Quote of the Day: “The whole political vision of the left, including socialism and communism, has failed by virtually every empirical test, in countries all around the world. But this has only led leftist intellectuals to evade and denigrate empirical evidence.” Thomas Sowell
I guess part of the reason I don’t read the obits much anymore is because, well, some of the people on those pages are younger than I am. So, I won’t make any excuses for missing John Vanderpool’s passing from a stroke a couple of weeks ago. Anyone who has lived in the K-W region knows his name and the names of his sons. A great sports family and great ambassadors for our Region. Valerie Hill, in her column Lifelines on Page A13 today, does just a fantastic job of interviewing some people who knew him. But this paragraph really struck me: “Co-worker Allan Smith said in those early days there were few local Black families and John did face racism but he never shied away from dealing with it, albeit diplomatically. ‘John was a strong guy: he took it head-on’ said Allan. ‘People started respecting him for who he was, not seeing the colour of his skin’” Wow – what a remarkable man and a fantastic tribute to him. Truly wonderful. But then… compare this great human being to a few members of the just horrific Community Editorial Board. In an article yesterday, Shama Saleh – the perpetual victim, recounts how on a work term, some of her co-workers asked her (jokingly, I assume) if she wore her hijab in the shower. And because of this, Saleh suggest that: “You just genuinely don’t feel safe”. Also yesterday, Moraa Mochama also from the CEB, tells us that after being talked over in a meeting and: “My voice was no longer being heard and I was mad!” Oh my. How terrible. And of course Mulugeta Dilnesahu, way back on 10 September 2020 in another CEB post, claimed that because no employer would hire him in his field of “population studies”, then: “That’s the racism of Canada”. No words can describe what I feel like right now.