Sunday, November 23, 2008

A non-knitting post.

The Toronto Star featured a book review last summer on a book that ... well, it interested me. Because I have two sons who are so dang close to military age (28 and 24 years old at the moment), the military activities of the U.S. were always pretty close to the top of my radar screen. The book?

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Scugog library had it on their shelves.

I've read it. This book is an absolutely scathing review of the GWB presidency. When I say scathing, I do mean scathing. I keep expecting smoke to leak from between the covers. The book is actually a compelling case for the indictment and trial of GWB for the murders of the members of the armed forces who have died in the fighting in Iraq. Complete with footnotes, legal precedents and citations to the source materials for the charges I might add. The drawback to this book, and ultimately the reason why no one will act upon it and the reasoning it contains is this: Mr. Bugliosi is an ardent and fervent Democrat; his language when referring to GWB is demeaning, derogatory and inflammatory, and possibly libelous. In fact, not even half-way through the book, I was more than tired of hearing GWB referred to in such a manner.

Heh. Now that I think about it, perhaps I understand why Bugliosi did what he did. The ONLY defense to libel and slander is the truth. Perhaps we has hoping to incite GWB into suing for libel and slander, at which point Bugliosi could trot out his vision of the truth and hope that the judge and jury would agree with him. An interesting move, to say the least.

In any event, I would recommend this as a good read.

In other news ... Lake Scugog has frozen over this week. Twice, in fact. This second time, however, it looks like it's gonna stick. Brrrr. The freezing over part isn't really news; after all, freeze-up happens every year. This year we have the good fortune of having actually removed all dock sections from the water ahead of time. (Yippee!) What WAS momentuous, however, was this:


That is a lone, single, solitary Canada Goose out there. They don't usually hang out by themselves, you know. I was getting ready to head into the shop when I glanced out the window and saw this guy. Just sitting there on the ice. After brushing my teeth and getting dressed, he was still there. Just sitting there all by his lonesome. I was afraid that he was actually stuck to the ice--destined for a long, slow death by exposure or a traumatic death by raccoon or neighbourhood dog. Neither was something I particularly wanted to see happen on my lakefront.

I got the binoculars and went for a closer look. He was still there, just kind of looking around forlornly. Now I was worried. What to do, how to help him. (I am a sucker for this type of thing. I vividly recall feeding the ducks down by the Bear Lake Tavern with my ex-husband and being concerned that one duck with a "broken wing" wasn't getting enough to eat. I charged the ex-husband with luring the entire flock down the shoreline so that I could toss some bread to the injured duck. After dinner, the injured duck thanked me by standing up and shaking out his feathers so that his wing looked ... perfect!)

I went and got Doug and showed him the poor goose. Doug figured that he was too far out for a simple (but freezing) wade out to free him. Perhaps a canoe could be used to break the ice and set him free? Doug was pondering the ways in which aid could be secured while I went out to start my car warming up. After all, Never Enough Wool really needed to be opened on time. I do have early morning customers.

I came back from starting the car, tromping across the crusty snow on the deck and making lots of noise. I noticed the goose's head pop up to get a better look at the excitement on the shore.

Then I saw --

There he went, shaking his tail feathers at me as he strolled off.

Good thing I discovered my folly before Doug got his canoe down to the lake, eh?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I actually saw a duck that was frozen on a pond in Markham the fire department rescued it.

Irene