Archive for the ‘In The News’ Category

I read yesterday that Stephen Harper is looking for a new Governor General to replace Michaëlle Jean.

I’m not sure if this is a political move, perhaps to find someone more conservative to hold that position. I am unaware of Michaëlle Jean’s political affiliations. She has come across a being fairly non-partisan as far as I could tell. But what I have enjoyed about her time in the office of Governor General is the sense of style and class she brings to the job. She is well dressed, well mannered, a woman of colour who represents a great deal of Canadians just by being a visible minority. She is proud of her heritage but clearly loves being Canadian. Isn’t this exactly what we want from anyone who gains citizen status here?

So I am left to wonder what it is about her that Mr. Harper doesn’t like? What has gone on behind the scenes that makes him feel she should be removed. Judging by the comments I have read online so far, she has been a popular Governor General. She exuded a certain feeling for most people that she was one of us, yet carried herself elegantly. Based upon the history of the Stephen Harper Government, we will probably never know what she did that got under his skin. He plays his cards very close to his chest. He is the least transparent politician I have ever seen.

I just wanted to express that although I did not agree with everything she did during her time in the Governor General’s oak trimmed, red velvet chair, I had respect for her ability to make Canadians proud with her infectious enthusiasm. She represented us well. Perhaps it’s not too late for Harper to change his mind but although she will never likely read this little Maiden with a Microphone blog, I wish her the best for the future. She has proven at least to me that there are still people in the political realm who don’t pronounce themselves “left” or “right” and approach their job with the intention of serving us all.

Good work Michaëlle!

The News Headlines Will Hurt Haiti Long After The Damage Has Been Cleaned Up

I have been trying to avoid the images on the news from Haiti. I hope that doesn’t sound heartless, but my mind can’t process that level of suffering. It just can’t. I can only recall a couple of times in my life when I felt so horrible about something that was completely unrelated to my own life that I had to turn off the news and try not to be blind-sided by unfathomable, distressing images.

One of my favourite places in the world to vacation is Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They have experienced their share of Mother Nature’s fury. They have unbearable heat in the summer, hurricanes, and earthquakes. I happened to be there in 2003 at a resort called the Nautilus Marina Resort (Now a Howard Johnson’s) when an Earthquake rattled the buildings and frightened the tourists and locals alike. Lucky for us, the centre of the quake was located miles away in a place called “Colima“. I can honestly say that I have never been so frightened in my entire life. I’ve had some very strange experiences over the years – many of which I will share with you here, but this was the closest I have ever come to thinking “I’m going to die, and it will be within the next few minutes“. That is how frightening an earthquake is. And this one was mild by the standard set by the Haiti earthquake. It was only a 5.0 on the richter scale. At the centre is was much higher (7.6 according to Wikipedia) I cannot imagine what those people in Haiti are going through (theirs was 7.3) and it breaks my heart to see their suffering. This is a country that has so very little to begin with and now they are left struggling for life, battling against disease, looking for clean water and food, the essentials of life. While I would give every penny I could afford to help the relief efforts, I know much of it will arrive too late to help many of these people.

During my experience in Puerto Vallarta (see the photo above and on the left), I was sitting on the couch with my husband when we began to feel the building move. It was slow at first, and nothing much to get excited about. I had lived through an amusing little Earthquake in the same town just a couple of years before this. My chair at the pool of the Las Palmas Resort Hotel moved a few inches. Nobody really noticed until I said out loud “why is my chair moving?” Only then did people stand up and shout “Earthquake, get away from the building!”.  When the room began to shake a little, we didn’t really panic until we realized that it was moving enough that standing up would be impossible. You could literally see the room sway, slowly back and forth. The realization that this could be catastrophic took only a few seconds.

Have you ever wondered what you might do if you and your spouse were to have a few moments before you died together? It is not at all like you see in the movies. We didn’t look at each other and say “Well my love, it’s been great. I love you and I hope to see you on the other side.” Nope. Nothing like that happened at all. I tucked my head between my legs, covered my head with both arms (figuring that broken arms might be better than a broken head) and waited for the roof to cave in. The entire time, my husband to his credit, put his arms around me like a shield and we waited until it slowed down enough to give us a chance to get up and bolt for the doorway. I shamefully admit that I wasn’t the picture of bravery. My husband stayed silent, but I whimpered “we’re going to die!” I think he said “No we’re not, just hang on.” or something like that but he was much more composed than I was. I learned later that he was every bit as rattled as I was, but his reaction was completely different than mine. My reaction could have been much worse if I had realized that my room was not on the top floor as I thought it was. I had envisioned layers of concrete raining down on my head, but I took some comfort in the thought that there was no room above me. It wasn’t until later that I realized that there was indeed an entire floor, full of furniture and more concrete and building materials above my head. Thank goodness I was ignorant of this fact.

At the first opportunity, we ran for the door, leaving everything behind. We got as far away from the building as possible. Outside, Mexican women were crying and holding each other. I could tell even without understanding a word that they had experienced this before, possibly in much worse circumstances because one woman was inconsolable. I wondered if she had lost family members or friends in an earthquake before. What a terrible thought. I didn’t know what to do. Should I offer to help, or keep moving? Her friends appeared to have the situation under control, so we kept moving.

We walked down the street to assess  the situation, to see if all the surrounding buildings had made it. There was a large hotel chain, I believe it was the Westin Regina, or some similar chain which had a huge crack from top to bottom. I wondered how a repair crew would go about repairing something like that? Everyone by this time was outside the buildings, discussing the earthquake and talking about what to do next. Most agreed that there could be aftershocks and going back inside was ill advised. I remember saying to my husband “I guess we’ll be grabbing some pool chairs and sleeping outside tonight”.

A few hours passed and although there had been one or two tiny aftershocks, we hadn’t noticed them. Somebody told me to put a glass of water beside my bedside. They explained that if you see the water moving, it could be an aftershock, or another earthquake and to get out before it turned more deadly. All night long, I woke up every few minutes and looked at that glass of water. I slept fully clothed and with my money pouch and passport around my neck.

I mentioned that Puerto Vallarta has been ravaged by Mother Nature before. In 2002, the town was hit by a category 5 hurricane named “Kenna“. I have never seen such damage! The destruction of the boardwalk, and the downtown was so bad that we chose to stay for the very first time in the Marina area which is where we happened to be when the earthquake hit. Normally we would have stayed in the hotel zone, but it was hit so hard that many of the buildings were still closed to the public. It was astounding to me how fast the Mexican people worked to ready much of their properties to welcome tourists again, but many tourists stayed away. Bad news headlines as we have learned more recently here in Wasaga Beach can do a great deal of damage to the tourist industry. And even when Puerto Vallarta was better than before, many still stayed away because they thought that the danger was too high. As someone who has been a frequent traveller to the area, I felt a responsibility to re-visit to help inject money into their economy – especially then.

Natural disasters are difficult to process for a sympathetic mind. The news media seems to derive a sense of twisted glee from publishing the worst images they can capture. It leaves any intelligent thinking person feeling manipulated. Our Government seems to deliberately minimize the images we are exposed to when it comes to their expensive, political wars; but when natural disasters hit, the news media are all over it. If you are old enough to remember the image of a young girl, naked and burned from napalm, running through the streets, crying and with a look of terror, you might understand why these images are supressed. It was images like that which caused people to stop supporting the Vietnam War. Her name by the way was Phan Thị Kim Phúc and she immigrated to Canada. She still does speeches about her experience. She was here in Wasaga Beach in January of 2008 (if memory serves me correctly) to appear on our local station 97.7 the Beach where I worked briefly as a receptionist. The radio was playing and I could hear her telling her story in a very calm voice but for every minute she was on our station, I fought the urge to cry. Some things are just too horrible to imagine.

Who can forget the photos of bloated bodies floating down city streets in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? Or those poor people stranded on searing hot rooftops trying to get the attention of rescue helicopters? Or that horrible, heart wrenching phone call of the woman who called 911 to ask for help with her voice shaking – telling the operator  “I’m ‘a gonna die up here in da attic, M’am“. Or how about those grotesque images of people desperately trying to flee the waves that turned a beautiful day in the sun in Thailand into a nightmare beyond any you could dream up in your mind?  The lucky ones who were strong and healthy enough to scale palm trees clung to them for dear life for hours, while bodies floated by. And of course there is the most infamous since Pearl Harbour – 9/11. The images  of which we have seen played, and replayed and used to change politics and label Liberals as un-American, and to divide a Country at a time when they should be sticking together.  The reports, the photos and the videos and the endless talking heads and political opportunists are unavoidable unless you are willing to disconnect yourself from it all and live in the woods, but for those of us who simply can’t bear to see such unimaginable suffering, I can only turn my head and mute the volume -  but it won’t do a thing to keep my mind from feeling their terror, and their pain.

To the people of Haiti, I have no words that can minimize the intense suffering. All one can do is offer whatever aid you can.  Here is the link to the UNICEF website. If you have even one dollar, give what you can. There is no amount too small. We are all suffering in this recession, but even one dollar from every one of us will make a difference. http://www.unicef.org/