5% of the Kenyan adult population is illiterate.
Despite its impressive commercial approach and interests in the country, Kenya’s academia and higher education system is notoriously rigid and disconnected from the needs of the local labour market and is widely blamed for the high number of unemployable and “half-baked” university graduates who struggle to fit in the modern workplace.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Kenya and punishable by up to 14 years in prison, though the state often turns a blind eye to prosecuting gay people.
Above: LGBT activists at Cologne (Köln) Pride carrying a banner with the flags of 72 countries where homosexuality is illegal
According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 90% of Kenyans believe that homosexuality should not be accepted by society.
While addressing a joint press conference together with President Barack Obama in 2015, President Kenyatta declined to assure Kenya’s commitment to gay rights, saying that “the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue.
But there are some things that we must admit we don’t share.
Our culture, our societies don’t accept.“
In November 2008, WikiLeaks brought wide international attention to The Cry of Blood report, which documents the extrajudicial killing of gangsters by the Kenyan police.
In the report, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) reported in their key finding that forced disappearances and extrajudical killings appear to be official policy sanctioned by the political leadership and the police.
Despite (or perhaps because of) its problems, Kenya is determined that it will not be ignored.
Giant translucent balloons will soon be floating above the savannahs and mountains of Kenya in an ambitious attempt to bring Internet access to millions in rural communities.
The inflatables, which have been likened to immense jellyfish, will be launched in America and remotely piloted at a height of 12 miles to the East African state within the “next few weeks“, President Kenyatta announced.
Early testing of the Loon balloons, a joint venture between Google’s parent company Alphabet and Telkom Kenya, caused pandemonium.
Crops were crushed when a few balloons crash-landed, though far more damage was done by thousands of people tramping across fields for a closer look.
Above: Google transreceiver, Miraa farm field, Igembe Central, Meru County, Kenya, 29 December 2017
The lack of affordable and reliable broadband is a central obstacle to the ambitions of African businesses.
Though Kenya’s metropolitan centres are well-connected, many of its population of 50 million remain “unserved or underserved” in towns and villages where there are too few people to support the building of signal equipment on the ground.
Instead, the Loon system hangs antennas from 39-foot balloons, which are filled with helium and rise twice as high as planes fly.
This helps them to avoid weather problems and wildlife.
Stations have been built in Nairobi and two other cities to send signals from local Internet providers up to the balloons.
These signals are then fed back to the targeted areas, in the style of satellite communication.
Each device can provide Internet coverage over 2,000 square miles and stay aloft for months, monitored from Silicon Valley, California.
Solar collectors power the equipment during the day and charge a battery to run the system at night.
The polyethylene inflatables have a shelf life of about 100 days, when a parachute self-deploys to guide them down to the ground.
President Kenyatta finally signed off the deal after approval was granted from the aviation authority and the ministry of transport.
Neighbouring Uganda also had to sign an airspace agreement since the balloons may float above its stratosphere to bring connectivity to border communities.
Kenya is the first African country to sign a deal for the technology and other African states will be keen to see if it will be a success, though the solar-powered kit’s reliance on sunshine makes it suitable for only some parts of the world.
Project Loon was launched in 2011 after Google came up with several outlandish ideas for reaching places that are underserved by high-speed Internet.
Kenya has long been a pioneer of new technology and its capital, which styles itself Silicon Savannah, is often the first choice for investment by international technology companies over South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized economy.
According to Project Loon:
50% of Earth’s landmass lacks coverage from traditional terrestrial Internet infrastructure.
3.8 billion people (about half of humanity) don’t have access to the Internet and many more lack adequate access.
Connectivity is crucial after a natural disaster. It is a lifeline that enables those affected to reach out for help, to coordinate logistics and supplies, and to reconnect families and friends in the moments that matter most.
Much like it has been for the rest of the planet, 2020 has not been a perfect year for Kenya.
The Camp Simba attack was a pre-dawn attack at Manda Air Strip on Camp Simba on 5 January 2020.
The camp is used by Kenyan and US troops and is located near Manda Bay on the mainland of Lamu County, Kenya.
The perpetrators were al-Shabab, a Somali-based terrorist group with pretensions of being followers of the Islamic faith.
Fewer than 20 al-Shabaab militants assaulted Camp Simba, which was home to around 100 US personnel along with an undisclosed number of Kenyan troops.
It was the first al-Shabaab targeting of US military personnel in Kenya.
Above: Logo of al-Shabaab
The timing of the attack coincided with recent Iranian threats of retaliation to target US troops in response to the US assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in the 2020 Baghdad International Airport airstrike.
However, al-Shabaab claimed no link between their decision to attack and to those events.
Above: Qasem Soleimani (1957 – 2020)
The COVID-19virus was confirmed to have reached Kenya on 13 March 2020, with the initial cases reported in the capital city Nairobi and in the coastal area of Mombasa.
On 23 July, Kenya confirmed 15 thousand cases and six thousand recoveries.
While the pandemic has spread, relative to other countries the situation has remained “pretty tame“.
As of 2 December 2020 in Kenya:
87, 249 confirmed cases of Covid-19
68, 110 recoveries
1,506 deaths
In response to the rise of corona virus cases in Kenya to three (3), on 15 March the government of Kenya closed all schools and directed that all public and private sector workers work from home, wherever possible.
Travel restrictions were later imposed to prevent non-residents from entry.
Kenyan nationals and residents were required to self-quarantine for a minimum of 14 days.
On 15 March 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed that the following measures to curb COVID-19 be implemented:
Travel from any countries with any case of Corona virus be restricted.
Only Kenyan citizens and foreigners with valid residence permits will be allowed to come into the country provided they proceed on self quarantine or to a government designated quarantine facility.
All schools and higher learning institutions be closed by Friday March 20, 2020.
Government and businesses people start working from home, except essential services.
Cashless transactions over cash. Cost of transactions reduced.
No congressional meetings – weddings, malls, night clubs, churches, limitation of visits to hospitals.
Hospitals and shopping malls to give soap and water/hand sanitizers, and regular cleaning of facilities.
Cargo vessels, aircraft or ships can come into the country provided they are disinfected at point of departure and the crew quarantined on arrival.
UN Headquarters in Kenya continue operating with diplomats travelling to the UN exempted from travel restrictions but observing the self-quarantine rule.
A toll-free number (719) set up to report suspected corona virus cases.
Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe banned all social gatherings including religious gatherings on the same date.
All flights were banned effective Wednesday 25 March by the Health CS.
On 22 March, following the confirmation of an additional eight cases, bringing the total to 16 nationally, the Kenyan government introduced additional measures and directives to reduce the spread of corona virus in the country.
These measures included a suspension of all international flights effective at midnight on 25 March, with the exception of cargo flights (all persons entering the country will be compelled to undergo quarantine at a government facility).
The government further stipulated that any persons, including senior government officials, found to be in violation of quarantine measures would be forcefully quarantined at their own expense.
All bars were to remain closed from 22 March, with restaurants allowed to remain open for takeaway services only.
All public service vehicles (i.e., matatus and buses) had to adhere to passenger-distancing guidelines previously stipulated on 20 March.
Further, all public gatherings at churches, mosques, funerals and elsewhere were restricted to no more than 15 people, and weddings were banned.
In May 2020, Kenyan authorities dislodged 8,000 people from two informal settlements, compelling them to live on streets for weeks.
This increased the possible risk of spreading corona virus among them.
On 30 October, the United Nations and the World Food Programme (WFP) launched a major cash and nutrition relief project in conjunction with local and national authorities to provide aid for 400,000 urban poor in Covid-19 hotspots.
People were arrested for breaking curfews.
The 1900 – 0500 curfew announced on 25 March was accompanied by reports of police brutality.
First-hand accounts and video footage in several cities, including Nairobi and Mombasa, indicated that police used beatings and tear gas on 27 March.
Some accounts indicate that detention resulted in crowding of people into small areas, contrary to the curfew’s goal of increasing social distancing.
Kenyan officials and government outlets later condemned police behaviour.
Subsequently, a petition was filed by the Law Society of Kenya claiming that the curfew itself was unconstitutional, “because it is blank and indefinite, and because it is ultra vires [it contravenes] the Public Order Act” and that the curfew posed a threat to the health of the general population.
The petition further asserted that, “police recklessly horded large crowds on the ground, contrary to WHO advice on social distancing.
Moreover, the first respondent (police) stopped the media from monitoring their movement and assaulted journalists covering the process“.
On 30 March, the High Court of Kenya upheld the curfew itself, but barred police from using excessive force to enforce the curfew and demanded the police provide guidelines for observing the curfew.
Above: The Supreme Court of Kenya
On 31 March, a 13-year-old boy was shot dead, allegedly by police, on the balcony of his home in Kiamaiko, Nairobi, 20 minutes after the curfew had started.
On 25 April, additional 21 days were added as curfew with focus still in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kilifi and across the country.
The travel restrictions reduced Kenya’s hotel, tourism and flower industries.
In contrast to citizens in industrialized countries, some Kenyans have the ability to switch from their city jobs to rural labour for food.
Kenya’s economy is the largest in eastern and central Africa, with Nairobi serving as a major regional commercial hub.
Agriculture is the largest sector: tea and coffee are traditional cash crops, while fresh flowers are a fast-growing export.
The service industry is also a major economic driver, particularly tourism.
Despite major achievements in the health sector, Kenya still faces many challenges.
The estimated life expectancy dropped in 2009 to approximately 55 years — five years below the 1990 level.
The infant mortality rate was high at approximately 44 deaths per 1,000 children in 2012.
The WHO estimated in 2011 that only 42% of births were attended by a skilled health professional.
Diseases of poverty directly correlate with a country’s economic performance and wealth distribution:
Half of Kenyans live below the poverty level.
Preventable diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malnutrition are the biggest burden, major child-killers, and responsible for much morbidity.
Weak policies, corruption, inadequate health workers, weak management, and poor leadership in the public health sector are largely to blame.
According to 2009 estimates, HIV/AIDS prevalence is about 6.3% of the adult population.
However, the 2011 UN AIDS Report suggests that the HIV epidemic may be improving in Kenya, as HIV prevalence is declining among young people (ages 15–24) and pregnant women.
Kenya had an estimated 15 million cases of malaria in 2006.
Will Kenya overcome this latest setback to its people?
Will they rise from Africa’s social and economic woes?
Perhaps by following the national motto Harambee (Let us all pull together.)?
Kenya is a place worth preserving on a planet worth fighting for.
Over 85% of Kenyans are Christian and 10% are Muslim.
Those of faith, Christian, Muslim or other belief systems, have notions that salvation comes from above.
Perhaps that salvation is balloon-shaped?
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World (Lonely Planet) / Lonely Planet Africa / Lonely Planet Kenya / Jane Flanagan, “Giant balloons help broadband to take off“, The Times, 31 March 2020 / Wainarna Ndung’u, “Google device plunges into a miraa farm in Igenbe Central, Meru prompting talk of aliens“, The Standard (Kenya), 30 December 2017 / James Reine, “Tourists in Kenya brave Narobbery“, Al Jazeera, 15 January 2020 / Gemma Solés, “Narobbery: life in the fenced city“, UrbanAfrica.net, 10 March 2014
But it is not the kind of war that produces parades, processions or the laying of wreathes at cenotaphs.
It is a hidden war where the enemy is often anonymous and the victims silent.
Technology and the internet have drastically changed the way people socialize and communicate with each other.
Social media offers a lot of benefits such as connecting people.
However, this new vehicle for people to communicate has also caused a variety of serious problems.
Hana Kimura was a Japanese female professional wrestler, who wrestled for the women’s professional wrestling promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom.
She was a second-generation wrestler whose mother is a former professional wrestler, Kyoko Kimura.
Above: Hana Kimura (1997 – 2020)
Hana was also a cast member on the Fuji Television and Netflix reality television series Terrace House.
During the last weeks of Hana Kimura’s life, a steady stream of hate washed over her social media accounts.
On Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, anonymous posters attacked her appearance, her outspoken behaviour and especially her role on Terrace House where some viewers saw her as a villain.
The term used for this type of electronic harassment and bullying is cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying can occur on phones, computers, or tablets through text message, chats, and websites.
This new age of bullying is a very serious problem and is leading to increased depression and suicide rates.
According to stopbullying.gov:
“Examples of cyber bullying include mean text messages or emails, rumors sent by email or posted on social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites or fake profiles.”
One of the most dangerous aspects of cyberbullying is that it doesn’t happen in person, so it is more difficult for the victim to avoid the behavior.
A bully can send texts and posts at any time of the day during any day of the week.
In addition, most messages posted on Facebook or Twitter are spread amongst people quickly and are almost impossible to delete.
If the victim receives these messages when they are alone, they have no one there to help, which can lead to more extreme actions.
Kimura’s suicide on 23 May 2020 at age 22 provoked a national call for action against online bullying, thrusting Japan into a global debate over how much responsibility online platforms should have for moderating the content they host.
The Japanese authorities pledged to move quickly to rein in Internet trolls, who hide behind a cloak of anonymity to share malicious posts that are sometimes misogynistic or racist.
But free speech advocates fear that measures making it harder for people to hide their identities could chill the country’s rising online activism, which has become an increasingly powerful check on government power.
“There are conflicts with freedom of speech and rights and privacy that are extremely thorny.“, said Ayaka Shiomura, a former TV personality and current member of the upper house of Japan’s Parliament who has herself been the target of cyberbullying.
“We have to think about the victims, like Ms. Kimura, first, but it is possible for her situation to be exploited.”
Above. Ayaka Shiomura
One of the biggest concerns with cyber bullying is the link between bullying and suicide.
For example, “a study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying.” (bullyingstatistics.org)
One warning sign of suicide is depression, which includes ongoing sadness, withdrawal from others, losing interest in favorite activities, trouble sleeping and eating.
Another warning sign of suicide is if the teen talks about death or has a sudden interest in death, engages in dangerous activities, substance abuse, self-injury, and if they start saying goodbye to people.
Someone who has experienced these signs should seek immediate help from a counselor or doctor.
By knowing the warning signs of suicide, other people can recognize if a victim of bullying needs help. (bullyingstatistics.org)
The discussion in Japan echoed a fierce debate in the US over how far social media companies should go to intervene in users’ posts.
Twitter has added labels to some of President Trump’s tweets, directing users to fact-checking materials.
It has hid another Trump tweet behind a warning, saying it glorified violence.
An incensed Trump, who has used social media to assail everyone from the world famous to the totally unknown, signed an executive order that could increase the liability of companies like Twitter and Facebook for content posted by users.
Above: US President Donald Trump
Cyberbullying is a form of bullying using electronic means.
Cyberbullying is also known as online bullying.
It has become increasingly common, especially among teenagers, as the digital sphere has expanded and technology has advanced.
Cyberbullying is when someone, typically a teenager, bullies or harasses others on the Internet and in other digital spaces, particularly on social media sites.
Harmful bullying behavior can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victim’s personal information, or pejorative labels (i.e. hate speech).
Bullying can be identified by repeated behavior and an intent to harm.
Victims of cyberbulling may experience lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of negative emotional responses including being scared, frustrated, angry, or depressed.
The Japanese Parliament passed a law nearly 20 years ago that sought to protect victims of online abuse, though, lawyers say it has had little effect.
Since Ms. Kimura died, officials are vowing to put more teeth behind the people behind anonymous posts.
Celebrities, politicians and legal experts have called for even stricter moves, demanding that social media companies be forced to take a more active role in reviewing and removing hate speech.
Above: Imperial Seal of Japan
A coalition that includes Facebook, Twitter and the popular Japanese chat app Line put out a statement shortly after Ms. Kimura’s death saying that they would move swiftly to reduce personal attacks on their platforms.
Among the steps could be blanket bans on users who intentionally demean others.
Above: Hana Kimura
Research has demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimization.
Specific statistics on the negative effects of cyberbullying differ by country and other demographics.
Some researchers point out there could be some way to use modern computer techniques to determine and stopping cyberbullying.
A frequently used definition of cyberbullying is “an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out by a group or an individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself.“
There are many variations of the definition, such as the National Crime Prevention Council’s more specific definition:
“The process of using the Internet, cell phones or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person.”
Cyberbullying is often similar to traditional bullying, with some notable distinctions.
Victims of cyberbullying may not know the identity of their bully, or why the bully is targeting them, based on the online nature of the interaction.
The harassment can have wide-reaching effects on the victim, as the content used to harass the victim can be spread and shared easily among many people and often remains accessible long after the initial incident.
Internet trolling is a common form of bullying that takes place in an online community (such as online gaming or social media) in order to elicit a reaction or disruption, or simply just for someone’s own personal amusement.
Above: The advice to ignore rather than engage with a troll is sometimes phrased as “Please don’t feed the trolls.“
Cyberstalking is another form of bullying that uses electronic communications to stalk a victim.
This may pose a credible threat to the victim.
Not all negative interaction online or on social media can be attributed to cyberbullying.
Research suggests that there are also interactions online that result in peer pressure, which can have a negative, positive, or neutral impact on those involved.
Manuals intended to educate the public about cyberbullying summarize that cyberbullying is inclusive of acts of intended cruelty to others in the form of posting or sending material using an internet capable device.
Research, legislation and education in the field are ongoing.
Research has identified basic definitions and guidelines to help recognize and cope with what is regarded as abuse of electronic communications.
Cyberbullying involves repeated behavior with intent to harm.
Cyberbullying is perpetrated through harassment, cyberstalking, denigration (sending or posting cruel rumors and falsehoods to damage reputation and friendships), impersonation and exclusion (intentionally and cruelly excluding someone from an online group).
Cyberbullying can be as simple as continuing to send emails or text messages harassing someone who has said they want no further contact with the sender.
It may also include public actions such as repeated threats, sexual remarks, pejorative labels or defamatory false accusations, ganging up on a victim by making the person the subject of ridicule in online forums, hacking into or vandalizing sites about a person, and posting false statements as fact aimed a discrediting or humiliating a targeted person.
Cyberbullying could be limited to posting rumors about a person on the Internet with the intention of bringing about hatred in others’ minds or convincing others to dislike or participate in online denigration of a target.
It may go to the extent of personally identifying victims of crime and publishing materials defaming or humiliating them.
Cyberbullies may disclose victims’ personal data (e.g. real name, home address, or workplace/schools) on websites or forums—called doxing, or may use impersonation, creating fake accounts, comments or sites posing as their target for the purpose of publishing material in their name that defames, discredits or ridicules them.
This can leave the cyberbully anonymous, which can make it difficult for them to be caught or punished for their behavior, although not all cyberbullies maintain their anonymity.
Users of semi-anonymous chat websites are at high risk for cyberbullying, as it is also easy in this outlet for a cyberbully to remain anonymous.
Text or instant messages and emails between friends can also constitute cyberbullying if what is said is hurtful.
The recent rise of smartphones and mobile apps have yielded a more accessible form of cyberbullying.
It is expected that cyberbullying via these platforms will occur more often than through more stationary Internet platforms because of constant access to the Internet.
In addition, the combination of cameras and Internet access and the instant availability of these modern Smartphone technologies yield specific types of cyberbullying not found in other platforms.
It is likely that those cyberbullied via mobile devices will experience a wider range of cyberbullying methods than those who are exclusively bullied elsewhere.
Some teens argue that some events categorized as cyberbullying are simply drama.
Danah Boyd writes:
“Teens regularly used that word “drama” to describe various forms of interpersonal conflict that ranged from insignificant joking around to serious jealousy-driven relational aggression.
Whereas adults might have labeled many of these practices as bullying, teens saw them as drama.”
Cyberbullying can take place on social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.
“By 2008,93% of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 were online.
In fact, youth spend more time with media than any single other activity besides sleeping.“
The last decade has witnessed a surge of cyberbullying, which is categorized as bullying that occurs through the use of electronic communication technologies, such as e-mail, instant messaging, social media, online gaming, or through digital messages or images sent to a cellular phone.
There are many risks attached to social media sites, and cyberbullying is one of the larger risks.
One million children were harassed, threatened or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook during the past year, while 90% of social-media-using teens who have witnessed online cruelty say they have ignored mean behavior on social media, and 35% have done so frequently.
95% of social-media-using teens who have witnessed cruel behavior on social networking sites say they have seen others ignoring the mean behavior, and 55% have witnessed this frequently.
Terms like “Facebook depression” have been coined specifically in regard to the result of extended social media use, with cyberbullying playing a large part in this.
While the move by Twitter in the US to more actively moderate content has added fuel to claims on the right that the platform is trying to squelch conservative views, in Japan the issue of intervening in online speech has posed a dilemma for the left, as well.
Above: Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Article 19 states that:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Suspicion of government censorship has deep ties to historical memories of the authorities’ ruthless suppression of free speech before World War II.
People on the political left point to the power of unfettered speech to hold the government accountable in a country with a weak political opposition.
They say that government regulations could be used to destabilize this growing force.
In May, an overwhelming wave of online criticism led then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to abandon an attempt to extend term limits for the country’s top prosecutors, a move widely seen as an attempt to shore up his political power.
Above: Shinzo Abe
But those on the left also abhor the kind of harassment that may have contributed to Ms. Kimura’s death.
Above: Hana Kimura
Cyberbullying has become more common nowadays because of all the technology that we have access to.
The most common apps that are used to cyberbully are Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
Above: Logo of Snapchat
Cyberbullying has become harder to stop because we are unaware of when and where it is happening.
We say awful things to one another online and what we do not realize is that once it is said and published online it will not go away.
Home used to be a safe place.
But now we are still within reach of becoming a victim of cyberbullying – whether it is through YouTube, Ask.fm, or a text message.
For many viewers, the gentle rhythms of Terrace House, a show that throws six strangers together in a beautiful home and gently prods them to couple up, seemed like a refuge from the sometimes sordid drama of other reality dating shows.
Where other shows seemed intent on bringing out the ugliest aspects of their contestants’ personalities, Terrace House focused on quotidian (daily) pleasures.
Above: The initial cast of Terrace House
One of the biggest narrative arcs of their last season centred on one cast member’s struggles to make broccoli pasta.
When the show, which was produced by Fuji TV, was picked up by Netflix, it became a surprise international hit, with reviewers praising its often endearingly awkward content.
Above: Logo of Fuji TV
But online, some Japanese viewers spewed a constant flow of invective against the show’s cast members, ruthlessly picking apart their every misstep and perceived personality flaw.
According to a 2013 Pew Research study, eight out of ten teens who use social media now share more information about themselves than they have in the past.
This includes their location, images, and contact information.
In order to protect children, it is important that personal information such as age, birthday, school/church, phone number, etc. be kept confidential.
Two studies from 2014 found that 80% of body-shaming tweets are sent by women, while they also accounted for 50% of misogynistic tweets.
Ms. Kimura, a professional wrestler, was subjected to especially harsh attacks.
When commentators filled her social media mentions with posts calling her a “gorilla” and asking her to “please disappear“, she responded with a meek apology, asking:
Cyberbullying can also take place through the use of websites belonging to certain groups to effectively request the targeting of another individual or group.
An example of this is the bullying of climate scientists and activists.
Whether the bully is male or female, the purpose of bullying is to intentionally embarrass, harass, intimidate, or make threats online.
Studies on the psycho-social effects of cyberspace have begun to monitor the effects cyberbullying may have on the victims.
Consequences of cyberbullying are multi-faceted, and affect both online and offline behavior.
Research reported that changes in the victims’ behavior as a result of cyberbullying could potentially be positive.
Victims “created a cognitive pattern of bullies, which consequently helped them to recognize aggressive people.”
In a Terrace House episode that aired in March, Ms. Kimura was shown upbraiding a roommate for shrinking one of her expensive wrestling costumes in the dryer.
The trolls piled on, telling her to die and criticizing her for her supposed lack of femininity, her muscular build, her outspokenness and the dark skin she inherited from her Indonesian father.
When the show went on hiatus because of the corona virus pandemic, Fuji TV re-aired the episode and uploaded additional behind-the-scenes footage to YouTube and the show’s official website, drawing a second barrage of attacks.
Above: Confirmed cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents in Japan by prefecture
The Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace abstract reports critical impacts in almost all of their respondents, taking the form of lower self-esteem, loneliness, disillusionment, and distrust of people.
The more extreme effects included self-harm.
Children have killed each other and committed suicide after cyberbullying incidents.
Some cases of digital self-harm have been reported in which an individual engages in cyberbullying against themselves, or purposefully and knowingly exposes themselves to cyberbullying.
According to research in Japan, 17% (compared with a 25-country average of 37%) of youth between the ages of 8 and 17 have been victims of online bullying.
The number shows that online bullying is a serious concern in Japan.
On 23 May, Ms. Kimura wrote on Twitter that she was receiving as many as 100 “frank opinions” each day.
The post was accompanied by photos of multiple cuts on her wrists and arms.
Hours later, Ms. Kimura was found dead in the Tokyo apartment where she lived by herself.
Teenagers who spend more than ten hours a week on the Internet are more likely to become the targets of online bullying, though only 28% of the survey participants understood what cyberbullying is.
However, they do know the severity of the issue:
63% of the surveyed students worried about being targeted as victims of cyberbullying.
Since teenagers find themselves congregating socially on the Internet via social media, they become easy targets for cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying may occur via email, text, chat rooms, and social media websites.
Some cyberbullies set up websites or blogs to post the target’s images, publicize their personal information, gossip about the target, express why they hate the target, request people to agree with the bully’s view, and send links to the target to make sure they are watching the activity.
Much cyberbullying is an act of relational aggression, which involves alienating the victim from peers through gossip or ostracism.
This kind of attack can be easily launched via texting or other online activities.
In the ensuing controversy of Ms. Kimura’s death, Fuji TV quickly removed content about the season in which she appeared from the show’s website and suspended its broadcast.
In a statement, the network’s president apologized for not paying closer attention to Ms. Kimura’s mental state, writing that the network’s “awareness of how to help the cast was insufficent“.
Awareness of how to help the victims of cyberbullying is also often insufficient.
One 19-year-old Japanese student was targeted by classmates who posted his photo online, insulted him constantly, and asked him to die.
Because of the constant harassment, he did attempt suicide, twice.
Even when he quit school, the attacks did not stop.
Cyberbullying can cause serious psychological impact to the victims.
They often feel anxious, nervous, tired, and depressed.
Other examples of negative psychological trauma include losing confidence as a result of being socially isolated from their schoolmates or friends.
Psychological problems can also show up in the form of headaches, skin problems, abdominal pain, sleep problems, bed-wetting, and crying.
It may also lead victims to commit suicide to end the bullying.
Producers religiously monitor the social media response to their shows, said Tamaki Tsuda, who works on the high school dating show Who Is the Wolf?.
“The trash talk drove interest in the show.“, she said.
“They understood that and used it.
I expect they were aware of what was happening with Hana’s social media.“
Research conducted to try to determine differences in cyberbullying patterns comparing male to female and ages of each are relatively inconclusive.
There are some factors that lean towards males being more involved in cyberbullying behaviors due to males tending to have more aggressive behaviors than females.
This is not proven, but speculated based on literature reviews of research indicating that significant data is self-reported.
Comparatively, the review of articles indicates that age differences have some indicators of cyberbullying:
Increasing age indicates increasing bullying behaviors.
Gender differences have mixed results, but one finding indicated that younger females (10 or 11) and older males (13+) tend to engage in cyber bullying behaviors.
Cyberbullies mostly have at least one common trait.
Cyberbullies generally get angry and discouraged easily and usually have strong personalities.
They connect with others belligerently and do not care for the feelings of their victims.
While Ms. Kimura’s death has prompted self-reflection about online hate and the nature of reality shows, some folks in Japan seem impervious to those lessons.
Twitter mobs used her apparent suicide as an excuse to unleash a torrent of invective on other members of the Terrace House cast, including the celebrities who appeared on the show to provide colour commentary.
One of those targets has been Ryota Yamasato, a popular comedian who often ridiculed the show’s cast.
Since Ms. Kimura’s death, commenters have lashed out at Yamasato online, filling his mentions with angry demands that he take responsibility.
Above: Ryota Yamasoto
Both males and females engage in cyberbullying.
Females are involved in cyberbullying just as much as men, and females are sometimes even found more involved in cyberbullying than men are.
The reason behind this is because of the way they respond:
Men will usually respond with physical retaliation, while women will use “indirect forms such as gossiping.”
As cyberbullying is a more indirect form, females are more likely to be involved.
Also, women tend to have less face-to-face confrontations than men, and since cyberbullying occurs online, this allows women to have a greater chance to be attacked.
According to a 2017 Pew Research study on online harassment, 14% of Americans have been harassed because of their political views.
Above: Logo of the US Democratic Party
Above: Logo of the US Republican Democratic Party
Such harassment affects men and women differently:
Men are approximately twice as likely as women to have experienced online harassment because of their political views.
However, women politicians are disproportionately more likely to be sexually harassed online.
Women lawmakers are three times more likely than their male counterparts to receive sexually abusive comments, including threats of rape, beatings, death, or abduction.
Above: The symbol of man
Above: The symbol of woman
Research has demonstrated a number of serious consequences of cyberbullying victimization.
Victims may have lower self-esteem, increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, including being scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed.
Cyberbullying may be more harmful than traditional bullying, because there is no escaping it.
One of the most damaging effects is that a victim begins to avoid friends and activities, which is often the very intention of the bully.
Cyberbullying campaigns are sometimes so damaging that victims have committed suicide.
There are at least four examples in the United States in which cyberbullying has been linked to the suicide of a teenager.
The suicide of Megan Meier is an example that led to the conviction of the adult perpetrator of the attacks.
Megan Taylor Meier (1992 – 2006) was an American teenager who died by suicide by hanging herself three weeks before her 14th birthday.
A year later, Meier’s parents prompted an investigation into the matter and her suicide was attributed to cyberbullying through the social networking website MySpace.
Lori Drew, the mother of a friend of Meier, was acquitted of cyberbullying in the 2009 case United States v. Drew.
From the 3rd grade in 2001 – 2002, after she had told her mother she had wanted to kill herself, Megan had been under the care of a psychiatrist.
She had been prescribed citalopram (an antidepressant), methylphenidate (Ritalin, used to treat hyperactivity), and the antipsychotic ziprasidone.
She had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and depression, along with self-esteem issues regarding her weight.
She was described by her parents as a “bubbly, goofy” girl who enjoyed spending time with her friends and family.
Above: Dr. Philippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière, ordering the removal of chains from patients at the Paris Asylum for insane women.
Meier attended Pheasant Point Elementary School and Fort Zumwalt West Middle School in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Megan befriended the popular girls so that the boys who picked on her would stop.
The girls soon turned on Megan and the bullying got even worse than before.
For the 8th grade in 2006, her parents enrolled her at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Dardenne Prairie.
Soon after opening an account on MySpace, Meier received a message supposedly from a 16-year-old boy, Josh Evans.
Meier and “Josh” became online friends, but never met in person or spoke.
Meier thought “Josh” was attractive.
As Meier began to exchange messages with this person, her family said she seemed to have had her “spirits lifted“.
This person claimed to have moved O’Fallon, was home-schooled and did not yet have a phone number.
A 16-year-old male named “Josh Evans” was registered on the account used for bullying messages to Meier.
But Lori Drew, the mother of Sarah Drew, a former friend of Meier, later admitted creating the MySpace account.
At the time of the suicide, the Drew and Meier families were neighbors, living four doors apart.
Lori Drew was aided by Sarah and by Ashley Grills, an 18-year-old employee of Lori.
Lori and several others ran the hoaxed account.
Witnesses testified that the women intended to use Meier’s messages sent to “Josh” to get information about her and later humiliate her, in retribution for her allegedly spreading gossip about Drew’s daughter.
Above: Lori Drew
On 16 October 2006, the tone of the messages changed.
After Megan got home from school, Tina Meier signed onto MySpace for Megan.
She was in a hurry because she had to take her younger daughter, Allison, to the orthodontist.
Before she could get to the door, Megan was upset.
“Josh” sent troubling messages to Megan, including one that said:
“I don’t know if I want to be friends with you anymore because I’ve heard that you are not very nice to your friends.“
More messages of this type were sent, some of Megan’s messages were shared with others, and bulletins were posted about her.
Tina told her daughter to sign off and went to the orthodontist.
She called her daughter to ask her if she had signed off and she hadn’t.
Megan was sobbing hysterically.
When her mother got home, she was furious that she hadn’t signed off.
She was shocked at the vulgar language her daughter was firing back.
Megan then told her mother:
“You’re supposed to be my mom! You’re supposed to be on my side!”
Megan then left from the computer and went upstairs.
According to her father Ron Meier and a neighbor who had discussed the hoax with Drew, the last message sent by “Josh” read:
“Everybody in O’Fallon knows who you are.
You are a bad person and everybody hates you.
Have a shitty rest of your life.
The world would be a better place without you.”
Megan responded saying:
“You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.”
The last few exchanges were made via AOL Instant Messenger instead of MySpace.
When Megan ran upstairs, she ran into her father.
She told him about the trouble and went to her room.
Ron went downstairs to the kitchen where he and Tina talked about the cyberbullying and made dinner.
Twenty minutes later, Tina suddenly froze in mid-sentence, and ran up to Megan’s room.
Megan Meier had hanged herself with a belt in the bedroom closet.
Despite attempts to revive her, Megan was pronounced dead the next day on October 17, three weeks before her 14th birthday.
Above: Megan Meier
Several weeks after her death, Megan Meier’s parents were told that the mother of one of their daughter’s friends—with whom Meier had had a falling out—had created the “Josh Evans” account.
The parent, Lori Drew, who created the fake account, admitted that she and her daughter had the password to the account, and characterized the hoax to a reporter as a “joke“.
Initially, Drew denied knowing about the offensive messages that were sent to Meier.
She told the police that the account was aimed at “gaining Megan’s confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people.”
The neighborhood mother who had told the Meiers that Drew had the hoax account said “Lori laughed about it” and said she had intended to “mess with Megan“.
Drew’s name was excluded from most early news stories, but CNN later disclosed her name through the inclusion of the police report in its broadcast of the story.
It was featured on many blogs.
Lori Drew was indicted and convicted by a jury of violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 2008 over the matter.
Her conviction was vacated by a federal judge on a post-trial verdict on grounds that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act did not intend to criminalize the conduct of which Drew was accused.
The government chose not to appeal this post-trial ruling.
Holly Grogan committed suicide by jumping off a 30-foot bridge near Gloucester in the UK.
It was reported that a number of her schoolmates had posted a number of hateful messages on her Facebook page.
Her parents, Steve Grogan, 45, and Anita, 44, and her brother Tom, 17, said in a statement that she was “popular” and “well-liked” at St Edward’s School, a Roman Catholic school in Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire.
However, they added:
“Holly struggled to cope with the huge pressures placed upon her by the modern complexities of ‘friendship groups’ and social networking.
“I’m sure every responsible parent will empathise with our constant battle to instil self belief and confidence in our children.“
Above: Holly Grogan
Holly’s death comes a month after Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, warned that social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace could be a contributory factor in the suicides of young people.
“Among young people often a key factor in their committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.
They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate,” the Archbishop said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.
Holly, from Cheltenham, was found under Pirton Lane Bridge, on the A40 in Churchdown, at around 11pm on Wednesday 16 September 2009 and pronounced dead at the scene.
Gloucestershire Police said her death was not being treated as suspicious and the case had been passed to the coroner.
However, police said they were appealing for witnesses and officers have also taken away her computer and mobile phone for analysis.
A friend claimed that some girls had left abusive messages on Holly’s Facebook page.
“Holly was nice and had the biggest smile in the world,” she said.
“She didn’t have any confidence, that was the problem.
Girls used to gang up on her and call her names and she didn’t have anything to say back.
She just froze up.“
“Girls used to bully her on Facebook and leave comments on her wall calling her names.
They’ve probably all deleted them now.“
Above: Holly Grogan
A number of tributes on social networking websites suggested she may have been bullied, but Holly’s family said they did not believe this was the case.
Dr Andrew Nash, head teacher of St Edward’s, refused to comment on the bullying claims.
But he said:
“Pupils in her year group have been very distressed and have been comforted by staff.
We are still in shock and our love and prayers are with the family.“
Holly was a member of her school’s Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and enjoyed rock-climbing, hillwalking and kayaking as well as netball and hockey.
Mr Grogan, a building contractor, said three weeks ago she had climbed the Ben Nevis and Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland with the CCF and had also been skiing in Austria recently.
Above: Ben Nevis
“She was very active.
If there was something to be done, Holly wanted to do it,” he said.
“I’m not being a biased parent, but she lit up everybody’s life.
“She was a social animal.
She preferred people to subjects at school.
I think she would have worked with children.
She was a ‘pied piper’.
She loved kids.
“She was a beautiful girl.
What can I say?“
The statement said the family were “absolutely devastated” by the loss of “our wonderful daughter“.
“Holly was popular at St Edward’s where she has many many friends.
Her beautiful smile and infectious laugh will be remembered by everyone who was proud and privileged to have known or met her,” they said.
“We are not Catholic, but we chose for her to attend St Edward’s in the belief that the morals and values promoted by the school would provide Holly with a platform to the next stage of her life.
“Holly’s outwardly vivacious zest for life was apparent to all that knew her.
We are so proud of our beautiful, kind and caring Holly.
“We shared 15 wonderful years with Holly and to us Holly will be forever young.“
Tributes from Holly’s family and friends poured onto local newspaper and social networking websites following Holly’s death and flowers were left at the scene.
Holly’s brother Tom wrote:
“I’m her brother, just thanking everyone for their kind words.
We all loved Holly to bits.“
Her cousin Laura said:
“She was a beautiful girl with a beautiful family and had some wonderful times with so many people, clearly touching so many people’s lives.
“People fall into dark places all the time, yet tragically nothing that anyone could say or do could help darling Holly pull herself out again.
“Her end was horrific but at the end of every tunnel is a light and we can console ourselves now knowing that the light Holly has found is eternal. I love you gorgeous.“
An anonymous motorist, who tried to stop Holly being hit by cars after her fall, left a note and a bunch of flowers above the spot where the teenager died.
“To the unknown young lady.
So sorry whatever problems you had came to this.
I tried my hardest to stop the cars, so sorry I failed.
Such a waste.
Thoughts with you, and your family, and friends,” the note said.
Above: Holly Grogan
According to Lucie Russell, director of campaigns, policy and participation at youth mental health charity Young Minds, young people who suffer from mental disorders are vulnerable to cyberbullying as they are sometimes unable to shrug it off:
When someone says nasty things healthy people can filter that out, they’re able to put a block between that and their self-esteem.
But mentally unwell people don’t have the strength and the self-esteem to do that, to separate it, and so it gets compiled with everything else.
To them, it becomes the absolute truth – there’s no filter, there’s no block.
That person will take that on, take it as fact.
Social media has allowed bullies to disconnect from the impact they may be having on others.
According to the Cyberbullying Research Center:
“There have been several high‐profile cases involving teenagers taking their own lives in part because of being harassed and mistreated over the Internet, a phenomenon we have termed ‘cyberbullicide’ – suicide indirectly or directly influenced by experiences with online aggression.“
Cyberbullying is an intense form of psychological abuse, whose victims are more than twice as likely to suffer from mental disorders compared to traditional bullying.
The reluctance youth have in telling an authority figure about instances of cyberbullying has led to fatal outcomes.
Children between the ages of 12 and 13 have committed suicide due to depression brought on by cyberbullying, according to reports by USA Today and the Baltimore Examiner.
These include the suicide of Ryan Halligan.
Ryan Patrick Halligan (1989 – 2003) was an American student who committed suicide at the age of 13 after being bullied by his classmates in person and cyberbullying online.
According to the Associated Press, Halligan was repeatedly sent homophobic instant messages, and was “threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly“.
According to his father and news reports, during the summer of 2003, Halligan spent much of his time online, particularly on AIM and other instant messaging services.
Halligan did not tell his parents about this.
During the summer, he was cyberbullied by schoolmates who taunted him, thinking he was gay.
Halligan was also bullied at school about this.
His father later learned that on one occasion, Halligan ran out of the classroom in tears.
As Halligan had unintentionally archived these online conversations on his hard drive when he installed DeadAIM, his father was able to read these discussions.
Halligan had deliberately saved transcripts of online exchanges in which Ashley, a popular girl whom Halligan had a crush on, pretended to like him.
Later at school, Ashley told him that she was only kidding and that he was a “loser“.
Above: Ashley
According to an ABC Primetime report, she had once been his friend and defended him when the bullying first started, but as she became more popular, she left him behind.
He found out she only pretended to like him to gain personal information about him.
She copied and pasted their private exchanges into other IMs among his schoolmates to embarrass and humiliate him.
After Ashley had called him a “loser“, Halligan said:
“It’s girls like you who make me want to kill myself.”
His father found out about this later because it was a matter of record with the local police.
Above: Downtown Essex Junction, Vermont
Halligan’s father also discovered some disturbing conversations between Halligan and a boy with a screen name he did not recognize.
Halligan began communicating online with a penpal about suicide and death, and told him he was thinking about suicide.
They had been exchanging information they had found on sites relating to death and suicide, including sites that taught them how to painlessly kill themselves.
The penpal answered “Phew. It’s about fucking time.” shortly after Halligan told him he was thinking about suicide, two weeks before he killed himself.
This was the last conversation he had with the penpal.
As Halligan’s father found out, contrary to popular belief, Halligan’s penpal was a boy he knew up until 3rd grade, when the boy and his parents moved away.
When they found each other online, they reconnected.
The penpal had, according to Halligan’s father, turned into a very negative person with a bleak outlook on life.
Online, the boys discussed how much they hated their popular classmates and how they made them feel.
The penpal suggested suicide as a way out, writing:
“If you killed yourself you would really make them feel bad.”
Halligan’s father said that the boy was the worst possible friend that Halligan could have had at that time.
Above: John Halligan
The parents acknowledged that Halligan had discussed some of his worries and brought up suicide.
He had told them his report card would be bad, and worried that his parents would be disappointed in him.
One night he asked his dad if he had ever thought of suicide, who responded that he had, but also said:
“Ryan, imagine if I did do that.
Look at all the things we would have missed out on as a family.“
Above: John Halligan
On 7 October 2003, Halligan’s father was away on a business trip.
Early in the morning, when the other family members were still sleeping, Halligan hanged himself with a bathrobe tie that belonged to his older sister, who later found his body.
Although Halligan left no suicide note, his father learned of the cyberbullying when he accessed his son’s computer.
He checked his son’s yearbook first and found the faces of the bullying group scribbled out.
Halligan had scribbled over the face of the ringleader (the same boy who bullied Halligan, befriended him, and then started the gay rumor) so aggressively he had torn the paper.
Halligan accessed his son’s computer and first learned of the cyberbullying when his son’s friends told him.
When he learned that Ashley was being blamed for Halligan’s suicide, Halligan had her brought over to his house.
He reportedly said to her:
“You did a bad thing, but you’re not a bad person.”
She appeared with Halligan on ABC’s Primetime to speak out against bullying.
Although the Halligans moved out of Vermont, she still maintains contact with them.
He later confronted the bully who had started the gay rumor after finding out that he made fun of how Halligan killed himself.
At first, he was so angry that he wanted to go to the boy’s house and “crush that little jerk,” but had time to think about it while stuck in traffic.
Halligan reportedly said to the boy:
“You have no idea the amount of pain you caused my son.
And you’re still bullying him now even when he’s defenseless and you are still lying to your parents about it.
I refuse to believe that you are so cruel and that you don’t have a heart.”
Shortly afterward the bully broke down in tears and repeatedly apologized for what he did.
Halligan wanted to file charges against the bully but the police said there was no criminal law that covered the relevant circumstances.
Halligan forgave the boy as well as Ashley.
After learning the name of the penpal, Halligan’s father went to his house and talked with his parents.
Halligan said that he did not want the penpal to use the conversations for “something dark“.
While at the penpal’s house, Halligan learned that the boy’s father never received any hard copies of the conversations.
The penpal’s mother came and pulled out the hard copies from under the sofa, showing them to the father for “what appeared to be the first time“.
While the father was looking at the copies, the mother threw Halligan out.
Halligan said that he never got a satisfying response from the boy or his family.
He still visits the boy’s website, which contains several references to death and suicide.
Above: Édouard Manet, Le Suicidé
Halligan soon began lobbying for legislation in Vermont to improve how schools address bullying and suicide prevention.
He has also given speeches to schools in various states about the story of his son and the devastating effects of cyber-bullying among teens.
Vermont enacted a Bullying Prevention Policy Law in May 2004 and later adopted a Suicide Prevention Law (Act 114) in 2005, closely following a draft submitted by Halligan’s father.
The law provides measures to assist teachers and others to recognize and respond to depression and suicide risks among teens.
Halligan’s case has also been cited by legislators in other states proposing legislation to curb cyberbullying.
Teen suicides tied to cyberbullying have become more prevalent.
Young people seem particularly vulnerable to the effects of cyberbullying through anonymous social media, perhaps because adolescents are attracted to these platforms as a means of seeking validation from their peers.
Abuse on these platforms, such as ASKfm, Yik Yak and Sarahah, can be particularly keenly felt by young people, leading to issues of loss of confidence.
Above: Logo of Sarahah
I find myself quite emotional as I write this particular piece.
I find myself remembering a plea from the movie Bonfire of the Vanities:
I find myself wondering why so many people have difficulty in being decent to one another.
I find myself wondering how so much hate can be spewed against others online and that there is neither monitoring of this hate speech and nor does there seem to be much of any consequence against those who cause so much sorrow to others.
Above: Virgin SIM card in Poland with the slogan of the campaign against hate speech “Words have power, use them wisely“
Certainly it is important for one’s rights to be allowed to be expressed publicly.
But the manner in which this expression is made is equally, if not more, important.
Above: Permanent Free Speech Wall in Charlottesville, Virginia
I have never hidden my disdain of the politics practiced by US President Donald Trump and his feckless followers and flunkies, but at no time have I attacked the physical appearance of those I disagree with nor have I wished them ill or deceased.
I will criticize the actions (or inactions) of those who disdain doing their duties right by the people they represent, but there is a line I try to consciously never cross, that of being disrespectful to differences in opinion.
I cannot imagine myself sending a celebrity hateful messages.
Above: Celebrity Nicole Kidman
I cannot imagine myself disrespecting women by sending them misogynistic messages.
Above: In this example of misogyny, runner Kathrine Switzer is assaulted during the 1967 Boston Marathon by race official Jock Semple, who is trying to prevent her from becoming the first woman to run the race.
I curse my own stupidity in not knowing how to be supportive of those in psychological pain, but I believe that I am empathic enough to try to not add to their sorrows and burdens whenever possible.
Who am I to judge someone else?
Do I know their past?
Do I know their thoughts, their pain, their hearts?
I can condemn a person’s actions, but I do not have the right to judge another person’s worth.
Every person is either a blessing or a lesson for me.
What is achieved by deliberately seeking to hurt someone, especially if they have done nothing to me?
As Morgan Freeman so eloquently puts it:
“I’ll tell you what justice is.
Justice is the law.
And the law is man’s feeble attempt to set down the principles of decency.
Decency.
And decency is not a deal.
It isn’t an angle, or a contract, or a hustle.
Decency, decency is what your grandmother taught you.
It’s in your bones.
Now you go home.
Go home and be decent people.
Be decent.“
I want to see hate speech considered to be an act of violence and treated thus accordingly.
I want to see policing of what is said online based on criteria of decency not castigating criticism but forbidding the fomenting of fear and hate.
I want to see people treat one another decently, not because of a law of man, but because of the principles of humanity by which laws are inspired.
I utterly despise reality television as these shows do not accurately reflect reality itself.
Participants are placed in artificial situations.
The drama is deceptive with duplicitous and misleading editing, participants are coached on their behavior, storylines are generated ahead of time, and scenes are staged.
Some shows have been accused of rigging the favorite or underdog to win.
It seems too often that reality television shows are intended to humiliate or exploit participants, that they make stars out of untalented people unworthy of fame, and they glamorize vulgarity.
And too many people are encouraged by this populist vulgarity to become vulgar themselves.
Above: Logo of Big Brother
Humiliation and exploitation seen on screen or online may be for some a tacit permission to humiliate and exploit others.
When surreal shows claim to reflect reality there may be those who believe that reality should reflect these shows, making those pretending to lead others cast into real life leadership roles for which they are decidedly unfit.
We have the power to communicate, but too many people lack the sense of responsibility that this power requires or the decency that this human interaction demands.
When the lives of others matter less than our desires to express our opinions, then we forfeit our rights to be treated decently by the same standards of decency we defiled and yet demand for ourselves.
When we permit the strong to prey on the weak we do a great disservice to our society.
And when a young person takes their own life because their short existence has shown them no love, then our world becomes a reflection of that loss of life that an act of love had made possible.
Without decency we are diminished.
Without decency we are dead.
We just don’t know it yet.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / YouTube / Ben Dooley and Hikari Hida, “Japan calls for move against cyberbullying“, New York Times, 3 June 2020
One night in Tokyo, humorist Dave Barry (“the funniest man in America” – the New York Times), his wife Beth and their son Robby, watched two Japanese businessmen saying good night to each other after what had clearly been a long night of drinking, a major participant sport in Japan.
The men were totally snockered, having reached the stage of inebriation wherein every air molecule that struck caused them to wobble slightly, but they still managed to behave more formally than Americans do at funerals.
They faced each other and bowed deeply, which caused both of them to momentarily lose their balance and start to pitch face-first to the sidewalk.
Trying to recover their balance, they both stepped forward, almost banging heads.
They managed to get themselves upright again and, with great dignity, weaved off in opposite directions.
If both of them wound up barfing into the shubbery, I bet they did it in a formal manner.
Above: Dave Barry
I never really did get accustomed to all the bowing.
According to the guidebooks, there is an elaborate set of rules governing exactly how you bow, and who bows the lowest, and when, and for how long, and how many times, all of this depending on the situation and the statuses of the various bowers involved.
Naturally, Dave’s family, being large, ignorant foreign water buffalos, were not expected by the Japanese to know these rules.
Nevertheless they did feel obligated to attempt to return bows when they got them.
This happened quite often.
It started when they arrived at their hotel in Tokyo.
As Dave was descending the steps of the airport bus, two uniformed bellmen came rushing up and bowed to him.
Trying to look casual but feeling like an idiot, Dave bowed back.
Dave probably did it wrong, because they bowed back.
So Dave bowed back.
The three of them sort of bowed their way over to where the luggage was being unloaded.
Dave bowed to their suitcases.
The bellmen, bowing, picked them up and rushed into the hotel.
Dave’s family followed the bellmen past a bowing doorman into the hotel, where they were gang-bowed by hotel employees.
No matter which direction they turned, the staff were aiming bows at us, sometimes from as far as 25 yards away.
Bobbing like drinking bird toys, they bowed their way to the reception desk, where a bowing clerk checked them in.
Then they bowed their way over to the elevators, where they encountered their first Elevator Ladies.
They are young, uniformed, relentlessly smiling women who stand by the elevators in hotels and stores all day.
Their function is to press the elevator button for you.
Then, when the elevator comes, they show you where it is by gesturing enthusiastically toward it, similar to the way that models gesture on TV game shows when they are showing some lucky contestant the seventeen-piece dinette set that he has just won.
“Here is your elevator!” is the message of this gesture.
“Isn’t it a beauty?“
Throughout their stay in Japan, every Elevator Lady managed to give the impression that she was genuinely thrilled that Dave had chosen to ride her elevators, as opposed to some other form of vertical transportation.
Dave never saw one who seemed to resent the fact that she was stuck in, let’s face it, a real armpit of a job.
If I did their work, it would turn me into a stark raving lunatic.
Within days I would be deliberately ushering people into open elevator shafts.
The mysterious thing about all this is that Japan – ask anybody who has been there – ask me, ask Peach Pal – has superb service.
And not just in nice hotels.
Everywhere.
You walk into any store, any restaurant, no matter how low-rent it looks.
I bet you that somebody will immediately call out to you in a cheerful manner.
I will give you another example of what I am talking about…..
When the Barry family checked into their hotel in Hiroshima, they noticed that their bathtub faucet would not produce hot water, so Dave called the front desk.
In America, the front desk would have told Dave that somebody would be up to take a look at it, and eventually somebody would, but not necessarily during Dave’s current lifetime.
In Hiroshima, a bellman arrived at their room within, literally, one minute.
He had obviously been sprinting and he looked concerned.
He checked the faucet, found that it was, indeed, malfunctioning, and – now looking extremely concerned – sprinted from the room.
In no more than three minutes the bellman was back with two more men, one of whom immediately went to work on the bathtub.
The sole function of the other one, as far as the Barrys could tell, was to apologize to them on behalf of the hotel for having committed this monumentally embarrassing and totally unforgivable blunder.
“We are very sorry.“, he kept saying, looking as though near tears.
“Very sorry.“
“It’s OK!“, Dave kept saying.
“Really!“
But it did no good.
The man was grieving.
The bathtub was fixed in under ten minutes, after which all three men apologized extravagantly in various languages one last time, after which they left, after which Dave imagined that the hotel’s Vice President for Faucet Operations was taken outside and shot.
No, just kidding.
He probably took his own life.
That is how seriously they take their jobs over there.
I keep reading that Western businesses have figured out that they need to focus more attention on customer service, but I am afraid that we have a long way to go before we catch up to the Japanese.
The point I am trying to make is that, in Japan, people seem to be generally more diligent about doing their jobs, no matter how menial their jobs are.
One afternoon in Tokyo the Barrys walked past a man who was down on his knees on the sidewalk cleaning a public trash can.
He was wiping it briskly with a cloth and some blue chemical cleanser.
Can you imagine anyone doing that job in the West?
Can you imagine that job even existing?
No chance!
I sure as hell wouldn’t do that job.
Neither would you.
Nobody would.
It would be beneath everyone’s dignity.
Peach Pal is a man, a hetero male, who loves women.
Should this matter to you, gentle readers.
And being men, Peach Pal and I, are part of a gender on the edge of destruction.
Too many of us are not the safe, healthy, life-loving men we could be, that we should be.
We plug on in quiet desperation, just toughing it out, never learning to be happy and that it can be a positive thing to be a guy.
Girls, for all the obstacles put in their way, at least grow up with a continuous exposure to women at home, at school and in friendship networks.
From this they learn a communicative style of womanhood that enables them to get close to other women, giving and receiving support throughout their lives.
Male friendship networks, and relations between older male relatives with younger male relatives, are awkward and oblique, lacking in intimacy and often short term.
Not putting too fine a point on it, men are a mess.
We need to acknowledge the pain and grief we feel, because this has been skimmed over for so long by men themselves.
Women have had to overcome oppression, but men’s difficulties are isolation.
The enemies, the prisons, from which men must escape, are:
loneliness
compulsive comparison
lifelong emotional timidity
Women’s enemies are largely in the world around them.
Men’s enemies are within themselves.
Men are a problem to women but rarely is this intentional.
We are to an even greater degree a problem to ourselves.
Men are not winners.
There are very few happy men.
Women constantly complain that it is a man’s world, but the statistics on men’s health, happiness and survival show this is a lie.
Men, on average, live for six years less than women do.
Men routinely fail at close relationships.
40% of marriages break down and divorces are initiated by women in 70% of cases.
Over 90% of convicted acts of violence are carried out by men and 67% of their victims will be men.
In school, around 90% of children with behaviourial problems are boys and over 80% of children with learning problems are also boys.
Men comprise over 90% of inmates of prisons.
Men are also 74% of the unemployed.
The leading cause of death amongst men between 12 and 60 is self-inflicted.
75% of suicides are male.
Perhaps men are ambivalent about life, only half alive – stressed and neurotic.
Consequently, we men have unique health problems – problems which point clearly to pressure, loneliness and stress as the causes.
The reality for most men is that life is just not working.
When I think of my pre-marital days, when I try to imagine Peach Pal‘s isolation and loneliness in Tokyo, in Japan, the jukebox of my mind begins to play Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer:
I am just a poor boy Though my story’s seldom told I have squandered my resistance For a pocket full of mumbles Such are promises All lies and jests Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest
When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy In the company of strangers In the quiet of the railway station Running scared Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters Where the ragged people go Looking for the places Only they would know
Asking only workman’s wages I come looking for a job But I get no offers Just a come-on from the whores On Seventh Avenue I do declare There were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there
Then I’m laying out my winter clothes And wishing I was gone Going home Where the New York City winters Aren’t bleeding me Leading me Going home
In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of every glove that laid him down Or cut him ’til he cried out In his anger and his shame “I am leaving, I am leaving“ But the fighter still remains….
This is most definitely a man’s song.
I think of my experiences working and living in cities on my own:
Québec City, Montréal, Barrie, Ottawa, St. John’s, Oxford, Leicester, Nottingham, Cardiff, Luxembourg-Ville, Suwon….
Primarily, a loveless, woman-less existence….
I had few friends, despite my friendliness, for how does one learn to interact when one has only learned to stand alone, to stand apart, to be seen as a self-reliant man?
By the time I attempted to live in cities where I did not speak the native language like a local, I had met my wife.
We lived together in the German cities of Freiburg im Breisgau, Lörrach and Osnabruck, before moving to this wee Swiss village of Landschlacht by Lake Constance.
Truth be told, adjustment to a foreign metropolis is easier if you possess a partner who is native to the foreign land in which you both reside.
And this is what I admire and respect about Momo (Peach Pal)….
He chose to live in Tokyo, with no or few previous acquaintances, in a nation where he did not speak much Japanese and few Japanese spoke to him in either English or German.
The Japanese are friendly, but it is hard to differentiate between the normal courtesy that one finds everyone in a nation of too many people in too small a living space and true genuine amity between compassionate humane beings.
I cannot read another man’s mind or know another man’s heart, so it is with complete openness and honesty that I, perhaps foolishly, assume my thoughts are not so dramatically different than those of Peach Pal.
I can only surmise, from the few cues I have about the man that Momo is, that, like myself – despite our differences in life experience and age – that intimate activities are not a sleazy and obsessive part of Momo‘s life.
Though, based on his age, I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that the art of the chase – the specific role a man must take in the dance of male and female – was not mastered in Tokyo and perhaps more practice may yet be needed.
(I certainly could use a refresher course myself!)
I am simply assuming that my own experience may have been also Momo‘s.
What should be one of our greatest glories in life is often one of the greatest disappointments.
Human sexuality is potentially a huge energy source which pushes towards union with a partner and releases us from the ordinary.
It is tragic that a facet of life so important to humanity has been exploited, misunderstood and demeaned by culture and religion.
Sex urgently needs to be made richer in pleasure and in meaning.
Women discover themselves then educate men in how to pleasure them.
In lovemaking, the divine in man meets the divine in woman and they are spun through cosmic space and time, knowing everything, lost in love, awash in incredible warmth, amidst a constellation of sensations physical, psychic, emotional, of infinite shadings.
Our bodies give us the message that sex is magic, but from the outside it seems so often that women’s bodies are used (and that so many women allow themselves to be used) to sell commodities.
Everyone is cheated.
A world where men are made to feel creepy and women cheap.
Men, look but don’t touch.
Women, image is everything.
We live in a world where men cry out to escape isolation and loneliness and women cry out for respect and dignity.
A world where we are made to feel ashamed of our sexuality and yet crave for its total experience.
Here’s the thing:
Women learn communication, self-reliance seems instinctive
Men learn self-reliance, communication is not instinctive.
Women seem to instinctively know what romance is, what love is, what lovemaking can be, for they seem to speak of everything to everyone within their gender.
(Of course, I am making a grand overgeneralization based on my own limited experience and understanding of women.)
I wonder how many men fail to live up to a woman’s romantic ideal and thus feel crushed, bitter and resigned to lives of silent desperation.
A woman’s body is her decision to share, so a man uneducated in how to communicate with a woman will find himself rejected, alone in a womanless bed with only loneliness as his constant companion.
We confuse her rejection for her own self-protection as an outright rejection of our worthiness to be, a rejection of ourselves and our lovability.
The pain of isolation runs deep and confidence is difficult to maintain.
All human beings need to be loved, need to feel loved, to be valued as we are, treated with kindness, to experience intimacy.
And herein we find the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don’t know where it goes But it’s home to me and I walk alone
I walk this empty street On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Where the city sleeps And I’m the only one and I walk alone
I walk alone I walk alone I walk alone I walk
My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me ‘Til then I walk alone
I’m walking down the line That divides me somewhere in my mind On the borderline Of the edge and where I walk alone
Read between the lines Of what’s fucked up and everything’s alright Check my vital signs To know I’m still alive and I walk alone
I walk alone I walk alone I walk alone I walk
My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me ‘Til then I walk alone
So many men come to women with such a deep lack of inner worth, they can sometimes be tempted – instead of risking rejection as an equal – to seek pretend love rather than dealing with the complexities of the real thing.
Some men will use their strength, their guile, their money, their power to impose their needs, to eternally fail at compensating for their emotional impoverishment.
To be successful as a lover, one must first see oneself as lovable, able to receive and give tenderness, as the possessor of a magical soul and a powerful heart.
Too few do.
Every major metropolis has its Seventh Avenue, its red light district, its Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a part of town where the prostitution industry relies on the emotional impoverishment of men more comfortable with buying intimacy than pursuing the seemingly unachievable deep and meaningful relationship so desperately craved.
Exploitative pornography (as opposed to respectful erotica), prostitution, women-as-commodity advertising, certain types of music videos and such similar things degrade men just as much as women.
They imply that cheap thrills are all that men want and the only thing women offer.
Such folly is found in such shadows.
But folly is even attractive to the wise, for the wise in their curiosity to know and understand will explore areas they need not explore, perhaps should not explore.
Momo, like all wise travellers, has an insatiable curiosity.
It is this curiosity that fuels our wanderlust.
Travelling is an existential human necessity.
And sometimes to find personal salvation we must follow a path of vulnerable humanity, so as to end up with a keener awareness of life and a sharper perception of ourselves and of our place in the world.
Paradoxically, we all find an answer in our loneliness, our mortality, our unhappiness, by accepting something and / or someone other than ourselves.
It is in this discovery that it becomes possible to find the relief we crave and our hope rekindled.
This is why we travel, to answer the question….
What am I doing here?
Take a walk, You can hardly breathe the air Look around, It’s a hard life everywhere People talk, But they never really care On the street There’s a feeling of despair
But everyday There’s a brand new baby born And everyday There’s the sun to keep you warm And it’s alright Yeah, it’s alright
I’m alive And I don’t care much for words of doom If it’s love you need, Well I’ve got the room It’s a simple thing That came to me when I found you I’m alive I’m alive
Every night On the streets of Hollywood Pretty girls Want to give you something good Love for sale, It’s a lonely town at night Therapy For a heart misunderstood
But look around, There’s a a flower on every street Look around, And, it’s growing at your feet And everyday you can hear me say That I’m alive I wanna take all that life has got to give All I need is someone to share it with I’ve got love And love is all I really need to live I’m alive
Northeast of Shinjuku Station, the red light district of Kabukicho is named after a kabuki theatre that was planned for the area in the aftermath of the Second World War, but never built.
For casual wanderers it is all pretty safe thanks to street security cameras, but at heart Kabukicho remains one of the seediest and sleaziest sections of the city.
In its grids of streets the wanderer can see self-consciously primped and preening touts who fish women into the host bars.
The yakuza (gangs) who run the show are there, too, though generally they keep a much lower profile.
Kabukichō is the location of many host and hostess bars, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the “Sleepless Town“.
Hostess clubs are a common feature in the night-time entertainment industry of East Asian countries.
They employ primarily female staff and cater to men seeking drinks and attentive conversation.
The modern host clubs are similar establishments where primarily male staff attend to women.
Host and hostess clubs are considered part of mizu shobai (“water trade“), the night-time entertainment business in Japan.
In Japan, two types of bars are hostess clubs and kyabakura (“cabaret club“).
Hostesses who work at kyabakura are known as kyabajō (cabaret girl) and many of them use professional names called “genji name” (genji-na).
Hostesses light cigarettes, provide beverages for men, offer flirtatious conversation, and sing karaoke to entertain customers.
Hostesses can be seen as the modern counterpart of geishas, providing entertainment to groups of salarymen after work.
A club will often also employ a female bartender, who is usually well-trained in mixology and may also be the manager (mama-san).
Hostess clubs are distinguished from strip clubs in that there is no dancing, prostitution or nudity.
Hostesses often drink with customers each night, and alcohol problems are fairly common.
These problems are derived from mass consumption of alcohol by which many consequences may arise.
Most bars use a commission system by which hostesses receive a percentage of sales.
For example, a patron purchases a $20 drink for the hostess, these are usually non-alcoholic concoctions like orange juice and ginger ale, and the patron has purchased the hostess’s attention for the subsequent 30–45 minutes.
The hostess then splits the proceeds of the sale with the bar 50/50.
The light or no alcohol content of the drinks maximizes profits and ensures that the hostess does not become intoxicated after only a short time at work.
Businesses may pay for tabs on company expense with the aim of promoting trust among male co-workers or clients.
At one establishment, about 90% of all tabs were reportedly paid for by companies.
Patrons are generally greeted comfortably at the door and seated as far away from other customers as possible.
In some instances, a customer is able to choose with whom he spends time, while most often that is decided by the house.
In either case, the hostess will leave after a certain amount of time or number of drinks, offering the customer a chance to see a fresh face.
While most establishments have male touts outside to bring in customers, it may also fall upon a (usually new) hostess to do so.
While hostess clubs are clearly gendered in the way that women serve men, research has also revealed the complexity of intra-gender dynamics and sometimes tension among hostesses as well, and the ways that male customers often work to mitigate problems among hostesses as well as between hostesses and mama-san.
Hostess clubs have a strict “no touching” policy and patrons will be removed for trying to initiate private or sexual conversation topics.
However a red light district version of the host/hostess club exists, called “seku-kyabakura” or “ichya-kyabakura” in which patrons are permitted to touch their host/hostess above the waist and engage in sexual conversation topics or kissing, although this type of establishment is not common.
Normal hostess clubs are classified as a food and entertainment establishment and are regulated by the Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Act, prohibiting any form of sexual contact between employees and customers.
Normal hostess clubs also need a permit to allow dancing.
Clubs are inspected often by the Public Safety Commission.
Any club found violating its permitted activities can have its business license terminated or be suspended, until corrections are made.
Hostessing is a popular employment option among young foreign women in Japan, as demand is high.
However, work visas can be difficult to obtain, so many choose to work illegally.
The clubs sometimes take advantage of the precarious legal situation of the women.
The industry and its dangers were highlighted in 1992, when Carita Ridgway, an Australian hostess, was drugged and killed after a paid date, and in 2000 when Lucie Blackman, a British hostess, was abducted, raped and murdered by the same customer.
The government promised to crack down on illegal employment of foreigners in hostess bars, but an undercover operation in 2006 found that several hostess bars were willing to employ a foreign woman illegally.
In 2007, the Japanese government began to take action against these hostess clubs, causing many clubs to be shut down, and many hostesses to be arrested and deported.
In December 2009, a trade union, called the Kyabakura Union, was formed to represent hostess bar workers.
The union was formed in response to complaints by hostess bar employees of harassment and unpaid wages by their employers.
A host club (hosuto kurabu) is similar to a hostess club, except that female customers pay for male company.
Host clubs are typically found in more populated areas of Japan, and are famed for being numerous in Tokyo districts such as Kabukicho, and Osaka’s Umeda and Namba.
Customers are typically wives of rich men, or women working as hostesses in hostess clubs.
The first host club was opened in Tokyo in 1966.
In 1996, the number of Tokyo host clubs was estimated to be 200, and a night of non-sexual entertainment could cost US$500-600.
Professor Yoko Tajima of Hosei University explained the phenomenon by Japanese men’s lack of true listening to the problems of women, and by women’s desire to take care of a man and be loved back.
Above: Hosei University Boissonade Tower
Male hosts pour drinks and will often flirt with their clients, more so than their female counterparts.
The conversations are generally light-hearted.
Hosts may have a variety of entertainment skills, be it simple magic tricks or charisma with which to tell a story.
Some host clubs have a dedicated stage for a performance, usually a dance, comedy sketch, etc.
Hosts’ ages usually range between 18 and the mid-20s.
They will take a stage name, usually taken from a favourite manga, film, or historical figure, that will often describe their character.
Men who become hosts are often those who either cannot find a white-collar job, or are enticed by the prospect of high earnings through commission.
While hostess bars in Tokyo often have designated men out on the streets getting clients to come into their clubs, some hosts are often sent out onto the streets to find customers, who are referred to as catch (kyatchi), but these are usually the younger, less-experienced hosts.
A common look for a host is a dark suit, collared shirt, silver jewellery, a dark tan and bleached hair.
Pay is usually determined by commission on drink sales with hosts often drinking far past a healthy limit, usually while trying to hide their drunkenness.
Because the base hourly wage is usually extremely low, almost any man can become a host regardless of looks or charisma (depending on the bar).
However, hosts who cannot increase their sales usually drop out very soon, because of the minimal wage.
The environment in a host bar is usually very competitive, with tens of thousands of dollars sometimes offered to the host who can achieve the highest sales.
Many of the clientele who visit host bars are hostesses who finish work at around 1 or 2 a.m., causing host bars to often begin business at around midnight and finish in the morning or midday, and hosts to work to the point of exhaustion.
But business times have changed in recent years by order of the police due to the increased incidence of illegal prostitution by host club customers who could not pay the host club debts they had accumulated.
Nowadays most of these clubs open about 4 p.m. and have to be closed between midnight and 2 a.m.
Drinks usually start at about ¥1000 but can reach around ¥6 million (US$60,000) for a bottle of champagne.
Buying bottles of champagne usually means a “champagne call” (shanpan kōru).
All the hosts of the club will gather around the table for a song, talk, or a mic performance of some kind.
The champagne will be drunk straight from the bottle by the customer, then her named host, and then the other hosts gathered.
Often a wet towel will be held under the chin of the customer and hosts while they drink to prevent spills.
The performance differs from club to club, and is believed to have originated at club Ryugujo in Kabukicho by the manager Yoritomo.
Also a “champagne tower” (shanpan tawā) can usually be done for special events.
Champagne glasses are arranged into a pyramid, and champagne is poured onto the top glass until it trickles down the layers of glasses.
Depending on the champagne used, this costs at least the equivalent of US$20,000.
On the first visit to a host club, the customer is presented with a menu of the hosts available, and decide which host to meet first, but over the course of the night, the customer will meet most of the hosts.
The customer then decides which host they like most, and can make him their named host (shimei).
This can be done by buying a “bottle keep” (a bottle of liquor that can be saved for next time), stating interest in a host.
The named host will receive a percentage of the future sales generated by that customer.
Most clubs operate on a “permanent nomination” (eikyu shimei) system: once the named host has been nominated, a customer cannot change hosts at that club.
Sometimes a host will go with a customer for a meal or karaoke after hours.
This is called “after” (afutā).
Staying longer at the host club is considered the proper way to treat a host.
It is possible to go on day trips or travel with a host, but a host can only go with their own customer.
A host interacting with another host’s customer is liable to be fined or fired from the club.
Drinks can be purchased on tab, but contact information is taken and the customer must pay later.
If the customer does not pay, the host must.
It is considered rude to leave a customer alone, called “only” (onrī).
A customer who is abusive and troublesome is called a “painful customer” (itakyaku) and may be expelled from a club.
Usually, hosts try to make the clients feel loved without having sex with them, as it takes up their time and energy.
Sometimes, for instance if a customer pays a large amount of money and/or if the host likes them in return, the host can have sex with the client.
If the same host meets the same client, they have a higher chance of having sex than the host having sex with another client.
The clients attempt to make the individuals very comfortable, thus they will feel compelled to provide for the businessmen in the future by some means.
This exchange may be by political or economic means.
There are other various methods of business.
For example, “mail business” is the practice of a host emailing his customer regularly to ensure their return.
Similarly, a host may call their customer, but this is fading in popularity now with the rise in popularity of mail business.
Hosts will usually carry a business phone and a private phone.
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sexual activities.
The name originates from “Hotel Love” in Osaka, which was built in 1968 and had a rotating sign.
Although love hotels exist all over the world, the term “love hotel” is often used to refer specifically to those located within Japan.
Love hotels can usually be identified using symbols such as hearts and the offer of a room rate for a “rest” (kyūkei) as well as for an overnight stay.
The period of a “rest” varies, typically ranging from one to three hours.
Cheaper daytime off-peak rates are common.
In general, reservations are not possible and leaving the hotel will forfeit access to the room.
Overnight-stay rates become available only after 22:00.
These hotels may be used for prostitution, although they are sometimes used by budget-travelers sharing accommodation.
Entrances are discreet and interaction with staff is minimized.
Rooms are often selected from a panel of buttons and the bill may be settled by pneumatic tube, automatic cash machine, or paying an unseen staff member behind a pane of frosted glass.
Parking lots will often be concealed and windows will be few, so as to maximize privacy.
Although cheaper hotels are often simply furnished, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with anime characters, be equipped with rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke machines and unusual lighting.
They may be styled similarly to dungeons or other fantasy scenes, sometimes including S & M gear.
These hotels are typically either concentrated in city districts close to stations, near highways on the city outskirts, or in industrial districts.
Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with neon lighting.
However, some more recent love hotels are very ordinary looking buildings, distinguished mainly by having small, covered, or even no windows.
Shinjuku Golden Gai, famous for its plethora of small bars, is part of Kabukicho.
Shinjuku Golden Gai (Shinjuku gōruden-gai) is a small area famous both as an area of architectural interest and for its nightlife.
It is composed of a network of six narrow alleys, connected by even narrower passageways which are just about wide enough for a single person to pass through.
Over 200 tiny shanty-style bars, clubs and eateries are squeezed into this area.
The alleys are private not public roads.
In this area, shooting photographs and video for all purposes on the street is prohibited without permission of the area’s business promotion association.
Its architectural importance is that it provides a view into the relatively recent past of Tokyo, when large parts of the city resembled present-day Golden Gai, particularly in terms of the extremely narrow lanes and the tiny two-story buildings.
Nowadays, most of the surrounding area has been redeveloped:
The street plans have been changed to create much wider roads and larger building plots, and most of the buildings themselves are now much larger high- or medium- rise developments.
This has left Golden Gai as one of a decreasing number of examples of the nature of Tokyo before Japan’s “economic miracle”, that took place in the latter half of the 20th century.
Typically, the buildings are just a few feet wide and are built so close to the ones next door that they nearly touch.
Most are two-story, having a small bar at street level and either another bar or a tiny flat upstairs, reached by a steep set of stairs.
None of the bars are very large:
Some are so small that they can fit only five or so customers at one time.
The buildings are generally ramshackle and the alleys dimly lit, giving the area a very scruffy and run-down appearance.
However, Golden Gai is not a cheap place to drink, and the clientele that it attracts is generally well off.
Shinjuku Golden Street Theatre is a tiny theater in one corner of Golden Gai that puts on mainly comedy shows.
Bars in Golden Gai are known in particular for the artistic affinities of their patrons.
Golden Gai is well known as a meeting place for musicians, artists, directors, writers, academics and actors, including many celebrities.
Many of the bars only welcome regular customers, who initially should be introduced by an existing patron, although many others welcome non-regulars, some even making efforts to attract overseas tourists by displaying signs and price lists in English.
Some bartenders are foreign.
Many of the bars have a particular theme, such as jazz, R&B, karaoke, punk rock, or flamenco.
Their ramshackle walls are sometimes liberally plastered with movie, film and concert posters.
Others cater to customers with a particular interest, such as go, exploitation films, or horse racing.
Most of the bars don’t open until 9 or 10pm, so the area is very quiet during the day and early evening.
Golden Gai was known for prostitution before 1958, when prostitution became illegal.
Since then it has developed as a drinking area, and at least some of the bars can trace their origins back to the 1960s.
In the 1980s, many buildings in Tokyo were set on fire by yakuza, so the land could be bought up by developers, but Golden Gai survived because some of its supporters took turns to guard the area at night.
Originally, Kabukicho was known as Tsunohazu and was a swamp.
After the Meiji Period (1868 – 1912), the area became a duck sanctuary.
When the Yodobashi Purification Plant was built in 1893, the ponds were filled in.
In 1920, a girls’ school was built there, and the surroundings were developed into a residential area.
Prior to World War II (1939 – 1945), the district was one of the areas open to foreign-born property owners (primarily from Taiwan and Korea), who mainly operated tsurekomi yado, predecessors to today’s love hotels.
During the war, a bombing raid on 13 April 1945, razed the area to the ground.
After the war, Kihei Suzuki from the Association of Readjustment and Reconstruction of Shinjuku worked with the major landowner, Mohei Minejima, to draw up plans for Kiku-za, a kabuki theatre, in the area.
They believed that performers from the Kabuki-za theatre in Ginza would accept their invitation to perform at Kiku-za.
Above: Kabuki-za Theatre
As a result, Hideaki Ishikawa, a regional planner, dubbed the town Kabukichō, which was adopted on 1 April 1948.
Although the theatre was cancelled due to financial problems, the name remained.
The Tokyo Cultural Hall (to the south, in Shibuya), the Tokyo Milano-zu movie theater, the Tokyo Ice Skating Rink, and the Shinjuku Koma Theatre were all completed in 1956, cementing the area’s reputation as an entertainment centre.
Above: Tokyo Cultural Hall
Kabukichō was quickly redeveloped after the war, mainly due to the efforts of the overseas Chinese in Japan who bought land left unused after the Expos and greatly developed them.
Above: Kanteibyou Temple in Yokohama’s Chinatown
The “three most renowned overseas Chinese of Kabukicho” include:
the founder of Humax, Lin Yi-Wen, who started his business with a cabaret
Lin Tsai-wang, who built the Fūrin Kaikan
Above: The Furin Kaikan
Lee Ho-chu, owner of the Tokyo Hotel Chinese restaurant.
In 2002, it was estimated that 70% of the land in Kabukichō was owned by foreign-born Japanese residents and their descendants.
The rise of home video entertainment decreased the demand for live performances and film theaters, and Kabukichō became home to a number of video arcades, discos, and fuzoku (businesses offering sexual services).
Watanabe Katsumi, a freelance portrait photographer who took pictures and sold prints back to his subjects for a modest ¥200, documented the citizens of Kabukichō during this transition period in the 1960s and 1970s.
Katsumi had apprenticed to a portrait studio in Tokyo shortly after moving there in 1962.
He took his street portraits at night using a strobe light.
In 1971, Takeshi Aida, a former mattress salesman, opened “Club Ai“, the first host club in Kabukichō.
At its peak, Aida’s company reported ¥2.7 billion in annual revenue.
By 1999, the area had been named “Asia’s largest adult entertainment district” and tabloids were regularly running candid photographs of drunken Kabukichō patrons fighting and being arrested.
However, starting in 2003, joint citizen and police patrols began enforcing business licensing, and the 1948 Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Act was more strictly enforced as well starting in April 2004, forcing adult-themed businesses to start removing customers at midnight in preparation to close by 1 AM.
In 2004, according to a spokesperson of Metropolitan Tokyo, there were more than 1,000 yakuza members in Kabukichō, and 120 different enterprises under their control.
Above: Yakuza often take part in local festivals where they often ride through the streets proudly showing off their elaborate tattoos.
Entering the new millennium, laws were more strictly enforced and patrols became more frequent.
In addition, 50 closed-circuit were installed in May 2002 after the Myojo 56 building fire that killed 44.
The patrols and cameras reduced criminal activities in Kabukichō, amidst controversy.
Private citizens and government agencies launched a joint effort in July 2003, called the Shinjuku Shopping Center Committee to Expel Organized-Crime Groups, with the aim to replace unlicensed and adult-oriented businesses (which were believed to pay protection fees to organized crime groups) with legitimate businesses.
In 2004, the police undertook an operation clamping down on illegal clubs and brothels, causing many to go out of business.
An amendment to the 1948 Adult Entertainment law made aggressive catching of female patrons by male hosts illegal.
The Kabukichō Renaissance organization started in April 2008 to rid Kabukichō of the yakuza.
Office manager Yoshihisa Shimoda stated:
“At the end of the day, we want Kabukicho to be clean.
We want security, safety and a pleasant environment.”
In 2011, Tokyo began to enforce the Organised Crime Exclusion Ordinance, which makes it a crime for businesses or individuals to deal with the Yakuza.
Although the punishment for violating the ordinance ranges up to one year in prison and a fine of ¥50,000, it is intended to provide an excuse for refusing to make protection payments.
Kabukichō leaders attributed the change in enforcement to former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and the Tokyo bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics (a bid not won until the 2020 Summer Olympics, then cancelled by the corona virus pandemic).
Above: Shintaro Ishihara
At present, the 36 hectare (89 acres / 0.14 square miles) Kabukichō district has transformed from a residential area to a world-famous red-light district housing over 3,000 bars, nightclubs, love hotels, massage parlours, hostess clubs and the like.
Although referred here as a “red light district“, there are no red lights in the literal sense with sex workers in the windows as in Amsterdam.
Recently, tourism from China and Korea is on the rise, and so, many tourists can be seen in Kabukichō even during daytime.
After several large hotels opened in the district, the Kabukicho Concierge Association was formed to recommend businesses that would be safe for foreign patrons, as the area is notorious for the practice known as bottakuri, where some businesses add exorbitant hidden fees to bring the final bill well beyond the initial advertised prices.
Bottakuri is a form of bait-and-switch, where patrons are attracted by a low advertised price but then charged numerous hidden fees.
In one instance, a group of nine was lured into a bar under the promise the all-inclusive cost was ¥4,000.
The hostesses inside consumed 172 drinks and the final bill was ¥2,663,000.
The staff at the bar allegedly threatened the patrons to ensure payment.
In 2015, there were 1,052 reported cases of bottakuri in the first four months of the year alone, particularly targeting foreign tourists from China and Korea, prompting a crackdown that began in May.
In July, there were only 45 reported cases of bottakuri and 28 bars had been shut down.
In 2007, Aida founded the Shinjuku Kabukicho Host Club Anti-Organized Crime Gang Association to disassociate host and hostess clubs from organized crime, reduce the aggressive “catching” street solicitations, and eliminate the bottakuri practice.
The red Kabukichō Ichiban-gai gate, near the southwest corner along Yasukuni-Dōri, is often photographed as the main entrance to Kabukichō.
Other major entrances, east of Ichibangai-Dori along Yasukuni-Dori, include Sentoraru Rōdo (Central Road) where the Kabukichō branch of Don Quijote is, and another neon-lit arch at Sakura-Dōri.
The Shinjuku Koma Theater was a landmark in Kabukichō.
By 2008, it had moved to its third location.
Since it opened in 1956, it has hosted concerts and other performances by top stars, including enka singers Saburo Kitajima, Kiyoshi Hikawa and actor Ken Matsudira.
The management announced that they would close after the 31 December 2008 show.
The building was demolished in 2009.
The site was redeveloped and the Toho Shinjuku Building was completed there in 2014, including the 12-screen Toho Cineams Shinjuku theatre and the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku.
A “life-size” replica of Godzilla (from the neck up) was added to an outdoor terrace in 2015.
It has since become a local landmark.
The Tokyu Milano-za movie theater, just west of Cinecity Square, was the largest in Japan when it opened in 1956.
Its last day of operation was 31 December 2014, closing after a screening of the film E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.
A 225-metre (738 ft) high skyscraper is planned for 2022 to be built on the site.
Kabukichō has been featured in:
Yakuza (a video game series), as Kamurocho
Yakuza, known in Japan as Ryū ga Gotoku (Like a Dragon), is an action-adventure beat-’em-up video game franchise created, owned and published by Sega.
The series originated from Toshihiro Nagoshi’s desire to create a game that would tell the way of life of the yakuza.
Nagoshi initially struggled to find a platform for the project, until Sony showed interest in the prospect.
The series primarily focuses on the yakuza Kazuma Kiryu from the Tojo Clan.
While Kiryu often assists the Tojo Clan, the series has also featured him searching for another way of life in the form of raising orphans.
The gameplay of Yakuza has the player controlling Kiryu (or another character depending on the title) in an open district where he can encounter an enemy or perform an activity in the city to obtain experience.
The franchise has become a commercial and critical success, and as of 2020, Sega has reported that the video game series has sold a combined total of 12 million units in physical and digital sales since its debut in 2005.
Strong sales of the games in its original Japanese market has led to the franchise’s expansion to other media, including film adaptations.
Gin Tama (manga comic book series)
Gin Tama (“Silver Soul“) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Hideaki Sorachi.
Set in Edo (the former name of Tokyo) which has been conquered by aliens named Amanto, the plot follows life from the point of view of samurai Gintoki Sakata, who works as a freelance alongside his friends Shinpachi Shumora and Kagura in order to pay the monthly rent.
Above: Gintoki Sakata
Sorachi added the science fiction setting to develop characters to his liking after his editor suggested doing a historical series.
It was serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from December 2003 to September 2018, later in Jump GIGA from December 2018 to February 2019, and finished on the Gin Tama app in June 2019.
The series has been adapted into an original video animation (OVA) by Sunrise and was featured at the Jump Festa Anime Tour in 2005.
This was followed by a full 367-episode anime television series, which debuted in April 2006 on TV Tokyo and finished in October 2018.
Three animated films have been produced.
The first film premiered in April 2010, the second premiered in July 2013, the third and final film will premiere in January 2021.
Besides the anime series, there have been various light novels and video games based on Gin Tama.
A live-action film adaptation of was released in July 2017 in Japan by Warner Brothers Pictures.
The manga has been licensed by Viz Media in North America.
In addition to publishing the individual volumes of the series, Viz serialized its first chapters in their Shonen Jump manga anthology.
It debuted in the January 2007 issue, and was serialized at a rate of one chapter a month.
Sentai Filmworks initially licensed the series.
The website Crunchyroll purchased the anime’s streaming rights and home video rights.
In Japan, the Gin Tama manga has been popular, with over 55 million copies in print, making it one of the best-selling manga series.
The anime and its DVDs have been featured, at various times, in Top Ten rankings of their respective media, while TV Tokyo has announced that the first Gin Tama anime was responsible for high sales overseas along with the anime adaptation from Naruto.
Publications for manga, anime and others have commented on the Gin Tama manga.
Positive responses have focused on the comedy and characters from the series, as well as its overarching plot and action choreography.
City Hunter (manga)
City Hunter (Shitī Hantā) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tsukasa Hojo.
It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1985 to 1991 and collected into 35 tankobon volumes by its publisher Shueisha.
The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Sunrise Studios in 1987.
The anime series was popular in numerous Asian and European countries.
City Hunter spawned a media franchise consisting of numerous adaptations and spin-offs from several countries.
The franchise includes four anime television series, three anime television specials, two OVAs, several animated feature films (including a film released in February 2019), several live-action films (including a Hong Kong film starring Jackie Chan, and a French film), video games, and a live action Korean TV drama.
It also had a spin-off manga, Angel Heart, which in turn spawned its own anime television series and a live action Japanese TV drama.
Tokyo Vice (a 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein)
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan is a 2009 memoir by Jake Adelstein of his years living in Tokyo as the first non-Japanese reporter working for one of Japan’s largest newspapers, Yomiuri Shinbun.
After trying and failing to have the book published in Japan, it was published by Random House and Pantheon Books.
Adelstein wrote in 2013 that:
“The book is translated into Japanese but no publisher will touch it.
It steps on too many toes.“
In August 2013 a film adaptation of the memoir was announced.
Adelstein co-wrote the story for the film version of Tokyo Vice with American playwright J.T. Rogers, who then wrote the screenplay.
Anthony Mandler was announced to direct the film, with John Lesher and Adam Kassan serving as producers, and Binn Jakupi serving as an executive producer.
The film was expected to begin filming in Tokyo in mid-2015, with Daniel Radcliffe set to play Adelstein.
Above: Daniel Radcliffe, July 2015
Production never commenced, however, and the project lay fallow until the announcement of the 2020 web television version.
In June 2019, a television adaptation of the memoir was announced.
The ten-part television series is set to star Ansel Elgort playing Jake Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to reveal corruption.
The series will also star Ken Watanabe and will be written and executive produced by Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers, with Endeavor Content serving as the studio.
Above: Ken Watanabe, 2007
In October 2019, it was announced that Michael Mann would be directing the pilot episode, as well as serving as executive producer. John Lesher, Emily Gersen Saines and Destin Daniel Cretton will also serve as executive producers, alongside J.T. Rogers, Mann, Elgort and Watanabe.
In addition to Elgort and Watanabe, the Tokyo Vice cast will also include Odessa Young and Ella Rumpf.
The 10-episode straight-to-series Tokyo Vice will debut on HBO Max, Warner Media’s upcoming streaming platform.
Weathering with You (film)
Weathering with You (Tenki no Ko / “Child of Weather“) is a 2019 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film written and directed by Makato Shinkai.
Set in Japan during a period of exceptionally rainy weather, the film tells the story of a high-school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo and befriends an orphan girl who has the ability to manipulate the weather.
The film was produced by Wakana Okamura and Kinue Itō, and the music was composed by Japanese rock band Radwimps.
The film was released in Japan on 19 July 2019.
The previous day, a novel adaptation written by Shinkai — one of his original works — was published.
A manga adaptation illustrated by Watari Kubota was first serialized in Kodansha’s Afternoon on 25 July the same year.
It was released in 140 countries throughout the world, earning over US$193.1 million worldwide and ¥14.06 billion in Japan.
The film was selected as the Japanese entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
It also received four Annie Award nominations including Best Independent Animated Feature.
The film received generally positive reviews.
Critics have praised the film for its animation, plot, music, visuals, and use of weather to convey the story’s metaphor.
Some compared the film with Shinkai’s previous work, Your Name, criticizing that film for its lack of clarity of vision and unresolved plot threads.
In June 2021, first year high schooler Hodaka Morishima leaves Kozu-Shima in order to get to Tokyo.
When his ferry to the city is hit by a rainstorm, he is saved by Keisuke Suga, who gives Hodaka his business card.
As Hodaka becomes broke and struggles to find work, he meets Hina Amano, an employee of a McDonald’s restaurant.
She takes pity on him and gives him food.
Later on, Hodaka finds an abandoned handgun in a waste bin he fell onto.
After tracking down Suga’s business location, he meets him there and his niece, Natsumi.
Suga hires him as his assistant at a small occult magazine publishing company, where they investigate urban legends related to the unusually rainy weather in Tokyo.
From a psychic, they hear the legend of a “sunshine girl” who can control the weather.
Hodaka sees Hina being intimidated into working at a back-alley club.
He scares off the club owners by firing his gun into the air, thinking it was a toy.
He and Hina escape.
She takes him to Yoyogi Kaikan, an abandoned building with a shrine on its roof, where he throws the gun away.
Hina astonishes Hodaka by demonstrating her ability to clear the sky by praying.
Hodaka finds out that Hina lives alone with her brother Nagi, and they have no adult guardian.
Seeing how they are in a financial trouble, Hodaka proposes to start a business with Hina with the ability of sunshine girl: a job to clear the weather for events such as weddings and parties.
They create a website to accept orders and their business quickly becomes a success.
However, when clearing the sky for the Jingu Fireworks Festival, Hina is shown on television and their site gets flooded with requests, so they decide to close their business.
A detective with the police search for Hodaka, as his family filed a search request.
They find out that Hodaka was caught using the gun on a security camera.
Officers arrive at the apartment where Hina lives with Nagi and interrogate her.
Hina realizes that because they have no legal guardians, with their mother having died recently, social services are going to take them into custody.
Hodaka visits Suga, who has also been visited by the police.
Suga fires him and gives him a retirement allowance, explaining that the police suspect him of kidnapping Hodaka.
Hodaka, Hina and Nagi try to run away, but they are halted by a heavy rainstorm and snowfall.
They take shelter in a love hotel and spend the night with instant food and doing karaoke.
Above: A person singing karaoke in Hong Kong
Hina reveals that her body is slowly turning into water.
She explains that she is the cause of the abnormal weather and is intended to be a human sacrifice.
Her disappearance will return the weather to normal.
Hodaka promises to protect her, but the next morning, Hina has vanished into the sky and the rain has stopped.
The police steps into the hotel room, sending Nagi to the children’s counseling center and taking Hodaka to the police station.
Having already fallen in love with Hina, Hodaka decides to bring her back to Earth and escapes from the police custody with the help of Natsumi and her Honda Super Cub.
After her motorcycle is immobilized, Hodaka resumes on-foot to Yoyogi Kaikan building to reach the shrine.
Inside, he encounters Suga, who attempts to stop him.
The police surround Hodaka, but Suga, now inspired by Hodaka’s desperation to see Hina, helps him escape.
At the rooftop shrine, Hodaka jumps through the shrine gate and is transported into the sky, where he finds Hina and asks her to leave with him, insisting that Hina let go of her worries about the weather and start living for herself.
As soon as they come back to the rooftop shrine, Hina, Hodaka, Natsumi, Nagi, and Suga are all arrested, and the heavy rains resume.
Hodaka is sentenced to a three-year probation and sent back to his home Kōzu-shima.
Three years later, the rain has been falling without end in Tokyo, submerging much of the city.
In the spring of 2024, having finished his probation, Hodaka graduates from high school (two of his classmates ask whether he was wanted by the Tokyo police while he thinks it is a love proposal coming his way) and returns to Tokyo to join the university.
He meets with Suga, who has expanded his business.
After Suga encourages him to find Hina, Hodaka finds her praying on a street overlooking the drowned city.
They reunite, with Hodaka promising her that they will be all right.
Case File #221: Kabukicho (an anime television series)
Case File nº221: Kabukicho (Kabukichō Syarokku) is an original anime television series, produced by Production I.G., which premiered on 11 October 2019.
Taking place in modern times in and around Kabukicho in a re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes, a team of detectives are solving a string of serial murders committed by Jack the Ripper.
From there, they are tasked to solve other cases hounding Kabukicho and its residents.
Tokyo Afterschool Summoners (a role-playing game)
Tokyo Afterschool Summoners (Tōkyō Hōkago Samonāzu), known also as Housamo (derived from Tōkyō Hōkago Samonāzu), is an F2 Prole-playing video game for Androis and iOS systems.
It is developed by Lifewonders, a mobile company.
It is noted as one of the first commercially produced LGBT video games created in Japan and one of the first commercially produced LGBT games to extensively utilize gay manga (“bara“) artwork.
Tokyo Afterschool Summoners is a free-to-play card-based role playing video game with turn-based battles.
Each character card has a weapon type, as well as an elemental attribute that determines its strengths and weaknesses against other cards in rock-paper-scissors style match-ups.
Cards gain levels and abilities by accruing experience through battles.
Once a card reaches its level cap, special items must be used to uncap the card so it can gain more experience.
The game utilizes an affinity system wherein buffs are applied when the cards of characters who have a relationship (“love“, “like“, “dislike“, and “rival“) are used in battle together.
Cards are obtained through quests, or through the game’s gacha system.
The protagonist awakens in a version of Tokyo where “transients” – supernatural beings from fantasy and mythology – live among humans.
In this world, both humans and transients utilize mysterious artifacts to fight in duels.
Duelists organize into guilds, which fight for control of the 23 special wards of Tokyo.
The player controls the protagonist as they form a guild of their own, gather companions, and attempt to uncover how they have arrived in this world.
I have never darkened the doorway of a hostess club or a love hotel, but I will not condemn those that have, for the knack of being a lover, a suitor (still applicable in the role of husband), is to persist, without being a pest, in the art of the chase, takes time…..
Weeks, months, years…..
Loveless, sexless, womanless….
For biology made women slow to burn and men quick to flare.
A skillful lover needs to damp down the frightful fire without letting it expire.
Foreplay and forethought take precedence over passion, even when lovemaking has started in earnest.
It is all right there in the fairytale, Sleeping Beauty.
A man has to hack through thorns, has to sweat and bleed until he get to the princess in the castle.
She is so powerful that the whiff of a rumour of the legend of her beauty makes a man work for weeks.
At a deep level, she calls the shots.
Many a man sees beauty and flee.
Many a beautiful woman is ignored by Prince Charming and instead has to put up with predators instead.
Romance, the quest for love, is not for the faint-hearted or the easily fatigued, and for those unskilled in communicating in the manner of women to women many a man must endure long spells of loneliness without relief.
A man could, of course, condition his sexual needs as easily as a woman, provided his training started at a very early age.
Sufficient proof of this are monks, the majority of whom survive without sexual satisfaction.
But instead of learning to suppress his needs, a man will allow then to be encouraged whenever possible, for women have long known that to control a man one must control his libido.
Men rarely dress in such a way as to awaken sexual desire in the opposite sex, but it is very much to the contrary with woman.
By the age of 12 she is already disguised as bait.
The curves of breasts and hips are exaggerated by tight-fighting clothes.
The length of leg, the shape of calf and ankle are enhanced by transparent stockings and exaggerated by high heels.
Lips and eyes beckon, moist with make-up.
Hair gleams in the glow of tint.
A man unmoved by the strategy of female sexuality is a man unmoved by life itself.
She is on display, an object of desire, a good in a shop window, and like a commodity, there is a price to pay.
She is worth it, but the price is not something every man can afford.
But the more educated the woman, the more liberated the times, the more self-aware a man becomes, the more it becomes evident that the chase may be a dance in decline.
For is not a woman more than the illusion she creates?
Is not a man more than the cravings that compel him?
It has not been my honour to be Japanese, so I cannot say with any absolute certitude what it means to be Japanese, but I get sense from my own limited experience and from conversations with those who have lived there, that being Japanese isn’t easy.
5/6 of Japan is uninhabitable because it is so mountainous that it is only suitable for pine trees.
The remaining sixth is nearly intolerable, for what remains is nothing but roads, homes and factories, with the Japanese living on top of one another, so any idea of individuality, of not relying on others, of being apart from the homogeneity of the group is anathema.
Generally speaking, the nail that sticks out must be hammered down or yanked away.
The Japanese, like the Germans and Swiss I have known, are fantastically successful, because they work harder and longer than anyone else and stick to their own ways of doing things.
Though, through time and increasing globalization and more global communication their underlying values are changing, the Japanese people are generally conformist, their organizations are hierarchical, their companies expect unquestioning loyalty, employees remain for life, seniority is sacred and independence is suspect.
In Japan, a man works, and so does a woman.
Both genders do a fantastic amount of overtime, generally an extra day a week (a six-day work week) and a couple of hours a night (12 to 16-hour days are more common than abnormal).
The Japanese call this practice “overwork” rather than “overtime“, not because the meaning of all this extra labour has become lost in translation, but rather because death from overwork (Karoshi) has become common enough for every company to know it exists.
In-house training of newly recruited employees is very important – how to bow, how to greet visitors in the company’s accepted way, the art of distributing tea around a business meeting…..
To everything there is an order and an order to everything.
At the level of apprenticeship, it is strictly equal treatment for the budding salaryman and office lady, potential white collar members of big organizations.
Self-reliance of women is encouraged in Japan because needy women are seen as a burden on others.
In fact, during the 21st century, Japanese women are working in higher proportions than America’s working female population.
Women are often found in part-time or temporary jobs.
A common occupation for young women is that of office lady – a female office worker who performs pink collar tasks, such as serving tea, secretarial or clerical work.
Income levels between men and women in Japan are not equal – the average Japanese woman earns 40% less than the average man with only 10% of management positions held by women.
Even the most gifted and determined woman knows that she does not have a career in a Japanese firm and that men are given preferential treatment.
Japan remains a socially conservative society with relatively pronounced gender roles
She is merely filling in time between graduation and marriage.
There are no female madogiwazoku (window watchers) – someone who is a long term and unsackable employee whose value is limited to looking out of the window and giving a weather report – for only men last long enough to become madogiwazoku.
The traditional role of women in Japan has been defined as “the three submissions“:
young women submit to their fathers
married women submit to their husbands
elderly women submit to their sons
But strains of this arrangement are now seen in contemporary Japan, where homemakers are responsible for cooking, cleaning, child-rearing and husband-supporting in part-time employment outside the home, as well as balancing the household finances.
Happily, as the number of dual income households rises, men and women are sharing household duties, leading to increased satisfaction as compared to labour division in traditional roles.
Where liberalism and tradition collide is on the subject of beauty.
The Japanese cosmetics industry is the second largest in the world.
The strong market for beauty products has been connected to the value places on self-discipline and self-improvement in Japan, where the body is mastered through kata (repeated actions aspiring toward perfection, such as bowing).
Tradition, especially in conservative business practices, demands certain standards from the women in their employ.
But perhaps change is in the air…..
Female flight attendants working for Japan Airlines (JAL) will no longer be required to wear high heels or skirts, the airline has said, in a rare victory for Japan’s #KuToo campaign against workplace dress codes for women.
The airline is the first major Japanese company to relax its regulations in response to complaints from women that having to wear high heels was uncomfortable and often left them in considerable pain.
Japan Airlines said that under its new dress code, which took effect in July, almost 6,000 female crew members are able to choose footwear that “best fits their needs” and swap their skirts for trousers, adding that the move was intended to create a “diverse working environment“.
The airline’s decision was welcomed by Yumi Ishikawa, an actress and writer who is credited with starting the #KuToo movement – a play on #MeToo that combines the Japanese words for shoes (kutsu) and pain (kutsuu).
“It’s a great step given that Japan Airlines is such a big company.“, she said.
“It is not only airlines – there are also hotels, department stores, banks and a lot of other companies with this requirement.
I hope they follow this example.“, added Ishikawa, who triggered the campaign last year with a tweet about being forced to wear high heels for her part-time job at a funeral parlor.
Other Japanese companies are unlikely to follow suit, however.
Most firms whose business entails customer service, including banks and airlines, force women to wear high heels, according to a poll last year by the Kyodo News Agency.
Another survey found that more than 60% of women have been told to wear high heels or had witnessed female colleagues being forced to wear them.
More than 80% said the footwear had caused them physical discomfort.
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he opposed workplace dress codes for women.
Above: Sinzo Abe (Japanese PM, 2008 – 2020)
But Takumi Nemoto, who was health, labour and welfare minister when the #KuToo campaign started, said they were “necessary and appropriate” and were “generally accepted by society“.
Above: Takumi Nemoto
The movement has since expanded to include demands for the right to wear glasses at work, after a TV report about companies that forced women to wear contact lenses sparked outrage on social media.
The hashtag “glasses are forbidden” trended on Twitter, with one user, who worked in a restaurant, complaining that she had been repeatedly told not to wear glasses because she would appear “rude” and they did not match her kimono.
Perhaps Japanese life is not as harmonious as its pretense?
Perhaps the Japanese way of dealing with something found unacceptable – a refusal to take about it – is being forced to change.
Perhaps what is beneath the tatemae, what is behind the polite words and impeccable behaviour, is a discontent slowly finding expression.
Perhaps their professed faith in being yasashii (gentle, tender, caring, yielding and considerate) does not apply to those who dangerously dare to be different.
Perhaps this is where a sleepless town like Kabukicho is needed, for once alcohol and sex enter the picture, social conventions and commitments to relationships and hierarchy which rule Japanese society can be put to one side.
Perhaps the lonely overworked salaryman can find comfort in a hostess bar.
Perhaps the isolated office lady can find laughter and respect in a host bar.
Perhaps they can find one another for a moment’s passion within the walls of a love hotel.
Alcohol affects some Japanese very rapidly.
Many of them have a genetic inability to process aldehyde dehydrogenase, a by-product of drinking alcohol.
The effect is sweating, redness, dizziness and enhanced inebriation after even one small drink.
Once a Japanese is intoxicated, they can be their true selves.
Anything can be and is excused.
No matter where, no matter who, sometimes feelings longing for expression can only find release whilst drunk or during sex.
Sometimes both men and women are trapped in a system which has damaged them both.
The alleys are narrow and the shadows dark.
Neon robs the sky of stars and substance steals awareness of sorrow.
Can any positive aspect of Kabukicho be found amongst the mini-bars and love hotels and host-hostess clubs?
I will not suggest that intercourse between those that pay and those that are paid is necessarily healthy, for far too many women are victimized by their poverty and by those who would control their bodies through their vulnerability, and far too many men are victims of their own shattered pasts, visiting their pain upon those from whom they seek gratification.
Then what, if anything, could possible attract the visitor whose intentions remain above the waistline?
It has been my experience, and perhaps Momo’s as well, that every place has its stories.
And I suspect that Kabukicho is a treasure trove of tales.
Open mind, open eyes, open ears.
There is much sad and sordid about districts like Kabukicho and yet….
A city that loses its sactuary of sin, its solace for the sorrowful soul, is a community without character, a place without personality, without a critical steam valve valley of release for pent-up pain and emotions needing expression.
I remember with sadness my visit in January 2020 to the By Ward Market district of Canada’s capital city, Ottawa.
No longer is love for sale, no beauties walk the streets promising paradise for cash and the diner where they once gathered for shelter from the elements has disappeared during my seven-year absence.
And though I am relieved that the working girls may have found freedom from the dangerous lives they once led, there is nonetheless a bittersweet nostalgia for the commonplace charms that were once offered to the hungry heart and lustful libido, even if advantage was never taken.
Let’s go down to the Sunset Grill We can watch the working girls go by Watch the “basket people” walk around and mumble And stare out at the auburn sky There’s an old man there from the Old World To him, it’s all the same Calls all his customers by name
Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill
You see a lot more meanness in the city It’s the kind that eats you up inside Hard to come away with anything that feels like dignity Hard to get home with any pride These days a man makes you somethin’ And you never see his face But there is no hiding place
Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill
Respectable little murders pay They get more respectable every day Don’t worry girl, I’m gonna stick by you And someday soon we’re gonna get in that car and get outa here
Let’s go down to the Sunset Grill Watch the working girls go by Watch the “basket people” walk around and mumble And gaze out at the auburn sky Maybe we’ll leave come springtime Meanwhile, have another beer What would we do without all these jerks anyway? Besides, all our friends are here
Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill Down at the Sunset Grill
There is something so human, so fragile, so compelling about the districts where no sane, sober or sanctified soul should linger.
I cannot speak for Momo in this regard, but for me to peer into the shadows of the night, to seek out corners of the human experience, this is all part of the exploration of who we are, of who I am.
I am a voyeur seeking the soul of a city through the eyes of the lost and sometimes one finds out who they really are through the exploration of the other side of life.
Sources: Wikipedia / Google / YouTube / The Rough Guide to Japan / Jake Adelstein, Tokyo Vice / Air Supply, “Lost in Love” / Dave Barry, Dave Barry Does Japan / The Beatles, “I’m a Loser” / Steve Biddulph, Manhood / Black-Eyed Peas, “Where Is the Love?” / James Brown, “It’s a Man’s World” / Neil Diamond, “I’m Alive” / Dido, “Life for Rent” / Dido, “What Am I Doing Here?” / Doug and the Slugs, “Makin’ It Work” / Sheena Easton, “Strut” / Empire Cast, “Look but Don’t Touch” / Fool’s Garden, “Lemon Tree” / Foreigner, “I Want to Know What Love Is” / Jamie Foxx, “Blame It” / Genesis, “Illegal Alien” / John Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus / Green Day, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” / Hall & Oates, “Maneater” / Corey Hart, “Sunglasses at Night” / Murray Head, “One Night in Bangkok” / Jimi Hendrix, “Are You Experienced?” / Don Henley, “Sunset Grill” / The Irish Rovers, “Wasn’t That a Party?” / J. Geils Band, “Centerfold” / Billy Joel, “Uptown Girl” / Sahoko Kaji, Noriko Hama, Robert Ainsley and Jonathan Rice, Xenophobe’s Guide to the Japanese / k.d. lang, “Constant Craving” / Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” / John Lennon, “Woman” / Madonna, “Material Girl” / Justin McCurry, “Japan Airlines ditches compulsory high heels and skirts“, The Guardian, 27 March 2020 / Milow, “Ayo Technology” / Liza Minelli, “Cabaret” / Moody Blues, “The Other Side of Life” / William G. Ouchi, Theory Z / Radiohead, “Creep” / The Police, “Roxanne” / Simon & Garfunkel, “I Am a Rock” / Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer” / Hank Snow, “I’ve Been Everywhere” / Ben Stevens, A Gaijin’s Guide to Japan / Supertramp, “The Logical Song” / Talking Heads, “Road to Nowhere” / Queen Latifah, “When You’re Good to Mama” / Mauritz Wallenstein, “My Japan Language Stay“, 10 October 2020 / Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man / Robbie Williams, “Let Me Entertain You” / “Weird Al” Yankovic, “This Is The Life“
A week ago, though at first seen as somewhat small and insignificant, a moment has grown in importance in my mind to the point I must mention it in reference to an event five months past that I believe should not be forgotten.
The usual train ride into St. Gallen, the routine stop at the newspaper shop to buy the Thurgauer Zeitung, the Times and the New York Times and then the march along Platform 1 heading for the stairs that lead to the underground tunnel where the Starbucks Bahnhof St. Gallen lies in half-shaded darkness and isolation.
At Platform 1 an SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) train sits waiting for a load of passengers bound for Geneva.
The train engine is called Albert Einstein and Albert‘s nose is covered in graffiti letters KCBR whose meaning is obscure to me.
According to the SBB, the damage to SBB vehicles and railway facilities caused by vandalism in 2017 amounted to 5.4 million Swiss francs.
But generally the SBB would prefer it if the media wouldn’t talk about it, because it is believed that through the media’s role in reporting on vandalism and graffiti, the media actively contributes to making this topic more objective.
In other words, less attention is paid to the victim of the vandalism and more is given to the graffiti sprayer, which is the desired goal of sprayers to make their graffiti public as widely as possible.
That is why railway cars are often their canvas.
The SBB believes that if the media photographs these images or shows them in videos, this will demonstratively encourage imitative acts upon SBB property.
Financial drama aside, graffiti artists are in mortal danger.
From The Guardian, 23 June 2018:
On the side of a railway bridge over Barrington Road in Brixton, south London, are the last three tags painted by Harrison Scott-Hood, aka Lover (23), Alberto Fresnedo Carrasco, aka Trip (19) and Jack Gilbert aka K-Bag (23).
Above: (l to r) Carrasco, Scott-Hood, Gilbert
These are likely to stay there for some time as a poignant memorial to the three young men whose bodies were found 350 yards down the track.
All three had been hit by a train.
All week (of the 23rd of June) graffiti artists – or “writers“, in the language of the subculture – from around the world have been paying tribute to the three men.
An Instagram page has been collating pictures of their graffiti, as well as artistic tributes.
At Loughborough Junction Station – the stop closest to where the three died – graffiti writers were among the contributors to a shrine with spray cans nestled among bouquets and messages sprayed on the wall.
But there have also been attacks.
A former Transport for London board member, Brian Cooke disparaged them on Twitter as “common scum and criminals“.
Above: Brian Cooke
The tragedy has prompted a fresh debate over the artistic merit of graffiti.
British Transport Police figures show that “graffiti-related crime” is on the rise nationwide, with 2,498 reported incidents in 2017, up from 1,413 in 2013.
In London, 662 incidents were reported in 2017, up 86% on 2013.
The first quarter of 2018 had the highest number of reported graffiti crimes in Londin since 2013.
But the statistics are limited.
Graffiti is so ubiquitous (commonplace) on urban train lines that most goes unreported and an accurate audit would be an impossible task.
Network Rail said it spends almost 3.5 million pounds a year removing graffiti, a figure that has remained static in recent years, but it did register a rise of more than a quarter in “trespass related incidents” between 2014 and 2017.
Given the ubiquity of graffiti on the rail network, deaths while walking the tracks are relatively rare, according to Joe Epstein, who publishes the website LDN Graffiti and is a longtime observer of the graffiti scene in the city.
That is despite the inaccessibility of a graffitied spot and the risks taken to reach it attracting additional kudos.
“There is a term – it is not very appropriate – but it is called a ‘heaven spot’, which is essentially a location that is so hard to get to and so risky that you could potentially lose your life.
When ‘writers’ hit these spots they are widely recognized.”
According to one graffiti writer, the stretch of line where Lover, Trip and K-Bag were struck is famous in the capital and has illegal works dating back two decades or more.
The three had travelled from north London to paint on the elevated route leading into central London.
Theo Kindynis, a criminologist at Goldsmiths whose work has focused on the scene dismisses as a common misconception that graffiti is about marking territory.
Above: Logo of Goldsmiths, University of London
“It has never been about that.
The highest accolade for a graffiti ‘writer’ is going ‘all-city’, which is having tags on every line, in every postcode.
So wherever guys are from, they are going to want to come and paint in places where they otherwise wouldn’t usually go so that other ‘writers’ from those areas see them up and it increases their cachet (reputation).”
As the Daily Mail pointed out with its story on Lover‘s 7,000 pounds a term public school education, those involved in graffiti range far from the common conception of teenagers from deprived council estates (low income housing).
Above: Harrison Scott-Hood (1995 – 2018)
“They are young men, but other than that it is not a very homogeneous scene demographically.
You do get people from very fortunate backgrounds.
People dating supermodels.
You get actors who are involved.
But you also got people that are in and out of jail, have had very difficult up bringings.
It is not like the real hard-up kids are doing this stuff because ultimately you are not profiting from doing this.
These people often have day jobs and whatever else.”
Simon Armstrong, who is currently researching a book on London graffiti, says those in the scene talk about wanting to “claim space” and “do damage“.
“They don’t care what you or I might think.
That’s less of a priority.”
Above: Simon Armstrong
Nonetheless, for many young people it can be a route into successful careers.
Marc Ecko, an urban clothing designer, has been an advocate of graffiti as an art form during this period, stating that:
“Graffiti is without question the most powerful art movement in recent history and has been a driving inspiration throughout my career.“
Above: Marc Louis Milecofsky, aka Marc Ecko
Henry Chalfant is one of the foremost advocates of modern graffiti, having produced the documentary film Style Wars and co-authored the books Subway Art and Spray Can Art.
His most recent work, Henry Chalfant’s Graffiti Archive: New York City’s Subway Art and Artists displays his over 800 photographs of New York City subway graffiti art.
Above: Henry Chalfant
Keith Haring was another well-known graffiti artist who brought Pop Art and graffiti to the commercial mainstream.
In the 1980s, Haring opened his first Pop Shop:
A store that offered everyone access to his works, which until then could only be found spray-painted on city walls.
Pop Shop offered commodities such as bags and t-shirts.
Haring explained that:
“The Pop Shop makes my work accessible.
It’s about participation on a big level, the point was that we didn’t want to produce things that would cheapen the art.
In other words, this was still art as statement.“
Above: Keith Haring (1958 – 1990)
Graffiti have become a common stepping stone for many members of both the art and design communities in North America and abroad.
Within the United States graffiti artists such as Mike Giant, Pursue, Rime, Noah, and countless others have made careers in skateboard, apparel, and shoe design for companies such as DC Shoes, Adidas, Rebel8, Osiris, or Circa.
Meanwhile, there are many others such as DZINE, Daze, Blade, and The Mac who have made the switch to being gallery artists, often not even using their initial medium, spray paint.
But perhaps the greatest example of graffiti artists infiltrating mainstream pop culture is the French crew 123Klan.
Founded as a graffiti crew in 1989 by Scien and Klor, 123Klan has gradually turned their hands to illustration and design while still maintaining their graffiti practice and style.
In doing so they have designed and produced logos and illustrations, shoes and fashion for the likes of Nike, Adidas, Lamborghini, Coca Cola, Stussy, Sony, Nasdaq, and more.
Above: Bears by 123Klan
The discrepancy between graffiti as both vandalism and art was brought into sharp focus in 2010, when Prime Minister David Cameron, on his first trip to Washington DC, presented President Barack Obama with a canvas by Ben Eine.
“That’s mad, because Eine was one of the hardest London ‘writers’.
His tag was everywhere and to be embraced in such a way is really quite peculiar.”
Above: Ben Flynn, aka Eine
Average people, or so the SBB believes, can hardly assess the dangers of passing trains.
Sprayers make themselves vulnerable to punishment by entering railway facilities.
Convicted sprayers face stiff fines.
Any damage or graffiti incurs costs which burden SBB’s financial statements.
As a result, vandalistic acts directly influence the calculation of ticket prices, as a consequence customers have to pay the bill with higher travel costs and higher taxes as the SBB is a government corporation.
The SBB claims that it consistently convicts every sprayer in every vandalism case and sprayed vehicles are taken out of service within 24 hours when possible.
So why is Albert‘s nose still covered in graffiti?
The SBB’s theory is that the faster the graffiti is removed, the lower the incentive for sprayers to apply it, for if very few see the graffiti then the purpose of the graffiti is removed.
Graffiti removal has an impact on customers as the train or wagon must be taken out of service, transferred to a workshop and replaced.
Downtime costs as well as employee and material costs for cleaning are incurred in the workshop.
Thoroughly cleaning a fully sprayed train takes dozens of man-hours and strong chemicals must be applied.
The SBB has close communication with the police of the cantons and other authorities along with video surveillance and cooperation with international working groups.
Yet Albert‘s nose is tweaked and mocks all these efforts.
Further information on this topic is not reported.
The SBB believes that the primary goal of sprayers is attention, especially via the mass media and social media.
When the media publishes photos of the graffiti or actively reports on them this proves consequently damaging to the SBB.
For this reason, the SBB deliberately refrains from providing media coverage of this topic and asks media professionals to address this issue.
Graffiti (both singular and plural; the singular graffito is very rare in English except in archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view.
Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and it has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
In modern times, paint (particularly spray paint) and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials.
In most countries, marking or painting property without the property owner’s permission is considered defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime.
Graffiti may also express underlying social and political messages and a whole genre of artistic expression is based upon spray paint graffiti styles.
Within hip hop culture, graffiti have evolved alongside hip hop music, b-boying, and other elements.
Unrelated to hip-hop graffiti, urban legend says gangs use their own form of graffiti to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities.
Controversies that surround graffiti continue to create disagreement amongst city officials, law enforcement, and writers who wish to display and appreciate work in public locations.
There are many different types and styles of graffiti.
It is a rapidly developing art form whose value is highly contested and reviled by many authorities while also subject to protection, sometimes within the same jurisdiction.
“Graffiti art is bigger than it’s ever been and keeps getting bigger.”, said Roger Gastman, author of The History of American Graffiti.
The graffiti movement took flight during the 1970’s and never stopped since.
The popularity of graffiti was caused by many factors, however, kids during the 1970’s were to mainly blame.
The generation of kids during 1970’s approached graffiti by storm.
The unique and free expression it brought to these kids was like no other.
They started with the simple “I wuz here.” tag then later exploded to creating murals that covered 40-foot subways.
Not only does graffiti put together artwork, but it helps relieve and stable individuals who are in crisis, such as kids who might have been involved in gangs or having a troubled life.
“Young people were the key players in shaping the contemporary graffiti movement.”, says Caleb Neelon, co-author of The History of American Graffiti.
According to the website Graffiti Urban Canvas:
Another factor that helped spread graffiti was advertising and commercial success that was being targeted to millions of younger kids.
IBM, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Toyota and MTV all used graffiti for advertising campaigns.
Hip-hop culture also influenced the graffiti movement.
The pop culture was fascinated with most graffiti art.
Unlike abstract art or any other art form that only has had fame for a decade or less, graffiti is different.
It has been growing and growing and is currently 40 years strong.
Graffiti and everything related with it, from the gangs, style, to the music, is the hottest trend.
With graffiti becoming ever more popular day by day, some critics believe that its ultimate end is inevitable.
However, if the graffiti artists stay true to their selves and never give in then it can undoubtedly still thrive on a pop culture level.
Graffiti is about the art and that’s how it should always be valued, no matter how popular it becomes.
I think of Albert’s nose and I can’t decide:
Is this vandalism or art?
I think of Scott-Hood, Carrasco and Gilbert and I can’t decide:
Were they martyrs for their art or simply dead juvenile criminals?
The Coffeehouse Chronicles (7 December)
Dear Cat,
Yesterday I returned from a five-day vacation on Lanzarote Island, part of the Canary Islands off the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and, of course, what was seen and experienced there will be the subject of future posts in my other blog, the Chronicles of Canada Slim. (https://canadaslim.wordpress.com)
There is a wealth of stories to be told about Lanzarote:
Dogs and canaries
Canarian nationalism
Jean de Béthancourt
The pirates of Teguise
From Lanzarote with love
The great Canarian Diaspora
Talk to the banana
The terror of Terrero wrestling
Silbo gomero, the whistling language
The shepherd’s jump
The death of the Guanches
The mountains of fire
The camels of Uga
The Island of César
The writer’s last retreat
The blue house of Arrieta
La Isla Graciosa
The actor’s foolish gamble
The salt of Janubio
Los Hervideros
Charco de los Clicos
The dunes of Famara
Yet in spite of all of this I still feel that there was much I had not sampled, so much that went unexplored.
I recall reading about one travel writer who said that 100% of his wanderings were related to writing and selling articles and that even short trips to attend weddings or visit his parents provided the basis for future travel pieces.
Though this does beg the question:
Did this travel writer ever simply take a vacation?
Truth be told, the wife took more pictures than I did, but as wonderful as it is to travel with a significant other, the tendency to remain isolated within the couple bubble inhibits a traveller from much interaction with others.
We drove in a rented car, a grey Citroen Cactus, for reliance on public transportation means the traveller is prisoner to timetables and routes, but our independence came at a cost of little exposure to the people and the neighbourhoods where the buses go.
If there were kids walking home from school or housewives pinching the produce at the greengrocer’s or workers relaxing on front stoops, they were, for the most part, invisible to us.
We did take a ferryboat between Lanzarote and the Isla La Graciosa, a bus tour through the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya, a camel ride up the side of a dormant volcano outside Uga.
We walked half a day around La Graciosa, the rarest of pedestrians amongst cyclists and 4 X 4 “safari” tourists.
I would have liked to see the most important landmarks of Lanzarote at different hours of the day, for even the modest plaza of the village of Teguise must look and feel different at dawn, noon, at dusk and midnight.
Though our “Tom Tom” (GPS navigator), simultaneously helpful and annoying, gave us the names of plazas, squares and streets, we could not sense how a town was laid out or who these places were named for.
The weather in Lanzarote is paradisical in its constancy: clear skies, cool breezes, warm temperatures.
But I never learned:
Does it ever rain in Lanzarote and if so what is that like for the locals?
I tried hard to notice as much as I could and some of the flora and fauna remains in my memory: the orange-coloured lotus berthelot, the struggling vines upon volcanic soil and surrounded by semi-circular volcanic rock walls, the seemingly fragile (but bold as brass) collared doves, the wandering cats, the caged canaries, the goats that hide, and palm trees planted alongside town streets to aid tourists in their longing for the tropics with umbrella cocktails in hand.
Well-kept window boxes and a lack of litter on the streets, few bars on windows, street peddlers and homeless only in the capital, advertising only in urban areas.
There was no clear chorus of church bells, no hoarse groans of foghorns and thankfully no endless cacophony of Christmas music everpresent and endless.
Cobblestone and hard pavement and volcanic gravel crunching beneath car tires and shoe leather.
The sound of the surf, the smell of the ocean, the touch of the breeze, the taste of salted potatoes and the tang of the sauces that accompany them, all these are the legacy of Lanzarote implanted upon me.
Our experience was mostly limited to hotel staff and tourist service personnel and vendors of various sundry.
But we know nothing of how the locals feel about distant Madrid, for we did not picnic in the park nor linger much in the outdoor markets or soak up local colour in the laundromat or do much shopping outside of gift shops.
No barber cut our hair nor did we join a congregation in worship.
We were there and yet not there.
And this is my dilemma, Cat.
How to capture the essence of place in my writing.
We saw the looming volcanoes without understanding, watched water crash against rock without emotion, saw camels lope without compassion and sadly felt too little of the captivating flip side of an island possessing far more than just seafront resorts.
As I continue to describe St. Gallen and Switzerland in my writing (hopefully complete by 31 December 2019) I find myself wondering:
What am I not seeing?
What am I not understanding?
What needs to be said?
The struggle continues.
With warmest heart,
CS (Canada Slim)
On This Day (7 January)
43 BC Death of Roman orator/philosopher Cicero (b. 106 BC)
1926 Patenting of the gas refrigerator
1928 Birth of American linguist/political commentator Noam Chomsky
1941 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
1972 Launch of Apollo 17, the last US Moon mission
1985 Death of English writer Robert Graves (b. 1895)(I, Claudius)
An Anthology of Diarists (7 December)
1943
Start evening classes for the elder refugee children who have got beyond the elementary school stage:
V. teaches them mathematics, physics and science.
Signorina G., Italian and history.
I, English and Latin.
Life is returning to the medieval pattern:
As the outside world is more and more cut off, we must learn, not only to produce our own food and spin and weave our own wool – but to provide teaching for the children, nursing for the sick and shelter for the passer-by.
![Badge of the RCMP[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c5/Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police.svg/800px-Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police.svg.png)
/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__brides__proteus__59d6433b5d54db4ee463b33f__11-343f7ef8b19448409c5141cb88ca0327.jpeg)
![People gather at a makeshift memorial at the scene where a man driving a pick-up truck ran over a Muslim family in what police say was a hate crime [Carlos Osorio/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-08T005722Z_882627520_RC20WN9D73XZ_RTRMADP_3_CANADA-ATTACK.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
:format(webp):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-9838686-1611856987-9830.jpeg.jpg)
![Prešeren, 1850 oil portrait[i]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Pre%C5%A1ern-Goldenstein.jpg)
.jpg&ehk=k7k86GBAbBKVJ%2fetgmgSWKbnoC5k%2b2HE0nJggcUTFNg%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw)
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/entertainment/2014/11/06/lorne_elliots_folkstyle_comedy_career_is_no_joke/lorne_elliott_2.jpg)
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/life/fashion-style/2011/04/29/restored-mill-was-artist-s-dream-home/102bc48d4c43b0692a0f4aa93a30_Gallery.jpeg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4785361-1375458221-5806.jpeg.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-7254239-1533369039-3096.jpeg.jpg)
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-3696616-1586004888-8398.jpeg.jpg)
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/2008/01/19/on_the_sprawl_apocalypse/christopherdewdney.jpeg)
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/DHKDV4CMVJEVVIBWWSD7FHJD5U.jpg)
![US Military Base at Camp Simba Manda Bay in Lamu [PHOTOS] - Kenyans.co.ke](https://www.kenyans.co.ke/files/styles/article_inner/public/images/news/camp_simbaa.jpg?itok=qaJZLLMj)
/cyberbullying-and-depression-1066791_final_logo-e3c3fe42e9fd464889fb4227eec96b40.gif){kind=logo}
![New Report: Cyberbullying Is Most Prevalent In India [Infographic]](https://blogs-images.forbes.com/niallmccarthy/files/2018/10/20181029_Cyberbullying.jpg)
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-shropshirestar-mna.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4BJXNLTO3NDIRH7UBIC6AEBB34.jpg)
Building Everest 