It's been nearly a full year since the death of a disabled man in Toronto.On the evening of August 1st,2011,Charles McGillivary was walking with his mother in the area of Bloor And Christie streets.Charles McGillivary was a disabled man,unable to speak as the result of a childhood accident.On that night he was out for pizza,a favorite activity.By all accounts,Charles McGillivary was well known and well liked in his neighborhood.At the vigil I attended a week later many described him as gentle and kind.
Unknown to Charles or his mother,a short distance away,police were attending a call about a disruptive tenant.Shortly after they received that complaint,they confronted a man they believed to be the person of interest.That man turned out to be Charles McGillivary.Officers called him by the name of their suspect and received no answer,so they exited their patrol car and a further confrontation occured,during which Charles McGillivary was wrestled to the ground.Keep in mind that,being non-verbal,he had no means of answering police inquiries.I can well imagine that he must have felt terror as well,as he was taken to the ground,something which no doubt caused him to continue to struggle.In the end,Charles McGillivary ended up dead,a tragic case of mistaken identity.
The usual inquiry took place,with what seemed like the usual outcome.I should note that the announcement that Ontario's Special Investigations Unit(SIU), had cleared the officers involved of any criminal wrong doing came this spring.Had I not been listening carefully for their ruling I would have missed it,as there were a couple of high profile murders in the news at the time?Coincidence?Perhaps.
But i'll cut right to the main point.Do we simply have to accept a "no harm,no foul"explanation for these events.Have we learned anything at all from this mans death.Or was it just another case of police just doing their jobs.The Coroner ruled cause of death inconclusive,but suggested that Heart failure as the result of a struggle was likely.I'm not saying that the coroner is wrong,but the inconclusive tag does cause me some concern.it seems an appeal to the stereotype that disabled persons are somehow in suspect health and that that was the real cause of death,as opposed to the incident itself.I'm concerned that enough people will buy into that thought and stop asking questions that need to be answered.And,that as a result,Charles McGillivary becomes just another disabled ma who died,but,somehow just doesn't count quite as much as other citizens,who would have the verbal and intellectual abilities to defend themselves.As long as that is the case,there is just something unacceptably lacking in the way this whole thing was handled.
Some things I'm still unclear on:Who comprises the SIU.How many of them are former cops.Is there any provisions for the SIU to access special consultants from outside their ranks when the situation calls for it?Specifically,could they access the services of anyone with expertise as to how disability may have affected the outcome of this particular case?And most importantly,who speaks for Charles MCGillivary?
Monday 30 July 2012
Saturday 28 July 2012
Photo essay
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| Morning |
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| Mountain Strings |
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| Old and Blue |
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| Ruins |
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| Along The Tracks |
memoir writers homework/wilderness/wildlife
I've always enjoyed wilderness and wildlife,believing that a benevolent creator put both here for us to see and reflect upon.I've never been able to deny,when I see a hawk or a whale or some other creature that it points the way to a power much larger than myself,and that He furnished all these things that He might be recognized.
In fact,it's not really necessary to seek out wild and remote places to enjoy God's creatures.Just the other day I witnessed two hawks circling high above the banks of the Bow River,looking for prey.And it was amazing that we could hear them screeching as they rode the wind currents while we looked up from constructing a building on the ground.And all the more amazing is that they have eyes that allow them to locate something as small as a gopher or a mouse hundreds of feet below.
In Calgary,where I live now,there is an abundance of wildlife very close to downtown.Coyotes are commonly sighted,even on busy streets,especially at night.In 2001,I had a coyote follow me to work for about a two week stretch.As I would walk down a set of railway tracks,I would turn off to my left,and she,following a hundred or so feet behind would veer off to the left.It turned out she had a den full of pups inside an old 45 gallon drum just off the tracks.So,I would come to work a half hour early so as to have the opportunity to take a few minutes to stop and watch them at play.It seemed a sort of respect developed between myself and the mother.She would always follow me each morning,maintaining exactly the same distance.I did not feel as though I was being stalked and it never occurred to me to be afraid of her,as much as people around here say coyotes are dangerous.I don't believe it.I think this particular coyote came to the conclusion,eventually that I was no threat to her or her family.She stopped following me,but remained in her den and would allow me to watch the young ones each morning.
In fact,it's not really necessary to seek out wild and remote places to enjoy God's creatures.Just the other day I witnessed two hawks circling high above the banks of the Bow River,looking for prey.And it was amazing that we could hear them screeching as they rode the wind currents while we looked up from constructing a building on the ground.And all the more amazing is that they have eyes that allow them to locate something as small as a gopher or a mouse hundreds of feet below.
In Calgary,where I live now,there is an abundance of wildlife very close to downtown.Coyotes are commonly sighted,even on busy streets,especially at night.In 2001,I had a coyote follow me to work for about a two week stretch.As I would walk down a set of railway tracks,I would turn off to my left,and she,following a hundred or so feet behind would veer off to the left.It turned out she had a den full of pups inside an old 45 gallon drum just off the tracks.So,I would come to work a half hour early so as to have the opportunity to take a few minutes to stop and watch them at play.It seemed a sort of respect developed between myself and the mother.She would always follow me each morning,maintaining exactly the same distance.I did not feel as though I was being stalked and it never occurred to me to be afraid of her,as much as people around here say coyotes are dangerous.I don't believe it.I think this particular coyote came to the conclusion,eventually that I was no threat to her or her family.She stopped following me,but remained in her den and would allow me to watch the young ones each morning.
Pleasant surprises can come from the most unexpected sources.i find as I grow older there seems so much disrespect in the world that I greatly appreciate it's opposite.So I was surprised,even somewhat taken aback last night to hear a younger native man call me "Uncle."By that he doesn't literally mean that I am his uncle.It's just a term of respect that Canadian native people from his part of northern Canada use when addressing an elder.It may be that the darkened color of my skin led him to mistake me as native.That's been known to have happened in the past,as I can grow quite dark in summer months.It really makes no difference.I was,in fact honored to be addressed as "uncle."To be truthful,relations with native people here in Western Canada can be strained at times,by the weight of negative history,but I've always tried to treat people right.At times I've been accepted by people of other races,and at times I have not.But I believe I've done my best to not practice racial prejudice.So,it made my whole week,in fact,my whole year to date,to have that recognized when a younger native man called me "uncle."
Wednesday 25 July 2012
Some Thoughts About Being a Liberal Christian
Well,I've spent some more time reading "Jesus Was a Liberal" and I find it a very interesting read.A few weeks back a man asked me how it was I could call myself both Liberal and Christian at the same time.Quite honestly,I've never really experienced the cognitive dissonance that my friend seems to come by naturally,as a Conservative when hearing "liberal" and "Christian"in the same political conversation.What's interesting is that my friend,who measures himself as an agnostic seems to picture Christianity as belonging solely to right wing side of the political spectrum.I might well ask how one can be agnostic,or even atheist and still consider themselves conservative,but I'm not going to bother.That would only serve to extend the obvious error of not thinking beyond my immediate perceptions in such matters.
What does it mean to call oneself a Christian.I'll deal with that first as it's a relatively easy question to answer.It means that one believes in God,and in Christ,his Son who was sent to die for my salvation,if I believe in him by faith and accept the free gift of his grace.But I would have to say that by the time I became a Christian,many of my political ideas were fully formed.They may not have been informed by my current faith,but I don't believe that most of them are bad ideals.And in truth,I consider them subject to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to change,if necessary.
My political views are essentially Liberal.And I'll take the time to lay down what I consider the central idea of Liberalism,so far as I understand it.Liberalism grew out of the Enlightenment and began as the idea that we could subject all things,including politics and theology to reason,and then be free to choose from among those ideas.Of course,this implied a lot of wrong ideas,perhaps,but that could hardly be worse than the church of the day having a nearly complete monopoly on social control.And the Catholic Church of that day were conservative in nearly every respect,not encouraging people to read and/or think about religion.Anyone who valued their reputation and life was expected to swallow the word whole,as presented by priests.So,in fact,enlightened Liberalism was largely responsible for enabling the religious freedoms we know today.
In terms of social implications,Liberalism to me is synonymous with human rights and egalitarianism,or the idea that all people should have access to the same opportunities.Accordingly,if I say I am a believer in egalitarianism and human rights,I must be willing to fund those ideals through government.Therefor,I believe in public education for all,public health care,and a basic social safety net.Now,in point of fact,I can find support for these ideals way back in the time of Moses.For instance,it was forbidden for Israel to glean wheat from their fields more than once,and the poor were permitted to glean at the corners of the fields.Primitive though it may be this has all the markings of social welfare.
So how did Liberal become a dirty word among conservative Christians?Well,as I noted,more than a few really bad ideas resulted from the newly found freedom to inquire.Freedom of most kinds carries that possibility.It's implicit in the concept of freedom.For instance,the Theory of Evolution is most likely a "liberal"idea,in the sense that no one would have dared propose it two hundred years prior to Darwin.But that is far from saying that all Liberals actually believe in it.In fact there seem to be a growing number of scientists who question the theory.
That brings me back to the book"Jesus Was a Liberal,"not because I'm prepared to give a long commentary,at this point on it,but because it's author makes a great point about liberalism and the response of many conservatives to all things liberal.To paraphrase,he notes that the term liberal has taken on the meaning of godless or secular or anti-religious.In so doing,the book quotes another author I've been reading recently,Ann Coulter:"liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith."
A few words,and I'll try to hold it at a few,about Ann Coulter are in order.While reading her book,the first thing that came to mind is that she paints liberals with a very wide brush.Imagine my surprise at finding out that among the things I hold "sacred" in the mind of Coulter at least is "killing the unborn"and "allowing dangerous criminals to go free."Fortunately I managed to put down Coulters book in a laundramat and it was stolen.After the first five insufferable chapters I got the general idea.While Coulter might be doing a great job of defining ALL liberals,to her own edification,I do not need Ann Coulter to tell me what I believe.And for the record,I am pro life and in favor of keeping dangerous criminals off the streets forever,Coulters comments notwithstanding.The point is that I attempt to subject political thinking to both reason and scriptural scrutiny.Above I mentioned one example of how scripture might be interpreted as liberal.It is far from the only example.Liberalism to me reflects the love and care for our fellow humans that Jesus spoke and preached about.Even so,it does seem true that it's the "Religious Right"that most people view as the face of Christianity.I suspect that many Christians find themselves on the right side of the political spectrum for reasons of belief that not every Christian,or for that matter,every Christian sect believes in.But I wish,instead of trying to explain my beliefs to me as though they were the definitive authority,they would explain their own beliefs to me and allow them to be questioned.
What does it mean to call oneself a Christian.I'll deal with that first as it's a relatively easy question to answer.It means that one believes in God,and in Christ,his Son who was sent to die for my salvation,if I believe in him by faith and accept the free gift of his grace.But I would have to say that by the time I became a Christian,many of my political ideas were fully formed.They may not have been informed by my current faith,but I don't believe that most of them are bad ideals.And in truth,I consider them subject to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to change,if necessary.
My political views are essentially Liberal.And I'll take the time to lay down what I consider the central idea of Liberalism,so far as I understand it.Liberalism grew out of the Enlightenment and began as the idea that we could subject all things,including politics and theology to reason,and then be free to choose from among those ideas.Of course,this implied a lot of wrong ideas,perhaps,but that could hardly be worse than the church of the day having a nearly complete monopoly on social control.And the Catholic Church of that day were conservative in nearly every respect,not encouraging people to read and/or think about religion.Anyone who valued their reputation and life was expected to swallow the word whole,as presented by priests.So,in fact,enlightened Liberalism was largely responsible for enabling the religious freedoms we know today.
In terms of social implications,Liberalism to me is synonymous with human rights and egalitarianism,or the idea that all people should have access to the same opportunities.Accordingly,if I say I am a believer in egalitarianism and human rights,I must be willing to fund those ideals through government.Therefor,I believe in public education for all,public health care,and a basic social safety net.Now,in point of fact,I can find support for these ideals way back in the time of Moses.For instance,it was forbidden for Israel to glean wheat from their fields more than once,and the poor were permitted to glean at the corners of the fields.Primitive though it may be this has all the markings of social welfare.
So how did Liberal become a dirty word among conservative Christians?Well,as I noted,more than a few really bad ideas resulted from the newly found freedom to inquire.Freedom of most kinds carries that possibility.It's implicit in the concept of freedom.For instance,the Theory of Evolution is most likely a "liberal"idea,in the sense that no one would have dared propose it two hundred years prior to Darwin.But that is far from saying that all Liberals actually believe in it.In fact there seem to be a growing number of scientists who question the theory.
That brings me back to the book"Jesus Was a Liberal,"not because I'm prepared to give a long commentary,at this point on it,but because it's author makes a great point about liberalism and the response of many conservatives to all things liberal.To paraphrase,he notes that the term liberal has taken on the meaning of godless or secular or anti-religious.In so doing,the book quotes another author I've been reading recently,Ann Coulter:"liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith."
A few words,and I'll try to hold it at a few,about Ann Coulter are in order.While reading her book,the first thing that came to mind is that she paints liberals with a very wide brush.Imagine my surprise at finding out that among the things I hold "sacred" in the mind of Coulter at least is "killing the unborn"and "allowing dangerous criminals to go free."Fortunately I managed to put down Coulters book in a laundramat and it was stolen.After the first five insufferable chapters I got the general idea.While Coulter might be doing a great job of defining ALL liberals,to her own edification,I do not need Ann Coulter to tell me what I believe.And for the record,I am pro life and in favor of keeping dangerous criminals off the streets forever,Coulters comments notwithstanding.The point is that I attempt to subject political thinking to both reason and scriptural scrutiny.Above I mentioned one example of how scripture might be interpreted as liberal.It is far from the only example.Liberalism to me reflects the love and care for our fellow humans that Jesus spoke and preached about.Even so,it does seem true that it's the "Religious Right"that most people view as the face of Christianity.I suspect that many Christians find themselves on the right side of the political spectrum for reasons of belief that not every Christian,or for that matter,every Christian sect believes in.But I wish,instead of trying to explain my beliefs to me as though they were the definitive authority,they would explain their own beliefs to me and allow them to be questioned.
Sunday 22 July 2012
Memoir Writers Homework/Transportation.
"The Old Trail,just moseys right along,
moves at the speed of a sweet love song..."
The rivers used to be roads,and the roads rivers.The Saint John must have been the number one highway in those days.Those days were ended before my days ever began,but I could still see the ghosts of that time when we took the old road that meandered by the river.A few logs being floated to mill,where once the river was full of logs,so that you could walk across on them from bank to bank.Old covered bridges and broken down,waterlogged river craft.
Mostly we went places by car,where we could watch little bits of the past drift by the windows as we sped on in the opposite direction.And the cars we had,most often two of them were grand things:a 1961 Valiant,an old Nash Rambler,a 1964 Chevelle,and the 1966 Chevy Impala SS which became my first car.Until they too drifted away,to rust in a hay field,where we could see them as we roared by.
The old road,the one that followed the river wasn't good enough.Because the province needed more power,they built a dam,and the old road gave way to one on higher ground.But you could still drive along the rivers banks and dream of the time past when it would carry men along at it's own speed,back when rivers were roads and roads were rivers.
Then,even the new road wasn't enough for us and it needed to be replaced with one on which you could by-pass nearly everything,cut hours of driving time,and arrive no more rested and far less edified.
There seem to be words that the road builders hate,and try to drive from our language.Words like "pastoral" and "meander.""Pastoral" as in a pastoral painting.Native children with a string of trout.Jersey cows grazing by a covered bridge,or an old woman gathering herbs.Back then,while driving,I could see my province in pastoral,impressionistic splendor."Meander"as in to travel the way the river does and enjoy it's green banks.But who needs that kind of road,because roads were not intended for the soul.So they cut a new one,straight as an arrow through the heart of the province.It will get you to all the same places,but by-passes everything,giving thought to nothing.It cannot recall the time when rivers were roads and roads were rivers,nor even when roads meandered by pastoral riverside.But I remember.
The Quote is from a song called "The Old Trail",by Don Williams.From back when country music still existed.
moves at the speed of a sweet love song..."
The old road,the one that followed the river wasn't good enough.Because the province needed more power,they built a dam,and the old road gave way to one on higher ground.But you could still drive along the rivers banks and dream of the time past when it would carry men along at it's own speed,back when rivers were roads and roads were rivers.
The Quote is from a song called "The Old Trail",by Don Williams.From back when country music still existed.
Friday 20 July 2012
memoir writers homework/bullies
Bullies seem to be a part of everyone's life and certainly Moncton had it's share.My mother believed in finding and recognizing the good in everyone,and of speaking only of that good.She must have been deeply troubled at the state of our world in the mid 1970's but chose to remain outwardly naive about many things.During those years,two policemen were killed,their killers found,tried and sentenced to death,only to have their sentences commuted.Then a small girl disappeared at the beginning of summer.Some monster must have snatched her away and as I grew older I came to recognize more clearly what such monsters do.
I wanted to go on the search for this girl and my mother decided to allow it .I was 14 at the time and when I went on the search with a neighbor,I discovered a bully,and a thought as to why all things seemed to be going to Hell in a handbasket.At the time,it was unusual for us to even lock our front doors.
We piled into my neighbors car,went to the police station,where hundreds had gathered and at the command center were assigned an area to search.Our area turned out to be northeast of town.Moncton is divided,northeast to southwest such that to the north and east the rural communities are predominantly French,while to the south and east they are English,United Empire Loyalist.So,being of the latter category I found myself in a very different world in many ways.
By mid morning we had searched ditches and fields near the road,finding no sign of anything suspicious.At last we came to a tiny church with an equally tiny man outside,cutting it's lawn and tidying up it's grounds.We approached.He spoke hardly any English,though he seemed to know why we were there.My neighbor,who reminded me of a great hairless bear asked the man in English if we could search in the church.His voice was loud,as it always tended to be.Even in polite conversation it's volume was just a notch too loud for the occasion.He took a step towards the man while asking.His eyes were fixed on the door.His manner did not invite no as an answer.Why would the missing girl be in the church?Still,he desired to inspect the church.The groundskeeper nodded his assent,looked at the ground and stepped aside.We looked into the small sanctuary.A single,straight ahead view allowed us to take in all of it and there was no sign of anything that should not have been there.So we left.And I thought of those two men for all my life since and how much of Moncton's social reality was spoken in that mostly unspoken event.And I began to be aware of certain undercurrents that my mother was uncomfortable recognizing.Wolves often wear sheep's clothing.
I wanted to go on the search for this girl and my mother decided to allow it .I was 14 at the time and when I went on the search with a neighbor,I discovered a bully,and a thought as to why all things seemed to be going to Hell in a handbasket.At the time,it was unusual for us to even lock our front doors.
We piled into my neighbors car,went to the police station,where hundreds had gathered and at the command center were assigned an area to search.Our area turned out to be northeast of town.Moncton is divided,northeast to southwest such that to the north and east the rural communities are predominantly French,while to the south and east they are English,United Empire Loyalist.So,being of the latter category I found myself in a very different world in many ways.
By mid morning we had searched ditches and fields near the road,finding no sign of anything suspicious.At last we came to a tiny church with an equally tiny man outside,cutting it's lawn and tidying up it's grounds.We approached.He spoke hardly any English,though he seemed to know why we were there.My neighbor,who reminded me of a great hairless bear asked the man in English if we could search in the church.His voice was loud,as it always tended to be.Even in polite conversation it's volume was just a notch too loud for the occasion.He took a step towards the man while asking.His eyes were fixed on the door.His manner did not invite no as an answer.Why would the missing girl be in the church?Still,he desired to inspect the church.The groundskeeper nodded his assent,looked at the ground and stepped aside.We looked into the small sanctuary.A single,straight ahead view allowed us to take in all of it and there was no sign of anything that should not have been there.So we left.And I thought of those two men for all my life since and how much of Moncton's social reality was spoken in that mostly unspoken event.And I began to be aware of certain undercurrents that my mother was uncomfortable recognizing.Wolves often wear sheep's clothing.
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