List of Minor Irritations

1. It's a wet, dreary day



2. My XP taskbar refuses to display icons for any of the programs I'm running. Restarting didn't help. Switching between programs is painful.



3. One on of the elevators in my building is on service and a second one is being repaired, leaving only one elevator for twenty floors. The one elevator that is usable often won't go to the 20th floor (i.e. the floor I live on).



4. I just spilled hot chocolate down the front of my white shirt.



5. Turnout for the municipal elections yesterday was about 40%. At least everyone I voted for won...

Lest we forget

I feel as though I ought to try and say something profound and meaningful, or at least touching and respectful today, but so far all I've managed is a list of complaints. My personal connection to the two world wars is pretty distant. World War II was primarily a war of my great-grandparents' era, and the one great-grandfather I knew died before I was old enough to think to ask him about it. What I do know about his experiences was that he was taken prisoner early in the war, and spent seven years in a POW camp. My grandmother was seven when he left and fourteen when he came back. She must have barely remembered him when he finally returned. I can't imagine being separated from a parent for that long, and I can't imagine trying to build a relationship with one after that long a break. I'm sure it was incredibly difficult, even as everyone around them was doing the same: a generation's worth of shattered families and broken bonds.

Right now I'm watching a video on the CBC website about the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War and the subsequent reparations. This is one of the few aspects of the Second World War that I have heard first-hand accounts of, and I'm glad I asked my grandfather about it before he died. Most of his family was sent to the camp at Slocan, in the B.C. interior, but my grandfather was shipped from Vancouver to a farm in Southwestern Ontario. The part that I always found most incredible about the whole experience is that after stripping him of his rights, his home, and his family, the government still had the gall to draft my grandfather to fight for the country that was holding his parents and siblings prisoner. And he went, as so many Japanese men did. And then he and his siblings built new lives for themselves after the war, starting again from scratch because the government had sold all of their property and possessions for a fraction of their value during the war. All of which, I imagine, contributed to my grandfather's decision to choose a Caucasian wife, and his relief when his son did the same.

So here's my tribute on Remembrance Day: Thank you to the people who suffered through the war and rebuilt their lives afterwards. And thank you to the people who fought for redress and justice on behalf of those who suffered at Canada's hands.

From the menu at the Red Room...

Sandwiches served with indicated bread unless otherwise specified

(So that would be what? A salad?)

I'm glad I'm not in America...

Last post of the day. Check out the picture: http://www.naral.org. If I were a Republican or a pro-life supporter, I'd be after the head of the person who approved that shot. Since I'm neither, I take a certain pleasure in seeing it spread around.

(You can also see it here, where it's larger and probably more permanent. I think the picture should be accessible to non-subscribers even if the article isn't. Although if you're willing to sit through the ad, the rest of the article is worth reading too. The part I found particularly informative was the discussion of last year's decision to amend the State Children's Health Insurance program to include fetuses. They could have just extended it to include pregnant women, but then they wouldn't have gotten to debate about whether pain medication during childbirth ought to be covered.)

The problem for Canadians, of course, is that once they ban abortion in the U.S., all those activists will be facing an end to their hobby, and then they'll probably look north for new targets. Don't think that a ban on late-term abortions is the first stop in an effort to ban all abortion? Take a look sometime at who Bush is nominating to various judicial positions, not to mention his choice of W. David Hager, a pro-life supporter who prescribes prayer and Bible study to treat women's medical conditions, to head the FDA Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.