Category Society
Scenes of Protest
I took a detour from my usual route Wednesday and walked through a couple of blocks of the ongoing truckers protest in downtown Ottawa, Freedom Convoy 2022. I figured it might be my last chance to obsereve first-hand. Police were suggesting that they might actually start to take action to remove some demonstrators and trucks […]
Just Watch Him!
Canada is now under martial law for the first time in more than 50 years. Except it isn’t. The government has invoked the Emergencies Act, however the Prime minister has said he is not calling in the military to deal with the truckers’ protest or suspending anyone’s civil liberties. Needless to say, this has many […]
What Game?
They played the Super Bowl last night. Surprisingly I found myself watching. Not for the game, but for the commercials. I generally find four-down footbal boring, though I will admit it has gotten more interesting in recent years with a greater emphasis on passing. Still I don’t watch the regular season, and I pretty much […]
The Cost of Disobedience
When I was a teenager, I was shown how best to sit on the pavement as I was waiting to be arrested. The idea was to minimize harm as the police were carting me away. I’ve been thinking about the concept of civil disobedience in the wake of the ongoing truckers’ protest that has paralyzed […]
Fire The Prime Minister?
When Freedom Convoy 2022 was announced, the truckers’ supporting groups stated the intention was to go to Ottawa, where they hoped the Governor General and the Senate acting together would form a citizen’s commmittee and act as a government, in effect removing the Prime Minister and the House of Commons. That goal has since been […]
Seeing For Myself
It wasn’t enough to watch the feeds being streamed on Facebook and YouTube, I needed to see for myself. I had seen the truckers’ protest a couple of days last week, once in the daytime and another at night, but it was just a matter of walking through the trucks on my way to somewhere […]
Pictures of Insurrection
The city councillor for my ward (who is also chair of the police services board) was on the radio Monday talking about the “insurrection” in downtown Ottawa. The former governor of the Bank of Canada has labeled the ongoing truckers’ protest as “sedition.” What the media fails to mention in quoting these two politicians is […]
God Save The Queen
It was on this date in 1952 that King George VI of England died. His 25-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, became Queen. That was 70 years ago. She still reigns, the longest serving monarch in British and Commonwealth history. To put it in perspective, during her reign there have been 12 Canadian Prime Ministers and 14 American […]
Saturday Smiles
I have written quite a bit about the ongoing truckers’ protest in Ottawa this week, but I’m letting it percolate for a bit before sharing it. Part of my problem is that I sympathize with the residents of Centretown who are tired of the noise and traffic jam and just want their lives back. Understandably, […]
Let The Games Begin
I just erased today’s post. Deliberately. It was about the Olympic Games, whihc officialy open today in Beijing. I discussed the politics of the games, the human rights abuses by China (and other host countries going back to Berlin 1936), the various cheating scandals and a suggestion that perhaps it was time to jettison the […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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