I came across this site from 2003 where the BBC Radio 2 sponsored a contest to pick the UK's 200 best loved novels. Lots of familiar names on the Top 21 and I wonder if this contest was the origin of the “Canada Reads”-type events that have proliferated where one community/region/nation chooses a single book for everyone to read? (I could probably Google that but I'm too lazy.)
Recently rediscovered the album, “Flaming Pie”, one of my favourite McCartney solo efforts. This song is a number of keepers on the album and the video's great too.
Interesting Jason-specific trivia – the death of Linda McCartney in 1998 is probably still one of the saddest celebrity deaths I can recall. The fact that the McCartney's seemed to have an honest, true love in a world of celebrity marriages that seem less than sincere mixed with her very early death to breast cancer just killed me for some reason.
God, this blog's had a few sad/heart-wrenching/death and dying-type entries for my Music Mondays lately. So uhm, here's a preview of next week's Music Monday clip…
Anticipating the appearance of the Backyardigans this afternoon as Pace had a water-themed day – swimming lessons in the morning, “Under the Sea” Backyardigans show then watch a bit of “Finding Nemo” on TV when we get home….
I told this one on Facebook but I don't think I put it on the blog. A few nights ago Pace was throwing toys so I gave him a time-out in his room. Then we hear his little voice: “Mom – backpack!” Shea goes in to see what he means and gives him the backpack hanging on his door. “Mom – door!” He wants to go out the front door?!? Hmm, let's see where this is going. Shea follows him out and says: “Mom – bus stop!”
Yep, our two and a half has decided to run away for the first time (although in retrospect, we wondered if he wasn't really “running away” but made the leap from seeing the backpack in his room to the bus stop as a good way to get out of his time-out because he knows daddy takes a backpack to the bus stop each day.)
Pace calls my iPhone the “iMoan” – I thought only Apple fanboys called it that!
When Shea picked him up at daycare the other day and he was playing on a toy kitchen set, she asked him what he was making and he replied “Make supper!” (Ambitious kid!)
Of all the words that Pace could mis-pronounce to sound like swear words, I never thought it would be “pumpkin” that would have me racing around the corner ready to wash his mouth out with soap! (Use your imagination! )
Tonight, I was putting him to sleep and said “Good-night, Pace-man!” to which he replied, “Good-night, dad-man!”
2009 is apparently the 250th birthday of Robbie Burns, a fact I only discovered while searching for clips from one of my favourite Saskatchewan singer-songwriters, Eileen Laverty.
I'm way past Robbie Burns Day but I'll still post it here…such a beautiful song…three days in a row with content to bring a tear to your eye!
It's not something I spend a great deal of time thinking about but I do feel fortunate that I belong to a profession that's consistently ranked as one of the most valued in society (librarians and firefighters usually battle for the “most important public service” title when citizens in various cities are surveyed each year.) As a nurse, Shea also belongs to one of, if not the most trusted profession in society as well.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we all know the reputation that lawyers have. And politicians are one of the few groups who rank even lower in public opinion polls than lawyers, somewhere between morticians and used car salesmen (and what does that say about used car salesmen??? ).
This is the popular conception of those two professions but in my experience, lawyers (the good ones anyhow!) are frequently the ones you want to be working with when it counts. They are intelligent, rational and committed to principles of fairness and decency.
My first boss was trained as a lawyer and when I get to my “Five Things I Learned at the Sask Publishers Group” post, you'll see how valuable I found that perspective while learning a lot about the “real world” in my first job after completing my undergrad degree. In a variety of other spots in my life, it's always seemed to be the lawyers who have been the focal points of making things happen – whether it was the Chair of the Calgary Freedom to Read Week Committee, the head of the Alberta Civil Liberties Union or the driving force behind the G8 Amnesty International Observer Team in Kananaskis in 2002.
So it was with great pride that Shea and I were able to join a busload of enthusiastic Regina supporters today on a road trip to Moose Jaw for the NDP's nomination meeting that saw Regina barrister, Noah Evanchukchosen as the candidate for the Palliser riding in the next Federal election (whenever that may be – Jurist has lots of great posts covering developments on that front.)
Noah gave a captivating speech – at times personal, at times partisan, and at times profound. I won't go into a full analysis but I want to share one story that Noah told.
He spoke of working as a public defender for a young woman who was being charged with armed robbery. She had been forced into prostitution at a young age and had an altercation with a John who refused to pay her. During the course of this altercation, she was thrown from a moving vehicle and sustained a brain injury. Oh, and she wasn't just a young woman when this happened, she was literally just a girl. Twelve years old.
So now stop.
You read that paragraph and if you're like me, you're surfing around. You skim articles. You keep moving. So now stop. And go back and read that again. Slowly.
This young woman – an underage prostitute, abused by her John and permanently injured – is the PERSON BEING CHARGED WITH ARMED ROBBERY.
Worse, there are people in this country (including the majority of the members of the party that currently runs our country) who believe that this is right course of action. Unbelievable. But that is why we need people like Noah in Ottawa. Canada needs more people who run with country with compassion, cooperation and courage.
Cynics may call it emotional button pushing but when Noah went on to say that he had a follow-up visit with this client and she told him that he was the only person in her entire life who told her that she was a good person…well, I couldn't count the teary eyes in the room because I happened to have something in my eye as well!
