Newspaper obituaries can be dry reading — unusually so, given the pain that must be etched into every word of the brief sketches of lives lived. But, by nature, they are economical, usually containing just enough information for those who want to pay respects. Sometimes, though, emotions bubble through.
The obituary of nineteen-year-old Kristen Sarah Anne Cross, who drowned in Dalhousie Lake last week, stood out on the obituary page in Monday's Ottawa Citizen for a few reasons: She was young and pretty, as a picture accompanying the obit illustrated, and its wording betrayed the raw pain her family is feeling. The words were moving, even more so because the death - like so many other drownings this summer - was preventable.
" ... our dearest darling 'Kissy Face' has drowned after falling off the back of a personal watercraft driven by an acquaintance," it read. "The young man did have the owners' permission however did so without boat safety credentials nor any water safety awareness. Although Kristen was a strong swimmer she did succumb to the 'choppy' waters of Dalhousie Lake as her driver was unable to save her. Neither were wearing life preservers and the driver couldn't swim."
The obituary ends with this: "It would be a real honour to Kristen if you would teach your children how to swim."
It is likely the report from the province's chief coroner, who is investigating recent drowning deaths in the province, will second that sentiment. Children in a province - and a country - so rich with lakes and rivers need to know how to swim. Communities and schools should work at making sure no one falls through the cracks, either for cultural or socioeconomic reasons.
But even those who know how to swim can drown, as this sad story underlines. Life jackets, personal flotation devices, whatever you call them, save lives and should be worn.
When it comes to tyrants, the line between scary and funny can be thin. Sometimes a dictator will be such an over-the-top buffoon that our first reaction in the West is to laugh at him. In the early days, Hitler himself was such a theatrical, hyperventilating clown that a lot of people didn't take him seriously. Charlie Chaplin even parodied the Nazi leader, to great effect. Of course, history proved Hitler to be a demonic figure, not a comic one. We must be careful not to be lulled into complacency by the farcical elements of madness.
Sometimes I myself am tempted to think that maybe Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is such a fool that, ultimately, he's got to be harmless. The story today out of Iran could almost be the basis of a fun Saturday Night Live sketch — Ahmadinejad revealing a clunky new flying drone and calling it "an ambassador of death." This is the same man who, to loud guffaws, once told an audience in New York that there are no homosexuals in Iran and who once wrote a weird, rambling quasi-fan letter to Barack Obama.
Should we be amused or terrified, not just by Ahmadinejad but by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and one or two other paranoid eccentrics who happen to have the resources of a state at their disposal? Iraq's Saddam Hussein was one of the biggest tyrant buffoons in recent memory, what with his "mother of all battles" rhetoric and his appointment of men like the famous "Comical Ali" to be his official spokesmen. And it's true that Saddam was bluffing all along — he never had the weapons of mass destruction that everyone, including his own generals, thought he had. Yet Saddam was still capable of terrible depravity, as the Iraqi people know.
My own view is that we shouldn't let the comedy distract us from the very real strategic and security threat that unstable, illiberal countries represent. We don't want to die laughing.
This weekend I "watched" the Green party convention on Twitter, thanks to the very fast thumbs and faster brains of Laura Payton (@laura_payton) and Andrew Potter (@pottergold). It was funny, in a depressing kind of way, to see what happened in the political Twitterverse when they reported that the Greens were considering a motion in favour of decriminalizing polygamy. (The motion ultimately did not pass, and the Greens admitted that it might expose them to "ridicule".)
Hoots of derision came from all corners. Here's just one typical example Tweet, from Lisa MacLeod, my MPP (@MacLeodLisa):
*
You've got to be kidding me!!!! RT @: Greens may push to decriminalize
*
That's a lot of exclamation marks. But as Nick Taylor-Vaisey (@nonstopnicktv) pointed out in a very thoughtful blog post, the idea is hardly crazy. In fact, the Supreme Court might very well come to that very decision soon.
I would ask all those people making fun of the Greens the question I have posed in at least two columns over the years: Why exactly should it be illegal to have a sexual relationship with more than one consenting person at the same time? How does polyamory (because that's what the law really criminalizes) violate the harm principle, or any other principle upon which we base laws in a free society?
And if everyone is so convinced that our current law shouldn't be tampered with, maybe they could point out to me just one case in living memory in which that law has actually worked to prevent the harm done by non-consensual polygamous relationships. Anyone?
My columns on this are no longer findable through a Google search. I wrote one headlined "Polygamy ban offends women" in 2005 (2005! And this is still considered a fringe issue!) Here are a few paragraphs from that column:
*
Women's rights should not be used to defend a strange, offensive and unenforceable polygamy law.
Canada's Criminal Code makes it illegal for a person to treat more than one other person as a spouse, even if they don't seek the official sanction of marriage, and even if they don't have sex.
The Criminal Code makes it an indictable offence to practise or enter into or agree to "any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage ..." (Italics added.)
No proof of the method by which the relationship was entered into is necessary, "nor is it necessary on the trial to prove that the persons who are alleged to have entered into the relationship had or intended to have sexual intercourse." This law goes beyond denying civil marriage to polygamists. Thus, the problem of the polygamy law is not analogous to the question of same-sex marriage. It is analogous to the criminalization of homosexuality.
...
But just because (a few) women are affected (even negatively) by polygamy, doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to choose it. Canadian women should be offended that they are assumed to need protection from their own choices.
There are already laws setting ages for marriage and sexual consent; there are also laws against child abuse and neglect. If those laws contain loopholes polygamists can squeeze through, those loopholes should be closed. If any polygamist is abusing or imprisoning women or girls, the state should prosecute, whether or not there is a polygamy law.
But if the women involved are over the age of consent and are not being forced, they should be able to set up house with whomever they choose.
Unless the state decides to hand out licences for polygamous unions, it should, of course, be illegal to fraudulently seek civil marriages with more than one person -- especially if they don't know about each other. And without state recognition, polygamous partners should not necessarily be able to file as spouses on their tax returns, or even get family discounts at theme parks.
But why should it be illegal to have a menage-a-trois, even an extended one?
Polygamy does present challenges regarding property and care of children. Those are reasons to study and regulate, not to criminalize.
The real shame is the limbo that children of polygamy are born into, since the state is neither prosecuting their parents nor recognizing their families.
*
I also wrote about this in 2009, under the headline "Criminalizing a menage a trois." Here is part of that column:
*
Despite the lack of a requirement to prove sexual intentions, it's hard to see how this law is about anything but sex. If this law were consistently applied, it would probably be illegal to live in a free-love commune, or to be a married man who sets up his mistress with an apartment. It is a law rooted in the notion that certain kinds of sexual behaviour should be against the law -- even between consenting adults.
That's exactly the ideology that Canada divested itself of 40 years ago.
Defenders of the current polygamy law say the women of Bountiful can't give free, informed consent, because they are, in effect, members of a cult. If that's the case, society's objection is to the brainwashing, manipulation and abuse, not to the plurality of the relationships.
It's possible that polygamy is inherently tantamount to slavery or abuse, but I don't think so. Are all kept mistresses slaves or even victims? Not likely. If the women of Bountiful are near-slaves, it's because the whole structure of their society and religion makes them so.
Imagine that a Bountiful patriarch decides to take a 16-year-old wife. Her parents force her to marry him. Even if the patriarch does not yet have any other wives, the marriage would be wrong. But Canada's polygamy law would have nothing to say about it.
Canada does have other laws that might apply in polygamous communities -- the one forbidding sexual relations between teenagers and adults in positions of authority, for example. Those laws should be vigorously applied in places like Bountiful. And if there are other crimes associated with polygamy that are not addressed in the Criminal Code, Canada's Parliament should change that.
The current law, because it is concerned only with sexual conduct, is vulnerable to attack on the basis of freedom of religion. Laws that actually pertain to the harm associated with polygamy -- laws about sexual assault, fraud, forced marriage -- are not, because Canada's constitutional tradition recognizes that religious belief does not excuse the inflicting of harm.
Interestingly, several U.S. states are currently prosecuting Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. (Mr. Blackmore used to be a bishop of that church.) Mr. Jeffs has already been convicted of being an accomplice to rape and is now in prison. It is possible to go after these guys without resorting to flimsy, unprincipled and antiquated laws.
To me, this is what we might call, using shorthand, a "Khadr issue". I couldn't care less about Omar Khadr personally, but believe important issues of principle and law are at issue in his case. Similarly, I don't much care about the sex lives of polygamists. But I do care when my country's laws are irrational and ineffective.
The sport of Mixed Martial Arts has become a civic election issue. Well, I suppose Ultimate Fighting is more interesting, though not necessarily more important, than sewers and taxes, so I'm ok with mayoral candidates debating the merits of heavily muscled guys beating on one another in a caged ring.
But opponents of MMA are wrong to say that the sport is more violent or more dangerous than boxing. I know a little about MMA, having once attended a live event as a reporter. My view is that MMA is far, far less dangerous than boxing. In boxing, the sole objective is to hit the other guy in the head, with the intent of knocking him unconscious. Boxing is entirely about trying to damage the opponent's brain. You can't really win any other way. And you can't quit. You simply keep punching until either the bell rings or someone is hurt.
With MMA, however, the principal objective is not to damage the other guy's brain. Yes, there is hitting, but so far as I can tell, the best fighters are masters of "submission" — that is, wrestling and jiu-jutsu holds. Many fights end safely, when one of the contestants "taps out" (he is caught in a hold and can't free himself, so he taps three times to surrender). The availability of techniques other than punching to the head, and the tradition of tapping out, make MMA a lot more humane.
Would I want my son to aspire to be a MMA fighter? Of course not. Physical fighting, even controlled fighting by elite athletes, is in some measure uncivilized. But on the scale of barbarism, MMA is less offensive than boxing, not to mention hockey brawls.
Newsweek magazine has put together the kind of list, in its latest edition, that Canadians love to agonize over. It ranks the best countries in the world by measuring education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment. "If you were born today, which country would provide you the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous and upwardly mobile life?" the magazine asks.
And the answer? Finland. Having never travelled there, my knowledge of Finland consists largely of a television program that focused on their high suicide rates, long, dark winters and incongruous love of the tango. They are also a large exporter of exchange students, I happen to know.
But Finland has many qualities that make it the most livable place in the world, according to the elaborate rating system compiled by Newsweek. Notable is its world-beating education system, its health-care system and competitive business climate. The fact that it is small also seems to work in its favour.
There are things to learn from any ranking system — in this case, northern European countries all score well. But the good news for Canadians is that we are no far behind on the ranking — 7th out of 100 countries. Among the factors that make Canada desirable, according to the ranking, are the very institutions people often fear are under attack and not as good as they used to be — especially health and education. It's worth a look at www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html
The sharp-eyed among you might have noticed my byline in the Books section last weekend over this story about the return of CAN-CON, an Ottawa science fiction convention.
The schedule for the convention is now online.
With MPP Bob Chiarelli elevated to the new cabinet position of Infrastructure Minister today, and former Liberal cabinet minister Jim Watson holding a commanding lead in the Ottawa mayoral race, it would be nice to find out soon what their intentions are for the city's on-again-off-again light rail transit plan. Is there a grand scheme here by Dalton McGuinty to manoeuvre the pieces into place to get something done in his home town on an important file? And what are the chances they'll go ahead with Larry O'Brien's tunnel-centred plan? My guess is the tunnel project is dead.
No doubt former mayor Bob was quite attached to the north-south light rail plan, "the Chiarelli plan," that O'Brien's council killed. Now he holds the chequebook, which doubtless pleases him to no end.
We citizens would like to find out if electing Jim Watson means we're back to square one on light rail. I'm sure Watson would prefer to be vague on the issue until he's safely in the mayor's chair, but I have little doubt he knows exactly what he wants to do now. Let's hear it.
Today's column argues that digital diplomacy — using the Internet and particularly social media to consult the public and shift opinion — is now essential to any country's foreign policy, that it has to be done well, and that Canada, once a pioneer in this field, is in danger of being left behind.
Here are some links for further reading:
I refer to an article in The New York Times Magazine (about Jared Cohen and Alec Ross, the State department whippersnappers who are digital-diplomacy evangelists and Twitter stars (as @JaredCohen and @AlecJRoss) and another in Foreign Policy, which refers to yet another in Foreign Affairs which cautions against a new digital imperialism.
Daryl Copeland, who has written extensively about Canada, public diplomacy and technology, has a website. So does Evan Potter, author of Branding Canada, which was useful background research for the column.
Shauna Sylvester, quoted in the column, was the director of the Canada's World project
Connect2Canada.com, the portal aimed at Canadians and those who love them in the United States, which I laud in the column as a good example of an interactive government website. On Twitter as @connect2canada
VG20 Net, the government's G20 2010 portal (warning: this is a rich site and a crash risk if you're working with less than cutting edge personal computing technology)
Online Odyssey: the blog of Canadian public servant and web enthusiast Martha McLean, who's also on Twitter as @mjmclean
iDiplomacy: a blog dedicated to "evolving role of media and entertainment in public diplomacy due to new technologies, social networks and the democratization of communications". Currently on hiatus but there's good stuff there and they're active on Twitter as @idiplomacy
The United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office Digital Diplomacy Communication Directorate (which is a lot cooler and more accessible than it sounds)
There's still a lot of confusion in the reporting of the negotiations between India and Research in Motion over access to information sent on BlackBerrys. I find this LA Times story alarming, because it suggests the deal that's in the works is basically a capitulation to the demands of the Indian government.
BlackBerry's Canadian parent company reportedly agreed to copy Indian security agencies on client e-mails and short messages, local news reports said Tuesday, citing government sources. The agencies initially must make a specific request but after November reportedly will receive automatic data feeds. Many of the technical details are still being hammered out.
What we're talking about here, as I understand it, is not the government asking to see records from a particular BlackBerry user based on a reasonable suspicion of terrorist or criminal activity. No, they're asking for "automatic data feeds" -- in other words, the ability to monitor all communications, to datamine, to know exactly who's talking to whom and what they're talking about.
Hmm.
When I wrote my column last week about the support moms need to breastfeed, I didn't have room to get into the financial aspect. But as some online commenters have pointed out, it's a shame that the very useful services of lactation consultants are not covered by OHIP. (The consultants who work for Birthcare in Ottawa, though, do heroic work for very little money: their drop-in clinics cost $30 for the first visit and $15 thereafter, which is well worth it and costs a lot less than formula does. In-home visits are pricier; I paid for one in the early days because I was still recovering and unable to leave the house. Most moms will probably only need one or two visits to the drop-in; I was there about eight times.)
The posters you see extolling the very real virtues of breastfeeding often include something along the lines of "And it's free!"
Well, yes, technically speaking, but I bet there are very few moms who don't shell out for a decent nursing bra or two, and for some of us, the cost becomes much more significant. A friend told me once that there seemed to be a common factor in the lives of most of the women she knew who'd kept breastfeeding for longer than a few months: they had a very good electric pump. A pump is absolutely not necessary for all women, but if you run into problems with supply early on (as I did) or if you return to work before weaning (as I did), a good pump is next to essential. The good ones are not cheap: $200 to $300.
What with the pump, and the bras, and about a week's worth of nursing tops, the lactation consultants, the ointments and compresses etc., cushions, etc, I've probably spent close to $1,000 on breastfeeding. Some of these costs were discretionary, sure, but they all made the experience a lot more comfortable. And because I returned to work at six months, I needed to buy bottles for my expressed milk anyway, just as a formula-feeding mom would.
The cost was totally worth it, but "breastfeeding is free" is not true for every mom. Something else to consider as health-care professionals try to help moms — especially young, working and low-income moms — get over the obstacles that breastfeeding sometimes presents.
There are many facets to Canadian identity, but one of the most important is surely our celebration of the land — of the physical geography of this nation.
I just returned from a few nights in Algonquin Park, and marvelled in the Canadian-ness of it all. It was particularly special because our group included a family that lives in Europe. Canoeing on a lake covered in morning mist; hiking in forest so dense that the sun barely gets through; spotting beaver dams and avoiding black bears — there really is no better introduction to the Canadian experience.
Unfortunately, it's hard to talk about the Canadian wilderness without descending into kitsch or sentimentality. The "fake lake" that was on display at the recent G20 meeting in Toronto didn't help much.
But there was a time when Canadian forests and lakes carried no irony, and the land really defined us as much as hockey and peacekeeping. What's remarkable about the famous works of Tom Thomson, many of them painted in Algonquin Park, is their unashamed sincerity.
James Joyce said that his job, as an artist, was to take "the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience" of the Irish nation. Tom Thomson and his colleagues in the Group of Seven did something similar for the Canadian nation.
It's worthwhile, on occasion, to escape the city and remind ourselves the source of their inspiration.
Today's column is about the painful but rewarding journey I've been on for the last six months and what it took to get to where I am today: nursing a healthy six-month-old boy. There's a lot of help available for nursing moms, but it's not always well-coordinated and not all women get the same level of help from their doctors. Although almost all Ottawa moms start out intending to follow Health Canada's advice to breastfeed exclusively for six months, fewer than half make it that long.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on a rant this week against what he called the "professional left" for its criticism of Barack Obama. As part of his diatribe he raised Canda's health-care system, saying "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon."
Canadian health care has become a favourite bogeyman for people from all ove rthe spctrum in the U.S. But why?
The health-care system in this country may not be perfect, but it is a five-star hotel compared to the U.S.'s budget motel system — make that a budget motel with a hefty price tag. Americans spend more per person than any country in the world on health care — nearly twice as much per person as in Canada, according to 2006 figures. And what do they get for that? A lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates than in Canada and most of the developed world. Poor women in the U.S. regularly get no pre-natal health-care and visit the emrgency room when it comes time to give birth. In Canada, universal health care means it is uncommon for pregnant women to go without prenatal care, something that is considered a predicter of future health and success of children as they grow.
The U.S. also offers some of the best health care in the world — although there are growing concerns that overtesting is making people sick. Those who can afford it can get luxurious health care. But, as an overall system that serves an entire population, there is no comparison between what U.S. citizens get and Canadian health care. So what makes it so scary?
I can't stop chuckling over Ezra Levant's column depicting a "chorus of left-wing journalists" writing about Khadr's treatment at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay — coinciding as it did with this editorial written by those raving pinkos at the National Post.
More seriously, it bugs me when right-wingers cede important territory to the left like this. Since when are lefties the only ones allowed to care about the rule of law?
As Chris Selley pointed out,
there are great numbers of Canadians who haven’t lost a moment’s sleep about Mr. Khadr himself, but worry nonetheless about the obligations to him that Canada is willfully ignoring.
I got so sick of emails accusing me of being personally smitten with Omar Khadr that I wrote this column headlined "Why I care about Omar Khadr" in March 2009. I still get those emails, though. As far as I know, none of them come from Ezra Levant.
Cranky conservative Lorne Gunter in today's Post makes a strong argument for congestion fees, an idea mostly associated with former London mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone.
Gunter cites a recent report by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which recommends "accurate transport pricing" as a way to reduce traffic, get people on the bus, cut greenhouse gas emissions and fund infrastructure. As Gunter says, most Canadian cities aren't facing the kind of traffic crisis that would make a congestion charge politically feasible, but it is a simple policy mechanism that could derive many benefits if properly applied.
I like the idea of putting a cost on the social burden created by automobile traffic, which includes lost time and productivity, wear and tear on roads and bridges, and pollution. We already do this to some extent with gas taxes, but a direct toll on downtown traffic could also adjust driving behaviour in beneficial ways. For fans of things that are revenue neutral, we could offset the cost with a cut in property taxes for those who live outside the core, although that would be somewhat counterproductive.
Ottawa's traffic is nothing by the standards of most major cities, but the city is growing, and even we could benefit from having fewer cars in the core at peak hours.