Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 19

Women leaders in the time of Covid

When I was growing up, any conflicts from inside or outside the home usually got resolved in Grandma’s Room. For the 17 years that I knew her, Grandma was mainly bedridden and confined to her room with crippling rheumatoid arthritis. When there was a problem or a conflict you went to her room to whine about how unfair the particular situation was to you.
Grandma listened patiently to your side of the story, asked you to outline honestly the other person’s side, then advised a calm, quiet look at the entire picture as a start to resolving the dispute.
It was in Grandma’s Room that I first realized that a woman’s approach to problems and conflict was different, and frequently superior to a man’s. When tough situations arise, it is female intervention and management that often gets them resolved. That view got some support recently from a New York Times article by columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Kristof wrote that he compiled coronavirus death rates from 21 countries. 13 led by men, eight by women. The male-led countries had an average 214 coronavirus deaths per million people. The women-led countries had an average of only 36 deaths per million, a huge difference.
He also found that almost every country with a coronavirus mortality rate above 150 per million people is led by a man. Canada’s Covid rate is 231 deaths per million population.
All this confirms what the daily news tells us; countries where coronavirus is a runaway disaster are led by egotistical authoritarians who shouldn’t be allowed to manage anything bigger than a peanut stand. Look at the United Kingdom, Iran, Russia, the United States and Brazil.
Then look to the countries with the most successful responses to the virus - New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan, most Nordic countries – all led by women. Their leadership through this plague has been decisive, truthful and empathetic. Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen jumped on the pandemic in January, introducing 124 measures to stop the virus’ spread. Angela Merkel told Germans early on to take the virus seriously and brought in early testing. Jacinda Ardern locked down New Zealand just three weeks after the first case of the disease was reported.
Iceland, led by Katrín Jakobsdóttir, offered free virus testing for every citizen and had a thorough contact tracing system. Its death rate was an amazing 30 per million population.
These female leaders managed the crisis competently, talking to their citizens truthfully, with care and compassion. There were none of the strongman tactics used by the Johnsons and Trumps – downplaying the threat, blaming others and playing political games. Much has been written over many years about how female leadership styles are different. But there has been little acknowledgement of how those styles can benefit nations or organizations.
In politics and business there remains the attitude that to really succeed, women have to learn to behave more like men. That’s 20th century thinking that is hopelessly dated and needs changing.
Women leaders tend to be less self-focused than their male counterparts. They don’t simply tell others what to do; they work with them.
They usually are more empathetic and humbler, and in my experience, are good at identifying and motivating new talent. They are good team builders.
We have seen a trend in which more women are taking up leadership positions. There’s still room for many more, in fact there’s a real need for more female leadership as the world’s problems become more numerous and more intense. One area where female leadership would help immensely is our off-kilter capitalistic system. It needs reform, not replacement, and reform that creates more equality.
Our capitalistic system is designed to provide the greatest benefits to company shareholders, directors and executives. It should be promoting achievement of the greatest benefits for everyone – employees, suppliers and customers. They all have vital roles, yet are not treated equally. Big gains for shareholders and executives are seldom seen by others who had a direct impact on achieving the gain.
Studies have shown that women are more inclusive and more likely to see others as equal parts of the team. They are better communicators in that they listen more and are more apt to allow others to talk and put forth their ideas. 

Looking to nature for safer roads

The dragonfly is seen in many parts of the world as a symbol of adaptability and transformation.

I see the dragonfly differently as I sit on my waterfront deck and watch squadrons of them zip, zoom and soar, capturing dozens of mosquitos, midges and other little irritating bugs.
 
I see the dragonfly as control. Control to achieve balance.

Dragonflies are a superb control for mosquitos, which are an annoyance at the least, and a deadly force at most. The world needs mosquitos, but not an overabundance of them, and dragonflies help to make sure that there is not.

On the wing, an adult dragonfly is believed to eat 100 or more mosquitos every day. As larva, they kill even more in the water where mosquitos breed.

That’s the wonder of nature, providing effective control and balance in an effort to avoid catastrophe.

And, that’s something that human society has difficulty with. We just can’t seem to exercise the balance and control needed to keep us all safe and happy.
 
There was yet another heart-tearing example of this last week in Brampton.
Teacher Karolina Ciasullo, 37, and daughters Klara, 6; Lilianna, 4; and Mila, 1; were killed when a sports car smashed into their van in a Brampton-area intersection. The sports car driver, a 20-year-old man, was in hospital in serious condition.

Peel police have held back details of the tragedy, possibly because a police chase might have been involved.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown has said the sports car operator was a known reckless driver whose driving licence was under suspension. He distributed a video of the same car, and allegedly the same driver, driving dangerously a couple of days earlier.
 
The Brampton tragedy brings to mind the reckless driving killings of three other young children and their grandfather north of Toronto in 2015. Marco Muzzo was drunk and speeding when his vehicle slammed into a van, killing Gary Neville, 65, and his three grandchildren Daniel Neville-Lake, 9; Harrison, 5; and Milly, 2.

Muzzo was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and now is out on day parole.
 
It also brings to mind the pedestrians killed by cars every week, it seems, in Toronto. And, it brings to mind the speeding and dangerous driving many of us see daily on Ontario roads.

If you listen to various Ontario government authorities, Ontario has some of the world’s safest roads. Try telling that to what’s left of the families decimated by reckless drivers.

And, although the number of traffic fatalities in relation to numbers of drivers might be falling, the number of actual deaths is increasing, evidence of more forceful collisions, probably from speed.

Evidence of speeding, racing and reckless driving is before the eyes of anyone who travels the roads.

On Highway 11 between Barrie and Huntsville almost no vehicles, transport trucks included, follow the posted speed limits.
 
Transports are among the worst offenders. Ontario Provincial Police statistics show 7,674 collisions involving transport trucks in 2018, a four-year high. Fifty-five people were killed in those collisions, another 1,142 injured.

Rubber tire marks from racing starts, wheelies and other antics are a familiar sight on many rural roads.

It’s not that police forces are ignoring the situation. The OPP laid just under 7,000 speeding charges during the May holiday weekend.

Citizens need to start shouting into government ears about the need for a more intense police crackdown on our streets and highways.

Whether you believe or disbelieve all the news releases about Ontario having the safest roads, they need to be better, and can be better. Beautiful young families should not be dying because of speeders and reckless drivers.
 
Despite all the dragonfly effort at control, mosquito populations continue to exist. Traffic accidents will continue no matter how hard we try to control them.

But tragedies like the one in Brampton last week are no accidents. They are the direct result of irresponsible actions by drivers unwilling to control themselves.

Our governments, pushed by its citizens, need a bigger and better effort to stop this senseless type of road carnage. If it means more traffic police funding, so be it.

Take a lesson from nature: It’s all about creating a better, safer world through control and balance.
 
 

Raccoons with orange tails

Why wouldn’t they? I give them bedtime snacks and a nice place to sleep.

Wandering about at night, tearing down bird feeders and chewing up hummingbird sippy cups, is exhausting work. So, it’s nice that a raccoon can find a place to get a bite to eat and take a nap.
A raccoon can just step into the little room that I provide, grab a snack, then curl up and stare up at the stars. The napping room is a bit confined but it’s airy and quiet if the raccoon ignores the noise of the door clanging shut and locking behind it.  The room is actually one of those ingenious wire cage traps. Tired from a night of raiding, a raccoon walks in to retrieve his snack, then steps on a release plate that snaps the door shut.
It’s all quite safe and humane. And, in the morning, a cheerful human comes by to say a few kind words and take it for a car ride. A long car ride to a new forest home many miles away.
I’ve just completed my fourth raccoon transport this week. On four consecutive nights raccoons have stopped by for a snack and a nap. On four consecutive mornings I have given the guests a cheery “good morning” and transported them to a new home. Four raccoons in one week raises the question of whether I am catching the same raccoon over and over. They look alike with those black masks, and their bushy fur coats make it hard to determine differences in size.
However, I am not catching the same raccoon over and over. I am sure of that because I spray the tail of each one I catch with fluorescent orange paint. So far, none of those in the snack and nap room have had orange tails. Several years ago, I had a raccoon spend the night in my snack and nap room. In the morning I painted its tail and transported it to the end of our lake, a journey of about one mile in a straight line.
Several mornings later I got up to discover the same raccoon with an orange tail napping in the little room.
I did some research and discovered that raccoons are good swimmers, capable of staying in the water for four hours. They also have excellent memories, especially when it comes to geography.
I set up the snack and nap room whenever the raccoons get silly bold with the bird feeders. I don’t mind if they take the occasional nibble at the feeders, but when they start going smash and grab crazy every night I set up the room.
 Some folks find raccoons cute and cuddly, which I guess they can be if they stay out of the bird feeders. Some folks even find they make good pets. One of the most famous raccoon pets was Rebecca, who lived at the U.S. White House during the 1920s presidency of Calvin Coolidge.
Some Americans were still serving roasted raccoon for Thanksgiving dinner back then, but when Coolidge first met Rebecca he decided to adopt her instead of eating her. She became a member of the White House family, accompanying Coolidge on walks, taking part in the annual Easter egg roll and getting an engraved collar as a gift one Christmas.
History records Rebecca as one of the brighter occupants of the White House but not the only one to have an eye mask. All raccoons have black fur eye masks that reduce light glare and help them to see better, much like athletes who wear black stickers beneath their eyes.

The current U.S. president has a white eye mask, the result of using eye protection cups during his daily face tanning sessions. Some have speculated that the ultra-violet rays from a tanning machine have resulted in the president’s much-reported poor memory. Raccoons, however, remember everything. Studies have shown that the little critters can remember solutions to tasks for up to three years.
That’s why they always know where the fullest and tastiest bird feeders are and how to get into them with those long, nimble fingers.
Right now, I’m hoping that the raccoons with the orange tails have forgotten where I live.   # 


Read From Shaman’s Rock: www.mindentimes.ca/columns

The wind in my ears

There are days when I want to be like Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and cut off my ear.

It’s the wind. It is getting stronger by the year and never seems to stop. Howling in my ears, like the famous mistral wind that helped drive van Gogh crazy while he was painting in southern France.Van Gogh complained in letters that the mistral made painting difficult and got on his nerves.

“I find painting hard work because of the wind,” he wrote in one letter, noting that the mistral blew sand onto his wet canvas and made scratches in the paint when he brushed.

There is speculation that the mistral, a strong, sustained wind most prevalent in winter and spring, helped to drive van Gogh crazy. He sliced off his ear and gave it to a prostitute in 1888, two years before committing suicide by shooting himself in the stomach.Our winds are not really driving me crazy, but they are making me take notice of the changes in our climate.

A recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change reports that winds in much of the world have become faster in the last 10 years. It says that in northern-mid-latitude regions wind speeds have increased seven per cent in the last decade.Some studies say increasing winds are at least partially tied to climate change. Northern regions are warming more rapidly than southern regions, creating smaller temperature differences that affect the jet stream, which is creating more wild weather, including more and stronger winds.

There are not a lot of definitive studies on what is happening with the wind, and those that do exist are highly technical or deal with how more wind is terrific for wind turbines producing electrical power.

All I know is what I see and feel. There seem to be fewer calm days in the past couple of years.

The lake where I spend much of my time is seldom calm. A walk in the woods shows me far more twigs and branches felled by the wind.Also, there seems to be more severe wind events – times when the winds gust to 95 kilometres per hour or higher. Certainly, the number of tornadoes has been increasing in the U.S. and Canada.

Canada averaged 60 to 70 tornadoes a year during the 1980-2009 period. However, many tornadoes occur in remote areas where they go unrecorded and some analysts believe the Canadian annual average is 150 to 230 tornadoes a year.The U.S. averages roughly 1,200 tornadoes a year, and so far in 2020 there have been more than 500.

More days of more wind are not a major concern in our part of the country as long as we don’t experience more severe wind events. In fact, light to medium winds are a blessing at this time of year when the spring and early summer flies are numerous and feasting.The real concern is the future and the possibility that climate change will bring more destructive winds.

An Environment Canada study done six or seven years ago reported that there will be more “wind gust events” and more of them severe, in the coming years.

The study concludes that:

“The implications of these increases should be taken into consideration and integrated into policies and planning for adaptation strategies, including measures to incorporate climate change into engineering infrastructure design standards and disaster-risk-reduction measures.”

In simpler English: It’s going to get windier in future, so plan to build stronger policies and buildings to withstand stronger winds.I’ve been convinced for some time that it is getting windier, but I won’t be like van Gogh and let it bother me.

Annoying winds may bite your cheeks in winter and buzz your ears in summer, but they are an important and beneficial part of nature.

Wind helps plants to move pollen and seeds that create new generations. Wind blowing on a new seedling or a developing spring plant helps that new life to become stronger. When pushed by the wind a plant produces a hormone called auxin that stimulates the growth of supporting cells.

Even damaging winds can be beneficial to a forest. They knock down diseased trees, creating space for new life that support a greater diversity of wildlife.

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Drawing out human brilliance

It was a forlorn day in spite of the golden sunshine in a sapphire blue sky,
At 32 degrees Celsius early last week it was too hot to do anything but sit, but certainly not outside. The humidity was suffocating and the mosquitoes and blackflies were working overtime.
So, I condemned myself to an afternoon of television. An afternoon of staring into the reflection of a world where people seem to become more obtuse and pathetic by the day.

But there on that insolent screen was an uplifting surprise. Three hours or so of flickering film showing me how brilliant and uplifting our world can be.
The first film was Temple Grandin, a 2010 biographical drama about an autistic woman who earned a doctorate in animal science.
Temple Grandin, born in Boston in 1947, was unable to talk until age four and displayed behavioural problems. She was diagnosed with autism, but her parents rejected a doctor’s advice to put her into an institution, and instead placed her in private schools where her high IQ was discovered and nurtured.
Temple had poor short-term memory and could not follow written instructions, but a long-term visual memory allowed her to become a visual thinker. She graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, followed by a master’s and a doctorate in animal science.
Over time she became aware that anxiety and fear found in both autistic people and animals is caused by hypersensitivity to touch and sound. She devoted her life to alleviating anxiety and fear in both.
As a teenager she designed a “squeeze machine” to help control her nervous tensions and improved versions of it were used in schools to soothe autistic children. Other ideas and designs revolutionized practices for compassionate handling of livestock on farms and in slaughterhouses.
She also became a professor at the University of Colorado and an international spokesperson for autism.
If that was not enough of a lesson in how brilliant humans can be, I then stumbled into the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar.
I have a long, complicated history with that movie and the soundtrack of the 1970 rock opera.
I was a young reporter in Alberta when two excited colleagues brought the musical album into the office. I was shocked by the music. It seemed blasphemous and indeed was criticized by religious groups throughout the world.
Over the years I began to look at Superstar as a work of art, leaving aside the various religious connections.  I began to fully appreciate the genius that went into this work.
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his partner lyricist Tim Rice both are musical geniuses.
 Lloyd Webber was a child prodigy who played the piano, violin and French horn in early childhood. He began writing his own music at age six. It helped, of course, that his father was director of the London School of Music, his mother a piano teacher.
When you see the brilliance of people like Temple Grandin, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice you have to wonder why the world often is such a messed-up place. These people are brilliant leaders in their own spheres and you wonder why such brilliance is lacking in the spheres of national and international affairs.
So many of our leaders are run-of-the-mill folks who think like, and act to please, the overall crowd. They lack the courage to say and do what they believe is right.
When you watch movies like Temple Grandin and Jesus Christ Superstar, you see people who think differently from the rest of us. That is the source of their brilliance; they are not restrained by fear of thinking differently, and of course it helps to be aided by discipline, intelligence, creativity, and sometimes simple good fortune.
We live in times that demand brilliance in leadership: Millions are sick and dying in a pandemic that many leaders said happens only once every 100 years; the United States is imploding and leaving its world leadership open to China and Russia.
It’s not that there is a shortage of human brilliance. There are many brilliant people out there in every field. Somehow, we have to draw them out and into the overall leadership roles now so desperately needed.
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Key to the future: More community involvement

Last week’s column about what might happen to the former Leslie Frost Natural Resources Centre on Highway 35 just south of Dorset sparked some discussion, and some ideas.Discussion and ideas are keys to finding a suitable future for the centre, left vacant and deteriorating by the Ontario government for a decade and half. The government holds the title to the Frost Centre, but it is owned by the people of Ontario, and it’s time for them to get deeply involved with discussion and ideas.

A friend who lives in another part of the province messaged me with his thoughts and an idea. He recalled that H. R. MacMillan, the former timber cruiser who became a giant in the Canadian forest industry, was born in Stouffville and educated at the Ontario Agriculture College in Guelph.MacMillan spent his career in forestry research and development and founded H. R. MacMillan Export Company, British Columbia’s first locally-owned lumber export company. It later merged with Bloedel, Stewart and Welsh Ltd. to become MacMillan-Bloedel, which was sold later to Weyerhaeuser Company.
MacMillan probably was the most successful forester in Canadian history and funded many philanthropic endeavours for the public good. Although H. R. died in 1976, his philanthropy legacy might still have money for new projects.My friend suggested that MacMillan legacy funds, combined with the University of Guelph and perhaps Toronto area school boards might form a coalition to buy the Frost Centre, start university classes and day schools for students, plus being a public setting for studies in forestry and nature in general.
Might work. Might not. But at the very least it’s an idea that might help generate other ideas.
Also, someone I met last weekend for the first time told me how his family had cottage property in the Lake Simcoe area. There was a special tract of forest land near their place that was put up for sale.
Family members and others saw the property as a place that should be preserved in its natural state, and not torn up for a commercial enterprise. They got together, raised money, bought the land and donated it to the Nature Conservancy.
That’s another thought that might spark other ideas.Two important realizations are emerging from the horrid pandemic choking life from our world, and they can be connected to thoughts about the Frost Centre.
The first is a reminder that we humans are animals just like birds, pigs, bats, and monkeys. We forget how interrelated we are. So interrelated that non-human animals are passing on to us more pathogens that can create deadly infectious diseases.When a pathogen, basically an infectious agent, jumps from a non-human animal into a human and successfully establishes itself, it is called zoonosis. It is a word that scientists say we can expect to hear more and more.
Covid-19 is a disease resulting from a virus believed to have jumped into a human from a bat, then spread rapidly from human to human.
Uprooting the habitats of non-human animals, plus changes in the world’s climate, are moving non-human animals deeper into our human world. A simple example:We never had to worry about ticks in Haliburton County. Now changing climate, including milder winters, are bringing ticks carrying diseases such as Lyme farther north. Lyme infections have been climbing.
Some scientists believe these changes will continue, helping to increase zoonosis.
It is critically important that people become better informed about nature to better understand the changes and how to live with them.The second realization is that governments, which are emptying the public coffers in the fight against COVID-19 are going to become desperate for money. One way of getting it is to sell off precious natural areas to commercial interests, which offer not only money from sales, but coveted tax dollars.
We need our governments to protect our natural areas. We need our governments to promote environmental education and to help provide settings where that can be done.
Most of all we need community discussion and ideas. We can’t continue to exist in a world where all the thinking, discussions and ideas are left to politicians and bureaucrats.
More community involvement must become a key element in our future. Governments cannot do it all.

Frost Centre up for sale again

Each time I pass the Leslie Frost Centre on Highway 35 just south of Dorset I hear ghosts of the past.
They are ghost voices of Second World War veterans, laughing children and university students – all who came to the Centre to learn about forestry, the environment and nature in general.
The centre was built in the 1940s as Ontario’s primary forest ranger training school. It offered forestry training to soldiers returning from the war. The Ontario government closed it in 2004, supposedly to save $1.2 million in annual operating costs.
There were fears it would be sold to private enterprise, but instead was leased to Boshkung Lake cottager Al Aubrey, who proposed it as an educational summer camp, conference centre and location for environmental science seminars.
That effort did not work out and ended in 2010 and the Centre was put for sale.

The Centre’s dozen or so buildings have not been used since and are deteriorating. The government continues to pay to keep lights on, the grass cut and the snow ploughed.
Now there is news that it will try again to sell the Centre. Infrastructure Minister Laurie Scott’s office confirms that the government has been preparing the Centre for an open market sale. That preparation includes working on heritage studies to create a heritage easement as part of the sale.
A heritage easement commits a new owner to maintain the property at a certain preservation standard. The new owners can use the property as they please as long as ensuring its preservation.
What all that might mean for the Frost Centre remains to be seen. Could it be turned into a five-star resort with substantial marina facilities for small yachts while displaying historical photos and other artifacts to meet the easement’s heritage preservation requirements?
We’ll have to see the actual open market listing and the heritage easement to know exactly what the Frost Centre might look like under new owners, and how it would affect cottaging, camping and canoeing in the St. Nora Lake area.
The Frost Centre has 24,000 hectares of natural forest that includes hiking and ski trails. Whether parts of that would be included in the sale is unknown.
The Centre has a complicated history, which may or may not have interfered with the government’s earlier attempts to sell.
One hundred years ago, what was then the Ontario department of lands and forests decided to establish a ranger station on the west shore of St. Nora Lake.
Then in 1944 the Ontario government and the University of Toronto entered into a partnership to create a forestry technical school. The site chosen was the ranger station on St. Nora Lake where teachers and students would have access to the 24,000 hectares of government land and some forest area owned by the university.
The original agreement called for the government to pay the capital costs of construction, while the university would supply the teaching staff.
The purpose of the school was to train department of lands and forests employees, and potential employees, plus U of T forestry program students and forest industry employees from other parts of Canada.
Things changed over the years. The Centre became more of a natural resources centre where people came to learn more about nature and environmental issues. For many school children from the cities, a visit to the Frost Centre was their very first experience with being outdoors in a truly natural setting.
Eighty years ago, when Ontario was considering establishing the forestry school, Leslie Frost, then minister of mines and later premier, talked about the importance of education in conserving a healthy environment.
“The government believes that the best approach to the conservation and administration of our natural resources is to be found in education,” he said.
Let’s hope the folks preparing the new plan to sell the Frost Centre remember and believe in those words.
The best possible use of the Frost Centre remains as natural resource centre, where everyone can learn about nature and the need to behave differently if we are to save our planet.
We don’t need it to become yet another party place.
Before the sale, someone should pick up the beer cans and discarded cigarette packs lining the highway outside the place.
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Love and laughter will return

It’s at this time of year that we celebrate the prominent battles, victories and end of the Second World War in 1945. Last Thursday was the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, ending that war against Nazi Germany.
While we celebrate apart this year, we are fighting another world war - the COVID-19 disease that has infected roughly four million people globally, killing close to 300,000. Those figures will be much higher when all is said and done.

Few of us were alive or old enough to remember what war in the 1940s was like. All we have are the recorded history and some personal remembrances from the dwindling number of those who lived it.
However, my feeling is that the fight back then was more unified, more focussed, more determined and less partisan than the Covid war today. Everyone seemed to work together to get through the Second World War; end the fighting and killing and get the world back to normal.
I don’t have that feeling about this pandemic. There are no powerfully uniting cultural symbols for fighting the enemy – no Rosie the Riveter, no soaring Churchillian oratory, no Vera Lynn, the “Forces’ Sweetheart”, singing to comfort the troops.
What we do have is the shocking partisan chaos in the U.S. and in Britain the bravado incompetence of Boris Johnson, who came close to being a dead victim of the coronavirus pandemic.
And, in Canada we have the bland Justin Trudeau on TV daily announcing a new financial handout to groups suffering financially by the pandemic. The financial assistance obviously is needed, but would be nice if accompanied by some stirring thoughts on how we’ll work together to beat this plague.
Something like Winston Churchill’s speech to the British House of Commons after taking over the government from the weak-kneed Neville Chamberlain:
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
So far it has not been our finest hour. Shortages of Personal Protective Equipment for medical personnel and other frontline workers, plus other shortages and unpreparedness that might have been avoided by paying attention to the recommendations made by the SARS Commission 15 years ago.
Then there are the nursing home deaths. The National Institute on Aging said last week that 82 per cent of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term settings. That is not just a national disgrace; it is a sign of corruption in our society.
I’m not saying that Canada’s response to the pandemic has been bad. We’ve done relatively well, but it certainly has not been our finest hour.
Meanwhile, over in Britain the spirit of Vera Lynn is alive and encouraging citizens to carry on the fight. Not only is the spirit alive, so is the lady herself. She is 103 and lives in the East Sussex village of Ditchling, roughly 85 kilometres south of London.She issued a statement for the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, noting people will celebrate while being apart because of the Covid pandemic. However, while people would be apart, they should not lose hope."I hope that VE Day will remind us all that hope remains even in the most difficult of times and that simple acts of bravery and sacrifice still define our nation as the National Health Service works so hard to care for us.”"Most of all, I hope today serves as a reminder that however hard things get, we will meet again."That was a reference to her famous Second World War song, We Will Meet Again, which struck a positive, emotional chord with soldiers, families and sweethearts.Just as popular was her White Cliffs of Dover song, the 1942 war anthem promising better times to come. Its message is worth repeating in these days of anxiety about whether our world ever will be the same again.
There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of DoverTomorrow, just you wait and seeThere'll be love and laughterAnd peace ever afterTomorrow, when the world is free



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The trees and me

Leaf budding is taking its time because of this spring’s chill. But slowly and surely new leaves are appearing, and soon those long views through a naked forest will be gone.
That’s a bit sad because walking a leafless forest with the snow gone is a fine experience. You see interesting details that are hidden at other times of the year.

From the hilltop far back in this bush I peer through skeletal trees and see the lake below, dancing sparkling blue in the spring breeze.
The humps and hollows of the land are all visible, and I can see almost the full length of the ravine being navigated by a doe and her yearling.  Mom is moving very cautiously, likely because she has picked up a hint of my scent.
Walking here tells me how the woods withstood winter’s ravages. Twigs litter the ground, snapped from trees and tossed about by stiff winter winds. Also, some larger, full branches have been brought down by stronger winds and heavy snows.
You get the feeling that all this is part of a natural culling of the weak to make the overall forest stronger, healthier.
Something similar is happening in our human population during this coronavirus pandemic. The old and the infirm are succumbing in greater numbers, but unlike with trees, the human culling weakens, not strengthens, our population.
There are a lot of older tree folks back here in this forest. Rugged silver birches with shaggy bark look like old men nearing the end of their time, but still hanging on to give shelter to birds and animals.
The most commanding sight in this leafless world are the granite ridges, solid Canadian Shield faces eight to nine metres high. In winter they are obscured by ice and snow. Soon the leaves on the oaks and maples will hide them completely from anyone nearby.
Today they are awe inspiring, dominating this piece of undressed forest but giving no hint of their past. The things they must have seen over thousands of years!
At the base of the rock face I see a splotch of color. It is the pale tan of dried and dead beech leaves that a young beech refused to drop last fall.
There are others not far off and that is a good sign. Beeches are terrific trees and I hope they all grow up to have long and fruitful lives.
Science has yet to figure out why all beeches don’t drop their leaves in autumn. There is no firm evidence of why, but much speculation.
One theory is that holding on to the leaves reduces water loss and provides a small amount of nutrients to the tree during winter and early spring.
Winter leaf retention, called marcescence (mar-ses-sense), is seen mainly on young beeches, or sometimes the very lowest branches of a larger beech. It is also seen sometimes on other species, notably oak and ironwood,
The retained dead leaves are pushed off by new buds that appear at this time of year.
Some people are bird watchers but I am a tree watcher. I find it interesting to follow their transitions through the seasons, standing stoically against extreme elements that often break their limbs, snap their backs or uproot their lives.
They are the one living species on earth whose sole purpose is to benefit other species. They feed and they shelter and give of themselves so others can be well and happy. As we all know, they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, helping to save mankind from its own pollution.
It is important to watch trees and to learn from them. For instance, we are learning more about how trees affect human health.
A 2013 study reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that human deaths from cardiovascular and lower respiratory illnesses increased with the devastation of ash trees attacked by the invasive emerald ash borer.
The study found that the deaths of huge number of ash trees could be linked to an additional 21,000 deaths – an additional 24 deaths per 100,000 people every year. That is a 10-per-cent increase in mortality for those two diseases.
Naked or fully leaved, there is much more among the trees than meets the eye.

Time to fix the RCMP

The prime minister was right on cue. Out in front of the microphone and cameras, promising more gun control in the wake of the Nova Scotia massacres.
He said the government had been on the verge of banning assault-style weapons but was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
It was interesting that he appeared to link the Nova Scotia killings and assault weapons. The RCMP had not said what type of weapon was used in the murderous rampage. In fact, it hadn’t said much at all about the most horrific Canadian mass murder in modern times.
It took the force’s senior management almost a week to give the public any details of the massacres, including a vague reference to the killer having a pistol and long guns.
The RCMP’s failure to properly inform the public throughout this incident is indicative of the dysfunction within the federal police force.
That dysfunction has been obvious for years, yet the force’s senior management and their federal government political bosses have failed to take action or even acknowledge it.
The Nova Scotia mass killings, which included the shooting of RCMP constable Heidi Stevenson, a 48-year-old mother of two, once again reflect the problems within the RCMP and the consequences on its members and the public.
Three years ago, the force was found guilty of failing to provide its officers with proper use-of-force equipment and training. That labour code charge was laid after five officers were gunned down by a madman in Moncton, N.B. in June 2014. Three of the officers died.
That tragedy followed the shooting deaths of four RCMP officers by another madman in Mayerthorpe, Alberta in 2005. There were calls for a judicial inquiry to find answers to safety questions raised by that incident, but they were ignored.
For years now the RCMP has been accused by its own members of bullying, sexual harassment, failure to provide proper training and equipment and of incompetence in the senior ranks. RCMP leadership and governing politicians have said either not much is wrong, or that they are studying the situation.
Urgent action is needed before more officers are driven half-crazy by harassment, or forced to quit because of bullying, or are shot because their bosses are either uncaring or too incompetent to protect them properly.
One ray of hope for change is the Federal Court of Canada certification earlier this year of a $1.1-billion class action lawsuit against the RCMP, alleging harassment and bullying.
The class action was filed by current and former members of the force. The Federal Court’s certification means that the lawsuit can proceed.
That lawsuit should throw considerable light on the turmoil within the RCMP and the reasons for it. Many officers and former officers blame the force’s leadership, which is hidebound to decades-old traditions and practices.
Canadians should not have to wait for a costly class action lawsuit to see some action in fixing the long-standing problems within the RCMP. Global News earlier this year estimated that various lawsuits, human rights complaints and other inquiries into RCMP problems have already cost taxpayers $220 million over the past two decades.
These complaints have been well documented and reported in the media over many years. They are not just whining from malcontents. They are real problems destroying morale and respect and confidence in the police force.
The real shame is that the people hurt most by the force’s dysfunction are the people who are not causing it – the frontline officers who diligently do their risky work as commanded by bosses following leadership patterns totally unsuitable for a modern police force.
The front-line officers are the ones who sometimes can’t do their jobs properly, or quit because they can’t take the toxic working atmosphere or even commit suicide because they have become so depressed.
If I were Justin Trudeau, I would call the entire RCMP leadership into a meeting and ask them to explain why they should not all be fired. I would also refocus my mind to understand that more gun control is a far lesser issue than the dysfunction consuming the RCMP.
The RCMP dysfunction has been evident to both Liberal and Conservative governments. It must be ended to restore Canadians’ pride in what once was a national treasure.