The Iron Lady: through the lens of dementia

The movie, The Iron Lady, about Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990, starring Meryl Streep, is worth watching for a number of reasons. One is the opportunity to refresh our minds about a major figure of recent history and her influence upon those times. Another is to watch Streep’s performance in the role. She loses herself behind a helmet of hair, false teeth, and piles of make-up to become — brilliantly — Mrs. Thatcher.

Yet another reason — and for me the most compelling one, though it is quite controversial — is the decision to tell the story from the perspective of Mrs. Thatcher’s current dementia.

The way of joy

Mid-January, and we’re busy. We find ourselves without opinions or original thoughts, at least for our public. We’re a little giddy — we’re using the royal “we” and can’t seem to shake it. We play with the look of our blog. We need a change. This is not real change, nothing deep like fulfilling resolutions. It’s a new dress or shirt kind of change. We will seem new. We need that too.

Looking for a pit, finding a fire

Yesterday — it being the last day of the year and all — H. presented me with a neat idea. How about we go to Birds Hill Park, he said, and make a fire? Birds Hill is a provincial park about 24 kilometers from Winnipeg, and a favorite destination to camp, hike, bike, swim, and picnic. This appealed to me immediately, it being the last day of the year and all, and the weather relatively mild at a few degrees below zero Celsius. So, come supper time, we were off, with wood and matches, flashlights, chairs, picnic basket with smokies, buns, condiments, drinks, and dessert.

Longest night — over!

How wonderful to wake this morning and know that the year’s longest night is over! Darkness has reached the full stretch of its powers and now, even through a still-long winter ahead of us, we will enjoy a little more light every day. These facts are especially relevant in a northern city such as Winnipeg.

That time of year

It’s that time of year when a blogger feels she ought to say something for the season. Some complaint about the rush and bustle and commercialization of Christmas perhaps, or some  contemplation of its real meaning, etc.etc. No sarcasm intended — I like a good rant or new insight as much as the next blogger — but I’ve not only slipped behind in posting, I have neither complaint nor contemplation to share. Same old, same old of the season, and not an original thought in my head, it seems. All I’ve really got  – and today’s is a personal report — is this sense of riding a huge wave of gratitude.

Inclusion as shalom: a review of C. Norman Kraus’ “On Being Human”

The church’s very authenticity as the body of Christ is at stake in its response to its LGBT members, writes C. Norman Kraus in On Being Human: Sexual Orientation and the Image of God (Cascade Books, 2011).

In this attractive addition to a growing library of discussion about homosexuality underway within some branches of the Mennonites church, Kraus, who is professor emeritus of Goshen College, argues for inclusion in the church for those of all sexual orientations, with the same moral guidelines (mutual affirmation, respect, and affection) for the sexual fulfillment of all. He considers the matter through the lens of the “image of God,” as seen in the Creation accounts and throughout Scripture.

Two New Books

Two local writers launched new books this fall, great books, both of them, and I’m not saying that just because the authors are friends of mine.

Reacting to the bomb to come

Image from 1990 Newsweek issue on the family

I was doing some research at the public library the other day, paging through LIFE magazines from 1970. Ecology — as in acid rain, etc. — was an issue of great public concern at the time, with predictions that within a decade people would be wearing gas masks to survive pollution. Even more urgent, though, was “population pollution.”

I remember this, of course, and know that my generation was profoundly shaped by it. But I had forgotten the details, and now I saw them again. A biologist saying, for example, “Each American baby represents 50 times as great a threat to the planet as each Indian baby.”

The Giller gala

Carrying on from my previous post, in which I talked about trying to read this year’s Canadian literary lists…

Reading the lists

This year I set myself the goal of reading the lists — the books on the fiction shortlists, that is, of Canada’s three big literary prizes. I’ve never done this before, not even by accident. But it seemed possible this year, because two books — Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues and Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers — appear on all three lists. In other words, in order to get through the 16 books on the shortlists of the Rogers Writers’ Trust, the Governor General’s, and the Giller prizes, I would in fact have to read only 11 books!