I can't watch

On my wall I have a framed photo I took in Haiti.

I spent a week there in early 2008, tagging along with an NGO as they negotiated the development of a new medical facility on the Haiti-Dominican Republic border.

I took the photo in Port-au-Prince, looking down a steep hill onto an alleyway lined with concrete facades. The green mountainside in the background is barely visible through a haze of smoke, and its lower reaches are a patchwork of cinderblock homes.

I wonder now how that view has changed; in the two years since my visit, Haiti has been devastated by two hurricanes and a massive earthquake.

I can’t bring myself to watch the footage of the aftermath of the quake. When I read of the destruction in Petionville, a neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince where I spent most of my time during my visit, I felt a confusing mixture of emotions wash over me: grief, loss, and the awkward sensation of having accidentally walked in on someone in a moment of private pain.

My reaction surprised me. When I returned to the D.R. after my week in Haiti, all I felt was relief. I’d spent the entirety of my stay in Port-au-Prince in a state of high agitation, worrying about my money, about my food, about the discussions in Haitian Creole I couldn’t participate in, about the bugs slowly eating away at the wooden headboard in my hotel room.

I listened and looked and sensed, internalizing my surroundings without understanding them, and when I stepped off the bus in familiar Santo Domingo, it was like releasing a gigantic breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in.

When I debriefed the experience with the founder of the NGO, a Haitian-born lawyer from New York, he cautioned me against making assumptions about the things I’d seen.

I had viewed Haiti through a privileged lens, eating in nice restaurants and touring only the safest neighbourhoods. I never ventured into those misty mountainside shanties, just photographed them from afar and wondered about the lives being lived out there.

Haiti’s situation is uniquely complex and probably one of the least understood of any developing nation in the world; I acknowledged this, but with a sense of regret that I hadn’t really connected with the country or its people.

For that reason, the strong sadness I felt at the news of the earthquake felt misplaced, inappropriate somehow. The hundreds of thousands of deaths and the utter destruction of beautiful, historic Port-au-Prince are undisputable tragedies, but ultimately, they’re not my losses to bear, or any of the millions of people who have generously donated to the relief effort.

The outpouring of money and support is wonderful, but much of the lightning-fast response smacks of opportunism.

Everyone who’s anyone in the journalism industry is down there covering the story and some of their dispatches sound almost giddy, as though picking their way through mangled, body-strewn streets and asking survivors about the horrors they’ve witnessed is the thrill of a lifetime.

In the days immediately following the quake, North American expats in Haiti were the only accessible sources of information about the situation, and some, like American Luke Renner, saw their chance to seize a few moments of fame. Renner’s Twitter feed is a stomach-turning combination of self-promotional references to his interviews and talk show appearances interspersed with gory updates on the carnage.

I refuse to watch the Haiti telethons (either incarnation) because to me it seems like the height of exploitation — a bunch of wealthy, fabulous people essentially using the tragedy to further boost their profiles.

The absolute nadir was reading that a woman in New York who was involved in some political sex scandal (I can’t be bothered to mention her name) was planning to donate all the proceeds from her “strip-a-thon” to the Red Cross.

All of this is completely removed from the Haiti I choose to remember, the Haiti I hope rises from the dust, the Haiti that captured my imagination and my heart without me even realizing it.

The world will tear its eyes away, the television crews will pack up and go home, the stars will find another worthy cause they can use. In that sudden vacuum of attention, I hope it’s Haitian voices that emerge, telling their own story, in their own words, inviting us to understand.

Homecoming

The body of Sgt. George Miok, who was killed in Afghanistan Dec. 30, returned home to Edmonton this morning. Members of City of Leduc Fire Services were on hand to provide an honour guard as the hearse carrying Miok's body made its way out of the Edmonton International Airport towards the highway.



The members saluted as the procession went past.


According to deputy fire chief Bob Scott, the local fire services do this kind of thing all the time, but usually it's for crowds of smiling soldiers returning, very much alive, to their families after a tour of duty.

The body of Cpl. Zachery McCormack, also from Edmonton, returned home on a later flight. Funerals for both will be held this weekend.

RIP Sgt. Miok and Cpl McCormack.

(Photos by Alexandra Pope/Sun Media)

Laura's last day

Well, this is it — it's Laura's last day at the Rep.

She'll mostly be spending it cleaning out her desk and packing up her toys, so yesterday, we immortalized her final news assignment: photographing Mayor Greg Krischke getting pinned with the first memorial poppy of the season.


Afterward, Greg posed for a farewell pic. "We're going to miss you," he said. "You were always so smiley."


We are going to miss you, Laura — the Rep just won't be the same without ya.

Cemetery Vandalism

To some people a headstone at a cemetery may just be a large piece of cement; to others it is a memory of a sibling, parent, grandparent, significant other, friend or child.

They represent a final laying place for those who have passed away.

Last week seven headstones at a cemetery near Calmar were vandalized leaving thousands of dollars in damage for one family.

This is not the first time headstones have been damaged near Calmar, a few years ago Calmar Community Cemetery was vandalized leaving numerous families left to replace headstones, while flowers, wreaths and other items placed by graves in memory of someone were gone or ruined.

Among one of those headstones was one belonging to my cousin Rebecca, who was taken far too early and left behind a family who spent good money on a tombstone and flowers in memory of her.

When I talked to my Auntie about when her daughters headstone was vandalized all she had to say was how heart breaking it was.

“It is absolutely devastating to get that call from the grounds keeper to say ‘come down, daughters grave has been wrecked’.”

I will be the first to admit I have done some very, very stupid things growing up, sometimes hurting people who likely didn’t deserve it, even if I thought at the time they did.

One thing I knew even as a dumb, reckless, immature child was that death is never a joke, and the emotions that arise when a person loses a loved one is not something to mess around with.

If you are drunk, stoned or just stupid and want to break stuff, do everyone a favour, go home and ruin something that means the world to you.

 Photo above: One of the headstones damaged last week near Calmar. Photo taken by Carole Morris-Underhill

 

Where were you when ...?

This morning, I woke up at 7 as usual, laid in bed until 7:30, got up, ate a bowl of cereal, checked my email, poured my coffee into a thermos and headed out the door.

I drove my boyfriend to work, headed onto the Whitemud, sang along with the radio and started to plan my day in my head.

I thought about the interviews I had to do, the conference I would attend in the afternoon, and allowed myself a moment of excitement at the thought of tonight's party. It never occurred to me that there was anything remarkable about today, anything significant other than the fact that it's Friday.

And then, as I was turning off the highway at my usual exit, the radio station played a series of sound clips — a woman screaming, a news anchor saying "Smoke is pouring out of the Pentagon," a woman saying "And then he said, 'I just called to tell y'all I love you,'" a man yelling "Oh my God, there's another one" with screams audible in the background. A weight immediately settled across my shoulders. September 11. How could I have forgotten?

It's been eight years, but my reaction to the sound clips is still visceral. 9/11/01 was a day that changed the world — it changed lives, it changed policy, it set countless stories in motion. And, on a more personal level, it was the day I woke up out of my childhood and truly began to think about the world around me.

I was 15, in my second week of Grade 11 at my high school in Mississauga, Ontario. I was walking with my friends to our second-period music class. It was about 9:45 by then. We passed another kid in our grade who was leaning casually by the water fountain outside the gym. "Did you hear?" he said. "The World Trade Centre's been bombed by terrorists."

It's a sign of how deeply self-involved I was then that I couldn't even picture the World Trade Centre in my mind. I had never been to New York City and no one had ever sat me down in front of a picture of the skyline and pointed out the twin towers. Why would they?

We walked into our classroom and made a beeline for the teacher, who was sitting behind the piano.

"Jonathan said the World Trade Centre was bombed by terrorists," I said by way of greeting.

Our teacher didn't skip a beat. "I don't know anything about that," she said.

As more students trickled in, there was vague chatter about a terrorist attack, but the teacher launched straight into the lesson and there was no more time for talk.

The class ended shortly after 11. I was hungry and looking forward to my third-period lunch. The vague bombing talk had been forgotten. I was heading to the cafeteria when our principal's voice came over the PA system.

Calmly, without preamble, he informed the silent hallways what had happened. Planes had flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center earlier that morning. Both had collapsed. Another plane had crashed into the Pentagon; a fourth had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Thousands were believed to be dead. The situation was still developing. Students who wished to contact their parents and leave school early would be permitted to do so.

The principal ended his address by asking everyone to observe two minutes of silence immediately following the announcement.

I looked around. The hallways were jammed with people on their way to lunch or their next class. People were hugging, some were crying silently. Others leaned against the lockers with blank faces. It was a long, tense, suspended moment. I had to close my eyes.

I took my lunch outside and sat on the front steps of the school. It was a beautiful, sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Some of my older, more knowledgeable friends talked over my head about the attacks. Unfamiliar words — "Syria," "Osama bin Laden," "jihad," "Saddam Hussein" — drifted down to my ears, meaningless without context.

I stayed at school for the rest of the day, watching CNN. My English teacher tried to encourage us to talk about our reactions to what we were seeing but conversation was thin on the ground. For probably the first time in my life, I had nothing to contribute. I didn't understand any of what I was seeing and hearing. Everything around me — the classroom walls, the desks, the novels and plays stacked on the shelves, the bowed heads of my classmates — seemed improbably normal. After such a momentous and tragic event, shouldn't the laws of gravity have been overturned? Shouldn't the sun have just set at 10 in the morning and refused to come up ever again? How could it not signify the imminent end of the world?

I still experience a moment like that every September 11. It feels wrong somehow to treat it as just another day. The date should be retired from the calendar, like the jersey number of a beloved hockey player. We should skip straight from Sept. 10 to Sept. 12 the same way high-rise apartments omit the thirteenth floor.

I've told my personal 9/11 story countless times. It's not particularly dramatic or moving; I was still a kid with a kid's bewildered, self-interested awareness of world events. But it still feels constructive to remember, to consider the world we inherited that day upon the spectacular death of innocence. It imbued me with an energy to know, to learn, to understand, to combat ignorance, especially my own.

We were all there that day, in one way or another. What did it mean to you?

Some days you gotta dance

I wrote the following column in the July 3 edition of The Rep for many reasons. I am appreciative of the late Michael Jackson's talent and I found myself reminiscing about my childhood after his death. 

So much can trigger a memory. Whether it is hearing a song on the radio that was played during your first high school dance or the smell of a stranger that reminds you of your favourite aunt — sometimes it is the little things that can out a smile on your face. 

For me it was, and will always be, the music.

Don’t blame it on sunshine 

Don’t blame it on moonlight 

Don’t blame it on good times 

Blame it on the boogie -Jackson 5

I learned to dance because of Michael Jackson. 

When I was about eight years old, my friends Lyndsay, Crystal and I would gather in Crystal’s basement and her mom would turn on the 8-track and we would dance. Destiny by the Jackson 5, Off the Wall by Michael Jackson and various Bee Gees tunes would roar through the house, and we would move to the beat. I loved to dance. It was a great outlet for a fidgety kid, who loved to lip sync and learn a step or two.

The death of Michael Jackson caught most of us by surprise. We had been hearing in the news popular 70s pin-up Farrah Fawcett was battling cancer and news of her death was not a shock. But when I read online the first reports of MJ’s death I was saddened. The MJ I knew represented a large part of my youth. 

Let me take you back…

For Christmas of 1982, I got the only thing I wanted. There is no other gift from my youth that I can remember so vividly. I remember like it was yesterday: the day I got Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. 

I was seven years old, and after saying goodbye to the 8-track player in my room, I had a record player. Trust me, this was a big deal — with a record player, I was moving into the big leagues! 
At that point, my album collection consisted of The Muppets Volume 1 and 2 (which I still have), Mickey Mouse Disco (still have) and Anne Murray’s classic, There’s a Hippo in my Bathtub (guilty as charged – still have it). 

Then I got Thriller. Carefully pulling the record out of the sleeve, I set it down on the turntable.
I played it over and over (and over) that Christmas morning, until my parents told me we should be listening to something more… festive. So, I turned the radio on for them, and kept listening to MJ with my headphones on. And I danced.

When the day was over, the guests went home and I brought my record upstairs. I carefully put that shiny new 12-inch on my stereo, laid in bed and sang myself to sleep. By the next morning I knew all the words and was pretty pleased with myself. As my friends had gotten the album too, no matter whose house we were playing at, we could dance to MJ all day long.

As the years went by, the record player was replaced by a tape player and new songs came bellowing out of my room. It never failed though. If a Michael Jackson song was playing on the radio, the volume would be turned up and the words I had not heard in years came out of my mouth as if I had just learned them the day before. And I danced.

In my late teens and early 20’s, I went to clubs in Toronto every weekend. And it never failed — if people started vacating the dance floor, all the DJ had to do was throw on Wanna be Startin’ Something by Michael Jackson and the dance floor would fill in.

I have an iPod now, and yes, it has Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 on it. My iPod had his songs on it before his death, as I had bought his HIStory album — I know they are now CDs, but I still call them albums — when it came out in 1995 and when I got my iPod, MJ was one of the first artists I put onto it. Why not? It makes me dance.

The music of Michael Jackson played a big part in my youth. I learned a few moves, fell in love with music videos, and found a common bond with friends. I never did make it to see him perform live (although as an homage to the 8-track, Anne Murray was my first concert), but in the end, I did have a lot of fun getting down to the beat.

While Anne Murray’s Snowbird was my first 8-track, Thriller was my first album. Not one of my brothers’, not one of my parents’, but mine. All mine. 

I have moved nine times in 34 years, and in a tote that conatins Michelle’s Memories, buried beside my Brownie outfit (and my Muppets, Hippo and Disney Disco album) is my Thriller album.

I may be a little older, and most nights need to be in bed by 11 p.m., but I can still get down with the rest of them. 

Blame it on the boogie.

Weekly Roundup — June 12

Here's what's making news in Leduc and area this week:

• The manager of a local Chevrolet dealership says GM's decision to terminate their sales and service agreement is "unfair" and an inaccurate reflection of the store's recent sales record.

• A new website hopes to bring closure to families of missing persons.

• The children of Southfork finally have a park.

• Accessibility is a key issue in the construction of the new Leduc Recreation Centre.

• A local team is preparing for the upcoming Ride to Conquer Cancer in Calgary.

• In county news, Leduc County councillors want residents to be aware that an application has been filed to develop a gravel mining operation on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, Warburg reviewed its financial audit, and Epcor hopes its new project will make its Genesee generating station a world leader in clean energy and carbon capture and sequestration.

• In sports, the LCHS Tiger rugby boys are hoping for redemption in the Tier 2 provincials, the Bantam Ticats football team has wrapped up their spring training camp, the Otters swim team is winding down their season after a strong showing at a recent meet in Red Deer, and it's charity golf season again.

• Alex has an omnibus edition of provincial court briefs, including a man who racked up $4,500 in fines stemming from one drunken ride through Beaumont and a man who stole tip money from a bartender to play the VLTs.

(Photo: Cheryl Agostinho, wife of the late Cst. Jose Agostinho, and Kool Mom Shannon Moroz unveiled the temporary sign dedicating the brand new Southfork park to Agostinho's memory after the park build on June 6. Agostinho, who was killed in the line of duty on July 4, 2005, while serving as a member of the Wetaskiwin RCMP, believed passionately in helping children become good citizens and loved Leduc, friends said. Photo by Alexandra Pope.)

Weekend madness!

I just had the most intense and tiring weekend workday I've had since I started working for the Rep. It's almost summer in Leduc and the surrounding area, so of course every weekend is stacked with outdoor events, and this one was no exception.

I went to an equestrian show and Timbits soccer jamboree in Beaumont, met some amazing young people who are making a difference in Devon at the Servus Credit Union Leaders of Tomorrow awards, and saw bad fashion and drunken baseball converge at the 37th annual New Sarepta Fair.

It was also an historic day in Leduc: the Southfork Moms (by far the Koolest moms in the city) realized their dream of having a playground in their own neighborhood for their kids to play on. Construction started at 8 a.m. and by 3 p.m. the park was full of kids swinging, sliding, running and climbing. It was inspiring to see how hundreds of volunteers could make quick work of the very labour-intensive building process, all with the best interests of the kids at heart.

It was fitting that the build happened on the anniversary of D-Day, because the park has been named for the late Jose Agostinho, who was not only an RCMP officer who gave his life in the line of duty on July 4, 2005, but also a former commanding officer of the Leduc 831 Black Knights Air Cadets Squadron and a huge proponent of the cadet program. The park is a fitting testament to his commitment to encouraging children to grow into helpful, respectful, active citizens of their community.

Check out the June 12 Rep for full coverage of the build. And also check out the Beaumont News and the Devon Dispatch, our sister papers. We share a lot of content but they also contain exclusives contributed by the Rep's staff. We're all one big, happy family.

And because no one reads this blog, I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about posting this as a final thought: my very own LOLcat, starring Loki, the baddest tabby in Renaissance Place.

Weekly Roundup — May 22

Here's what's making news in Leduc and area this week:

• Overcrowded classrooms and schools are becoming an issue in the Black Gold Regional School Division.

• The Town of Devon is mourning the loss of recent high school grad Steven Larson, who died suddenly the day after celebrating grad with his classmates.

• The Leduc and District Food Bank is seeing an increase in their number of clients in these hard economic times.

• Leduc's L.A. Dance Academy is raising money to support one of their young dancers, who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

• Alex spoke to two individuals about their reaction to Avi Friedman's workshop on affordable housing. Nancy Laing with the Leduc Foundation says Leduc needs to offer a wider range of housing, while Kirk Popik, mayor of the Town of Calmar, says now is the perfect time to start addressing the sustainability of our communities.

• Guests at the May 19 EDA partnership breakfast learned about nano and microtechnologies — a.k.a. really, really small machines that are smarter than the writer of this story will ever be!

• Across the county, New Sarepta's annual fair is coming up, Thorsby is hosting a community clean-up, and the Discovery Centre in Devon received some government funding.

Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

(Photo: Tribute artist Jason Scott belted out the Neil Diamond tunes at the Maclab Centre May 18. Photo by Alex Pope.)

Weekly Roundup — May 15

Here's what's making news in Leduc and area this week:

• Laura Ring has the story of a young man whose one bad choice changed his life forever.

• A local man has been recognized for his brave actions during an armed robbery.

• Affordable housing expert Avi Friedman gave a two-day workshop in Calmar last week and dispelled some of the common misconceptions about affordable housing.

• No deaths in the news this week, but there are taxes — specifically property taxes in Leduc.

• Fallen Wetaskiwin RCMP officer Jose Agostinho will be immortalized in the name of the new Southfork park.

• A local high school student has won a $20,000 scholarship for her engagement in her school and community.

• This year's raffle to benefit the Leduc Boys and Girls Club features some big-ticket items.

• The parliamentary assistant to Alberta's minister of health wants everybody to walk more, eat less salt.

• Hello Dolly rocks! (And I'm not just saying that because I'm in it.)

• Leduc needs an emergency women's shelter, council heard on May 11.

• In sports, local rugby teams kicked off their season this month, while lacrosse seems to be gaining in popularity. Also, the LCHS athletic field is going to be renamed to honour the founder of the track club. P.S.: Don't call Laura the sports reporter.

All this and more in this week's Rep.

(Photo: 11-year-old Tristan Head tries on beer goggles at an RCMP open house May 8. Photo by Laura Ring.)