Reflect now, gird for later
In scant weeks, from sea to sea to sea, in 338 ridings, across 10 provinces and three territories, the news cycle will be dominated by the drop of an election writ, umpteen-point plans and blaming and shaming worthy of a thousand schoolyard spats and legions of failed marriages.
Best, then, before turning our attention to the merits and deficits of those who would represent and lead us, that we clear the decks by recognizing 2019’s accumulated gaffes and grace notes.
This special summer edition of the Star’s regular Darts and Laurels commences with a celebration of youth:
To Brooke Henderson, the 21-year-old sensation of the greenswards who has already won more LPGA Tour titles than any Canadian golfer in history, and done so with talent, poise and becoming humility.
To Bianca Andreescu, the country’s new tennis darling, who, at 19, showed the same qualities in becoming the first Canadian in 50 years to win what it is now the Rogers Cup.
To Vladdy Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette for bringing talent, exuberance and hope to an otherwise dismal season for Toronto Blue Jays’ fans.
To Raptors Nation, the youth of such energy, diversity and joy, for showing us — in their celebration of Toronto’s first NBA championship — the face, and the source, of our future.
To Dean French, the disgraced and departed lieutenant to Premier Doug Ford, who turned the Ontario government — until he was deservedly sent packing — into a personal job fair, while browbeating into shameful silence those elected members chosen to represent us.
To Lisa MacLeod, the demoted Ontario cabinet minister who was quick to complain about any harsh word cast her way, while intimidating the parents of children with autism and spewing profanity at Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk at a Rolling Stones concert.
To Eugene Melnyk for what he’s done to the Senators.
To Doug Ford for offences to decency too numerous to recount. But let’s start with countenancing the antics of Dean French, referring to another human being as an “animal,” pawning off his in-house egostroker, Ontario News Now, as anything but propaganda and forcing misleading and partisan labels on the province’s gas-station owners.
To the people of Hong Kong for courage and the risky business of taking their pro-democracy principles to the streets.
To John Tory for motoring about on his mobility scooter while recovering from tendon surgery and for ordering the city’s “fun police” to stop investigating the $1.25 buy-in euchre games for seniors.
To Tucker Carlson at Fox News, who has aided and abetted an unfit president and — with his claims that white supremacy is “a hoax” — has incited and encouraged hatred, division and the discrediting of all that once made America admirable.
To management at a Shell petrochemical plant in Pittsburgh, for forcing employees to attend an event with Donald Trump or lose a day’s pay. Shame.
To America for having reached a state of affairs so depraved that “a morbid niche” of back-to-school gear has appeared. If bullet-resistant merchandise for children doesn’t signal that something is profoundly wrong, it’s hard to imagine what will.
To Russ Fee, the Canadian camper who rushed from his tent in Banff National Park to do battle with a very large wolf who was hauling the American camper Matt Rispoli from his tent toward a horrifying fate.
To Jamie Bisceglia, a Fox Island, Wash., woman who had to be hospitalized after being bitten by an octopus she’d put on her face for a gag photo at a fishing derby. Enough said.
To Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson for coming out as a gay man after long decades of inner struggle.
To the residents of Dildo, N.L., with an assist for some cast members from Come From Away, for handling — with their usual humour and aplomb — talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s giggle-fit about the town’s name.
To the visiting Irish rugby team, which had to be escorted en masse this month from a Blue Jays’ game at Rogers Centre for wholesale drunkenness and reinforcing hoary stereotypes about the land of saints and scholars.
To Olive Bryanton for earning a PhD from the University of Prince Edward Island at age 82, proving that learning is a lifelong proposition, and to the CBC documentary Never Too Old, for telling her story.
To William Grenville “Bill” Davis who recently celebrated his 90th birthday and still stands as a prototype premier in Ontario and an example to all those successors willing to learn about dignity and decency.