On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

I think that I've said this elsewhere: whatever you're celebrating or otherwise observing at this time of year, I hope that the Occasion(s) will be kind to you and yours.

Leaving it at that for tonight.

I've noted this before: in 2002, on Christmas Day, my father died of metastasized renal cell cancer. Some forty years earlier, a cousin of mine was born on Christmas Day.

The day has been a mixed blessing for my extended family across the decades, and I wait and wonder what twists the occasion will bring this time.

And so...here is us again. Those of us still here, anyway.

It's been a wild year, running the full range of emotion from joy to despair.

I wish you the best possible greetings of the Season, by whatever Name(s) you choose to honour it. I wish you peace, hope, wisdom, freedom, justice, and love. If you do not find them, may they find you and may it bring joy to you when they do.

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For those of you observing or celebrating:

Know that I wish you well. Thank you for the gift of your friendship.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus or something else that falls in this span of time that I'm forgetting/unaware of, I hope this Season is kind to you.

To those of you observing those occasions, I hope today is kind to you!

If you've been living in any Ontario municipality long enough, you probably already know that today is the final day of voting for your local mayor/reeve, your local councillor and school board representative. I hope that if you haven't already done so, you'll take what time you can to go vote for your preference for those positions. The next four years' municipal decision-making rides at least in part on the choices we've been making on those matters.

For the city of Ottawa, it's Colonel By Day; For the province of Ontario, a civic holiday. For the Canadian Feds, it's Emancipation Day, a federally-proclaimed observance of the anniversary of the end of slavery as proclaimed throughout what was once "the British Empire" in 1834.

(Whether it's really over and done is argued about.)

The city and province act as if it's time off. The feds, not yet, despite their own proclamation. And so the businesses of the city act in conflicting ways about the occasion.

Right now, it's...confusing.

"Holiday" or not, I'm still looking for new work leads this morning anyway.

And to those of you observing this: I hope this time's being/been kind to you all.

I've noted this in years past: in 2002, on Christmas Day, my father died of metastasized renal cell cancer. Some forty years earlier, a cousin of mine was born on Christmas Day.

The day has been a mixed blessing for my extended family across the decades, and I wait and wonder what twists the occasion will bring this time.

In any case, whatever you observe or celebrate at this time of year, I hope that this Season is kind to you.

More on other topics after work and chores...

Okay, Bob Hepburn at the Toronto Star has been arguing for the better part of this past ten years - actually all the way back to May 2008! - that we need to get rid of Victoria Day. Not that we need to rid ourselves of a long weekend at the end of May each Gregorian-calendar year in Canada, because we don't. We really don't. But rather, Hepburn argues that the name of and reason for such events needs changing up. His latest such reminder of his opinion was published on 20 May 2021.

After all, we're supposedly celebrating a fictional birthday for the very real British monarch who signed off on setting up Confederation in 1867 after all the drinking contests, under-the-table mutual blackmail and whatever else was going on at those three negotiation sessions that the "fathers of Confederation" put together in the middle years of the 1860's.

Does Queen Victoria - specifically - really count for a lot with most Canadians and Canadian-adjacent people these days? Our local Monarchists aside?

One of his suggestions for the change, Peacekeepers' Day, is already officially observed by the authorities, but is not a statutory holiday. It's observed by the UN on 29 May, and by the Canadian federal government on 9 August. Maybe we need our feds to harmonize with the UN on this? Maybe not?

Some other options were mentioned, too...I'm trying to get at Pressreader via OPL's website in order to refresh my memories of those. And I found them: "First Nations Day" and "Prime Ministers' Day". National Indigenous Peoples' Day is already set for 21 June each year. The latter option...is not appetizing to my ears.