As Libya sees a new dawn, our joy is mixed with sadness, two tears mixed with melancholy and bliss.
The very kind Abdulaziz Abdulghani died of his wounds in Yemen as he was next to the president when the bomb hit. Jack Layton, leader of the NDP party in Canada, also a kind man died of cancer within the same hour.
A columnist wrote a disgusting disrespectful inappropriate column on Jack Layton whose body has yet to be buried. Seriously, is she too childish to have the patience to wait a week until the body is in the ground to speak ill of the dead?
In my fury and grief, though I do not belong to this party, I respect this man, so I must write something. It was too thoroughly tasteless and too premature - so I wondered would the words be just as tasteless if written about another life prematurely ended due to poor health and too full of life and too young to die? It was so tacky that no plastic pink flamingo would want to be seen within 10 feet of that article this week.
My parody of Christie Blatchford's throughly tasteless article: (for the real one click here http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/08/22/christie-blatchford-laytons-death-turns-into-a-thoroughly-public-spectacle/
-- Amy Winehouse died today. How fitting that her death should have been turned into such a thoroughly public spectacle, where from early morn Monday, television anchors donned their most funereal faces, producers dug out the heavy organ music, reporters who would never dream of addressing any other politician by first name only were proudly calling her “Amy” and even serious journalists like Alan Solomon of the BBC repeatedly spoke of the difficulty “as we all try to cope” with the news of Ms. Winehouse’s death.
By mid-day, after Prime Minister David Cameron had offered a few warm words about Ms. Winehouse’s death and rued that their oft-talked-about jam session had never happened, Mr. Solomon even expressed sniping surprise that “Amy Winehouse wasn’t the sole focus” of the Prime Minister’s remarks.
Mr. Cameron, who clearly had not spent the day watching the national broadcaster and thus was unaware that the jazz singer’s death was the only story of note, had gone on to mention the families of the 12 people (including six-year-old Cheyenne Eckalook; now there’s someone who died far too young) who perished in the Arctic plane crash on Saturday and the tumultuous events in Libya.
The PM in fact was one of a very few voices of reason to be found on the airwaves — he remembered Ms. Winehouse kindly and with evident regard, but he had perspective and did not fawn.
And what to make of that astonishing letter, widely hailed as Ms. Winehouse magnificent from-the-grave cri de coeur?
It was extraordinary, though it is not Mr. Solomon’s repeated use of that word that makes it so.
Rather, it’s remarkable because it shows what a canny, relentless, thoroughly ambitious fellow Ms. Winehouse was. Even on Saturday, two days befores he died, she managed to keep a gimlet eye on all the album releases to come.
--------------
In contrast, a man who left us too soon leaves us with his last and very beautiful words:
"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. -All my very best, Jack Layton." May he rest in peace.
IF those were Jack's last words, that would mean something.
ReplyDeleteBut they weren't.
They were drafted by an NDP committee.
Educate yourself or face ridicule.