Society and Culture Post Excerpts
Death at Greenway (Nov. 11/24)
Death at Greenway (2021) by Lori Rader-Day is a murder mystery set at the time Agatha Christie was writing her murder mysteries. It’s also set in a house she owned in south Devon. Fiction with facts in it. So if you know Agatha Christie’s books, you’ll like it. But you don’t even need to have heard of her to enjoy the story…
D-Day in 1944 NQ (June 6/24)
Throughout World War II, W. J. Browne wrote a Review of the War in the Newfoundland Quarterly. Here’s his D-Day section in the June 1944 issue…
What Trump said (May 5/24)
It’s easy to forget things. But some things shouldn’t be forgotten. So in case you’ve not been following Donald Trump news, and you’re looking back at his time as president and saying oh it wasn’t that bad, here’s what he’s saying now. A selection from a quick daily google search for “what Trump said today.” The dates from April 1st to May 5th – April Fool’s Day to Cinco de Mayo – seemed just right…
Coronation 1937 (May 6/23)
My mother kept some newspaper clippings about the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. They’re in what I think is her first scrapbook…
The Wolves of Winter (Apr. 10/23)
A novel by Tyrell Johnson, 2018 Simon & Schuster. This is a story of the ‘after times’ – after the world as we know it has been laid waste by war and pestilence. Nuclear wars and an influenza pandemic. People, especially in the United States, have gone mad. Survivors are trying to keep on surviving in a post-apocalyptic new world….
Meghan and Harry (Jan. 28/23)
(Guest book review by Jim Stewart) It’s hard to believe that Meghan and Harry: The real story by Lady Colin Campbell came out in 2020. It is remarkably prescient.
Anyone interested in British history and the British monarchy will find this book insightful. I would also include those interested in Hollywood, celebrity and popular culture, the effect of media and social media, the philosophy and mindset of the aristocracy, and the subtle differences between American and British cultures…
Vietnam Vets (Nov. 11/22)
Canada was part of America’s Vietnam War. Not officially, but in providing men for it and harbouring them from it. Anyone alive in the 1970s probably has had their life affected in some way by that contentious and long-lasting war. But on November 11th in Canada, we rarely think of them – the living or the dead…
Elizabeth, 1951 Canada (Sept. 12/22)
A page from my mother’s scrapbook. For five weeks in the fall of 1951 Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip toured Canada. It was her first trip here. My mother kept all the clippings she could find – and there were many…
Summertime (Aug. 14/22)
If you’d asked me two weeks ago who wrote the song Summertime, I’d have said the Gershwins. Music by George, lyrics by Ira. And I’d have been wrong. Well, half wrong.
I noticed the credits in my music book. Music George Gershwin. Lyrics DuBose Heyward. Who’s he? Google led me to storytelling, music and South Carolina…
Prescription Points (Jul. 13/22)
As of today, we won’t get a small rebate on prescription drug costs in New Brunswick. The NB College of Pharmacists, in their wisdom, decided it was “unethical” to give loyalty card points for prescription expenditures…
Library Books (Mar. 1/22)
In January, when stricter Covid-19 rules resumed, the Sussex Library was open only for pickup of books ordered online. We had not realized this. So when my husband went there to get books for me, a librarian told him he couldn’t go in. Oh, ok, he said and turned to walk away.
“What does she like?” the librarian asked. “Mysteries,” he said. And she picked out some books for me. Here they are…
Dr. Elliott Leyton (Feb. 15/22)
Dr. Elliott Leyton, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, died in St. John’s on February 14, 2022 at the age of 82. He leaves a huge hole in the heart.
His courses at MUN were not required for graduate students, but I sat in on one of his War and Aggression classes. A huge lecture theatre – filled – and a mesmerizing performance by him. I could see why it was one of the most popular courses at the university…
Queens and Consorts (Feb. 6/22)
Seventy years ago, in classrooms and public venues in the UK and Commonwealth, people sang God Save the Queen for the first time in 51 years. On February 6, 1952, Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. Queen Victoria had died on January 22, 1901…
Modern Pentathlon (July 20/21)
This Olympics, I’m watching the Modern Pentathlon. I heard of it a few months ago, in a novel that mentioned that Gen. George Patton had competed in it in the 1912 Olympics. What’s that, I asked Google. The answer was you want to watch! It’s fencing, show jumping, swimming, pistol shooting and cross-country running – all done in one day…
Molly Ann Gell (June 30/21)
In 1807 a Wolastoqiyik girl named Molly Ann Gell entered the Sussex Vale Indian Day School in Sussex Corner, New Brunswick. It was run by The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, an Anglican mission also known as the New England Company. Historian Leslie Upton told Molly Ann Gell’s story…
The Sussex Interview (Mar. 9/21)
Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan is on a par with the 1995 BBC interview with Lady Diana. It asked for compassion, and got it. And, like Diana’s, did it manipulate too? Oh yes.
So much in those two hours, but a couple of things niggled at me. Things that weren’t only in the murky realm of “they said”. Rather things that can held up and examined…
The Trump Goodbye (Jan. 19/21)
Every day there’s something on the television screen that you’ve never seen before. Something that you want to capture for your own historical record. The departure of Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, has produced many. More than any other president in the history of the country, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Trump…
General Jack and Warrior (Nov. 11/ 20)
Warrior was called “the horse the Germans couldn’t kill.” He was a war horse. The 15.2 hand Thoroughbred gelding was General Jack Seely’s charger. Gen. Seely was a British career soldier and MP. He was also the first commanding officer of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade…
In The Army Now (May 25/20)
Bill Stewart received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Minnesota on December 18, 1941 (See Pt. 2). That was 11 days after Pearl Harbor was bombed.
I went directly to induction into the military at Ft. Snelling MN. Military service was not completely strange to me because I had two years of ROTC in high school…
The Birthday Lunch (Jan. 30/20)
Maybe it’s because Sussex NB is now my hometown. Or maybe it’s because Joan Clark wrote an amazing book about family and place. Whatever, I read her 2015 The Birthday Lunch with only grudging stops for my own lunch…
English Channel 1944 (Nov. 11/19)
William Stewart, a US Army Air Force Captain in World War II, tells about his flight across the English Channel on December 15, 1944. Enemy planes were a risk, yes, but so too was the weather.
I was standing back of the pilot in a B17 stripped down bomber with about 17 pilots on board. I was flight operations officer for our squadron. We all were riding as passengers, flying over the English Channel and back to our base in England…
NB Regiment K.I.A. on D-Day (June 6/19)
The North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, part of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, landed at Juno Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. They landed at what was code-named Nan Red Beach, near Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer. Thirty-five were killed in action that day in Normandy, and two the next day…
Jump! (May 4/19)
I’ve wondered what real jockeys think about horse racing novels. Especially those where newcomers – human and horse – manage against all the odds to win THE BIG RACE. It’s a frequent, and beloved, theme. National Velvet, The Black Stallion…
So when I read the back cover of Jump! by Jilly Cooper, I was dubious. An older woman finds a horribly injured filly – and the rest is racing history. However, I absolutely love Jilly Cooper’s novels. Especially the Rutshire horsey ones. If anyone can do justice to the horse world with this premise, I thought, she can. And she does…
Rwanda 25 years ago (Apr. 7/19)
Lest we forget: 25 years ago a genocidal massacre in Rwanda started. Nearly a million killed in 100 days. Here is what it was like, a couple months later, at one killing site. A church and school in Zaza in south-east Rwanda…
A Great Reckoning (Mar. 23/19)
Usually I read an author’s acknowledgement page first, even if it’s at the back of the book. But when I started A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, for some reason I didn’t. And for that I am so thankful. Maybe it was Inspector Armand Gamache telling me – leave it, let the story tell its tale.
Ms Penny’s acknowledgements are heartfelt and heartbreaking. So too is her novel…
King’s Curse (Jan. 30/19)
The King’s Curse by Philippa Gregory is about Henry VIII. It was published in 2014. Despite knowing this, I kept checking the publication date because of passages like this:
Dear God, I’d never tell the truth to this king… He has become a man quite out of control of his teachers, of the priests, perhaps of himself. There is no point giving the king an honest opinion, he wants nothing but praise of himself. He cannot bear one word of criticism. He is merciless against those who speak against him…
Roger González (Nov. 27/18)
A poster of a young man in Tegucigalpa’s central square. Kidnapped April 19, 1988. It’s in a photograph I just happened to take when I was there one year later. Looking at it recently, I wondered who is he? Thanks to search engines and dedicated searchers for the disappeared in Honduras, I found him. Roger Gonzáles, 24 year old student. Still disappeared…
Honduran Contra Camps 1989 (Nov. 23/18)
“From 1 a.m. until almost daybreak, the slap-slap-slap of hands shaping corn meal into tortillas is the only sound heard in the camp in the jungle of the Yamales Valley in southern Honduras. This is the strategic command base camp of the Nicaraguan resistance army – the contras…
World War I Reunion 1987 (Nov. 11/18)
“With reverence, Bill Davis cracked the seal on a carefully preserved bottle of 51-year-old whisky Thursday and tipped out shots for himself and three old buddies. “This is it. There won’t be any more,” said Davis as he clinked glasses with Walter Allsop, Walter Day and George Parker… It was the 67th and final reunion of the 63rd Battery…”
York and Mountbatten Weddings (Oct. 11/18)
Tomorrow, October 12th, Princess Eugenie will marry. In May, her cousin Prince Harry married Meghan Markle. Both large, lavish and televised. But, in between, a distant Mountbatten cousin got married. That wedding was private but it caused a big ‘wow’…
West Virginia (Aug. 21/18)
In 1971 my parents and I drove through West Virginia on our way from Ontario to Kentucky. We’d never been there before and it was stunningly beautiful. So we took back roads and made lots of stops…
Princess Harry (May 16/18)
On Saturday, Meghan Markle will become Princess Harry. That is when she will marry Prince Henry of Wales, second son of the Prince of Wales and better known as Prince Harry. She probably won’t be called Princess Harry. Although it is the proper form for non-royal wives of princes, it has not been used often…
The Story of Seabiscuit (May 11/18)
The Story of Seabiscuit was released in 1949, only two years after the great racehorse died. It is the story of his life – sort of. His son Sea Sovereign portrays him. Shirley Temple co-stars. The former child star was a young woman by then, and The Story of Seabiscuit was the second to last movie she ever made. (You might wonder if it’s why.)…
Ford Ontario (Mar. 11/18)
The Ontario Progressive Conservative party yesterday chose Doug Ford as its leader. That’s Doug, brother and advisor to the late Rob Ford who has to have been the weirdest mayor of Toronto ever. And that’s saying a lot. There have been some dillies. But Rob was the biggest dilly of them all…
One Trump Year (Jan. 19/18)
One Trump year is like one dog year – very long! Tomorrow, January 20th, is the first anniversary of his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States. A lot has happened, both silly and serious…
So here’s a summary of just one aspect of the past Trump year, the effect of his administration on the environment…
Halifax Explosion (Dec. 6/17)
Halifax Harbour, December 6 1917, two ships collide. An explosion, followed by a tsunami and a fire that burns much of the city. The next day, a major snowstorm.
A rare photograph of the actual explosion. The photographer is unknown. But other photos of the explosion turned up a few years ago. Royal Navy Lt. Victor Magnus was in Halifax. His daughter, Ann Foreman of Cornwall, UK, found his photographs of the explosion long after his death…
Code Talkers (Nov. 30/17)
In the early part of World War II, the enemy was breaking every military code that was being used in the Pacific. This created a huge problem for strategizing against the enemy. Eventually a suggestion was made in early 1942 to use the Navajo language as a code…
Passchendaele (Nov. 11/17)
The Battle of Passchendaele ended 100 years ago today. It is also called the Third Battle of Ypres and the “Muddy-est, Bloody-est of the whole war”. The latter is what Alberta infantryman Arthur Turner called it in his diary…
Ikea Chair (Oct. 12/17)
In honour of Ikea opening a store in Dartmouth NS, The Manatee published an article about a couple divorcing after a trip to the new Ikea. Very funny – the story and Facebook comments. The Manatee is a satirical magazine, so of course this article wasn’t actually true. But the Facebook stories about Ikea assembly were. One person thought maybe they should point out, hey, this story isn’t real, you know. Clearly someone who has never assembled an Ikea product. Keep your innocence, my dear, stay away from the store…
Diana 1961-1997 (Aug. 31/17)
Twenty years ago today Diana, Princess of Wales died at the age of 36. She was the daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer and 15 times great-granddaughter of King Henry VII. She was the ex-wife of Prince Charles, also 15x-great-grandchild of Henry VII…
David Duke and Donald Trump (Aug. 14/17)
David Duke said “we’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” during the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville VA on Saturday. David Duke, former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, using the president’s name as justification – that’s ballsy, I thought…
Canadian Songs (June 30/17)
So, for Canada Day, I looked for Canadian songs that evoke a sense of place, of history. Those songs that everybody knows a few lines of, to sing at public events and maybe around campfires. The nation’s songbook, I suppose…
Un-American Affairs (Mar. 3/17)
From More in Anger (1958), a collection of essays by American social critic and satirist Marya Mannes. From 1904 to 1990, her life spanned most of the 20th century.
A fictional life-story of a man who, Mannes says, “drew strength” from the “poisoned climate of McCarthy”. Just change a few words and, maybe, plus ça change?…
King George VI (Feb. 6/17)
Sixty-five years ago today, Great Britain’s King George VI died at the age of 56…
First Hundred Hours (Jan. 24/17)
In his first hundred hours – from midday Friday to this afternoon, President Donald Trump has been busy…
Four Strong Winds (Dec. 7/16)
I’ve been thinking about Ian Tyson lately. With the recent death of Leonard Cohen, the songs and the songwriters of Canada – and an era – have been heard a lot. One song that often sneaks into my head is Four Strong Winds, the most evocative and most Canadian of songs…
Royal Wedding Anniversary (Nov. 19/16)
Happy anniversary, Elizabeth and Philip. November 20th marks 69 years since their wedding. Four children, 8 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren. Three heirs apparent to the British throne – son, grandson, great-grandson…
Secret Path (Oct. 24/16)
Chanie Wenjack died October 23rd 1966. He was twelve. He and two other boys ran away from their residential school, taking a secret path north into the bush. They wanted to go home.
The other boys succeeded. They found their uncle’s cabin and stayed with him. But Chanie’s home was much farther away…
Trump Imagery (Sept. 30/16)
What is the appeal of The Donald as president? Trump imagery over Trump policy, I suspect. But why? Reading The Englishman’s Boy, I got a clue:
‘Last year Mussolini marched his Blackshirts on Rome and the government, the army folded. The government possessed all the material force necessary to prevail, and yet they gave way to a few thousand men with pistols in their pockets. Why? Because Mussolini orchestrated a stream of images more potent than artillery’…
Pen Name Mysteries (Aug. 23/16)
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith and Devoted in Death by J. D. Robb are pen name mysteries by famous authors I’ve never read. Robert Galbraith is J. K. Rawling of Harry Potter fame and J. D. Robb is the romance writer Nora Roberts. Both books, I think, are excellent.
The Cuckoo’s Calling introduces Cormoran Strike, private investigator. He has had a recent run of bad luck in business and love. Then he gets a new case. It promises to pay well, but seems to him to be more a matter of reassuring his client than of investigating a murder…
Olympic Games of Chance (Aug. 3/16)
Two days to the Rio Olympics opening ceremonies, and the games of chance are still being played. The Zika virus, polluted water venues, and a bacterial risk to horses.
Glanders is a contagious fatal equine respiratory disease. Humans can contract it too. In the past few years, hundreds of Brazilian horses have been killed to stop its spread… You’d expect a story like this would get a lot of coverage. It didn’t. There’s been too many other things going wrong in Brazil….
Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hamel (June 29/16)
Below is a list of the Newfoundland Regiment soldiers killed at Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916. There are many more; those killed in the lead-up to the battle, those who died of their wounds, casualties in other regiments that also went over the top. A list that included all those would be massive. Far shorter would be the list of those who survived.
801 men of the Newfoundland Regiment went into the battle. Figures vary, but about 255 were killed in action, 386 were wounded and 91 were missing. Only 68 were able to answer roll call the next day. About an 80% casualty rate…
I’ll Have Another (May 4/16)
This was first posted on my St. Thomas Dog Blog, May 10, 2012. This Saturday, May 7th, it’s Derby Day again. It’s the first anniversary of the beginning of American Pharoah’s successful run for the Triple Crown. It’s also the 10th anniversary of Barbaro’s Kentucky Derby win.
The 1st Saturday in May, this is the mug I pour my first cup of coffee into. Last Saturday [2012] I’ll Have Another came from the middle of the pack and passed the frontrunner…
Queen Elizabeth II (Apr. 21/16)
Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 90th birthday today. My mother, two years older, grew up with the Queen. From her teen years to adulthood, Mom kept scrapbooks about the Queen’s life. Clippings carefully pasted in, over-filling the large pages. There was a lot of news about the Royals. Thanks to Mom, I have a pretty good record of their lives…
Titanic: No greater love (Apr. 14/16)
Among the bodies found after Titanic sank was that of a woman, clinging to the body of a Great Dane. Ann Elizabeth Isham had a seat in a lifeboat but was told her dog was too big to come with her. So she jumped back on board the ship. They drowned together. One of many stories of sacrifice aboard that ship that night…
US: The New Brunswick Option (Mar. 30/16)
For disenchanted Americans, I have an escape plan that keeps with historical tradition – New Brunswick. In case of a Trump win in the US presidential race, Cape Breton has announced its willingness to provide refuge for fleeing Americans. But New Brunswick is closer, and Americans who come here might even reunite with part of their family…
Earls of Grantham (Dec. 24/15)
Below is the lineage of the Earls of Grantham. The family name is Crawley, and their home is Downton Abbey in Yorkshire.
It is a fictional family in a television series I have never watched. I found family trees online, read summaries of the show and characters, and mapped out connections. Could I use only the internet to figure out a family history, I wondered. I think I did, and it made me want to get to know them better…
Dr. George Park 1925-2015 (Nov. 28/15)
Today, Dr. George Park died at the age of 90. He was a retired professor of Anthropology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was my thesis advisor and he and his late wife Alice were my “St. John’s parents.” Below is an excerpt from the introductory chapter of a manuscript that he was working on. It tells us something about his life and his way of thinking.
My US schooling between the two World Wars was an excellent preparation for university, but left one pretty much in the nineteenth century…
Your Blues (Nov. 18/15)
If you want to do some social research on the US of the latter half of the 20th century, read Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine
. It is a first novel by Bebe Moore Campbell, published in 1992. All the major socio-political movements from the 1950s to 1990s are here… It can be emotionally hard to read but it’s well worth it. At the beginning, you meet unhappy poor people in rural Mississippi in the 1950s. Right off the bat, you see that there is going to be violence and misery…
Newfoundland’s Gallipoli (Nov. 10/15)
“Ptes Stanley and George Abbott of the Newfoundland Regiment were my grandmother’s brothers. I remember that picture of them at her house. My Dad’s sister has it now. They made it through Gallipoli only to be struck down at Beaumont-Hamel.” (Mike Barrett, comment)
At Gallipoli, about 40 Newfoundland men died. The 1st Newfoundland Regiment landed September 20, 1915. The battle had been going on since April 25th. It lasted until January 9, 1916…
Nim the Chimp (Sept. 16/15)
Project Nim is a film by James Marsh about Nim Chimpsky, the chimp who was raised from infancy as a human in order to explore the learning of language in non-human primates. The film is based on the book by Elizabeth Hess, Nim Chimpsky: The chimp who would be human. CBC Radio’s Q interviewed Marsh about his film and Nim.
In an experiment started in 1973 by Columbia University psychologist Dr. Herbert S. Terrace, Nim grew up like a human child and learned American Sign Language…
Rodeo Kings (July 9/15)
From St. Thomas Dog Blog July 8, 2011. Sadly in this year’s Stampede, 2 horses died in chuckwagon race crashes.
William and Kate opened the Calgary Stampede and attended the parade. William even took part in a chuckwagon race. I’d been wondering what they’d do. Before their visit, there had been a huge furor about their endorsement-by-attendance at what some call an event about animal abuse…
Beaumont Hamel (July 1/15)
In Newfoundland and Labrador, July 1st is Memorial Day. It’s been that longer than it’s been Canada Day. Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. But July 1st has had special significance for 99 years, since 1916.
On July 1st 1916, 801 men of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment went over the top at Beaumont Hamel in France, part of the Battle of the Somme. Only 68 answered roll call July 2nd…
Royal Charlottes (June 12/15)
The first British royal Charlotte was George III’s queen. She is best known as the founder of London’s Kew Gardens and for perhaps having black ancestry. Born in Germany in 1744, fifteen generations back in her family tree is King Alfonso III of Portugal and his mistress Madragana of Faro in Algarve, described as a “Moor”…
VE Day 70th (May 8/15)
My mother was on Dundas Street East in London Ont. on VE Day. She said when the news spread, everyone ran into the street screaming, laughing, hugging anyone at hand. They stayed outside for hours, revelling in the knowledge that the war was over. Bluebirds were flying over the white cliffs of Dover, the boys were coming home…
Apples to Apples (Apr. 22/15)
TV writer David Shore was on CBC Radio’s q (formerly Q) today. He was introduced as creator of House and Battle Creek, writer on Due South and originally from London Ont.
He described Battle Creek as premised on male friendship. Then they discussed male friends or frenemies in House. House? Wilson’s friendship with Dr. House was a big part of the show, but not vital to it. Not like the relationship between the lead characters in Battle Creek – or Due South…
Lotto Red Chamber (Apr. 7/15)
Is the Senate a place for ‘sober second thought’ or what, in 1985, then-reporter Mike Duffy called “a task-less thanks” for political party helpers? Senator Mike Duffy is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. Investigations continue into other senators’ expense claims… Here’s my idea. Why not appoint senators by lottery?…
‘Trifles’ of Creature Comfort (Mar. 11/15)
A 1916 play Trifles was written by American journalist Susan Glaspell. It is a murder mystery based on a real event in Iowa at the turn of the century. A man is found strangled. The sheriff and a neighbour man search the house and outbuildings, can’t find anything. Their wives look around the areas that the men consider unimportant – the kitchen and sitting room where only women’s ‘trifles’ are kept…
World War I (Nov. 10/14)
It seemed like a good idea at the time: that’s the explanation I come up with for why World War I started. Virtually the entire world became embroiled in war due to one disorganized act of violence in Serbia against the Austro-Hungarian Empire…
Turcotte, the movie (Mar. 6/14)
If you live in or are from New Brunswick, if you’re Canadian, if you like horseracing, the NFB has a film for you: Secretariat’s Jockey: Ron Turcotte (2013). In 1973 Mr. Turcotte, already well known in racing circles, became famous world wide as the man who rode Secretariat…
She Loves You (Feb. 6/14)
Some things you will never ever forget. One, for me, is Ed Sullivan introducing “these youngsters from Liverpool.” Hands clenched on head, pulling at hair, “eek, aah, oohh”. In the living room with parents, sitting on the floor in front of the television, screaming…
War and Peaceniks (Jan. 28/14)
“Where have all the flowers gone, and the young men gone for soldiers every one.” Pete Seeger’s song. The death of that great warrior for peace made me think also about those for whom he became a teacher, the generation born during and soon after World War II.
Called “entitled” now, they are believed (often even by themselves) to have sold out…
Mom, Christmas Postie (Dec. 20/13)
In the early ’60s, my mother worked at London’s postal sorting station during the Christmas rush. It was for a few weeks when the volume of mail overwhelmed the sorting capacity of the regular staff. It was the only time my mother worked at a job where she had to clock in for regular hours. Standing up all day was tiring. The other women told her to bring egg cartons…
Ford Branding (Nov. 15/13)
Tobacco companies are probably heaving a huge sigh of relief. As far as we know, no cigarettes were smoked by Mayor Rob Ford. So they do not need to distance themselves and their brands from him. Unlike others…
Baby Prince George (July 24/13)
In the past three days, the royal baby has been born, brought home, had pictures posted on Facebook, and been named. A boy named HRH Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge.
For two days my television was tuned to the Royal Baby Channel – whichever one had “live coverage”. It’s been worth it…
The Queen’s Secret: Review (July 17/13)
Last week I saw a book called The Queen’s Secret
(1986) by Charles Templeton. Curious to see if it was by the late Canadian journalist of that name, 
I pulled it off the shelf. Yes, and even better, due to my being in a Royal mood with the expected arrival of HRH Baby, the plot hinges on the line of succession to the throne…
Chinua Achebe (Mar. 22/13)
Today, the great Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe died at the age of 82. If you have never read his books, this would be as good a time as any to do so. Things Fall Apart
, published in 1958, is wonderful in its telling of the history of Nigeria and British colonialism…
A Nation’s Songs (Jan. 23/13)
Whatever one might think of the US of A, they got good anthems. Watching Monday’s Presidential Inauguration, the high point for me was the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir giving it to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. What a song! What voices!
Wonderful as it is, the Battle Hymn of the Republic isn’t the only great song the Americans can sing at special events. And they all came out at the Inauguration…
HRH Baby (Jan. 16/13)
In December 2012 the line of Royal succession was changed in law to simply the firstborn of the heir. It had previously been the eldest son. If the first child was a girl, she was heir only if she never had a brother. That is easy enough to grasp. It’s a second change made by the Queen to titles that’s less well known...
Idle No More (Jan. 9/13)
Our ancestors wanted this land Canada so damned bad that they crossed the ocean, crossed the country in wagon trains, fought each other, fought the indigenous peoples, and cleared forest for pasture and crop land…
Newtown CT (Dec. 18/12)
When smoking was still permitted in restaurants, you’d sometimes see signs: “No pipes or cigars”. That was because the smoke from those is much stronger. To me, this is a way to look at gun access…
Newtown Kids & Dogs (Dec. 16/12)
A lot of dogs in Newtown, Connecticut will be working overtime in the solace department. There are children and adults who will need the love of their pets to help them cope after losing a sibling, a son or daughter, a mother or wife.
The pets will need comfort themselves. They too have lost a beloved member of their family. Roxie, a Black Labrador, is one…
Library Science (Dec. 12/12)
One day at the library, I was reshelving books that had been left out. There were a lot of them. Messy people, I thought, can’t even put back the books they take out to look at. Before too long fortunately, I noticed a sign: “Please do not reshelve books. Survey of book usage in progress.” Uh-oh. I quickly unshelved those I could remember reshelving. That day I acknowledged my inner librarian…
Mr. Otto Kelland (Nov. 28/12)
A while back, I was looking online for a family in response to a query. I found them. A note on their kinship chart said the wife was sister of Otto Kelland, maker of the model fishing boats displayed at the Fisheries College in St. John’s and composer of the song Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s. I sat back, stared at the screen and said “Wow!”…
Reading History (Nov. 21/12)
Well-written and well-researched historical fiction gives the reader a two-fer: a good story and a history lesson that you may have slept through during school.
Recently, I’ve been living in the Tudor and Plantagenet eras courtesy of Philippa Gregory. I started with the Boleyn sisters books…
Poppies (Nov. 7/12)
My dad had a whole collection of poppies. Mom kept the ones that we bought every year and pinned them on the top of a wallhanging in the dining room. Every November, Dad would just take one off the hanging and pin it to his jacket. When I commented that annual poppy sale money supported the Legion, he said “I was in the war, I don’t need to give my money every year to those old farts.”…
Stompin’ Tom Revisited (Sept. 12/12)
Thank you CBC Radio! Just when I think I’ll never hear anything that I haven’t heard at least once already in any given day or week, you give me a wonderful treat. Stompin’ Tom Connors – in his own words…
Olympic Eventing (Aug. 1/12)
Trying to watch the Olympics Equestrian Eventing of the past three days, I’ve performed in my own Eventing competition. It includes the Stair Dash, Pet Hurdles and Speed Remote Handling.
It’s due to television reception, or lack of. We now have satellite tv and I’m sure when the bugs get worked out, it will be fine. But that hasn’t happened in time for Olympics watching…
Spam (May 9th, 2012)
A lot of spam comes to blogs. That is why comments are screened: to keep the robot generated junk out. It’s held in a spam filter and must be gone through. Abundant and irritating, a few are worth the time wasted…
War of 1812 (May 2/12)
In 1814 we took a little trip – Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago…
A Local CBC Solution (Apr. 18/12)
Stick with what you do well and others can’t do – that’s my suggestion for CBC Radio. An example, from this past week’s Sunday Edition, the story of The Investigator, a 1954 CBC Radio play about the McCarthy Communist “witchhunts.” Two important points: one, the power of drama as social and political commentary and two, the power of a broadcast being heard across an entire nation at exactly the same time…
RCI The Link (Apr. 11/12)
There’s a CBC Radio secret that night people in Canada know about. Radio Canada International’s The Link, produced in Montreal, airs from 2 to 3 a.m. Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One. It is available in podcasts, but is not replayed in any other time slot, unlike all other programmes on CBC Radio these days…
Fanshawe Riot: Educating fools? (Mar. 20/12)
Last weekend, St. Paddy’s Day, London Ont. joined the ranks of cities of fools. Violent, vandalizing fools. Students at Fanshawe Community College in the city’s east end overturned cars and torched a CTV news van…
Dick Francis: A Racing Life – Review (Feb. 29/12)
I usually read the jacket information before starting a book. This time I didn’t. I’m glad because I know it didn’t skew my impressions of the book. The back cover of Graham Lord’s biography Dick Francis: A racing life calls it “warm, affectionate, yet sharp and perceptive.” The only word of that description with which I would agree is “sharp”…
Ocean Ranger 30 (Feb. 14/12)
Thirty years ago the Ocean Ranger drill rig sank off the coast of Newfoundland. The entire crew, 84 men, drowned. In the early hours of February 15th, in a bad winter storm, the rig began listing…
Francis Family Books (Jan. 25/12)
If you had the sad job of picking the topic of the last novel you would write, I don’t think you could choose better than Dick Francis did. Crossfire, co-written with son Felix and published in 2010 by Michael Joseph, is the final book in his long and illustrious career as a mystery novelist. He died in 2010 at the age of 89…
Drifting into Doom: Book Review (Jan. 18/12)
It was a dark and stormy night when I began reading Earl Pilgrim’s Drifting into Doom: Tragedy at Sea. Winter rain blew at the windows and tree branches hit the house. Reading about two men drifting in a dory during a January 1883 storm on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, I got chilled and thought “I knows how you feel!” Yeah, sure!…
Tourist Board TV (Jan. 11/12)
Last night I watched the first episode of Arctic Air, CBC’s new series set in Yellowknife and surrounding lands. Tonight Republic of Doyle, set in St. John’s, returns for its 3rd season. Major sponsors of both shows are their respective provincial tourism departments…
Musée Acadien PEI (Jan. 5/12)
If you have a drop of Acadien blood in your veins or if you just enjoy the distinctive sound of an Acadien fiddle, a place for you to go is the Musée Acadien in Miscouche, near Summerside.
A library full of binders of historical records, drawers of documents and compilations of genealogical research…
Attawapiskat ‘Solution’ (Dec. 28/11)
In a Sun Media op-ed column this week, Jerry Agar suggests a solution for the people of Attawapiskat, the embattled Northern Ontario reserve: leave it.
He points out that doing the same ineffective thing over and over again is, in general, a good definition of insanity… But his solution – go to where the opportunities are – has also been tried and doesn’t work that well…
Notre Dame du Mont Carmel, Ile St-Jean (Dec. 15/11)
The church and graveyard at Mont Carmel on the west coast of PEI. Here, the island feels like it should be called by its old name, Ile St-Jean, when it was part of Acadia. First seen at night, it’s scary and beautiful. The archway looming overhead in the twilight, the rows of headstones white and dark against the setting sun. ‘Oh My God’ isn’t blasphemous here…
Attawapiskat (Dec. 7/11)
Look at Google News today: “Send troops to help Attawapiskat.” For a month, we’ve read about the Band Chief declaring a state of emergency over the lack of housing, and Prime Minister Harper saying that millions of federal dollars have been spent in the northern Ontario Cree reserve… How much of that money was actually spent within the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Development?…
Me & Louis L’Amour (Oct. 28/11)
I stayed with my brother for a couple weeks once. I never thought of him as a reader, I was the “bookworm” in the family. In his living room was a lovely big bookshelf that he had made, filled with books. The largest single collection was Louis L’Amour paperback westerns. I was far too politically correct to ever have read a Louis L’Amour, but they were handy…
Prime Time (Oct. 19/11)
Last month, the new prime time tv programmes were rolled out. Many are good. They threw my life into chaos because I actually wanted to watch them.
Person of Interest, Prime Suspect and Pan Am are my new “can’t miss” tv. I’d seen ads for Person of Interest – wasn’t sure. Too many kinda spooky ‘person with special powers’ series in the past years…
Recorded Campaigning (Oct. 3/11)
This election I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. When the electioneering machine started cranking up, so did the recorded messages. You know, the taped messages that lazy and/or cheap telemarketers seem to like. Saves them paying real people in India or Moncton to annoy householders at dinnertime…
St. Thomas Ford Plant (Sept. 14/11)
In Grade 11, at St. Thomas’ Arthur Voaden Secondary School, I was the only girl, and only Art student, in an English class with Shop boys. I had read most of the assigned books already, in school or on my own. So the teacher said for me to just get my papers in and if I had any questions to come to him. Then he left me alone and concentrated on the boys. There was one boy he left alone too, one who really had a hard time in school. He could read a little bit and should have had remedial help. But he wasn’t worried. His dad worked at Ford…
The Public Library (Sept. 7/11)
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in the library. It was in an old house on Main Street in Belmont, right near our house. I read pretty much every book that was in there. Then they closed it. A bookmobile came to town instead. It was part of the Elgin County Public Library system. I liked it too…
Finding a new Dick Francis (Aug. 3/11)
In need of a book for bedtime reading, looking through bookshelves – and finding a Dick Francis mystery you haven’t read. That is true happiness. I love mystery novels. You get both a mystery and a glimpse into another world. With Francis, it’s many topics but always with some horse racing…
Rwanda (July 20/11)
Seventeen years ago, one hundred days of genocide ended in Rwanda. After the bloodshed stopped, the Canadian Armed Forces invited journalists to come to Rwanda to see what they were doing. I was lucky enough to go in September…
Oprah’s Last Show (May 25/11)
Today is the final Oprah Winfrey Show on regular network tv. I’m sorry to see her go. I can watch her on her own network, but I probably won’t. Oprah was the only talk show I’d sometimes turn on just to see what she was saying. I started watching because she came on after General Hospital…
Go Paperless! (May 18/11)
Utility companies, governments, banks – every agency that sends us bills or statements keeps telling us to make it easier for ourselves, save trees, go green, go paperless. Make it easier for whom, save which trees?…
Death of Soaps (May 11/11)
In April, ABC announced the cancellation of All My Children and One Life to Live. They will be replaced by a cooking show and a health and beauty show. Wow, we need more of those. Maybe they can get Dr. Gupta. We don’t see him on tv enough…
Hats off (or on) to the past few days! (May 3/11)
It’s been quite a four days – perhaps best summarized with The Hat. Everybody’s had a go at this new game. Friday was the birth of The Hat. Friday was a bank holiday in the UK so that everyone could watch The Royal Wedding. Millions of us elsewhere also watched. The Hat made its first appearance…
The Royal Wedding (Apr. 29/11)
I stayed up all night and watched the pre-pre-coverage, pre-coverage, main event, balcony scene and after coverage. I switched between CBC and CBC NewsNet, CNN, an entertainment news show and went online to BBC. Interestingly, my husband and I stuck with CNN for the actual wedding…
The Waitress Club (Apr. 13/11)
My very first job was waitressing. It was a street corner restaurant with booths and tables, bigger than a diner but not fancy. I had just arrived in a city new to me.
There were four or five waitresses working the day I started. They were all older than me, ranging from their 30s to 50s. I was 17. I tried but I was pretty useless. They were career waitresses…
Tilting at Windmills (Mar. 3/11)
My mother had trash compacting and recycling down to a science before the words were part of our lexicon. After she opened a can, she removed the label, rinsed it, then removed the other end of it. Then she put it on the floor and stomped it flat before putting it in the garbage…
This is to explain why I was amazed at her reaction when recycling blue boxes came to her town. The furor over windmills made me think of that…
The Oscars (Feb. 28/11)
The dresses, that’s the Oscars for me. The beautiful gowns and the ones that make you wonder ‘what possessed her?’ So anything that provides both oohs and aahs of admiration and WTFs of astonishment is worth watching.
But there’s a whole show wrapped around the dresses. This year’s show was one of the most disjointed that I’ve ever seen. The hosts – why?…
The King and Us (Feb. 16/11)
Wallis Simpson makes me think that there may well be a God, and that He is on “our” side. I cannot imagine what the world would look like had Edward VIII remained on the throne. And it’s thanks to Wallis Simpson that he didn’t…
Losing Sgt. Ryan (Jan. 18/11)
Tuesday morning, I turned on the tv to watch my tape of Coronation Street. On CBC, I saw the funeral procession for Sgt. Ryan Russell of the Toronto Police Force. For the next several hours, I watched the procession and the funeral. There were over 12000 police officers, firefighters, EMTs and soldiers…
Sarah Palin and Targets (Jan 8/11)
The first time I saw Sarah Palin on television, I was impressed… I might not agree with her political beliefs but I could respect her as a politician. That’s what I thought. It went downhill from there, pretty rapidly…
Days of our Lives and Chex Mix (Dec. 10/10)
Having fallen off on my American soap viewing, I didn’t know about the new product placement on soaps until I saw the spoof of it on the Colbert Report. I thought he had to be photoshopping the tape somehow to have Sammi extolling the virtues of Chex Mix…
Lifeboys: Reality television before “Reality Television” (Dec. 1/10)
In the spring of 1992, I heard an interview with Pat O’Rourke on CBC Radio’s As it Happens. It was about a new kind of television show that he was making, based on the real lives of real people. O’Rourke and his wife owned and ran the Shipperies, a long-established pub in Wavertree, a part of Liverpool in the north of England…
Pipelines through Paradise (Nov. 26/10)
This past October, there was a documentary by Karin Wells on CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition about a RAVE (Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition) to document and showcase the coastal British Columbia rainforest… Hartley Bay and the other aboriginal communities of the area asked photographers to come to the northwest coast to capture its essence…
People without sense to come in out of the rain (Nov. 23/10)
Last week in our community paper, the St. Thomas/Elgin Weekly News, there was an article about a good and caring citizen and chiropractor Dr. Denise Colledge. For the second year, she is collecting socks for children without any. According to her teacher friends, there are children coming to school in the dead of winter with shoes but without socks…
Remembering (Nov. 11/10)
I think of my father every Remembrance Day. He was a WWII veteran. In December of 1942 he went overseas, and returned home in October 1945. He was a mechanic in the RCEME, a Lance Corporal. He was not a willing soldier, he didn’t leap up to volunteer as soon as Britain, and Canada, declared war on Germany in 1939. 22 in that year, He was old enough, 22 in that year. But soldiering had not been a part of his family for many years. They were farmers and they, and the government, thought they could do the best for their country by feeding it…
Click Fatigue (Oct. 24/10)
Every day I gave .6 bowl of kibble to shelter animals and 10 pieces of kibble to other shelter dogs and 10 pieces to cats. I had 2 foster dogs and 2 foster cats that I fed, walked and patted every day. These were my virtual fosters and feedings. I clicked to help every cause I could…
Panhandling: Community or transaction? (Sept. 24/10)
This summer, I was driving and listening, I think, to Tapestry on CBC Radio. A man affiliated with a Cathedral somewhere was talking about panhandlers who sat near the church. His thesis was that they wanted your recognition as people, as members of our community, more than they wanted your spare change…
Intro to Anthropology, Popular Culture and Soaps
This picture is a postcard my mother bought, probably in the 1980s. The back reads: “Cherokee Indian Eagle Dance as performed in the outdoor drama, Unto These Hills, at Cherokee North Carolina. Presented in the Mountainside Theatre against the backdrop of the Great Smoky Mountains, Unto These Hills can be seen nightly except Mondays from late June to Labor Day each year. This drama portrays the history of the Cherokee Indians from 1540 up to and through their tragic removal to the west over the infamous ‘Trail of Tears.'” It was published by Asheville Post Card Co., Asheville NC.
I found it in a box of cards of my mother’s. I kept it, and later noticed she had penciled in my name on it. She bought it for me but I guess it got forgotten. I think it’s wonderful; it has history, culture, economics and societal adaptation in its image of public performance. It has, in short, the elements that make up our world, and the study of it – social and cultural anthropology. And it is represented as performance – popular culture.
Plays, television, books, news, ‘urban legends’ – all tell us our own stories. They reflect our reality at the same time as they shape it. Thinking about the effect popular culture has on us and our society can be as entertaining as the entertainment products themselves. My cat prefers wildlife shows. She likes outdoor vistas with bright colours and large animal shapes. That tells me something about cats’ vision. For her? She simply enjoys it.