Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 78
January 18, 2011
Review finds 'disturbingly higher' incidence of child sex abuse in defence community – The Globe and Mail
A review of charges laid against soldiers and civilians inside the defence community conducted after Russell Williams's arrest has raised troubling questions – concerns the military's top cop has told Forces brass to investigate further.
The Canadian Forces Provost Marshal told senior officials in July that figures analyzed by his office suggest Canada's defence community – soldiers and civilians connected to the military – has a "noticeably and disturbingly higher per capita rate of sexual violations against children, including child pornography," than the rest of the country's population.
via theglobeandmail.com
This is no surprise to me. I know a number of adult survivors of child abuse who came from military families. Not that every soldier is so inclined–far from it. But this is a closed community, with frequent moves and high stress, which lends itself to family violence, and a protect our own attitude, which offers a handy cover-up for those inclined. If you demand that people express their violence at your command, how can you expect them all to be able to turn it off at will? As a society, you do that to people, you reap the results.
Filed under: Child abuse, Miscellany Tagged: child abuse in the military
Woman freezes to death as screams ignored
TORONTO – The death of a woman found in a driveway after neighbours failed to respond to her desperate calls for help on a frigid Monday morning has ignited the rage of the public.
via metronews.ca
We are our sisters' keeper.
Filed under: Miscellany
Chicago Photo – National Geographic Photo of the Day
via photography.nationalgeographic.com
I was invited by the Canadian Consulate to visit Chicago around 10 years ago for a Culture day. I read from The River Midnight and walked the streets, looking at the turn of the century architecture. I was doing research, making notes about the look of the lake. It was called the windy city not only for its breezes, but also because, back in the day, the late 19th c day, the city eminences were always going on about how great Chicago was and how much greater it was going to become. It was built on mud, originally on stilts. I did research in the archives, in the original library with the Tiffany ceiling. I discovered that on hot days, men put wet cabbage leaves under their hats.
Filed under: Miscellany
*The Knife Sharpener's Bell
The Knife Sharpener's Bell is a novel about a Canadian family, originally from Russia, which returns to the Soviet Union–yes returns. This happened more times than people realize, when the depression was hitting hard. Communism was so respected that in 1932 Will Durant, a writer and journalist, could not get an article about the Ukrainian famine published in Harper's or The Atlantic, because those eminent publications worried about alienating readers.
Now here I have to pause to tell you about the author of this novel, Rhea Tregebov, whose family history includes a story of returnees to the Soviet Union. Rhea is a friend of mine, an accomplished poet and writer of children's stories. My kids still sometimes mention them. Rhea is also a creative writing prof out at the University of British Columbia.
I hope that her students appreciate her. Rhea has the unique gift of being able to criticise writing while making it sound like praise. I don't mean that she deals in flattery or half-truths or lies, but that she has a way of putting criticism that is energizing, making one want to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Her criticism magically engages confidence in what has already been done and what can be done with that work. I don't know how she does it.
Rhea was my mentor in a program for first novels at The Writers' Union of Canada when I was writing The River Midnight. It was my first novel, and her feedback helped me to bring it up more than a notch. A few years later, somewhere around the third draft of The Singing Fire, I was thinking that I should quit writing and get a job pushing paper. But Rhea's special brand of encouragement mixed with criticism got me back onto the fourth draft, which involved cutting vast swaths of the novel and starting from scratch…better.
I think that Rhea, in her own unostentatious way, knows everybody who is anybody in Canadian literature. I'm not sure that I'm anybody, but she's been a gift in my life, and I know in many others.
Her entire ouevre, and there are many wonderful books, can be seen at her website. Have a look and do more–buy.
Filed under: Literature Tagged: Rhea Tregebov, The Knife Sharpener's Bell
January 17, 2011
Laundry
Outside -17, inside a hot bath, look up at an array of vests on hangars. When I was a kid just white. Now a rainbow. #aros
Filed under: Miscellany
For our God is a consuming Fire. « Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities
via brblroom26.wordpress.com
Ben Franklin printed this New-England Primer in 1764. Can you imagine a primary student today with this list of words?
h/t Bouphonia
Filed under: Miscellany
Photo safari – Duke Lemur Centre | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine
via blogs.discovermagazine.com
Lemurs–science can be dreadful; science can be evocative; and sometimes it's just sweet.
Filed under: Miscellany
Oxbridge in Peril
Cradle of scholarship gives way to business model, leading to slashed budgets. Why? NYRB explains. http://ow.ly/3F5gx
Filed under: Miscellany
January 16, 2011
*Feedback Please
Below are samples of three posts to this blog via HootSuite. They are the kind of thing that I've been posting to twitter and FB. Two of them are identical but posted in different ways, one as a simple link, the other as an observation with a link. For the past week or so, I've included a twitter feed in my sidebar, but I am wondering whether anyone is reading it, and would it be better to do it this way, as a regular blog post. The advantage to this, as well, is that more frequent blogging (unfortunately!) increases ranking. Since I'm posting these things anyway, and with some selectivity!–it might be better to do it this way. But they aren't my usual longer style of posts. Do you like the variety or would you prefer to have it back in the sidebar? What are your thoughts and reactions, my friends?
Filed under: Miscellany
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