Veterans

 I got to sleep in this morning.  That was due, in part, to the fact that the SP were awake until the wee sma’s disrupting everyone, so nobody moved until an hour later than usual.  There was no discernible cause for the lack of sleep, it was just one of those nights that happens mid-week when everyone needs to sleep.  My nephew was again at home, although his energy seems to be turned up to 10.  He seemed delighted that Auntie was available for climbing on and reading and tickling as needed.  My niece went off to daycare, and came home full of energy.  It was a wet, grey day, perfect for spending wrapped in a blanket with a hot drink close at hand and a book on your lap just soaking up the coziness.  My boys were also sleeping late — I called and had to be called back, since they never responded to the phone ringing!  Ottawa was unseasonably warm and dry today, so Jerry had a lovely time running around with his person.  Apparently he also met a friend yesterday, and was thrilled to see her (and her human) who was surprised to see him out with a new person.  All good!

It’s Remembrance Day today, and I settled in to watch the ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, as I usually do.  This year I wasn’t able to watch the flyover from my balcony as I’m still several hundred kilometres away, so I missed that.  Every year I take in the ceremonies, standing quietly until the end of the 2 minutes of silence.  It’s a time for reflection as they go through the singing of “In Flanders Fields” and the recital of the act of remembrance.  The war for which those were inaugurated ended well over a century ago, and the last of the veterans who fought in it died over a decade ago, so in many ways it’s a far distant event, along the lines of the Punic wars — nobody now alive experienced it, and we rely on others’ memories for information (whether it’s oral or written, it’s all other people’s memories now.)  Like other historical events, how you remember and treat it depends on where your ancestors were when it happened and after it ended, since histories are written by the victors.  So it’s either a victory for those fighting for freedom, or the worsening of oppression, or something in-between.  I’ve read several books written at the time of the war, or during the interbellum period, where the war was seen as “the War to end all wars” and there was a belief that there would never again be one so large or damaging.  It’s fascinating to see what was happening and what people knew and either acted on or ignored at the time — they were no more prescient than we are, so while we see them lurching to a nightmare and wonder how they could make those choices, we’re probably doing the same thing for our descendants to ask how could we do that?  In the last century for the West, this has been a period of unprecedented growth and peace, so we’ve been able to build a more prosperous society in the main, although there remain many issues to be addressed.

The elements of a free society are based on provision of education, ensuring access to clean, safe food and water, and ensuring that human rights and freedoms are globally protected.  They’re not, really, and we’ve seen the sad results in terms of wars and various abuses.  I won’t go into this too deeply, because I’ll get up on my soapbox and get upset, so I’ll avoid that and remain calm.  Instead, I’ll talk about the memes that circulate where people grumble about things they didn’t learn in school.  I do have to ask what people were doing in school when they were there, because I distinctly remember classes where we touched on all kinds of topics that people now grumble they didn’t learn.  For instance, I’ve seen moaning that nobody learned anything about taxes, but I remember spending several weeks learning about the tax system and how it worked, so much so that I was on the team that led our school to win the national competition about taxes.  So it clearly was covered, and since the team was at least 5 people, it wasn’t a personal project for me!!  Ditto things like home economics… I didn’t study it formally for exams, but I did learn things about housekeeping, budgeting and cooking in class, so that would have been between the ages of 8 - 10.  We didn’t learn farming or beekeeping, although older generations recall those classes in their schools.  So for all the people who moan about things not being covered, I really have to ask what were you up to?

I don’t find it amusing to pretend to be dumb, nor do I consider it to be a good thing to denigrate learning and education.  It’s a distressing and (IMO, anyway) disheartening thing to insult people who like learning so they are discouraged from progressing.  I’ve probably lost my sense of humour or it’s been weakened over time, because when people say things like, “I don’t believe in statistics,” (when they’re working as a data scientist) or “I don’t see any reason to worry about spelling,” I feel a wave of irritation towards them. I have a longstanding love of learning in all forms, even though I have preferences for certain subjects over others, and it’s sad to think that so many of our ancestors struggled to gain an education and improve society for people to toss that aside as being irrelevant or worse, as the subject of mockery.  All that to say that when we see veterans on days like this, I like to remember that they and others worked through some dreadful conditions to make my life better and easier than theirs, so we really should respect their sacrifices and continue working to improve the lives of those who will follow us.  One big step in that direction is to learn from the mistakes of history, and refute attempts to propagate lies and misinformation.    

With that, it’s apparently story time!  Where does the time go?  And why does it look like midnight?  This time change is really depressing and needs to end.  Dear New York State, would you please get your act in gear and vote to end daylight savings time so we can make the change?  Thanks!  Everyone else, I wish you a good night, and I’m off to read something with princesses or talking horses or magic crystals or star-bellied Sneetches!