Most of us know too many couples who have lost a child. We all notice that their aura dims. Our minds refuse to think about what losing a child would be like.

At the 11^th hour, of the 11^th day, of the 11^th month, most of us pause to honour, remember, and grieve the deaths of the tens of thousands of soldiers who were mostly so young and so beautiful as to be thought of as children.

Certainly the photographs of the Canadians dying in Afghanistan look like children to the age groups that constitute the majority of Canadians.

At Christmas, 1915, an impromptu peace broke out on the World War I front lines. Stanley Weintraub’s book “Silent Night,” catalogues the events in great detail.

Thousands of soldiers, living in miserable conditions, far from their families at Christmas, shared their humanity across the lines for awhile.

John McCutcheon’s song, “Christmas in the Trenches,” captures the poignant spirit of it in a few verses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9coPzDx6tA

My grandfather, a veteran of the Boer war, and a Company Sergeant Major in the trenches of WW I, used to speak of it although I cannot trust my memory as to whether he participated or not.

Most historians now agree that WW I was not at all necessary and almost an accident. For four years after Christmas, 1915, some 6,000 soldiers were killed every day. There were never as many yards of ground gained as there were men killed.

Weintraub speculates on what might have happened if the peace had spread that Christmas and the war had ended. No one can know, of course. Not all of the consequences are ones we would welcome. One of his thoughts is that the U.S. might have annexed the Canadian West connecting to Alaska. Another is that France might have reclaimed Quebec. He said Canda was not as strong, united, and nationalistic before the bonding brought about by the war.

He muses about which political careers might never have bloomed without the war. He reminds us how many of the best and brightest young minds of Europe were mashed into the mud of the trenches.

We are used to hearing about how the world wars were a huge stimulus to science and technology. Weintraub speculates about the lost intelligence and leadership of the millions of dead. What might they have accomplished?

Millions of lives were pointlessly wasted in World War I.

To properly remember, respect, grieve for and honour our debt to them, I think we have to be scrupulously careful about putting our young soldiers in harm’s way.

In poker, business, and our personal affairs, it is difficult to decide not to throw good investment after bad.

The lives of our soldiers, the cream of their youth, are so much more than money.

And yet, in the unforgettable words of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD, “If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, in Flanders fields.”

If we cannot help create a more just society in Afghanistan, we owe it to our soldiers to get them out of there as soon as possible.

If we can gain peace and security for ourselves and the unfortunate people of that historically oppressed land, we owe it our dead to give some value to their loss.

The biggest problem, always, with such ventures is the comparison between our and their perception of what victory looks like. If victory means a gang of crime lords exploit and abuse the people instead of a particular group of religious fanatics, did we invest the blood of our youth wisely, with respect, value and support for our troops?

The problem, I think, is that we did not go to Afghanistan to bring democracy and justice to the land.

For years before the Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center towers, we heard horror stories about the cruel abuse of Afghani citizens, most especially women and girls, by the Taliban government. Russia had invaded in 1979 in support of a communistic government. State ownership, control, and women’s rights were among the elements of communism the tribes and Islamic sects opposed.

In fact, there are so many tribes and sects in the spottily settled country that finding common ideas to weld them into a real nation appears unlikely. By comparison, Quebec’s separatists and Alberta’s Wild Rose Alliance party members are beer-league rivals.

There is an old saying, usually attributed to Arabs that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

That may be the case in war, at least until that enemy is defeated, but then what? Is it not likely that one of your enemy’s enemies now becomes your enemy?

It can also work both ways. If drug lords refining heroin from poppies are the enemies of the Taliban, does that make them our friends? Will they not find some other enemy of ours as much or more to their liking?

Which Afghani sect or tribe does have a western view of democracy or women’s rights?

The first Gulf War, on George Herbert Walker Bush’s watch, was a success. The allies chased Saddam’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait, declared victory and went home.

Canada, in support of our neighbours, friends and family, the United States of America, went to Afghanistan to punish the Taliban government for harbouring Al Qaeda and its terrorist training bases.

If the NATO allies had hit the Al Qaeda bases and Taliban military bases and government centers hard and then gone home, subsequent governments, even Taliban governments, might have been careful not to provoke another round.

As it is, Afghanis have more examples of how our presence there has been accompanied by civilian death and suffering than they do from the Taliban years.

A common comment is that the Taliban were extreme but not corrupt.

It is also hard to impose a democratic government on a nation where no one has any strong attachment to the idea. In a land where the tribe and, or, the religion has been the government, the secular compromises of democracy look weak and heretical.

It even looks a little bit as though North American politics is getting more like that. The extremes are becoming more and more shrill.

I sincerely wish we could bring secular democracy to Afghanistan and the women and girls there could have the political, financial and sexual independence women of the western world are gaining. Sadly, I conclude that that wish can only be accomplished, if ever, by the people who live there.

My remembrance, gratitude, value and support for our troops this November 11 and my wish for this Christmas is that we, as quickly as possible, remove our beautiful young people from the ambushes of Afghanistan.

Think what they could accomplish alive. Think of their unborn children. Think of their parents. Think of Christmas, 1915.                    DAC

“Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” AJ Liebling

Newspapering has been my life. I grew up in a newspapering family. Newspapering has been my vocation, my hobby and my religion.

It saddens, sickens and offends me when newspapers violate the magnificent privilege we have in a democracy.

Newspapers all vigourously defend freedom of the press. Unfortunately, denying it to others proves the unfortunate truth of journalism giant AJ Liebling’s observation above.

This week Canwest’s “Calgary Sun” and Quebecor’s “Calgary Herald” demonstrated a casual and callous disregard for freedom of the press.

They refused an ad, critical of the Calgary Stampede, ordered by the Vancouver Humane Society. The Humane Society ad showed a cowboy wrestling a lassoed calf to the ground. A label pointing at the cowboy read “Bully.” Another, pointed at the calf, read “Baby.”

The only freedom of the press the man, or woman, who does not own one has is the right to buy an ad to express, unedited, opinions or facts. How can a newspaper owner demand, and expect, citizen support for his freedom of the press and so casually deny it to others?

Under the law, the press has no rights that are not the rights of every citizen. Journalists are certainly, routinely granted privileges. For example, there is usually a press bench in court so reporters can be assured of a place while the public stands in line. This is justified by a desire on the part of the courts to have proceedings reported accurately which is somewhat more likely when reporters can see and hear well. Professional sports teams provide free access to arenas and stadiums to reporters who provide the coverage crucial to their marketing.

These are, however, privileges and payments, not rights.

Freedom of the press, exactly like freedom of speech, is never absolute. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the US Supreme Court said that freedom of speech would not grant you the right to falsely shout “Fire” in a crowded theatre.”

You cannot damage a person’s reputation or livelihood by calling him a thief in public or in the press without liability. If you cannot prove he is a thief, he is entitled to compensation for damages.

Citizens can write letters to the editor, of course, to voice an opinion. The writer has not control over whether the letter is printed or how it is edited. The citizen’s only true freedom is in purchased advertising space.

In a just world then, shouldn’t your freedom of the press be just as important to a publisher as his own or the owner’s or the advertising manager’s or the editor’s?

How can a newspaper which does not treat your right or the Vancouver Humane Society’s right as an essential trust have any righteous expectation that the paper’s right should be respected?

Biodgrapher, Beatrice Hall, paraphrased Voltaire’s belief in freedom of speech as “I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Shame on the “Calgary Sun.” Shame on the “Calgary Herald.” You are both a disgrace to the free press and democracy.             DAC

Much to my astonishment, in 2002, the University of Kings College granted me an honourary doctorate and invited me to give the Encaenia address. Since then, scientific evidence continues to pile up to support the advice I gave them regarding their happiness.

Encaenia address -David Cadogan

University of King’s College-May 16, 2002

Bishop Hiltz, Chancellor Meighen, Presidents Starnes and Traves, honourary graduates, graduates, parents and guests:

First of all, here are a few tidbits of news I’ve gleaned since arriving here yesterday.

Those of you who have heard Doctor Neil Robertson’s voice will not be surprised to hear he is adding a new career singing for the public.

The hoods worn by the journalism graduates today are borrowed from Dalhousie University. Their own have mysteriously disappeared since last year.

As of today, with his favourite team out of the playoffs, Senator Trevor Eyton has transferred his hockey loyalties from the Ottawa Senators to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

So much for the news. Couldn’t help myself. It’s what I do.

My daughter Joanne was a 1983 graduate of the University of King’s College School of Journalism. Please excuse a bit of parental pride. I’m confident there’s a copious amount of it here today. She was selected Outstanding Female Graduate and Outstanding Journalism Graduate.

The first head of the journalism program was George Bain. George had another passion in life. He owned vineyards in France. He indoctrinated his students with an appreciation of fine, red wines. Joanne came home and indoctrinated her parents.

Talk about the benefits of higher learning!

Speaking of higher learning, in those days when I came to town and took Joanne out for dinner and entertainment, Minglewood and Moon would headline at the huge version of the Misty Moon. Joanne and I never suffered from a generation gap. Halifax never really went disco.

I’m in the newspaper business. My dad, George, was the best newsman I’ve ever known. My mother, Elda, is of Irish ancestry, and was a poet, playwrite short story writer and court reporter non pareil. Her one act play “Rise and Shine,” about a young man and a young woman who do sleep through judgment day has, I believe, been performed more often than any other Canadian play in history. Together they were in the newspaper business. My daughter is a newspaper editor. For three generations we’ve made our livings crying “Hey, everybody! Look at what I found out!”

Back in January I found out that Kings proposed to give me an honourary degree. In February, I was invited to speak to you today.

I was asked not to holler “Hey everybody. Look what I found out!” until May. That was tough!

Having been told there would be three other honourees, I was intensely curious to know who they were. When I found out, I was flabbergasted. I feel like an impostor in this group. “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things is not the same.”

The Honorable J. Trevor Eyton, O.C., Q.C., B.A., LL.B., LL.D, has a record of achievement and generosity I’ve been aware of for most of my adult life. He contributes to our world in every way. He creates wealth, donates money, serves his country and, most importantly, gives himself.

Christos K. Kritikos is a pioneer of shipping containerization. That may not immediately sound wildly exciting and exotic. It is, in fact, to world trade what the internet is to information. The principle is the same. Packets are created and routed to where they are needed. Shipping costs have been reduced to such a tiny percentage of the consumer price of any item as to be almost irrelevant. Mr. Kritikos has had a large hand in improving your standard of living and the standard of living of people around the world.

Dianne Swinamer feeds the hungry of Nova Scotia and Canada and has helped make that a growth industry. You’ll have a better idea of how I feel about her work when you hear the rest of what I have to say.

First though, hey everybody, here’s what I found out about what it feels like to be offered an honourary degree from the University of Kings College!

It’s FANTASTIC! It’s unbelievable! It’s stunning! It never, ever occurred to me that such a thing could happen. I feel a little like that Australian Olympic speed skater who was just trying to keep up when everyone else fell down and he suddenly found himself alone at the finish line for an Olympic gold medal.

Bunch of kids

The four of us up here may look somewhat dignified and geezerish on the outside but I promise you, on the inside, there are a bunch of kids doing dances of joy and firing high fives.

It probably feels quite a lot like graduation without the ache from saying goodbye to so many of the most intense friends you will ever have.

It’s different from watching your children graduate. That’s a milestone that’s hard to beat. On the other hand, unlike watching your children graduate, it doesn’t hurt at all.

I don’t feel as though I deserve it but it is a huge thrill. I’ve been skulking through life just hoping I’d never get caught and put to work.

My high school yearbook described me as “The one most likely to make a million dollars writing a book called ‘Raising Hell for fun and profit.'”

As a teenager, I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life. I was sent to a guidance camp. After a week of testing, the psychologist told me I’d best be a minister or a teacher. I was shocked.  Those were not at all vocations that appealed to me at the time.

As life went on, it occurred to me that the vocation of journalism includes a bit of each. If you’re lucky, your work may teach a little and preach a little.

Turns out I tell a few stories, teach a little and preach a little.

False heroes

In my lifetime, journalists have helped destroy many of the false heroes of my youth.

Athletes, politicians and celebrities have been exposed for the normal humans they are.

I think the media have a responsibility to find and celebrate the real heroes. There are thousands of them. Contrary to popular opinion, well over half of the news every day consists of good news about good people doing good things.

Last weekend I was at a provincial drama festival. Hundreds of teachers and other volunteers had made it possible for hundreds of students to gather for a wonderful adventure. My mother’s play was produced. The stage crew had to rush away during the performance to participate in a soccer tournament where more volunteers made it possible for them to play.

Real heroes make difficult choices and do difficult things, often for years.

I think I might be able to be brave for a minute. Life will show you people cheerfully coping with tremendous hardships, disabilities and responsibilities for years at a time. It seems to me a significant majority of them are women.

In a lifetime in the newspaper business, you cannot help but see a constant parade of such heroes. Real heroes don’t usually seem as exciting as celebrities and stars. You have to pay attention even to see them.

It’s worth the effort.

Happiness

And now a little advice to you graduates.

First: beware of advice.

Remember that lovely graduation column by Mary Smich of the Chicago Tribune that was going around a couple of years ago?

It emphasized the importance of sun screen and advised you to throw away your old bills and keep your old love letters.

Turns out sun screen may be fooling you. National Revenue taxation may punish you for throwing out old bills. Your spouse may not feel great about you keeping your old love letters.

The parents and grandparents of my generation lived through the first half of the 20th century. WW I, the Great Depression and WW II taught them that very good people often suffer very bad times. They learned that we have to look out for each other.

They vowed that my generation would never have to go through what they went through. To us, they were generous to a fault.

The wars and the depression are a long way back now.

Volunteerism is in decline.

I fear that we are forgetting that we need each other — that we have to hang together – that unless all of us are safe, none of us is safe.

In the process of neglecting our fellows, I fear we also lose an important part of ourselves.

William Brownfield, founder of Jaycees International said that service to humanity is what our souls require.

As a community newspaperman, one sees all the church groups, service clubs, boards, charities, teams, projects and enterprises of all kinds that make a community.

If there is one lesson that has sunk in over a lifetime of watching the activities of humans it is this.

People who devote a significant portion of their spare time to providing a service to others seem to be the happiest people I meet.

I don’t really know why. It may just be a matter of positive people attracting positive people. I do know that those people are the ones who are the most fun to be around.

This observation has been so consistent that I prescribe it to you.

Volunteer to spend some time each week helping others somehow.

If you do, I predict happiness will find you.

I wish you all a world of happiness.

On Sunday, April 19, an armed man hijacked a Canjet aircraft with 182 passengers and crew, in Jamaica. The flight, operated for charter flight packager, Transat, was on its way from Halifax to Cuba. According to a passenger I spoke to, it stopped in Jamaica to pick up extra passengers.

The event was resolved without any loss of life. The story almost immediately disappeared from Canadian media.

According to the passenger I spoke to, one Canjet flight attendant, with a gun to her head, convinced the hijacker to release all of the passengers in return for their cash.

Why, I wondered, was this flight attendant not being feted nationally and internationally for the hero she seems to be? The crew of the US Airways flight that landed without loss of life in the Hudson River was on all the news and talk shows and introduced at the NFL Superbowl.

When you think of it, a flight attendant who negotiates the safety of her passengers is more heroic. What Capt. Chesley Sullenberger and his crew did was amazing. They were also heroic after the water landing.  They worked bravely and diligently to ensure every passenger got out of the sinking plane.

There is an old joke about a passenger thanking a pilot for saving her life with an emergency landing. The captain replies, “My primary objective, madam, was to save my life. Saving yours was a side effect.”

What the Canjet flight attendant did was not to save her life but the lives of her passengers. Her action was a choice which is a key ingredient of heroism. True heroism includes choice and sacrifice. If the accounts I hear are true, and one media report quoted another passenger as verifying what I was told, that flight attendant is a prime example of a hero.

According to a statement posted on the Canjet website, the crew does not wish to discuss the event at present. You can see that at: http://www.canjet.com/en_view_news.aspx?NewsID=169

I seriously doubt that is the whole story. The passenger I talked to told me the crew had been told not to say anything. A media friend told me the same thing.

It certainly makes sense from a legal, corporate, bureaucratic viewpoint.

The industry has a much larger incentive to have the story fade away quickly than to honour, celebrate and fete a hero or heroes. They don’t want potential passengers thinking about the possibility of physical danger connected to their service.

Lawyers always advise clients to say nothing when civil suits and liabilty could conceivably be involved. Insurance companies do the same.

Governments and bureaucrats are highly motivated to suppress information, discussion and potential criticism when any official system fails.

So, in my opinion, corporate BS and ass covering are most probably significant factors in why we Canadians are not celebrating a heart warming and inspiring act of heroism.

In the US, this event would spawn a movie. The man I spoke to, Walter Comeau, a VIA Rail sleeping car porter, is the father of the bride in a wedding party of 20 aboard flight 918. Imagine having your daughter and your mother and much of your family in such a situation.

The corporate and bureaucratic handling of this event reeks like Halifax Harbour to me. I think the Canadian mass media need to work much harder to pry this story loose.

Incidentally, when you wonder what effect cuts of news staff in the media has on you, the neglect of this story is one possible example.

DAC

May 21, 1998, David Cadogan

How does one do justice to the memory of Jim McNeill? For every tribute and story I know, you each know two of your own.

The facts of his achievements have been noted in reports in papers and on radio and television across the country.

He came to Canada from his home in Barra after serving a stint in the Royal Navy. He came to PEI to marry Shirley before they left for British Columbia. He got into newspaper work with the Summerside Journal Pioneer because he couldn’t find any other work. He was moved from ad sales to news because he brought in more stories than the reporters.

Fate and the allure of the Shirley and the Island conspired to make a home for a legend.

He founded both of Prince Edward Island’s English language community newspapers. The Eastern Graphic was first printed on an offset duplicator, then collated and stapled at home. Later, as the children arrived, they remember joining Shirley licking and applying each subscription label.

For the record:

Jim was a founding member of the Atlantic Community Newspapers Association. When Atlantic publishers gathered to form the association in the early 70’s, Jim was the entire Island delegation.

Jim is the only person ever to have been an Honourary Life Member of the Canadian Community Newspapers Association and then, after that, president of CCNA.

That’s partly because no one ever expected him to agree to become president. The idea smacked too much of politics for Jim. Even thinking of it made him want to investigate himself. He had left the CCNA board.

One dawn, at a CCNA convention in Ottawa, he yielded to a plea to rejoin the board to represent strong editorial principles. I read an article recently that said that CCNA has a feeble editorial credo. That’s because people like Jim resisted codifying what we do. Most of the best papers today began by flouting the conventions of the times. Credos are often used to exclude bold innovation.

He wrote a book, a calendar of newspaper story ideas for each month of the year. That book alone can keep any newspaper staff busy forever.

Jim was also the first Canadian president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors. For some reason the initials, ISWNE are pronounced Eyes Wine. It’s a group of especially enthusiastic and outspoken newspaper people. He won that organization’s two highest honours, the Gold Quill award and the Cervi award. One is for achievement in a given year. The other for a lifetime of achievement.

When a national CCNA award for enterprise journalism was created, Jim won it for the first two years.

Jim was a finalist a decade ago for the Michener journalism award. In the announcement, there was his name, Jim McNeill; his paper, the Montague “EasternGraphic;” his circulation, 5,989; alongside Canadian Press and Southam with their millions.

Jim was also the Atlantic Provinces journalist of the year in 1993 in a competition co-ordinated by the University of Kings College.

Finally, of course, he was awarded an Honourary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Kings College in Halifax last week. According to the family, he was amazed and delighted by the honour and reveled in the realization and celebration of it.

Dr. Sheamus. Imagine that!

In professional terms, Jim probably understood Lord Acton and Lord Northcliffe as well as anyone ever did. Acton, a brilliant analyst of the elements of liberty, is chiefly renowned for one statement and a corollary.

It is: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The corollary is the line after that: “Great men are almost always bad men.

Lord Northcliffe, a British newspaper magnate, asked what news is, replied “News is something someone, somewhere, is trying to suppress. Everything else is advertising.

I think Jim truly appreciated that power itself, not the individual who holds it, is the problem. Like a doctor he would look for signs of the disease and attack the behaviour it caused without seeming to bear any personal ill will toward the patient.

When the patient became angry with Jim for attacking the disease, Jim’s reaction was usually to laugh.

He knew that sunshine and fresh air are a big part of the cure for most infections. He did his best to bring the light to bear. Incidentally, he knew that press conferences by Northcliffe’s definition are advertising.

I don’t think he believed great men are usually bad men. I think he felt they were infected and that it was his job to root out the infection and keep them as healthy as possible.

We’ve all heard a lot about Jim’s news sense, courage and style. What is often missed is his dogged drudgery. He read every page of a pile several feet high of the Confederation bridge link agreement. Can you even imagine the dedication and hunger it would take to focus that kind of concentration?

He was a tireless warrior for the interests of the people.

Jim was more, much more, than his career.

People, news people in particular, are used to the idea of celebrating lives of accomplishment and success.

The reaction to the news of Jim’s passing has been different. Jack McAndrew choked up talking about Jim on CBC Radio’s “As It Happens.” Richard Dooley choked up doing interviews for the Halifax “Daily News.” All week, we’ve all heard stories of spontaneous demonstrations of emotion on the news of Jim’s death.

We didn’t just admire Jim. We loved Jim. And Jim loved us. He made us all feel alive and significant for who we are and what we do and who we would like to be.

How did he do that?

For one thing, he sat up with all of us all night talking about writing or music or whatever it is we do. Journalists in the thousands have spent the night with Jim in dormitory corridors, hospitality suites and bars all over North America. Many of us have seen more dawns with Jim than without him.

To a real news person, Jim was a treasure. He knew what they were talking about. So many other people just don’t get it.

Jim never told jokes. He told stories. Great stories. He always delivered the climax by leaning forward, lowering his voice and punctuating with a curled forefinger.

Who will ever forget those dancing eyes and that hypnotic brogue?

Allan Lynch remembers the time he was with Jim in a huge iron station wagon heading for the Charlottetown airport late. The plane was visible coming in for a landing. Jim put two fingers on top of the steering wheel and announced, “Plenty of time! If I can still see the plane with two fingers on top of the wheel, we’re okay.”

His idea of plenty of time and Allan’s were apparently a bit different.

I’ve never heard of Jim ever making any kind of off-colour or snide or prejudicial remark. He never flaunted his faith. He was simply a model of tolerance and decency. Priests were his personal friends as much as news, entertainment or sports cronies.

There was nothing stuffy, nothing of the fogy about him. He was one of few men who could fit in easily and comfortably with every age group including many of the maligned and dreaded teens and early 20’s.

Jim could be overbearing. Anyone who has ever wrestled him for a bar tab knows the meaning of “generous to a fault.” Shirley remembers that when she roomed with two other girls in Toronto, they could borrow beer from Jim and he’d even deliver it — on foot!

All week I’ve heard more stories of his generosity. Just today I heard of a new employee whose father died. Jim paid her fare home for the funeral.

Jim helped make Island and hospitality synonymous. At the first Atlantic Community Newspapers Convention here in Montague, our entertainment was “Ryan’s Fancy.”

That was in the days of their national stardom. They didn’t just stay for a set either. I’ll never forget Denis on the lawn at Brudenell singing to the moon at three thirty in the morning.

They weren’t there for ACNA. They were there for Jim.

Jim’s friends in the entertainment world are, in a word, awesome. Ryan, Rankin, Rodgers, McIsaac, McMaster. Just a few.

Jim was loved by curlers and golfers too. He told stories of trips and people he met. I never once ever heard him mention the outcome of a game or a round. For Jim, I don’t think winning ever had anything to do with his, or anyone else’s, score.

We loved Jim for his love of his family. His love for Shirley was absolute. With her he raised a family that are still like a basket of puppies — warm, curious, cuddly, adventurous and playful. But don’t get me wrong. They can and do run with the big dogs.

Gail, Kevin, Paul, Sheilah, Jan. You’re our family too.

Many of us remember a year the Canadian Community Newspapers Association convention was in Winnipeg. There was no way he could afford eight airline tickets and accommodations.  Jim bought an old converted school bus and took the whole family and a visiting cousin from Scotland.

The children remember taking turns watching out the back for escaping parts. Gail says the sight of a service station seemed to remind it to break down 25 miles later. They remember leaving the bus running for the ferry trip on the way back because the starter was finally gone (really gone) so it would never start again.

As the news of Jim’s death spread across the country and beyond, no fewer than six people commented how fitting it was that Jim died on the ferry, The Confederation, heading home to the Island.

Ultimately what we most love and will remember about Jim is his exuberantly joyful enthusiasm for life. Its light warmed and nourished all of us.

I would like to close with some lines by Jack London. I used them in memory of my father, George, another great friend and admirer of Jim McNeill. I was reminded that Jim would never have used these words about himself. He would never say anything that might sound boastful.

I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather than my spark should burn out

in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor

every atom of me in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live

not to exist.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

Slainte, Jim. Slainte!

When I mentioned to a Woodstock friend, Bob Wilson, that I found Floridians very friendly and polite people, he smiled and replied, “Yes, well a heavily armed society is generally a polite society.”

Florida is certainly a heavily armed society. I read late last year that legislation prevents employers from forbidding employees to bring guns onto company property. Employers can forbid employees to bring guns into the building. Employees can leave guns in their vehicles on company property.

As another friend, Allan Lynch, pointed out, that means when someone steals a car from a company lot, there is a good chance of a bonus gun in the glove compartment.

I don’t think anyone knows how many guns there are in Florida. In 2009, 541,000 of the 19,000,000 Floridians were licensed to carry concealed weapons. Another 95,000 applicants were on a backlogged waiting list. By state law, if an application is not approved within 90 days, it is automatically granted.

By the time you read this, one in every 30 Floridians will be packing, or licensed to pack, a concealed handgun. That does not, of course, include unconcealed weapons like long guns or handguns, long guns, or assault weapons, kept at home.

The amount of violence in Floridian society is markedly different from what Canadians are used to. For one thing, a convicted murderer was executed here this winter. It was not front-page news. I clearly remember the last executions in Canada at the Don Jail in 1963.

Every week, several people in the local newspaper coverage area are shot to death. Last week three young men allegedly retaliated against another over an earlier shooting. They riddled his home with automatic, assault weapon fire killing an eight-year-old girl. Since then, a man on a bicycle was executed with two bullets in the back. Recently a 19-year-old was shot dead, folded into a trash barrel and set aflame. Two brothers, owner operators of separate convenience stores were both robbed and shot in the same week. Police are involved in gunfire incidents almost every week.

There does not seem to be any strong feeling that the cycle can be broken. Gun supporters circulate impassioned messages about how citizens need guns. One shows a woman decrying that legislation took away her right to carry a concealed weapon with the result that she was not able to shoot the man strafing a fast food restaurant with an automatic weapon.

She blamed the legislators for the resulting deaths of her parents and others. However, she just as passionately insisted that gun regulation should not restrict automatic assault weapons. She rebutted the argument that assault weapons have no purpose in hunting. She said the second amendment is not about hunting but about the citizens’ right to defend themselves against their governments.

In Binghamton, New York, this month, a gunman killed 13 people and himself. There had been four other mass killings in the US within the previous month. This does not seem to stimulate any strong aversion to universal gun ownership.

The US is involved in two current wars abroad. There seems to be a larger one, with more victims, going on within its own borders.

It is always easier to start a war than it is to start a peace. I don’t pretend that it would be easy to get the combatants in the US to lay down their arms. It would probably have to go through long stages as did the gradual détente in Northern Ireland.

The US keeps trying in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I wonder when, or if, Americans ever will try to engineer disarmament at home?

DAC

Ingredients:

4 Tbspns butter or a butter-olive oil 50-50 mixture

2 lbs. sea scallops (or at least a half pound per person)

In a large skillet, melt butter over low heat. Add scallops until they shed their liquid into the pan.

Remove scallops and reduce scallop liquid and butter to a rich, nutty brown.

Turn heat to high, add scallops and sear on both sides for about two minutes each. Finished scallops should be browned on the sides but translucent in the centre.

1st of 2 methods of preparing peppers

Ingredients:

3 red bell peppers

¼ tspn salt

¼ tspn cayenne pepper

1 tbspn chopped parsley

Pinch of lemon zest and, or, a shot of lemon juice

Peeling peppers

Lay the peppers in a broiler pan, OR over a gas fire OR on a barbecue grill, until their skins blister (2-3 minutes). You might slice and remove seeds from peppers first. Charring them whole may improve the cooking of the flesh and increase the separation of skin and flesh. It also keeps the pepper juice inside the pepper. This helps with storage if you want to prepare the peppers in advance and store.

Rotate peppers to char throughly and evenly.

Put charred peppers in a sealable plastic bag, leaving a bit of room for air expansion, or a paper bag for 15 to 20 minutes. Theoretically, this steams the charred skin loose on the flesh.

Before or after charring peppers, discard seeds, ribs and stems.

Carefully peel off the loosened skin with a paring knife. Personally, I find I rather like the flavour of burnt pepper skin so I don’t worry if some lands in with the flesh.

2^nd of 2 methods preparing peppers

I have found several sources of bottled or canned roasted red peppers, roasted red pepper sauce and roasted red pepper pasta sauce including a spicy version. These are quicker and safer if you have guests and have not had time to prepare the peppers in advance.

Put a standard pasta sauce bottle of any of these in a blender, add the sour cream, spice and juice to taste and blend. Don’t worry about having too much sauce. It will not go to waste. It will get in your mouth within a day or so.

Pasta

Choose from fettucine, linguine or spaghetti and prepare as usual. Over time, Michelle and I have found we prefer spaghetti.

Serve the past with scallops and sauce ladled over the top.

Garnish with parsely and lemon wedges if you like.

Enjoy! I would like to hear how it works out for you and any tips you may have.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is lobbying with anglers and hunters to get their active support against the long gun registry in Canada. He asked a group of them to call and apply pressure to their MPs to support shutting it down.

I support strong gun control and registration but you have heard all the arguments pro and con before. That’s not what this is about.

Apparently there is a clear divide between city folk who want strict gun registration and control and country folk who don’t. The reasons now seem to be the same as they were in the old West. People in town don’t need guns. Some rural people do.

As anyone who ever went to the Saturday afternoon dusters at the local theatre knows, the sheriff knew how to deal with that. Cowboys left their guns at the sheriff’s office when they came to town and got them back when they left.

Could that old idea be the basis for a solution to gun ownership, possession and registration? If you live in town, and own a gun, it stays at the police station until you are leaving town. If you live in the country, you can have your gun and don’t have to register it but you cannot take it to town.

You can’t shoot varmints in town anyway.

How’s that for a compromise?                               DAC

Michelle and I are in Gulfport, Florida, on the southern tip of St. Petersburg, this winter.

Several of my friends and acquaintances have expressed surprise. “Never figured you for a Florida guy, Dave,” seems to be the common theme of the comments. I think that is understandable. In a list of places to go that includes Paris, Florence, Rome, Venice, Capri, Pompei, Athens, Cairo, Moscow, New Orleans, San Francisco, Quebec City, Guadalajara, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and St. Petersburg, it is not difficult to pick one that, at first glance, seems not like the others.

Many people think of Florida as Disney World, beaches, golf, early bird specials, trailer parks, men in nipple-high belts and predatory widows in makeup deep enough to conceal murder victims.

All those do exist in Florida. And, yes, there are lots of old people here. You see them everywhere. It is not like Miramichi where really old people have the decency to stay discretely hidden in their homes behind snowbanks at this time of year.

Here they are out baring their flesh, riding bicycles, walking Greyhound dogs, lounging around pools and playing golf. Many of them move with mechanical assistance but they move. Behind many of those lined faces, are people who did some serious moving in WW II.

When people make fun of old people,

Some wise person said everyone finds the Europe he expects to find. I know people whose number one impression of Paris and New Orleans is that they are dirty. I freely admit my opinion of Florida, based on a one-week visit to Indian Shores, almost 20 years ago, was unfavourable. It was a corridor of condos with a narrow strip of dirty beach and water on one side and a noisy, wide thoroughfare on the other. I described it as Mountain Road with heat.

Even then, when we rented a boat in John’s Pass, we found a scruffy neighbour hood bar where everybody knew each other. It reminded me of home and was my favourite place.

Last Spring, after returning from a wonderful six weeks in New Zealand, I came to Florida to visit John and Joyce LeBlanc. They were on a UPM stimulated sabbatical here. John was planning his future and considering his options. It was a profitable sojourn. He has a much better job with a more promising future in the nuclear industry now.

On the recommendation of Tim Kingston’s mother, Jean, who has a place here, they wound up in Gulfport on the southern tip of St. Petersburg, on Boca Ciega Bay. Gulfport is a beautiful, scruffy, town where there does not seem to have been much in the way of new development for almost 20 years. I think the tallest building in the community is 11 stories.

It is an artsy little community with several good restaurants and where, often, the owner is in the store. On many streets, the trees touch each other from either side and two piers stretch out from the beach.

With downtown St. Petersburg 15 minutes away and Tampa about 45 minutes, it offers small town life with all the benefits of cities close but not too close.

Tampa and St. Petersburg promote themselves as Tampa Bay so they can promote their collective assets to attract tourists and Super Bowls. The Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball stadium is in St. Petersburg. The NFL Buccaneers stadium is in Tampa. The NHL Lightning play in downtown Tampa.

St. Petersburg bills itself as the arts capital of Florida. The area is so rich in first rate life professional theatre, symphonies, art galleries, museums, concerts and festivals that one struggles to decide what one afford to do in time and money.

Stacy Keach was just here with the Broadway production of the play, “Frost/Nixon,” on which the movie is based. It was excellent. The American Stage Theatre production of August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” was one of the finest performances I have ever seen.

Name a show and it is, was, or will be, here. Name an entertainer boomers liked and he or she is, was or will be here. Bonnie Raitt was just here. James Taylor is coming. A list of the name musical performers, acts, comedians and shows here this winter would fill several pages.

There is a blues festival this weekend and the multi-ethnic Renaissance Festival continues. The folk festival is next.

The variety of high quality ethnic food is staggering. Thinking of how our Miramichi restaurants struggle to introduce anything new or different, makes me wish they had a share of a market the size of the one here. Imagine if they even could offer you the choice of sitting inside or outside all year long.

There are all kinds of retro bars around. One of my favourites, Domain, is like being in room full of rowdy ghosts. The musicians and the audience are almost all grizzled boomers playing boomer music. Not a rapper or hip hopper in sight.

We’ve all got a lot of miles on us and we have all heard a world of great rock. The TomKats is the house band on Wednesday nights. It is as if one of the old Miramichi bars of the 70’s and 80’s was still going with the same musicians, drinkers, smokers, tokers and dancers including some of our favourites no longer with us. It’s like Rock ‘N’ Roll Festival every week.

There are, of course, fabulous beaches, pools, golf courses, parks, boating, biking and every kind of outdoor activity. Michelle and I are taking two Tai Chi classes every week. There is a glass blowing workshop coming up. I have found one of the flaws in my golf swing. A couple of dozen more improvements and I may get from pathetic to mediochre.

Instead of hunkering down and eating as if for hibernation, I am getting lots of exercise and eating summertime food.

I think Florida is good for me.

Having said that, I am beginning to get homesick for proper smelt, wild blueberries, fiddleheads, lobster, scallops, Maritime air, and the simple excitement of a Miramichi summer.

On the river!                                                                        DAC

Gunther von Hagens is responsible for one of the most on the edge, if not over the top, art exhibitions ever. He is a doctor from East Germany, trained in West Germany. He discovered a way to preserve human body parts by replacing the liquid in them with clear plastic.

He convinced hundreds of people to donate their remains to him. Those bodies, or pieces of them, now tour the world as art and education. Currently one of these exhibitions, Body Worlds, is at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Florida.

The artistic element of the show is a series of bodies, without their skins, posed in various athletic acts, with and without members of the opposite sex. Some of the bodies are split open to show the internal parts. One holds all of his internal organs in a hand raised over his head.

http://www.mosi.org/bodyworlds3.html

In addition to the complete bodies, there are split bones, sliced organs including brains, and separated arterial systems. There is not a part of the body you cannot see close up. Even the three tiny bones of the ear have their own display.

Some of the displays show what killed the donor. Emphysema, cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and chronic obesity are all clearly revealed.

So are many medical repairs. There are artificial knees, artery stents, artificial heart valves and hearts.

It is not for the squeamish or prudish. All of the genitalia and reproductive systems are there. There are fetuses at all stages of development. Some that died near their birth time look sick and miserable.

There are posters everywhere with a lot of poetic, philosophical and theocratic musing on life, love, romance, and spirituality.

Interesting

Not being squeamish, I found the exhibition fascinating. Some of it is fairly basic mechanics although of interesting design. Bones, joints, muscles and tendons are interesting but quite comprehensible. Artery, vein and nerve systems are every bit as astonishingly complex as we think they are.

Michelle was surprised our kidneys are as small as they are. I was surprised they are as big.

Genitalia look bigger and smaller without the covering of skin and body.

Von Hagens comes off as a bit of an egotist. He always wears a black hat including indoors and in group photos. In the one-sheet exhibition brochure, he devotes several paragraphs to: 1) Commenting about how trivial it is that some people focus so much attention on why he wears a black hat and 2) Going on at some length about why he wears a black hat.

He says it is a symbol of his belief that the strength of democracy depends on the promotion of individualism.

Michelle points out that it also immediately directs your attention to him in any group photo.

Thought provoking

As art and education are supposed to do, Body Worlds provokes thought, discussion and difference of opinion.

Michelle thinks some of the exhibition is a bit sensational and disrepectful of the donors.

I think every middle school child should see it. For one thing, it just might inspire them to take better care of their bodies while they can.

Tangential connections

As usual, my thoughts about Body Worlds are tangentially connected to other images and experiences. As a person who believes in miracles but not religion, I was struck most by the contrast between a body that is alive and one that is not. The spark of life is just so incomprehensibly miraculous.

I don’t know why but I have never felt any real connection between a dead body and the person it was. I feel about the same about what happens to my body when I am not in it anymore as I do about some of the cars I have owned.

On the other hand, I live every day in amazement and excitement at all the world and life has to offer.

Appropos of that, Body Worlds admission included tickets to a selection of Imax films at the museum. We went to the one about life in the coral triangle from Indonesia to the Great Barrier Reef.

Hello for miracles of life!! There is a creature called the Leafy Sea Dragon that looks like something out of a fantasy comic book. Life we cannot imagine is all around us. We usually do not think of coral as alive but the contrast with a dead coral reef is dramatic.
On another related tangent, outside the main museum, there is a little building that houses butterflies. There were Monarchs. Monarchs, to me, are one of the greatest symbols and examples of the relay of life. It takes four generations of Monarchs to fly from their northern reaches to Mexico. One generation makes it back. The various elements of the cycle, including the milkweed that is poisonous to anything but Monarchs and the fact that Monarchs taste terrible make up a miraculous and fascinating tale. They fly, in their millions, across the Great Lakes!
The cycle of life and death is far too big even for my imagination much less my comprehension.

Death and drummers
Life often provides me with serendipitous contrasts that make the images on my soul especially vivid.
After Body Worlds, it was especially appropriate that we went to the undersea Imax film and then to the Japanese Kodo drummers concert in nearby Clearwater.

http://www.kodo.or.jp/news/index_en.html
In addition to being extremely talented and musical and executing a beautifully orchestrated performance, these young people are superbly fit. Significant segments of the program are performed with young men sitting with their feet hooked under large drums, leaning back in a half sit-up position and whaling away at blur speed. Just sitting in that position for five or six minutes is more than most athletes could do. The penultimate number involves two young men, wearing only snug breech cloths, more like cotton rope thongs, so you can see every muscle in their bodies but one. It shows that they use their entire bodies from their heels and toes to the tops their heads to draw everything they can out of the drums. Of the 14 performers, four were women. They drum as fast but not as hard and their feminine grace is clearly obvious in drumming actions where you would not expect to see it.

There is some chanting that verges on throat singing. I couldn’t help thinking how music crosses all cultural and tribal lines. There was a TV show about a gathering in Yellowknife a couple of years ago. They brought together traditional artists from tribes all around the Arctic rim — Inuit and Mongolians to name a couple.  They visited for a week or so and jammed. At the end, they had worked out a concert. They did it all without understanding each other’s languages at all. The Kodo drummers and those Arctic artists could have communicated too. There is a dignity in music that communicates soul to soul around the world.
The Kodo drummers also proved the aptness of Cadogan’s law about there being only two things going on in the universe. One is sex. The other is foreplay.
Superbly fit and healthy young men and women beating the bejayzus out of BIG drums and teeny drums and cymbals is definitely foreplay.
Apropos of that, I think I have a more pragmatic view of life than some folks. I understand how our behaviour is driven by biology — the genes drive to survive by reproducing and mutating, and simple mathematics. However, I also understand that our genes’ interests and our personal interests often are different. The genes in males and females would like a variety of partners and do not give a damn about his happiness or hers.

To complete a day of examples of the miracle of life, we arrived back in Gulfport just in time to see the launch of the NASA Kepler mission. Humans won’t see it again for awhile. It is off to search the universe for other planets that can, like Earth, support life as we know it.

http://kepler.nasa.gov/about/

It’s only rock ‘n’ roll but I like it!                         DAC