Archive for July, 2009

Connections

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

This week I am looking for 5 – 7 people who would be willing to act as editors for a book being written. The “job” entails reading a chapter every two – three weeks, making comments and suggestions, correcting syntax and grammatical errors and agreeing not to publish the material presented as their own. Anyone out there up to the challenge? It sounds like fun.

Also needed is a person with knowledge of the workings of Act! by Sage to help with a little technical support.

Let’s keep playing it forward so that we all benefit,

The Little Immigrants -The Orphans Who Came to Canada

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

By Keneth Bagnell

One hundred
thousand British Home Children
(alleged orphans) were sent to Canada by over 50 British Child Care
organizations between 1870 and 1930. These 4 – 15 year old children worked as
indentured farm labourers and domestic servants until they were 18 years
old. The Child Care organizations
professed a dominant motive of providing these children with a better life than
they would have had in Britain. But, they rid themselves of an unwanted segment
of society and profited when they sold these children to Canadian farmers.
Siblings were separated in British care and again when they were sent to
Canada. Most never saw each other again.

Many spent their
lives trying to find relatives
with most being unsuccessful. An unknown number ran away to start new lives on
their own. Four to five million descendants of the British Home Children have
or had 20 million British Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts. How could that many
people not know they were related to one another? Their searches have been
hampered by childcare organizations who won’t readily release personal
information.

The most famous
Child Care organization was
that founded by Dr. Thomas Bernardo, an Irish immigrant to London, England who
founded a string of homes to house the orphans he found living on the roof tops
and in the gutters of the city itself.

In 1867 a boy was turned away from one of his homes because
there was no room. The boy was found two days later dead of hypothermia. After
that horrible event all Barnardo Homes had the sign “No Child in Desperation
shall be turned away“.

This poem was
written by Phila Chase in 1867
and sums up the time.

Nobody’s Child

Alone, in the dreary, pitiless street,

With my torn old dress and bare cold feet,

All day I wandered to and fro,

Hungry and shivering and nowhere to go;

The night’s coming on in darkness and dread,

And the chill sleet beating upon my bare head;

Oh! Why does the wind blow upon me so wild?

It is because I’m nobody’s child?

Oh! What shall I do when the night comes down

In its terrible blackness all over town?

Shall I lay me down ‘neath the angry sky,

On the cold hard pavements alone to die?

When the beautiful children their prayers have
said,

And mothers have tucked them up snugly in bed,

No dear mother ever upon me smiled -

Why is it, I wonder, that I’m nobody’s
child?

His homes promised that the children he sent would be sound and
healthy with no physical or mental defect and would have a deep respect for the
Bible as the word of God. He even gave a guarantee that anyone he sent would be
returned to Britain if any defect was found.

Once they passed the
medical each child received their “Canada Outfit”. This was a trunk made at the
Barnardo Technical School made from hardwood and covered in imitation alligator
skin. It contained a Bible, with the date of emigration, a Sankey Hymn Book,
Pilgrims Progress, and the Traveller’s Guide. Clothing was given them which was
made with British excellence so that they were among the best dressed emigrants
to enter Canada (see my comments in my greeting).

The Littlest
Immigrants chronicles the
organizations in Britain and Scotland, how the Canadian part of the
organizations worked and has the stories of some of the actual children who
came so far to a strange new place where they knew no one and had little or no
resources to help them survive. This book tells more of the system in which
they lived

Another related
read is Nation Builders:
Barnardo Children in Canada. This is full of the first hand stories of those
children and their descendants who arrived in the Promised Land. In the
orphanages of Britain they were taught this rhyme:

Through the night of doubt and sorrow,

Onward goes the pilgrim band

Singing songs of expectation,

Marching to the Promised Land.

Despite the long
odds many did survive and had
long and interesting lives. The testimony to this is the families they have
left behind and the service which they performed to take this country from a
sparsely populated, somewhat backward, undeveloped farmland to the bustling,
world-respected country we live in today.

I’m sure this will be
an interesting read for those who are interested in Canadian history and want
to know how and why we got to be the country we are. These are the stories of
one segment.

You think English is easy???

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce .

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse .

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so…it is time to shut UP!

Please consider the environment before printing this email.
This article, including any attachments, is the property of the Niagara Catholic District School Board.

Victory of Eagles

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

By Naomi Novik

I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of reading any of the Novels of Temeraire. They come from this delightful New Yorker who was raised on Polish fairy tales, Baba Yaga, and Tolkien. After studying English Literature at University she did graduate work in Computer Science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide.

She has an interest in the Napoleonic era and particularly the wars between Britain and France. Writing in great detail about life, sea battles, and more in the early 1800’s makes a good read but she’s gone one better.

Temeraire is a dragon. The authour has invented a whole addition to the world where dragons of all sizes and shapes are used to fly people around the world, deliver messages, fight in battle with humans and help save the day in many instances. What an enchanting difference it makes.

This is the fifth book in the series which looks at the old world.

The first book, His Majesty’s Dragon, begins in England and tells how Temeraire, the noble dragon, meets his Captain Will Lawrence. It turns out that dragons love to be read to and are very capable of learning many, many things and writing too.

The next book, Throne of Jade,tells of Temeraire’s and Will’s trip to China where they find that Tameraire is really a celestial dragon and has a long and illustrious pedigree. Through many adventures they find new inventions to bring home to England to help fight the wars.

The third book, Black Powder Wars, returns to the Napoleonic wars and some sea battles which are amazing. You can learn about black powder (gun powder) and it’s many uses which the heroes brought with them on their return from China. Then a terrible sickness comes which begins killing off the dragons. Everyone looks for clues to a cure before all the dragons are gone.

The fourth book, Empire of Ivory, takes Will and his dragon through Africa to find a cure to what is killing off the dragons. They return successful but stop to give the cure to the French dragons so that they won’t all die.

Victory of Eagles continues the tale with Captain Lawrence under sentence to be hanged for treason for helping the enemy and Temeraire demoted from the military and banished to a rural keep in Wales. Now they must find each other, survive their fates and somehow help their country weather Napoleon’s vow to capture and subjugate London.

Can they win? It’s a great read to find out how the story ends. I do suspect though that there will be another book in the series which might, just might involve America.

What Is Financial Planning?

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

A Process

Financial Planning is a multi-faceted process that involves the acquisition, retention, and disposal of assets throughout your lifetime. Here are the steps to follow:

·    Set Financial Objectives: What are your needs now and in the future?
·    Prepare a net worth statement: A comparison of your assets and liabilities.
·    Monthly Cash Flow. Is your financial plan on target?
·    Assess your Risk Management program: Are you protected against the loss of your property, income or life?
·    Capital Accumulation: Once your cash flow and risk management are on target, you can begin the accumulation of capital.
·    Estate and Retirement Planning: To ensure a prosperous retirement and the conservation of your estate

Comprehensive

As you can see, your financial plan takes everything into account to provide you with a clear picture of where you are now and where you want to be in the future. It looks at the short term and long term financial goals to help you prepare for the kind of retirement you deserve! By working your plan each month and making adjustments as you go, you could establish a retirement that’s as financially secure as it is personally satisfying.

Individual Needs

Not everyone has the same needs and wants in life. That’s why a financial plan should fit a person’s lifestyle. Only you know for sure where you would like to be financially – both now and in your retirement years. We will certainly help guide you along the way but ultimately, it’s up to you to make the decisions and live by your plan.

The above information comes from a Clarica Life Insurance document in 1999 and is still very valid today. Have you sat down recently with your significant other and talked about your future. I know, been there, done that years ago, but maybe things have changed a bit since then? Have you had an increase in income since the last time? Or a decrease?

If your insurance or investment person has not offered to help you go through this process lately, you may want to give him/her a call today. Especially with the financial happenings of the last year, it is time for a review. It’s helpful to have a person to write down your needs and wants and to make sure that things are on the path that you want to take.

Sometimes it is helpful to get a second opinion from someone new. Whatever your needs, don’t delay, do it today.

Only in Canada, You Say

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

By Katherine Barber

Some time back I met Canada’s Word Lady, Katherine Barber when she came to give a speech to our Rotary Club. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. If that sounds really, really boring believe me it’s not. She is a very interesting authority on Canadian language and word usage. She’s also funny, quite witty and an engaging speaker. When she speaks, she talks about the strange places that words originated from and how they became common usage, it makes them enchanting and much more interesting than they were when we were learning to read and spell back in school.

This engaging book is a treasury of Canadian Language a guide to “away from homes” who don’t quite know a squashberry from a screech-in. It’s pretty helpful too, if you’re going traveling across the country and want to know what those strange sounding local foods on the menu are made of. Would you pass up feves au lard when you like pork and beans? You don’t know whether to try lassy bread in Newfoundland? Well, if you ordered it you’d get sweet yeast bread with molasses, raisins and spices. Mmm, Mmm, good!

There’s even an appendix to the book which tells you what to call people from different cities. Did you know there were Yarmouthians, Spallumcheenites and Airdrites right here in our own country? There are Guelphites too but oddly enough there are no names for people who live in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Fergus or Elmira. I think that’s a cause celebre which should be taken up by my friends in those places and pursued until we find satisfactory monikers for those poor folks without a name. Fergusites and Elmirans are fairly simple (not the people who live their – the name) but is it a Waterloonie or Kitchenarian?

If you’ve never been to Calgary you probably don’t know what a “plus minus 15” is. It’s an enclosed overhead walkway between buildings – the only way to survive some of those prairie snowstorms. Speaking of weather, have you ever seen a great white combine (hail storm) come roaring over the prairies or been storm-stayed just a few miles from your destination? Or seen a Glitter which is the ice deposited by a freezing rain storm?

We’ve all heard Red Green talk about the glories of duct tape and wondered how the world survived before its invention. The answer to that, even before bailer twine, was shaganappi a thread, cord or thong made from rawhide. In Swampy Cree pishagan means “leather” and a-piy means “string”. Either way it was a down and dirty way to keep things together or patch up what needed to be patched.

Speaking about leather strings reminds me of another great Canadian invention “idiot strings”. I remember my Grandma making them for my brother and me. They were a knitted cord attached to gloves or mittens. You fed the cord up one coat sleeve across the back and down the other sleeve so that if you were idiot enough to take your mitts off in the winter you couldn’t lose them and get frostbite or chilblains on your hands. When I see boxes at schools and churches for lost and found items, I often wonder why idiot strings aren’t in use any more. It sure would save some money.

There’s another true Canadian invention called the Bennett Buggy. Any idea what that was? It’s an automobile hitched to horses or oxen which was used in the 1930’s in Canada when people really couldn’t afford gasoline. We think we’re in a recession but we really aren’t having horrible times like those!

Yet another Canadian invention which you might not remember is what Bombardier was famous for before they started making ski-dos. They originally made a large vehicle which ran on caterpillar treads with toboggan runners on the front so that you could steer them. They were big enough to carry 10 – 15 people across ice and snow safely.

So, take a few minutes and have a mug-up (tea break) while you brush-up on Canadianisms before taking off on vacation. If you head to La Belle Province to see if you can find any pure laine descendants of the original French settlers you’ll know enough to be on the lookout for that strange bird the Tongue Trooper (a provincial government agent in charge of enforcing the language laws in Quebec regarding commercial signs).

There’s even a fun test of your knowledge of Canadian English in the book. Here are some of the questions for you to try. See how many you can get right.

1) What is an immigrant to Quebec who speaks neither English nor French called?

A) allophone

B) optophone

C) autrophone

D) aboiteau

2) In which city would you order a jambuster?

A) Winnipeg

B) Edmonton

C) Guelph

D) Halifax

3) The word carspiel is a Canadianism meaning:

A) the patter of a used car salesman

B) the incessant chatter kept up by children in the back seat of a car on long trips

C) a Canadian winter activity based on curling, played on large expanses of cleared lake ice, with the object being for one driver in a care to knock other cars out of a painted circle

D) a curling competition at which the prize is a car

4) Which Canadian Prime Minister first used the word “main-streeting” to mean political campaigning?

A) Pierre Elliott Trudeau

B) John A Macdonald

C) Arthur Meighen

D) John Deifenbacher

5) Which of the following words for school supplies is unique to Canada?

A) pencil crayon

B) Duo-tang

C) scribbler

D) all of the above

6) A slang name for a beer belly is

A) Labatt muscle

B) Sleeman’s muscle

C) Kokanee muscle

D) Molson muscle

7) The revenge of the cradle is

A) the tendency of babies to wake up at 4 in the morning

B) an extremely high birthrate amongst French Canadians in the nineteenth century

C) retaliation by a much younger lover being dumped by an older person

D) the cost of raising a family

The kinder, gentler f-word:

A) fumble-on

B) fuddle-duddle

C) fussy-fit

D) funnel-cloud

9) The Canadian term “Texas gate” refers to something designed to bar the passage of

A) coyotes

B) rats

C) cattle

D) illegal immigrants

10) A sign you’ll only see in Canada:

A) Garden Centre

B) Auto Centre

C) Tire Centre

D) Medical Centre

1) A 2) A 3) D 4) D 5) D 6) D 7) B C 9) C 10) C

Connections

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

This week has been a good week for connections. I believe we have found the rental space for the non-profit group. What a treat to be able to help them find a place to call home.

The other great thing was to put the financial expert together with a person with many years of experience with the United Nations and working with micro-financing in various countries around the world

If you have requests or things which we might be able to help you with, please send an email.

Cats of the World Unite!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Cats are great foot warmers on a cold winter’s night and take up a lot less of the room on the bed than a dog. They are quieter and more peaceful to have around, too. The most your likely to hear is a bit of purring and feel some gentle kneading of the bed covers to make them comfortable.

Cats are true carnivores and don’t have the ability to digest vegetation as any cat owner will tell you. They use grass as an emetic to get rid of hairballs if you let them. Although they go wild over catnip and catmint, it’s thought to have more to do with the smell which apparently is like cat pheromones. If you’ve watched some cat’s antics around the plants they act rather like a drunk or someone on a drug high. Rolling and purring and meowing and licking.

Have you ever watched a cat scratching around its food? There is a reason built into their nature. In the wild they will partially bury their food so that it doesn’t dry out or get stolen. Food is never buried deeply though because mold might grow. Who knew they were that smart?

Most of us know that cats and humans were co-habitants in ancient Egypt but in 1983 a shallow gravesite was found in Cyprus and dated to 7500 BC which contained a human buried ceremonially with stone tools, a lump of iron oxide and a handful of seashells and the body was oriented westward. In it’s own tiny grave just inches away was an eight-month old cat oriented in the same direction as the human. The proof though is that cats are not native to Cyprus and so it must have come by boat.

But long before that there were some really big saber-toothed scimitar cats in the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. These huge cats went extinct in Africa about 1.5 million years ago and in Eurasia 30,000 years ago. The last scimitar cat survived in North America up to 10,000 years ago.

All around the Fertile Crescent humans tamed cats and lived together with them. In ancient Egypt they were called “miw” and were prized because of their ability to keep down vermin in the crops and harvest storage areas. Without cats, humans could not have grown to live in cities.

In the 900’s AD the Welsh King Hywel Dda passed a code of laws which were considered very compassionate and good with respect towards women and oriented not towards punishment. One of his laws was that cats should not be killed. He was a truly educated man.

During the Middle Ages in Europe when the Black Death came it was considered to be God’s wrath against sin. Since cats were often considered in league with the Devil thanks to their aloof and independent nature, cats were killed in masses. Ironically, rat populations expanded and spread plague-infected fleas far and wide killing many more humans. In the Renaissance cats were blamed as witches familiars and burned alive or thrown from tall buildings. Where was that Welsh King?

Folklore continued to be bad for cats. For example as early as 1607 there was a story that a cat will suffocate a newborn infant by putting its nose to the child’s mouth and sucking the breath out of the infant. Even today some people still think black cats are unlucky.

In Japan, there is the Maneki Neko, also referred to in English as the “good fortune” or “good luck” cat. It is usually a sitting cat with paw raised and bent. Legend in Japan has it that a cat waved a sword at a Japanese landlord, who was intrigued by this gesture and went towards it. A few seconds later a lightning bolt struck where the landlord had been previously standing. The landlord attributed his good fortune to the cat’s fortuitous action.

A symbol of good luck hence, it is most often seen in businesses to draw in money. In Japan, the flapping of the hand is a “come here” gesture, so the cat is beckoning customers. Usually the cat has one paw raised and bent in a flapping gesture to welcome customers in. Another Japanese Legend with cats is from Nekomata, when a cat has 10 years of life, it grows another tail and can stand up and speak in a human language.

So now you know about cats. Love them or hate them they do more good for humans than bad.

Connections

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Regarding the Shelter Box information from last week. I have heard from a group in Windsor who would like to sponsor one of these disaster relief boxes with the suggested $10 per month for one year. I would love to hear from others 0ut there. If you don’t have a group of your own please feel free to come and joint mine to help with this worthy cause over the next year.

I have also got a request for a 6,000 square foot premise in the Guelph area needed by a local entrepreneur. Do you know of anyone who would have such?

Still trying to find an affordable 200 – 300 square foot office space in Guelph for a non-profit organization. We’ve looked at a lot but either too big, too grubby or inaccessible to most people. Please keep these needs in the back of your mind when you’re out and about this week.

Book of the Dead

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

By Patricia Cornwell

A well written mystery by a knowledgeable writer can be a great delight. This one is a very good example;

Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta books are legion. An American born in Florida, and raised in Montreat, North Carolina, Patricia worked at the Charlotte Observer, rapidly advancing from listing television programs to writing feature articles to covering the police beat. She worked as a technical writer and a computer analyst at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. That’s where she gained her knowledge of forensics.

Kay Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist who has a private practice consulting to police and others around the world. The Book of the Dead is the place where coroner’s list their observations and keep records of all the things which surround their examination of a body.

Kay, her assistant Pete Marino and cousin Lucy are brought into a number of investigations which test their abilities to find out the truth. When a promising 16 year old American star tennis player is found dead in Rome they need to find out who and what caused her death. The body of an abused young boy is dumped in a desolate marsh and the sadness of a lonely un-grieved death needs to be explained. A woman is ritualistically murdered in her multimillion-dollar beach home under very strange circumstances. These seem very far apart and completely random events.

In New England, a prominent patient at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital starts to hint at interconnections among the deaths. Scarpetta works at finding the causes and series of events and before she is through the Book of the Dead will contain many names – and the pen may be poised to write her own.

Gripping reading to fill a warm summer’s day.