Monthly Archives: November 2014
The Last Post
Tonight at 8, for the 29,758th time, the Last Post, the traditional salute to fallen warriors, will be played at the Menin gate in Ypres. It’s been a nightly ritual since 1928. Volunteers from the Last Post Association (and sometimes hundreds, even thousands of others) gather each evening to honour the British Empire dead of […]
Politically Incorrect
The words jumped out from the printed page in the display case at the Juno Beach Centre, the Canadian D-Day Museum in Courseilles sur mer, France. Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, speaking to the Canadian Parliament, asking for a declaration of war against Nazi Germany. In 1914 Canada did not issue a declaration […]
In the Trenches of Passchendaele
The years between 1914 and 1918 were the wettest Europe experienced during the 20th century, or so I have been told. Those years coincided with the trench warfare in France and Belgium, literally millions of soldiers facing each other from trenches they had dug a few metres from each other. With the bad weather, to […]
Walking The Walls
One of the major differences I have found between the North American and European communities I have visited is the matter of walls. In North America we really don’t have any. That’s due, I assume, to the newness of urban life on this continent. By the time the settlers began building cities walls had in […]
Rumours of Glory V – Not One of Those
“Our journey is driven by longing….Longing has to do with God, because what humans long for most is a relationship with the Divine. We may not be conscious of it, but we long to know God, in whatever context or guise that might mean to the individual….Only God can fill that hole.” Bruce Cockburn, Rumours […]
Rumours of Glory IV – Cabaret Nicaragua
To mark the release of Bruce Cockburn’s memoirs, Rumours of Glory, this week I am telling some little known Cockburn tales that you won`t find in the book. I wasn’t there in 1987, but I doubt the tent had changed much from the previous year when I had watched Mike Peters put on an inspired […]
Rumours of Glory III – After the Flood
It was January 20, 1981. Bruce Cockburn was scheduled to give a performance, a sold-out show at the National Arts Centre (NAC) in his hometown of Ottawa. I had done a radio interview by telephone with Bruce a few days before, talking about the show and his upcoming album. I don`t remember now exactly what […]
Rumours of Glory II – Encounter ’76
This week Bruce Cockburn publishes his memoir, Rumours of Glory, and I am taking the time to reflect on some of my interactions with Bruce over the past 40 years. “Thanks to Encounter ‘76-the messages were deeply appreciated and the money put to good use.” – Bruce Cockburn, liner notes to his 1976 album […]
Rumours of Glory I
The first time I heard Bruce Cockburn’s music on the radio was more than 40 years ago, a song called “Musical Friends” taken from his first album. That was about 1970 or 1971 on CHOM-FM in Montreal. I don’t know exactly when I first saw Bruce Cockburn in concert, sometime fairly early in the 1970’s […]
Positioning Your Organization for the Future
Today I am continuing with my impressions of presentations from the 2014 Global Leadership Summit (GLS), which I attended last week. Jeffrey Immelt is Chairman of the Board and CEO of US powerhouse General Electric (GE). You could say he joined the family business when he was young and has never left – his father […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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