Remembrance Day Musings

Today, as most years, I went to the Remembrance Day service in my small town. There's a park and a beautifully-maintained Cenotaph. A small contingent of veterans, cadets, and other groups (like the volunteer firemen) march from the Legion to the Cenotaph, where a service and wreath-laying are held. Pretty much the same thing is going on in other towns and cities all over the country.

It was a mild day for November 11th here; although a few rain droplets fell while we watched the veterans pass and walked after them to the Cenotaph, the sun came out soon after. It was warm on my back as I listened to the opening remarks, although there was a breeze stiff enough to send the Canadian flag and those of the Colour Party snapping while we observed two minutes of silence.

The service is fairly well-attended in our town, and today I was observing the diversity of folks who turned out. During the two minutes' silence I watched a blond teenager quietly and carefully join the crowd, carrying his skateboard so as not to disturb the quiet. He wore a black "30-hour Famine" hoodie and part of a shiny bicycle chain hung as jewellery around his neck. He softly laid his skateboard out of the way so no-one would trip on it and waited until the silence was finished to take a few photographs of the veterans and assembled honour guard. Then he stood quietly and attentively throughout the rest of the service, next to an elderly couple, bundled in warm coats and scarves and hats, who undoubtedly still hold hard memories of war. Nearby, some young children played quietly, surely not understanding even a fraction of what was going on around them, but picking up somehow on the sombreness of the event.

As usual, the playing of the Last Post made me tear up, as did the Piper's Lament. At one point I was thinking cynically about all the politicians turning out today to pay tribute and perhaps take advantage of a photo opportunity, even while they have made or helped make decisions that sent others off to war. Do they feel conflicted? Guilty? Remorseful? Or are they fully convinced that their decisions were absolutely necessary and have no need to reconcile the two?

Today I'm thinking about two family members in particular. My great-uncle John, who fought in the Second World War and came home with scars mental and physical and a drinking problem that eventually ended his life; and my grandfather's cousin Alec, who went off to the First World War and sadly did not come home at all. We have a postcard that he (then around 18) sent to my grandfather (then 9 or 10), who was worried about him. It's very poignant to hold it and read it, and know that he would die shortly after writing it.

A lot to think about today, and no conclusions to arrive at. Perhaps the thinking is enough.

What else?

What else could I blog about today, other than the US election? As I write this, the polls are coming in, but the end result is still unknown. I feel very apprehensive, worrying that the wrong result will be returned--"wrong" meaning that it will not be best for America, or for the rest of the world.

I am very worried about what will happen if McCain and Palin are elected. I feel it will signal the start of something very, very bad. Something that will have repercussions far beyond the US.

So, fingers crossed for Obama. I'm not a very political person, but I certainly have my opinions.

Must be a full moon...

Okay, I know it's not, and I suppose I should issue a warning to non-Canadians that this post is about Canadian politics. This is not generally a political blog, because I am not generally a political person, but this is so weird that I had to write about it.

Stephen Harper, the current Prime Minister, compared himself to past Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau the other day. The cold, robotic, unemotional, shark-eyed Harper actually compared himself to probably the most charismatic PM the country has ever had.

Oh sure, they're so similar. Similar the way cheese is like sandpaper.

The Clothesline Debate

It seems the "clothesline debate" is on again in certain parts of Canada. Ontario's Minister for conservation has made a recommendation that the province move ahead with legislation that would effectively negate all restrictive covenants that disallow clotheslines in subdivisions, condominiums, etc.

Personally, I think this is a good thing. The misguided sense of asthetics or false modesty that prompted these restrictions in the first place is outdated. Conservation has to be the overriding concern, and I think people who would like to save money and energy by drying their clothes naturally should have the option to do so. In a world where we are constantly bombarded by advertising for feminine products and sex-enhancing medications, some people are offended by the sight of clean underwear? Give me a break. People who argue that clotheslines have a negative effect on property values just aren't living in the real world.

To tell the truth, I don't even particularly like line-dried clothes. However, it was my intention to put up a clothesline this summer in order to enhance the green shade of my ecological footprint. I confess I didn't get the job done, but it's still on the list for next spring.

The clothesline was a constant in my childhood. We had one, my grandmother had one; everyone did. In the springtime a man would always come around door-to-door selling new clothespoles, the back of his truck piled with straight, smooth poles, stripped of bark, and nicely notched on one end to hold the line. Sheets and towels would always be flapping and snapping in the breeze, and I do remember the lovely outdoor scent if you buried your (hopefully clean) face in them. I didn't mind hanging out the clothes, but I never liked the chore of bringing them in--having to shake each piece vigorously to dislodge any tenacious spiders!

The radio discussion included one of the authors of a book about clotheslines, which I believe was this one: "The Clothesline" by Andrea VanSteenhouse and Irene Rawlings. I'll have to double-check the CBC website later to make sure I have this right. At any rate, it sounded like an interesting and fun book of reminiscences and photos. I'm thinking I'll check the library for it (when I have time to read again!).

Thanks to cohdra for the lovely clothespins photo!

FreeRice.com

I know I had an idea for a brilliant blog post this morning...but now that I sit down to write it, I have no idea what it was. Sigh. Maybe it will come back to me overnight, perhaps in a dream.

Instead, I'm going to mention www.freerice.com, a site which launched on October 7, 2007. It works like this:

It's a vocabulary-building game--you're presented with a word and four choices of definitions. For every definition choice you get right, a donation of 10 grains of rice is made through the United Nations food program. The rice is paid for by sponsors who place ads on the site.

Now, ten grains of rice may not sound like very much. However, it builds up quickly. I was up to 900 grains after playing for maybe ten minutes. The site totals are impressive: to yesterday's date, 1,008,771,910 grains of rice had been donated. Yes, that's over one billion.

My only worry is that it will be too successful--that sponsors will pull out if the donations get too high. I hope this won't happen. Innovative ideas like this make me think there's hope for the human race yet.

Procrastination with a purpose--two purposes, in fact. I love it. I
think it's already had an efficacious effect on my vocabulary, too.

Heavy Heart

The past two days I've been carrying around a very heavy heart because of the tragic occurrences at Virginia Tech. My only (very nebulous) connection to the losses is the knowledge that the father of one of the slain professors is a well-known science fiction writer, and I know some people (via the internet) who know this writer. However as a mother, as a person who abhors violence, I can't get the story out of my head. So much grief in one place. I visited the website of the professor, Jamie Bishop, who was also an artist and photographer, and very talented (the site is www.memory39.com). Such loss, such waste.

Yesterday afternoon there was a bomb threat at my daughter's junior high school. It turned out to be a false alarm, but the students were evacuated to another neraby school (where I happened to be volunteering in the library at the time). They had to leave all their belongings and evacuate as quickly as possible, then walk to safety in the cold. It was upsetting, of course. Does no-one even contemplate the consequences of their actions? How have so many people become so dissociated from the notions of compassion, empathy, and social responsibility? And what can we do about it?

Someone on the radio yesterday opined that we need to be more observant, more vigilant, to see when people are exhibiting signs of mental trouble or distress so that they can be helped. This struck me as a particularly naive view. I know someone who went through a very bad time, was clinically depressed, very near to suicidal--and it was impossible for this person's family to get any help from the medical system. I know another person who is mentally unstable, living in impossible conditions and barely able to care for themselves; but there seems to be no help for this person, either. No one can "interfere," not the police, not the social welfare system. We have set up a system where other concerns override getting help for people who obviously need it. Today came the news that the perpetrator in the Virginia Tech case was indeed a person with mental problems and known to police--what more proof is needed that the "system" doesn't work. Observation was not lacking in that case--it was the ability, or possibly the will, to do something about it.

Sadly, I have no answers, but these are the questions that are on my mind today.

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000

Further to my last post, I went browsing the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. Some of the reasons for challenges are "sexually explicit material," "offensive language," "unsuited to age group," "occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism," "violent," and "anti-family," although you should visit the site for further information on how these break down. Unfortunately, I couldn't see a way to determine on which grounds a particular book was challenged, because I'd really, really love to know how Where's Waldo? made it onto this list.

At any rate, I thought I would see how many of these "unsuitable" books I've actually read. I've bolded them.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Hmmm...not too many. I guess I haven't been overly corrupted. ;-) Feel free to treat this as a meme if you'd like.

Pure Evil

Here's a product that can't really be described in any other way: candy-tipped cigarillos. Unbelievable. They come in twelve different flavours, obviously to appeal to young people, and have managed to worm through a couple of legal loopholes with regard to packaging. Cigarettes must be packaged in a larger size and display the health warning labels, but cigars fall under different rules. Being cigars and sold in smaller packages, they do not have to carry the labels (which is something that I think should be changed), so these appear in brightly colored packaging that really has the appearance of a "treat."

I'm sure it's no coincidence that there are so many flavours: by the time one tries them all (the obvious ploy) many people will have developed an addiction.

It's a sad commentary on the fact that the drive to make money supersedes all considerations of ethics or morality.

The USA Tobacco Company should be completely ashamed of themselves. I was going to link to their site but why give them a Google boost?