Yours, Sincerely

Could anyone doubt the shared sorrow felt at the loss of a human life? It is a feeling courtesy in Britain for personal letters of condolence to be sent to the grieving families of slain military personnel, from the Prime Minister of the day, as well as from the Royal Family, from the Defence Secretary and from the regiment of the fallen soldier. Gordon Brown, Britain's current prime minister, laboriously hand-writes these heartfelt letters of condolence.

The prime minister of any country is by the very nature of his executive position, a very busy individual, with the concerns of the nation uppermost in mind at all times, prepared to act in haste or at leisure, depending on the nature of the matters that come before him. It can be assumed in these parlous times of great economic stress, of the universal panic related to what WHO has termed a pandemic, and the unpopular commitment of the country to a NATO-led war in a far-off country, that there is much on Gordon Brown's mind.

Mr. Brown, it is fairly well known, has the use of one eye only, the other having been impacted in his young years playing rugby, by a detached retina. And there have been media reports that his general health has also of late been deleteriously affected, with some suggesting that his eyesight is beginning to fail entirely. Now a public, critical of an unpopular prime minister has additional fodder for discontent with his performance.

The mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan has been offended and dismayed and horribly annoyed that her Prime Minister - writing to her personally of his own dismay at her loss - sent her a missive that she insists has insulted the memory of her son. Her son's family name, and by extension hers, was misspelled in the letter, as were a number of other common words. He even failed to dot an 'i', to add insult to grave injury.

Presumably, Mr. Brown's troubling eyesight aided in his dreadful malfeasance. When he was alerted, through Jacqui Jane's aggrieved reporting to the British press about her disgust with the manner in which the letter of condolence was written, Mr. Brown immediately contacted Ms. Janes to offer his sincere apology. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister added that he spends "a great deal of time" with these letters, and would, obviously never wish to cause such a hurt.

"To all other families whom I have written to, I can only apologize if my handwriting is difficult to read," Prime Minister Brown said. "I have at all times acted in good faith seeking to do the right thing." And how could anyone doubt that? Would not most people accept the kindly thought behind the message, and voluntarily overlook spelling lapses? A hand-written letter surely is more personally to be valued than a printed letter expressing sorrow and perfectly spelled?

But Prime Minister Brown's slovenly execution of the hand-written letter was placed under a magnifying glass of caustic, mean-minded carping by an embittered mother seemingly finding difficulty in coming to terms with her loss. The letter received by her from Mr. Brown was meant to convey his deepest sympathy, his appreciation for the sacrifice of her son. His letter concluded by asking if there was any way he could help.

Ms. Jane's response? "One thing he can do is never, ever, send a letter out like that to another dead soldier's family. Type it, or get someone to check it. And get the name right." This British woman is likely aware of the name William Shakespeare, a British playwright of international acclaim and renown, said to be the greatest creative writer of all time, in fact. Mr. Shakespeare's spelling was notoriously peculiar. A reflection of the state of spelling in the 16th Century.

In fact, Mr. Shakespeare spelled his very own name in various ways. His laxness in spelling was no insult to the English language; he embroidered and exalted language, and from his pen came many of the wonderful words and phrases and thoughts that illuminate present-day English.

IN deliuering my sonne from me, I burie a se­

cond husband.

Ros And I in going Madam, weep ore my

fathers death anew; but I must attend his maie­

sties command, to whom I am now in Ward, euermore

in subiection.

Laf You shall find of the King a husband Madame,

you sir a father. He that so generally is at all times good,

must of necessitie hold his vertue to you, whose worthi­

nesse would stirre it vp where it wanted rather then lack

it where there is such abundance.

Mo What hope is there of his Maiesties amendment?

Laf He hath abandon'd his Phisitions Madam, vn­

der whose practises he hath persecuted time with hope,

and finds no other aduantage in the processe, but onely

the loosing of hope by time.

The Japanese Dilemma

It is a conundrum, is it not. One of the world's largest standing armies, representing the power and the might of the world's still-single most powerful nation, detested in so many parts of the world, yet acknowledged bitterly, resentfully, as the Globe's security agent. Not, presumably, because they seek that position on the international stage necessarily, but as a reflection of their political and powerful social standing on the world stage.

The United States of America, post World War II saw, in the wisdom of its executive administration, the utility as well as the humanitarianism of aiding the defeated, Axis countries to re-build their economies, their shattered infrastructure, giving hope to a demoralized and beaten people. Germany's strength today, along with its utter disinterest in anything remotely militarily aggressive speaks to their lesson. It too long suffered the ignominious necessity of foreign troops on its soil.

Japan's ability to lift itself out of the moral decay of its reputation for war-time atrocities, its turn-about to become a military-uniform-detesting country, expressed in its amended constitution that its military may be used only for defensive, never offensive purposes, owes much to the encouragement, guidance, and financial assistance of the country that defeated it in wartime, and wrought on its soil, Armageddon.

Still, a peaceful, peace-time Japan has its own enemies, those who cannot simply let bygones be bygones, remembering the pain and the anguish of a brutal occupying force in their own countries. Korea and China have much to remember, Japan much to regret. Japan has had great comfort in knowing that American forces, stationed on its territory, remain dedicated to its well-being, with South Korea's technological advance in weaponry.

Yet the Japanese people hugely resent the presence of tens of thousands of American troops on their sovereign land. This is intellectual, social, humanly hysterical and ethical conflict that reflects a mood of the occupied, even if the two countries face one another as equals. So Okinawans have renewed their determination to exert influence on the Diet, on their new prime minister, to invite American troops to leave Okinawa.

This is a hard place to be; hoping to maintain a relationship that brings the defence of Big Brother against geographical bullies like North Korea and China to the fore when required, yet attempting to forestall the satisfying of angry and outraged Japanese nationals who have suffered more than enough humiliation at the presence of a foreign armed force on their territory.

Would that this world were such a place that foreign troops would never seek to enter, much less remain on territory not their own. That, in fact, countries of the world require the presence of their troops anywhere, even on their own soil, to protect themselves from the predatory advance of other countries' ambitions.

Serious? Well, Then...

Everywhere in the world there is a critical shortage of the vaccine against the H1N1 virus. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are working furiously to produce sufficient vaccines to serve the needs of countries around the world. In the general atmosphere of media-induced panic aided by this new influenza strain's peculiar behaviour in the human body - striking dead the hale and the young as well as the immune-impaired and the elderly - epidemiologists are bemused and lend their confusion to the general air of uncertainty.

Laid aside is the logic of common sense that should soothe the nervousness of the public; that this H1N1 flu virus has not yet demonstrated it has the potential to wreak the full dimension of disaster on a worried public. Its trajectory, despite fears, has actually demonstrated it to be fairly innocuous - but for those unfortunates who have succumbed mortally to its sudden, mysterious ability to kill. Most people who have become infected have demonstrated relatively light symptoms, a minority briefly hospitalized.

Still, the worry is there, for governments to respond to the need to inoculate those demographics within their society most potentially at risk. Overlooked, for the most part, is the vulnerability of school-age children, since high priority groups only included children from six months to five years of age. Municipal and provincial health authorities have not quite risen to the task of functionally sound administration of the vaccines that they have received, although that appears to be improving.

But if health authorities are really serious about nipping parental fears as well as those of young people whom this virus, unlike other seasonal flu viruses, appears to target - and occasionally mortally - they should be acting, not reacting. It should be seen as a necessity to have roving clinics set up in schools, for the very precise and time-economizing purpose of vaccinating children and their teachers to halt the transmission of H1N1.

Given the reality that it is through the close physical proximity of the classroom that all such viruses have always been transmitted.

Autumn Visit

Finally a relaxation of the bitter cold, the incessant wind, the damp atmosphere, the sudden rainfalls. This day recalled the early days of fall, presenting us with a brief reprieve from the inexorable push toward winter. A lovely clear sky, with wisps of fragmented, airy clouds. Last night's temperature that had plunged to minus-8-degrees gained mightily by early afternoon, to plus-8. After our ravine walk, plodding through the muck of trails frozen overnight and released to mud by mid-morning, we set out for a family visit.

It's been entirely too long since we've been face-to-face with our granddaughter and her mother. Multiple-daily telephone conversations and emails somehow suffice, but don't quite make the grade. We require the warmth and contentment and reassurance of flesh-to-flesh contact. It's a lengthy road trip, made even more so by road work halting traffic for prolonged periods of time.

But eventually, we made it, rolled into the long driveway of our daughter's 1864 log schoolhouse, transformed over the years into a fair-sized house with its own attached summer cottage, all looking out over a sizeable wetland, beyond which lies her five acres of Canadian shield, with meadows and forest, and all the wildlife that can be seen of a day. Birds of every description, small furry creatures, and larger; deer too, at her apple trees.

Long gone now the songbirds and the hummingbirds, but bluejays, chickadees, and a varied succession of woodpeckers drop faithfully back to deplete her feeders. It's amazing how much a thirteen-year-old can change in the space of a few weeks. Her height, her contours, her attitude, all undergo profound alterations. She's accustomed to having her photographs taken by her grandmother, but of late shy of them.

"I hate photos of me!" she protests, as I counter-protest that I cannot possibly leave without a few photographs of our only grandchild. "All right. If you must, if you so insist", she gracelessly succumbs to my endearments and my coaxing, still refusing to pose. As though I want anything posed, in any event. And I am well satisfied with only a few photographs; they will do, very nicely, to fulfill my need.

We've unloaded all the items we brought along, and she proclaims herself to be willing enough to wear the new down-filled winter jacket, hooded, in bright white, to augment the one her mother has bought for this winter's wear. I prevaricated when she asked whether it had 'feathers' in it, since she always says down-filled jackets look 'fat'. And I assured her that the 'fur' trim was not genuine, but faux fur, so that too was all right.

Inside the front door, in the long, glassed-in foyer with all its warmth from the sun, some of the menagerie who inhabit the house alongside our daughter and granddaughter, are happily flaked out, absorbing the warm rays. The always-cold chihuahua cuddles with the obliging Australian shepherd who mothers it happily, licking its fur, and offering the smaller dog its own considerable body warmth.

When we depart to begin the return journey, it is late afternoon, the sun has been overtaken by a sky-full of conjoined and humped cloud formations, allowing the bright light of the soon-to-set sun to illuminate their whipped-cream formations. Farmed fields of corn, desiccated, not yet harvested, are a warm glowing gold, reflecting the sun. Silos glint silver in the sun. Plowed fields whose orderly rows are accentuated in gold hues, winter-prepared.

We see high overhead, one line after another of geese, heading out, off the cornfields and their day's languid rest on the Ottawa River. Not to be outdone, formless networks of crows lift off their tree-mast perches and flap the darkening sky. A red glow rests on shrubs and trees, naked of their leaves, but proud of this new flame that temporarily lights their presence.

"Please, Don't Leave Me"

You would resolve to never, ever place yourself in a potentially vulnerable, psyche-altering situation like that again. The fearsome gloom settling over one's consciousness, wakening from a brief unconscious state to discover that the worst possible scenario had unfolded. As the helicopter ride that you'd undertaken countless times before suddenly ended far short of its destination. In flight off the Newfoundland coast, over the ocean en route to the Hibernia oilfields.

Hibernia, the first offshore oil project on the Grand Banks, began pumping crude in November 1997.

A Cougar Helicopters Sikorsky S-92, a reliable sky-beating contrivance carrying you and seventeen others, including the flight crew. What could be more yawningly familiar? Yes, there is always the knowledge shared by all who make those trips that disaster could somehow descend on them. And for that reason people in those situations are equipped with disaster suits designed to help them survive that worse-case scenario.

In the catastrophic worst-case scenario that ensued on a routine flight east of Newfoundland on March 12, 2009 of the helicopter carrying workers to the White Rose oilfields at Hibernia, there was but one survivor. When Robert Decker testified before an enquiry into offshore safety, he explained the miracle of his survival: "Also, when I regained consciousness in the submerged helicopter cabin I know that I stayed calm and I didn't panic.

"I was able to concentrate on getting out of the helicopter and to the surface as quickly as possible... It was like a reflex to take a breath and to hold it and to stay calm until I could get to the surface." His previous 50-such trips, as a weather and ice observer for Provincial Aerospace, must have in some sense prepared him for such a possibility. So when he awakened inside the destroyed aircraft cabin, the light from his survival suit guiding him, he undid his seatbelt.

He pulled himself through the shattered window beside his seat, took a long breath as the helicopter kept filling with seawater and continued sinking, then began his long ascent, noting increased brightness as he ascended toward the surface. Floating on the water with his suit beginning to leak, his hands cramped and frozen, body temperature descending, his vision failed through the stress his body was succumbing to.

He was fortunate. So weak that he was unable to scramble into a rescue basket when a search helicopter hovered over him, he said to his rescuer who was lowered to assist him, "Please, don't leave me." This is misadventure writ large. And this is also pure, blind luck. Representing ample reason why one individual who suffered the anguish of such an experience vowed never to repeat it.

The Absurdities of Entitlement Conspiracies

The Liberal Party of Canada has fallen so low even in its own estimation of where it stands in the esteem of the public that it looks about everywhere it can for symptoms signalling yet another low-down Conservative-led conspiracy to make it look even worse in the public eye. Little realizing that it is their own feeble, unconvincing presence, its absurdly plaintive accusations against the Conservative-led government that results in their appearing insipidly unprepared to once again take up the governance of the country.

Liberal members of Parliament are so busy attacking every government initiative that is brought forward, that they look like human windmills, battling the reality of a government that is not Liberal, making a success of the administration of Canada's internal and external affairs. Given the circumstances weighing on the country in a flailing global economy and a critical NATO-led counter-insurgency, along with the current necessity to stem the tide of rising pandemic fear, the government is performing as well as can be expected.

It has, in fact, earned the respect of a far greater number of voters than has the official opposition and their leader. That same leader who vowed so recklessly that he would undertake, at each and every opportunity to take down this minority government, in reflection of his opinion that it was time to change. In direct opposition to the voting public's perception that the change they required took place when the Liberals left the PMO, and the Conservatives arrived to moderate Canadian affairs.

The Liberals are so desperate they find conspiracies even in the current torch relay celebrations leading up to the Winter Olympics. Insisting that even on this occasion, the Conservatives have writ their logo large and bright by monopolizing all the celebrated stops along the route delivering the Olympic frame, cross-country. Central Toronto, a Liberal stronghold, has a mere single torch relay event - in an NDP riding. Winnipeg, dominated by the Liberals, has been by-passed for a stop in an outskirt Conservative riding.

Maxime Bernier's riding somehow rates a two-day, three-stop gold medal. What's this? Stephen Harper's Calgary riding has been by-passed? And the riding that has six events over a four-day period in the northwest wilderness of British Columbia is in a NDP stronghold? Yes, but Halifax gets not even one stop inside its Liberal/NDP circumference. It's a dark plot indeed, yet another indelible indication that those dastardly Conservatives are sopping up all the public glory.

Funny thing that; the process of selecting celebratory locations, initiated before the Conservatives came to power, and under a Liberal-led government, was meant to reflect no political involvement. VANOC staff consulted primarily with local organizers to select locations able to handle crowds and the staging of each of these events. The seeming preponderance of stops in Conservative-held ridings has a simple explanation.

It's rural voters largely throughout Canada, who tend to vote Conservative, while the Liberals mop up more expansively in urban areas. Because of the large rural ridings, more stops are required, reflecting the size of the geography, as opposed to the density of the urban landscape. Ah, so!

Disavowing Discretion

The Royals are coming! The Royals are here! The sun never sets on the British Empire. Of which Canada is part, sovereign as we are. Yet we recognize Queen Elizabeth as our Sovereign, our Head of State. In fond acknowledgement of history and tradition and our pride of place in that long-passed Empire. We don't consider ourselves to be colonials. We're respectful of our antecedents.

So that, when members of the Royal Family come to visit, as they are wont to do, on occasion, sometimes for singular occasions, occasionally casually, we welcome them and offer our very best wishes in as gracious a manner as possible. Unless, of course, you're a member of the Bloc Quebecois, and grumpily observe, as did its leader, Gilles Duceppe: "The monarchy is a system that is depasse and archaic.

"I call it a genetic lottery. People who say they have blue blood should see their doctor as soon as they can." Who knew that this taciturn man who loves to hate Quebec's provincial role within Canada, and who strives mightily to remove his beloved French province from confederation, possessed so trenchant a wit? Canadians seem to be divided on the matter of the British Monarchy and this country's reverence for it.

Still, traditions - some of them - deserve to be honoured, and this is one of them, in the estimation of many. Most Canadian parliamentarians do not hold like opinions to that of Gilles Duceppe, other than members of his political party. Some do, however. Rarely, though, the upper echelon of Canada's political hierarchy. And then, there is the Leader of the Liberal party of Canada. Who, in his days as a London-based journalist expressed his magisterial opinion.

With the very public and quite sordid dissolution of the-then (hugely dysfunctional) marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his exhibitionist wife, Princess Diana, Mr. Ignatieff waxed indignant: " We are being told to sympathize with the private grief of the tragic couple. We are being asked to believe that the horrid tabloids are to blame. Buckingham Palace and No.10 Downing Street smoothly assure us that the couple's private misery need have no constitutional implications.

"Enough of this nonsense. The Royal Family is not doing its job." Ah, how one's public musings and particularly those committed to print form, come back to haunt. At the most inconvenient of times, as it happens. As evidence of a certain lack of respect, of sympathy for an institution deserving of respect, and of sympathy even as its principals exhibit all the traits of fallible human beings, taking their place in the temper of the times.

"Listening to the separation announcement, I found myself wondering exactly why this shambles was so magically preferable to an elected presidency", grumped journalist Ignatieff. "The problem is not that the monarchy is failing to live up to some rosy family ideal. The British Royal Family never has ... Along with the dutiful, diligent and much-loved Queen, we have had madmen, philanderers and incompetents on the throne."

Wait for it, Mr. Ignatieff; another mad philandering incompetent is set to assume the throne. You will have the opportunity to discuss this directly with him very soon; say November 10?

Some of us, however, respect this man. He is a genuine polymath in the sweep and breadth of his talents and interests. Do, when you have the opportunity, speak respectfully to him, obliging him to return the compliment. And if the length of your mutual conversation permits, you may just learn something worthwhile from him. Humility and compassion come to mind.