Thursday Thirteen - 141 - 13 Views of 2009 at A Piece of My Mind

Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes took a look back at her blog through 2009 last week - and I so enjoyed her post, I decided to borrow her format for my own blog this week.

Clicking on the month will take you to the entire post I've excerpted here.


1 - January 2009 - One of the things I'll be looking forward to is a new tradition I've begun with my two dads. Both of them passed away recently. When the first birthday for my dad rolled around on Dec. 29th, 2007 - the first without him - my husband and I were in Toronto. It's my intention to fill a day when my thoughts naturally turn to missing someone so very, very precious with something that brings me great joy. And so last Dec. 29th began My Date With My Dad - a glorious matinee watching my favorite ballet company with my Dad along with me, sharing my joy.


2 - February 2009 - Welcome to my Second Blogiversary Celebration! Come in. Find a seat. I've got a show planned that celebrates life as I love to live it. And I'm grateful to you, my blog readers and fellow bloggers, for sharing this life with me. First up is Gene Wilder singing Pure Imagination from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My life just wouldn't be the same if it wasn't fueled by imagination.


3 - March 2009 - I got a good writing day in, which included some internet research on methods to treat cuts that my little laundry maid Helen would use in 1840's Van Diemen's Land. I settled upon tea, as it fit seamlessly with the preceding scene where three characters have a rather surreal tea party. And I realized all the information I just gathered would make a fabulous post for my Blog Improvement Project. Et voila! The Common Tea Bag and Its Uncommon Usefulness in First Aid.


4 - April 2009 - For my second interview here at A Piece of My Mind, I've got Thomma Lyn Grindstaff joining me from her home in East Tennessee in the United States. A big Down East welcome, Thomma Lyn from me here on Canada's east coast.

Question - Your novel Mirror Blue releases May 1st. Will you be doing anything special on that day?

Answer - I'd thought of having a Virtual Book Release party on that day, but my hubby and I are planning a celebratory hike on the mountain!




5 - May 2009 - I've got a busy weekend. Tonight, after an extremely challenging week at work, I had a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's choir concert. Tomorrow morning I'll be hopping on the bus and heading for Spring Garden Road, to have an afternoon at the ballet - La Bayadere. After the ballet, it's hurry-scurry home, get changed and drive my husband and me to my choir concert, where he'll watch from the audience.


6 - June 2009 - For Summer Stock Sunday, I've got my lovely peonies which I transported from their original home in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia when we moved to Cole Harbour eight years ago. As we packed up the house to move to Cole Harbour, I made one final walk-around to make sure we had everything. I looked at the garden to make my goodbye - and realized I hadn't dug up the peony plant. I grabbed a broken, jagged broom handle from the trash and started digging madly for the peony bulbs. I plunged my hands into the earth and felt around until I could grasp the tubers. I yanked as hard as I could until a few broke free and came to the surface. I threw them in a box with some dirt and we slipped them onto the back of the truck.


7 - July 2009 - If you're anything like me, the idea that 39 tall ships will sail into my home port of Halifax Harbour is enough to send you into paroxysms of joy. I have always been attracted to these majestic ladies of the sea for as long as I can remember. So when the first Tall Ships Festival arrived here 25 years ago in the summer of 1984, my sister and I went down to the transformed waterfront filled with awe, our necks cricked up to stare at the forest of masts, the elaborate rigging, to see the faces of sailors from all over the world and hear languages spoken we'd only heard in movies.

We didn't know that we were walking towards the most incredible summer of our lives - the Summer of My Sister's Russian Sailor.


8 - August 2009 - I've been a form of weather vane for several decades, a sort of Doppler radar as far as the weather was concerned. I've felt an oncoming low pressure system, even when it was a few days away. The really bad storms are just giant low pressure systems, and my degree of pain was unrelenting for up to 10 days at a time.

For some reason earlier this year, I began thinking to myself: I resign from my weather vane job. The Weather Network can do it.

I started acupuncture for my migraines in June. There's another big storm coming up along the eastern seaboard toward Nova Scotia this weekend. Tropical Storm Danny. I first heard about it on the news in the middle of the week. I stared at the TV screen in confusion. Whenever a storm system appears on the weather report, I'm already feeling it. But this was actual news to me.


9 - September 2009 - I'm currently reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer for the Dewey Reading Challenge. The writing is so exceptional that I could craft found poems from every single page in this 382-page book. Here is one little nugget.

Terribly Lucky

By her twelfth birthday
My great-great-great-great-great-grandmother
Had received at least one
Proposal of marriage
From every citizen in Trachimbrod

She forced a blush
Batted her long eyelashes
Said to each, Perhaps no
Yankel says I am still too young

They are so silly, turning back to Yankel


10 - October 2009 - A few weeks ago I didn't even know who Eugene Hutz was. But I'm reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer for a reading challenge, and even though I hadn't finished the book I asked my husband to bring home the DVD of the film adaptation from Blockbuster, where he works. Playing the Ukrainian translater for New York-Jewish Jonathan was Eugene Hutz, turning in a remarkable performance for a non-actor. Now I'm quite obsessed with him.

I started thinking about Eugene's charismatic hold over women. I believe it's his Unattainable Man persona. Who could be more unattainable than a part-Gypsy globetrotter whose undying passion is Music?


11 - November 2009 - Whistleblower diplomat 'Richard Colvin sent senior Canadian officials no fewer than 17 messages in 2006 and 2007 warning that Afghan interrogators used torture as 'standard operating procedure,' that Canadian troops were handing over 'a lot of innocent people,' and that could make them complicit in war crimes. He also copied more than 70 people.' (Toronto Star)

'I find it insulting to listen to the governing party in Canada trying to discredit someone who is standing up for the Canadian sense of human justice.' (Rod Sarty, letter to the editor, Chronicle Herald)


12 - December 2009 - 13 Things That Kept Me Going During NaNoWriMo:

Stewie Griffin ('Victory is mine!')
Gogol Bordello - Forces of Victory ('I can't go on/I will go on')
My fellow bloggers who also did NaNo
My fellow Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada sisters who also did NaNo





13 - Since we don't have thirteen months in the year - although, think of all the stuff we could cross off of our collective lists if we did - here's an extra post that's a favorite of mine from 2009:

13 Reasons Why It's So Much Fun To Go To The Writers' Retreat

Thursday Thirteen - 134 - 13 Reasons Canada's Defense Minister Peter Mackay Should Man Up About Torture Allegations

1 - "A top diplomat’s account of the rampant torture and rape of Afghan detainees is not credible, Defence Minister Peter MacKay (shown with Gen. Natynczyk) said Thursday.

Under fire from all parties, MacKay dismissed testimony from Richard Colvin as second- and third-hand information from enemy sources.

'What we’re talking about here is not only hearsay, we’re talking about basing much of his evidence on what the Taliban have been specifically instructed to lie about if captured,' he said." - Kathleen Harris, Toronto Sun Photo by Andrew Vaughan












2 - "The mugging of Mr. Colvin's reputation showed the Conservatives' underside.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party has its own Frat Pack: a cluster of ministers and MPs who represent the sharp point of the party's attack machine. You could see it at work last week, with Transport Minister John Baird and others attacking the credibility of Richard Colvin, the civil servant who tried to alert the Canadian government to the torture awaiting Canadian Forces detainees sent to Afghan prisons." - Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail Photo by Chris Wattie



3 - "In December of 2005, while Canada was in the middle of the election campaign that brought Stephen Harper to power, then-Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier signed a deal establishing our detainee transfer protocol — an arrangement that did not provide for Canadians to monitor their prisoners.

According to Mr. Colvin, Canadian soldiers were rounding up large numbers of suspected insurgents and turning them over to the Afghan authorities, and then relying on the Red Cross and an Afghan human rights group to make sure they were not tortured." - Stephen Maher, Chronicle Herald Photo by Globe and Mail

















4 - "Inevitably in this kind of insurgency, where foreign troops sweep the countryside for guerrillas, some innocents get scooped into the same net as actual enemy fighters.

All three of the independent military commands at that point (in 2007) — the Canadian, Dutch and British — knew that under international law they were responsible for the well being of all Afghans they picked up, even after they were handed over to Afghan prisons and interrogation centres.

The Dutch were concerned enough to report immediately any handover to the local Red Cross officials. Britain acted within 24 hours.

But Canada?

When Canadian soldiers brought in the usually hooded and tightly bound detainee, our military police on the spot would first inform the colonels and generals in the Kandahar mission control centre.

But instead of alerting the Red Cross right away, like the Dutch and British, these commanders, following orders, sent the information to CEFCOM, the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa.

This information would then be passed over to Defence Headquarters and to Foreign Affairs.

Instead of CEFCOM sending word back to Kandahar to immediately engage local Red Cross officials, the file instead was forwarded to the Canadian Embassy in Geneva.

Only then did Canada inform the International Red Cross, suggesting that it check up on some Afghan civilians our troops had detained and handed over to Afghan interrogators.

It was while this odd Kandahar to Ottawa to Geneva to Kandahar shuffle was going on that detainees would be under the greatest threat of torture and other abuses. If you wanted to ensure your detainee was grilled to the hilt over days, weeks, or months, would this not be the kind of play-for-time system that you would devise?" - Brian Stewart, CBC News Photo by Musadeq Sadeq













5 - "Former warden of Sarpoza Prison, Abdul Qadar Khan Popal, told Canwest News Service 'Prisoners were kept several days in the custody of the NDS,' Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security. 'It was not a matter of hours,' Popal said before detainees were transferred from the dilapidated NDS detention centre to Sarpoza. 'I myself have seen injuries on their bodies caused by torture by the NDS.' " - Matthew Fisher, Canada.com Photo by Natalie Behring-Chisholm











6 - "Colvin’s analysis came from interviewing hundreds of prisoners who had been transferred to the Sarposa prison, after allegedly being abused. In May 2007, the Globe and Mail’s intrepid, unembedded reporter Graeme Smith had ventured to the Sarposa prison and broke the same story of alleged torture. I happened to be in Kabul with colleagues when Smith’s expose hit the newsstands and, as a result, we were able to do some first-hand followup.

The head of the NDS acknowledged that the abuse issue could strain Afghan-Canadian relations and, as a gesture of good faith, he offered to grant us direct access to the notorious NDS detention centre in Kandahar.

When we interviewed the directing staff, they proudly admitted that to a man they had all received their training from the Soviets and were all former KGB officers." - Scott Taylor, Chronicle Herald Photo by Dene Moore


7 - "Colvin told a special Commons committee on Afghanistan Wednesday that Canada took vastly more battlefield prisoners than either the British or Dutch militaries operating in southern Afghanistan.

He said that those detainees were, by and large, innocent taxi drivers and farmers rather than Taliban operatives, and that abuse was the 'standard operating procedure' of Afghan authorities, regardless of the intelligence value of a prisoner.

The implements of torture were wire cables, electrical shocks and physical and sexual abuse, he said.

Once newspaper reports in April 2007 brought the problems to light, Colvin said he was instructed to keep quiet by David Mulroney, a senior official who had responsibilities to report on Afghanistan to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay and Gordon O'Connor, who was the defence minister before he became the first political casualty of the detainee scandal." - Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star













8 - "As far as anyone knows, no one has seen a Canadian soldier turn over a suspect to a torturer to be pistol-whipped, cudgelled, shocked or raped.

Yet Richard Colvin sent senior Canadian officials no fewer than 17 messages in 2006 and 2007 warning that Afghan interrogators used torture as 'standard operating procedure,' that Canadian troops were handing over 'a lot of innocent people,' and that could make them complicit in war crimes. He also copied more than 70 people.

As for Colvin's credibility, the Afghan human rights panel has just confirmed that there were indeed 232 cases of torture in 2006/07." - Editorial, Toronto Star Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly












9 - "The Foreign Affairs report, titled Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights, was marked 'CEO' for Canadian Eyes Only. It seems to remove any last vestige of doubt that the senior officials and ministers knew that torture and abuse were rife in Afghan jails.

The report leaves untouched many paragraphs such as those beginning 'one positive development' or 'there are some bright spots.'

But heavy dark blocks obliterate sentences such as 'military, intelligence and police forces have been accused of involvement in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, extortion, torture and extrajudicial killing.' " - Paul Koring, April 2007, Globe and Mail Photo by Canadian Press


















10 - "Whistleblower Richard Colvin joined Foreign Affairs 15 years ago, in his mid-20s, with the idea that – in the words of one source close to him – Canada might not be a major player but 'we're a force for good, we stand for something.' " - Tonda MacCharles, Toronto Star Photo by Sean Kilpatrick














11 - "Counter-insurgency is an argument to win the support of the locals.

Every action, reaction or failure to act become part of the debate. In Kandahar, Canada needs to convince local people that we are better than the Taliban, that our values were superior, that we would look after their interests and protect them.

In my judgment, some of our actions in Kandahar, including complicity in torture, turned local people against us. Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada’s detainee practices alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency." - Richard Colvin, House of Commons testimony, Macleans Photo by Tylere Couture
















12 - "I find it insulting to listen to the governing party in Canada trying to discredit someone who is standing up for the Canadian sense of human justice. I think the Harper crew is insulting everything that each and every Canadian soldier fought and died for - basic human rights. We are a country that upholds the human rights of all people, all the time. This government just celebrated Remembrance Day, and now it slaps the face of all who died for this great nation. Canada deserves better." - Rod Sarty, letter to the editor, Chronicle Herald













13 - " 'We inherited an inadequate transfer arrangement left in place by the previous government,' said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

'There is something called ministerial accountability,' said Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh. 'You can't shut your eyes, your ears and your mouth to say "No, I didn't know." '

The opposition demanded to know the names of the officials who tried to shut down Colvin's reports and sanitize the reports of other diplomats.

'Who in this government issued that order?' asked Dosanjh. 'Why is this government creating a culture - an un-Canadian culture - of secrecy about an issue as abhorrent as torture?' " - Murray Brewster, Canadian Press Photo by Pete Williamson