Ed Broadbent’s Legacy to Us I met Ed Broadbent once, in 2003, at an all-candidates’ debate in my Ottawa community. At Jack Layton’s urging, he had come out of retirement to run in Ottawa Centre. His performance was outstanding. Afterwards, I and other audience members went up to the front to congratulate him. Another party’s candidate, who had a TV presence, was younger and perhaps better looking than Ed, assumed that I and the others were coming to greet him, and looked crestfallen on realizing we weren’t. Meanwhile Ed looked surprised and pleased to have so many fans come up to shake his hand. On January 28th, 2024, watching his state funeral, I was moved by the inspirational eulogies about his strivings to bring about a social democratic Canada, I was pleased to hear the co-authors of his recent memoir, Seeking Social Democracy, pay tribute to him. “Broadbent wanted to write something concerned with political ideas in the broadest sense” wrote on...
THIS VISIBLE WORM My “William/Willie challenge” Some years ago I watched the movie, “Dangerous Minds,” centring on a dedicated high school teacher played by Michelle Pfeiffer. She initiated a “Dylan/Dylan challenge for her students. They were to find poems/lyrics by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan which had the same theme. It turned out that each poet had written a work urging a bold, confrontational attitude to death. Bob Dylan wrote: “...I will not carry myself down to die./When I go to my grave, my head will be high.” Dylan Thomas wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The idea of finding a connection between two poets from different eras and intrigued me, so I invented a similar challenge for myself, the “William/Willie” challenge. “William” is the English poet William Blake (1757-1827), whose books, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experien...
I, too, a sister had, an only sister - She loved me dearly, and I doted on her; To her I poured forth all my puny sorrows; (As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,) And of the heart those hidden maladies That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed. O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept Because she was not! (From Samuel Taylor Colderidge's poem, "To my friend, with an unfinished poem" a condolence poem from 1794.) This past June 1st was the second anniversary of my sister, Sandra's, death. I still miss her badly and wanted to post something on that date, but couldn't think of anything good enough. Then, watching the movie, "All my Puny Sorrows," based on a Miriam Toews novel, I looked up the Coleridge poem from which the quote comes. Sandra was my best friend and close confidante. Every so often I think, "I must phone her and tell her about...." and it takes a moment for me to remember that I can't. That rem...
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