And the Rest of It

In a word, no:

MY grandfather was not prone to sentimentality. Overt demonstrations of feigned emotion would usually be met with a short rebuke along the lines of ‘what a load of b*****ks’.

Much of this, no doubt, was just who he was. Some of it, however, must have been born from his experiences.

On June 6, 1944, at the tender age of 18, he parachuted into Ranville, Normandy. The next few months saw him fight across France and Germany, suffering life-threatening wounds along the way and losing his closest friends, particularly his mate Frenchie, which stayed with him till his dying days some 77 years later.

Yet that was the sacrifice which was made by those of his generation. It was their duty and it was expected of them to fight. It stands in stark contrast to many an 18-year-old today, for whom microaggressions are treated as a threat akin to the 1,200 rounds per minute delivered by the MG42, or who believe that it is ‘brave’ to gender-bend.

As the wartime generation die off – surely not many are left, my grandfather dying at the age of 96 must have ranked among the last – there is an ever-greater degree of public soul-searching that takes place whenever anniversaries such as June 6 come around.

Increasingly we ask ourselves what that generation was fighting for. One doubts it is the world which was erected out of the ashes of war-torn Europe. The one in which, by the 21^st century, Britain’s military actively discriminates against white males – the descendants of those who died to keep us free – and which can no longer confidently define a ‘woman’.

My grandfather in his later years regularly asked rhetorically: ‘Why did we bother?’

 

Quite. 

Because their problems must be our problems:

New York lawyer Gurpatwant Singh Pannun told Postmedia that he talked to Guru Nanak Gurdwara president Hardeep Singh Nijjar Saturday.

He said Nijjar, who was gunned down at 8:27 p.m. outside the temple, was in “good spirits” despite getting the disturbing news from someone with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

“They told him that there were threats to his life,” the lawyer said.

Pannun’s name was also mentioned by CSIS, according to Nijjar, who was supposed to meet the agent Tuesday to get more information.

“He said that he’s going to update me once he speaks to them.”

Nijjar also said he had heard from community members that “there are people in Vancouver who are trying to procure arms or weapons to kill.”

But ... that means the government is at fault!:

There is no evidence retailers and wholesalers are profiteering from inflation, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. Research showed companies appeared to be passing on higher costs without suspicious markups: “The cumulative growth of markups of consumer-oriented firms was close to zero.”

 

 

Let's try some math - how many bar tabs and hotel stays can pay for proper maintenance?:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says members of the Royal Canadian Air Force were killed in a Chinook helicopter crash early Tuesday morning near Ottawa.

The four-member crew was on a training mission and the military said earlier in the day while two had been injured, the search was continuing for two others who were missing.