Slaves in the UAE

“When two people meet, something good should result for a third.”
-The Lubavitcher Rebbe, quoting his father-in-law Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn

Work takes me many places, most recently to the United Arab Emirates, a small country on the Arabian Peninsula tucked just down the road from the intersection of oil and war. With the country's new wealth, most nationals enjoy the luxuries of the standard five and six-bedroom sprawling walled-off villas attended by a staff of help including a driver, nanny and housekeepers. These compounds become buzzing, isolated hubs for independently operating families, leaving little reason to reach out to foreigners, except to employ them. Our company-provided villa was no exception. We were surprised with en suite rooms and two full-time house attendants caring for the oversized mass of marble, stucco and ever-present sand. With two staff for four expatriates, it became clearer why it is esti... more

Masters of War

I listen to Bob Dylan at least once a day. When I play Dylan’s records I can’t help but brood over the realities of our time and how these factors make peace a difficult dream to achieve. In 2009, does Dylan’s voice still speak to a movement for peace? I hope so, but I cannot be sure. I believe in peace, and always will, but the possible inevitability of warfare haunts my thoughts. The following is a sampling of the inner-struggle that goes on in my mind and country everyday…

Peace:
Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just don't want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets flymore

The Act of Kindness

What this world needs is a new kind of army – the army of the kind.  – Cleveland Amory, author


Search the headlines in the dawn of this new decade and you’ll find countless examples of everything that’s wrong in the world today. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Genocide in Dafur. A deadly earthquake in Haiti. Recently, a friend commented, “The whole world’s gone to hell and there’s nothing we can do about it.” The acceptance in that comment troubled me. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the sentiment voiced.

Is there nothing we can do about it? The question stayed with me for some time. Let’s face it: the problems plastered all over the evening news are so big that whole governments can’t seem to find a way to correct them. What hope does a solitary person have in making a change for the better?

Like other Truth seekers, I decided to go looking for an answer - and found its g... more

The Nonviolent King

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time.”
-Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1964

Martin Luther King is most remembered best for his leadership in the civil rights movement and as a voice for improved race relations in the United States. However, King’s words and actions were not just about race. King’s life was dedicated to god, morality and equality. A Christian preacher, and believer of non-violence, King advocated the use of love to bring about peace and justice for all people. He states,

“I came to see at a very early stage [in the Civil Rights Movement] that a synthesis of Gandhi's method of nonviolence and the Christian ethic of love is the best weapon for this struggle for freedom and human dignity.”

Both Mar... more

Oh! No Canada! The Cultural Identity Crisis

Why have we as a people been able to continue to exist? Because we know where we come from. By having roots, you can see the direction in which you want to go. 
— Joenia Wapixana, attorney, Roraima Indigenous Council, Brazil, quoted in the NY Times


As a taxpayer, writer and parent with a daughter in the Ontario Public School system, the state of the educational system as it relates to literature and the arts has always been a concern for me. I’m also a proud Canadian, aware of the privileges we enjoy through our constitutional freedoms and the vast diversity of our population.

But as our schools teach our children what they need to become contributing members of our society, how much of that information relates to the rich roots in history and the arts that is their homeland? Nothing captures a culture’s essence better than its poets, writers, musicia... more

Holding On and Crossing Over: The Rituals that Define Us

Return to watering holes for more than water—friends and dreams are there to meet you. -African Proverb

As a writer and poet, it's my job to notice things. Bear witness, as best I can, to those defining moments, large or small, that resonate and overlap the boundaries of age, gender and culture. These moments are what define us. By paying tribute to them, we honour the very essence of our humanity.

In North America, the months of December and January are pivotal times. Ends and beginnings.  Reunions and separations. Remembering and moving on. They are rich in the rituals of family: reunion, storytelling, reaffirmation, returning to your roots. They are times of crossing over: sorting through the tangled strings of our lives, making c... more

Woman’s Right to Choice

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.  ~ Lucretia Mott

An article in the Toronto Star on October 25th told of a young Toronto Muslim woman, Maryam Rana, who chooses to wear a niqab—a black veil used to cover the face and hair when traveling in public places. Her choice, and that of many immigrant Canadian women like her, has sparked much debate in the human rights and feminist circles about the oppression of women. They argue that the wearing of these coverings is symbolic of the rights denied to women who are forced to cover themselves and bow to male-dominated laws in many parts of the world today.

What these groups fail to recognize is that the wearing of the niqab by Rana represents a pinnacle expression of the exact opposite—freedom for women—a hard-won right earned over the past century in North America. Human rights; freedom of expre... more

A Ca(u)se de Paix / A Case for Peace

In 1946, with the scarring, shameful memory of the fate of two Japanese cities forever seared onto world conscience, Bernard Baruch, representing the United States at a meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, proposed to the world a mechanism to assure that atomic energy would only be used for peaceful purposes and to preclude its use in war. The Baruch plan, as it was known, called for international, multilateral control over nuclear fuel cycles and facilities; the disarmament and elimination of existing nuclear weapons; and the renunciation of the acquisition of nuclear weapons for the future. The consequences of violating this agreement—it was assured—would be swift and sure, and no veto power of the U.N. Security Council could stand in the way.

What we signed instead, ‘the global a... more

Red Fridays - Lest We Forget

“If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.”

In Flanders Fields— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

In Canada, November 11th is the day set aside each year to remember the sacrifices made by the veterans of war. Right or wrong, whether or not you buy into the politics behind the conflicts, the sacrifices made by the countless young men (and now women) on the front lines in order to uphold our personal freedoms must never be forgotten.

There is a growing movement in Canada to recognize and s... more

The Language of Less

"The impulse to enter, with other humans, through language, into the order and disorder of the world,
is poetic at its root as surely as it is political at its root"
- POET Adrienne Rich In "What Is Found There"

Throughout history, poets and the language they employ in their metrical conversations with the world have reflected the mood and pulse of their culture. How could they not? Language itself is the first element of culture that defines a people.

Ezra Pound once said, “Poets are the antennae of the race.” Recently, in the wake of the economic upheaval that has rocked North America, I’ve seen a subtle shift in poetry posted on on-line boards. Though these, admittedly, are not always the best example of the highest caliber of poetry of... more