Tag Archives: D-Day

Chronicling Covid-19 (18), Pause

06 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by in Canada, Covid-19

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Theresa Tam, Promoting Vaccine Confidence.jpg

Tam speaks at a 2019 World Health Assembly event in Geneva (Wikipedia)

Dr Theresa Tam

The novel Coronavirus has taken many lives in Canada, 90% of which were in Quebec and Ontario. Moreover, we have no way of knowing whether persons who have recovered will be as they were before they contracted Covid-19. I caught the H1N1 virus in early February 1976 and developed what used to be called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is now called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Covid-19 could trigger other illnesses.

Quebec is reopening, but the number of cases is nevertheless rising though not significantly. It has been ascertained that fewer people are infected on days when rules are observed. Social distancing and wearing a face mask protect people. However, the government is testing everyone.

As you know, most of the victims were living in long-term care facilities. Premier Legault could not recruit the health care givers he needed. So he has taken action. Ten thousand individuals will be trained as orderlies. Training will be condensed, but it is not for the Armed Forces to be doctors and health workers outside the Armed Forces are working as though they had been dispatched to a mission abroad and are remunerated accordingly.

The training of orderlies cannot be delayed due to the expected second wave of Covid-19. The Government must act now. The last time I looked at figures, there were 55,000 applications. Orderlies will be paid close to $50,000.00 a year, with all fringe benefits, such as a pension plan. Moreover, the Armed Forces leave in mid-September. They were a blessing.

It would be my opinion that Premiers have worked responsibly. I did not know monsieur Legault, but the pandemic has lifted a veil. Moreover, Premier Legault has appointed a Secretary for Anglophone Affairs. We must live in harmony with one another.

This logic may seem a little a cracked, but it has occurred to me that Anglophone Canadians may wish for French-Canadians to keep their language. We owe Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s father, an officially bilingual Canada. Later, he described Canada as multicultural.

I am nor returning to the killing of George Floyd. This post is a pause.

—ooo—

According to CBC News figures, as of May 5 there were more than 62,000 confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases and 4,166 people had died.

There are 93,726 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.

  • Quebec: 52,143 confirmed (including 4,885 deaths, 17,098 resolved)
  • Ontario: 29,403 confirmed (including 2,357 deaths, 23,208 resolved)
  • Alberta: 7,091 confirmed (including 146 deaths, 6,611 resolved)
  • Nova Scotia: 1,058 confirmed (including 61 deaths, 995 resolved)
  • Saskatchewan: 648 confirmed (including 11 deaths, 608 resolved)
  • Manitoba: 287 confirmed (including 7 deaths, 284 resolved), 11 presumptive
  • Newfoundland and Labrador: 261 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 256 resolved)
  • New Brunswick: 136 confirmed (including 1 death, 120 resolved)
  • Prince Edward Island: 27 confirmed (including 27 resolved)
  • Repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved)
  • Yukon: 11 confirmed (including 11 resolved)
  • Northwest Territories: 5 confirmed (including 5 resolved)
  • Nunavut: No confirmed cases
  • Total: 93,726 (11 presumptive, 93,715 confirmed including 7,637 deaths, 51,501 resolved)

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2020.

Love to everyone 💕

Gabriel Fauré‘s Cantique de Jean Racine
Conductor Paavo Järvi

Two men on an asphalt surface, behind a black van on which the letters "EAPOLIS" is seen, with a license plate ending "ICE". One man has light skin, a blue shirt with identifying badges on his chest and shoulder, black pants and boots, and black sunglasses pushed to the top of his close-shorn head. He is kneeling with his left knee and upper shin resting on the neck of the other man, and his right knee out of sight behind the van. The other man is lying prone, with his left cheek pressed against the asphalt close to a painted line. He is dark-skinned, with similarly short hair, and is not wearing a shirt; His mouth is slightly open, his eyes are closed with his eyebrows raised, and his arms are down, not visible behind the van. The kneeling man has his left hand in a dark glove, with his right arm hidden behind the van, and is looking at the viewer with his eyebrows slightly lifted and mouth slightly open. A frame from a witness video, showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck (Wikipedia)[/caption]

© Micheline Walker
6 June 2020
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A Moment of Grace

06 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by in Sharing, War

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The Family of Trees
Félix Vallotton – 1922

I did not intend to write an article today. But I just realized that today is the anniversary of D-Day, and I have a story to tell. In fact, it is a story I have already told, but … 

One of my uncles survived D-Day for reasons he cannot understand. He then went north to Holland where he was asked to accompany prisoners of war who were being transported. They were seated at the back of a truck. All was well.

Out of the blue, one of the prisoners leaped from his seat and lowered my uncle’s body. My uncle nearly fell and he lost his rifle. The prisoner of war then helped him get up and retrieved the rifle. My uncle could not understand what had happened. So, the soldier showed him a metal wire the truck had just driven past. It would have decapitated my uncle had this “enemy” not seen it and acted promptly. 

This was a moment of grace and innocence. It was a moment so precious that my uncle never forgot. In peacetime, the two young men would have enjoyed a long conversation over coffee. War had separated them.

It has been seventy-five years. Yet, tears still come to my uncle’s eyes when he remembers. 

Schubert, Trio op. 100 – Andante con moto
Par le Trio Wanderer (Voyage d’hiver 2007 – Carte Blanche au Trio Wanderer, réalisation Jean-Pierre Barizien – CLC Productions)

Chrysanthemums and Autumn Foliage
Félix Vallotton – 1922

© Micheline Walker
6 June 2019
WordPress

 

The World Remembers

12 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

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The world is watching, but it also remembers.

It remembers, for instance, that American soldiers died to liberate France.  Sainte-Mère-Église remembers.

I once lived in Normandy, just across from the Isle of Jersey.  At Christmas, a green Normandy Christmas, we had as guest a gentleman who was among the American soldiers who survived D-Day.  We owned a car, so he guided us to all the sights.

Among the places we visited, one was extremely moving.  We saw a vast field filled with little white crosses.  There was a cross for each American soldier who died in or near Caen.  And there was no end of crosses.

Our guest’s life had been saved by a French family, at Sainte-Mère-Église.  He therefore visited with them.  Members of that family had risked their lives to save one American life, and the American whose life they saved had risked his life to save the French.  In the meantime, our friend had learned French.  In fact, this former soldier had become a scholar in the area of French seventeenth-century literature.

Europe will never forget the US soldiers who came to their rescue.  It will never forget Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President who met with Churchill in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and also met with him at the Château Frontenac, in Quebec City, so they could discuss how to put an end to the sorry state of Europe, dominated by Hitler. Freedom is dear, so Franklin Delano Roosevelt answered Churchill’s plea for help.

When Americans are united by a “common purpose” (Lt Gen [ret] Russel L Honoré), they rise to excellence.  Therefore, there can be no doubt that Americans can have their nation if, once again, they are united by a “common purpose,” and if there is bread on every table now.

Turn you back on Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Arianna Huffington and the laughing-stock of the world.  Also turn your back on people who are self- serving and might deny the planet is melting in order to sell expensive sun-blockers. They are the enemy within.

Do not fear the debt and, particularly, do not fear investing in a stimulus package proposed by President Obama.  The US must remain operative.  Consider instead, that you have a remarkable leader, a leader you have elected, and rally behind his administration, not to mention America’s finest minds (your President listens), and return America to its former self.  In fact, make it better.