Touchy feely immigrant story...

Ah I love the Red Star (it's gonna be my favourite source for stories and comment), today a story on their website (thestar.com), entitled "Retirement in Greece, one milk jug at a time."

When I started to read the story, which is a propaganda piece to make us the reader think the following: immigrants do so much for Canada, they work so hard, and they are an asset to the country. That is true for a number of them and especially true for those of them that are actually loyal to this country and decide to stay here!

Read these excerpts:

"Come the end of the month, after 32 years running the local convenience store on Yonge St. just north of Lawrence Ave., watching a generation of local kids grow up to become parents themselves, seeing the mad daily rush of junk-food fiends pour through the doors from nearby schools, idling mornings away chatting with folks from the seniors' home down the road, selling enough milk to float an armada, more cigarettes than you could shake a scolding finger at, enough lottery tickets to fuel a million dreams, John and Helen Meditskos are retiring."

Sounds like a profitable business btw... but here is more,

"At 67, after starting out working 10 hours or more a day, seven days a week, after taking only three vacations in more than three decades, Meditskos says he's ready for a rest. The couple has a house beside the ocean back in Greece. Starting next month, someone else will have to take care of the neighbourhood's last-minute needs."

How nice of the Star to point out the loyal service to this rather rich neighbourhood in Toronto, by selling overpriced trash and milk... but more,

"Remembering his adjustment to Canadian winters. "I had a hard time for the first little while. I didn't expect it was going to be so bad."

How long was this guy here and he still didn't adjust to the winters? Gee guess he wasn't here for the weather was he? But the sales job goes on...

"Like many immigrants, he remembers the ship he came on — the Christopher Columbus. He remembers landing in Halifax and the train journey to Union Station. And he remembers the day he first set foot in the city that would be his new home — July 1, 1972."

Wow, we have annother Chris Kolomvos (he was actually Greek btw, this point in the article is no coincidence..), come to save the wild men in the New World! but here is more..

"It was Dominion Day, as it was known then. In Ottawa, Pierre Trudeau was getting ready to call an election his government would barely survive. In Washington, there was a break-in at a hotel called Watergate. At the movies, The Godfather was playing. On the radio, Don McLean's "American Pie."

Now I know why he is getting the hell out with all his money! They changed it from Dominion Day to Canada Day! The bastards!

HMCS Chicoutimi: no fault insurance!!

Today's Toronto Star (Red Star, I prefer..), newspaper had this to say about the Chicoutimi disaster based on the military's investigation:

"HALIFAX - The tragedy of Lieut. Chris Saunders started with a brass nut loose on a thick hatch far above the waves. It ended 33 hours later when the respected naval officer and beloved father of two, his lungs seared by toxic gas, collapsed as he was buckled into a harness, about to finally be rescued from a crippled submarine drifting helpless in the Irish Sea. "

further down in the story on thestar.com page:

"Vice-Admiral Bruce MacLean delivered the navy's final verdict on the accident yesterday, a board of inquiry report that determined the tragedy was a "unique, unforeseen event that could not possibly have been anticipated" and for which no one is to blame."

Now being a person that has little knowledge of the miliary, only that gleaned from countless movies and television shows over the years, have I the mistaken belief that when something goes wrong in the military then it is tradition that somebody is found to be at fault?

Seems I am mistaken in regards our second-rate military. But then again, we have a federal government run by allegedly corrupt liberals which are facing an election at any time now. Maybe the more cynical amongst us would want to scream coverup!

Myself, I think the ships were not fit for duty and that blame for this fiasco rests at the feet of senior military officers, bureaucrats in the department as well as the Minister of Defense. Since great political interference was likely provided by the PM's office in the lead-up to this sad event, there should be accountability accepted there as well.

I'm hoping that the family of the poor dead seaman do not take this sham of a coverup as being the end of this tragic story and that they sue the federal government for damages.