Nuts & Mutton

Overheard at the hairdressing salon today:

“God, I hate Nickelback!”

“But there’s always Michael Fox, eh?”

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this sweet little movie. Dragged The First Husband to it last August, with him bitching moaning and whining all the way (Guess you could say I took a BMW to the movies!). “We’re going to see a cartoon??? Whyyyy?? I wanna see guns and car chases and, and, and ….” But the grownup prevailed, and we went to see Wall-E. I’d love to say TFH was converted on the spot, but we took a BMW home too. Me, I was in seventh heaven, because it was everything I hoped it would be — except for the ending. I found it hard to believe humanity would give up its nice, spoon-fed existence in order to tackle a planet-wide dump. But that’s a mere quibble. If you haven’t seen Wall-E yet, run don’t walk to the nearest video store and get it on DVD. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

On the eve of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Bush White House decreed that there would be no coverage of flag-covered coffins returning from Baghdad. It appeared their war would not pass the so-called “Dover test,” named for the Air Force Base into which soldiers’ bodies are flown. A ban on photographs from Dover, or any other armed forces base was imposed, and, to this day, caskets and injured soldiers are generally flown in under cover of darkness.

When Stephen Harper, our own Canadian Bush-lite, as wisewebwoman so shrewdly named him, became Prime Minister, he attempted to enforce the same kind of ban on Canadian casualties returning through CFB Trenton. An outcry by Canadians, led by the families of soldiers who had died in Afghanistan, led to a partial climb-down, and the media are allowed to cover repatriation ceremonies from outside the fence around the base, so long as the bereaved families do not object. To the Armed Forces’ credit, the bodies are always brought home during daylight hours.

As further proof that no tin-pot little dictator is going to tell Canadians what to do, hundreds of people from the town of Trenton also gather around the gates every time casualties are brought home, that they might pay their respects as the hearses pass through the gates.

The First Husband and I sailed into Trenton, during the summer of 2007, on the day a dead soldier was brought home. An escort of F18s flew over the town, followed shortly by the plane carrying his casket. Every single person in the marina, and the majority of people in the town, stopped what they were doing and stood in silence, gazing upwards, many of them holding a salute as the planes flew overhead. It was an incredibly moving experience.

But the real story lies in the spontaneous movement that began after people realized that all the bodies brought home are transported by road from Trenton to Toronto, where they undergo postmortems at the Coroner’s Office. Every time the news breaks that a soldier or soldiers are coming home and are on their way to Toronto, people begin moving out to Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway, the highways the funeral corteges must traverse between Trenton and Toronto. Where they can, they stand by the edge of the road, or they line the overpasses and bridges. Some carry the Canadian flag, others throw petals down onto the hearses as they pass under the bridges. Off-duty firefighters and police officers also come out, usually dressed in uniform, as well as veterans, but the majority of those present are just ordinary Canadians, with no connection to the military.

Yesterday, the bodies of three Canadians killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar were brought home to Trenton and, despite the freezing weather – a wind-chill of minus 20 degrees Celsius was recorded on the 401 – thousands of people turned out to mark their passage to Toronto. Traffic going in both directions was stopped or diverted by police as the cortege passed, and the people who had been waiting, for hours in some cases, stood in utter silence as it went by. I wept buckets as I watched it unfold on television last night. If it weren’t 50 miles away from here, I’d be out there, too.

Like many Canadians, I’m ambivalent on our involvement in this horrific war. On the one hand, as an army brat, I love to see pride in Canada’s military being rekindled among civilians and military alike. Liberal governments have always treated the armed forces miserably, forcing them to get by on crumbs from the budget table. While popular international opinion has it that Canada is the most boring place on the planet, we have an extraordinary tradition of military accomplishment, dating back as far as the Boer War and reaching its apotheosis in the trenches of World War I, when Canadians troops fought so fiercely that they captured and held positions that the other Allies had failed miserably to capture, despite many attempts. It was said the Canadians were the troops most feared by the German soldiers, because they just didn’t know how to give up trying.

After the Canadian forces – army, navy, and air force – were amalgamated in 1968, Canadians lost sight of the fact that the Royal Canadian Air Force had been the fourth largest air force in the world after WW2, and that its exploits matched or exceeded those of any other air force, with a roster of “gongs” that included the Victoria Cross, the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre, the Legion d’Honneur, the Star of Valour, and a veritable alphabet soup of DFCs, DSOs, DSCs, DFMs – to name but a few.

But, and it’s a very big BUT, none of this makes the waste of lives in Afghanistan any more palatable. That benighted land has been the cockpit of Central Asia since time immemorial and no foreign invader has ever managed to subdue its savage tribes. When we were in Ireland last May, I noticed this plaque in the church in which my niece was married:

“He died at Candahar on the 10th October 1880″ it reads.

As of today, 100 Canadians have lost their lives in Kandahar region, while the Taliban continue to cement their hold on the population. And that does not take account of 128 British and 556 American casualties, as well as those of 19 other Coalition forces in other parts of the country – making a total of 955 killed to date in this most frustrating of wars.

Brilliant YouTube take on the current political crisis in Canada, from Harperdictatorship.ca:

1. Snow covers a multitude of sins, including my crappy garden!
2. I’m looking forward to a slow couple of weeks on the work front. Time to catch up on some reading, write and post Christmas cards — and still not get my Christmas shopping done until the very last minute.
3. Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino is the best rock’n'roll song ever!
4. One of my favorite old tv shows is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
5. I’m done with worrying about what other people think.
6. The most enjoyable thing around the holidays is Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day, when all the fuss is over and we can relax in our jammies by the fire and eat leftovers.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to Lazy Friday Night with TFH, as always, tomorrow my plans include decorating the Christmas Tree , and Sunday, I want to read, and maybe even bake, just for the heck of it!