Fred. Wrote a song for his wife of 73 years. Submitted it to a contest in decidedly the wrong format. (Manila envelope, not MP3.) Here’s his story. I think I’m going to buy the song.

Ms. Stephanie Gray did a lot of typing this morning in an online exchange on CBC. I personally think she fielded a number of tough questions brilliantly. All her answers are worth reading. I think the last question was particularly tough:

If I (a 24 year old woman) stood infront of you and told you I have had an abortion and I do not regret it, what would you say to me?

Stephanie’s answer:

I would say I am sorry for your loss. I realize no one can make you feel something; you either feel a feeling or you don’t. I’m sorry you don’t feel regret, but if you ever do, know that there are women like you who have had abortions, and in their cases, when they regretted it, they sought counselling and found healing. They realize they cannot undo the past, but they can do in the present moment what they wish they’d done in the past. And so, these women now actively seek out ways to educate the culture and save other pre-born children from the deaths their own children faced. They have redeemed a horrible situation and they are proof that there is hope. All of us make mistakes. The question is not what HAVE we done. The question is, what ARE we going to do from here on in? We can make the future better by learning from the past.

That’s a pretty good spur-of-the-moment answer. I’ve noted that for those women I know who feel regret after an abortion, most (not all) of them are older. At least a decade has past since their abortion, maybe longer. I think those women who have had abortions yesterday are perhaps more likely to be living out the “relief” of it all. That makes sense to me, anyway, when I consider myself at 24.

A couple of things coming up. So many things to do! All but one are in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Ta Da!

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On October 5th, Ottawa’s Augustine College welcomes you to their 17th Annual Hymn Sing. When you grew up singing hymns almost every day courtesy of an Anglican school, this constitutes good times. In fact, one of my most treasured possessions is my Anglican Hymnal, small and blue, given to me in grade one. I still know the numbers of the really good ones. Really, there are precious few venues where I can show off about this, the Augustine College Hymn Sing being one of them.

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On October 9th, author of Tax Me, I’m Canadian, one Mark Milke will be in town to speak about his book and Kevin Page will be honoured as Taxfighter of the year. The book itself has been around for a while but Mark has updated it. Now I had that book, the early edition, before I knew Mark. Then I moved to Calgary and became friends with him, imagine that, thereby proving that dreams really can come true. Incidentally, our office shares a wall with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who are sponsoring this event, and sometimes, I march right on in and demand that they Lower My Taxes! I do this for all of you! I think they really appreciate it.

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First Place Options is holding their fundraising banquet on October 18. While I am tapping away at my computer, First Place Options is doing the tough work of helping women (and men) cope with unwanted or difficult pregnancies. They do this for people who are decidedly pro-choice. They do this in a climate where people attack the work they do and cast aspersions on their motivations. But the people there are compassionately helping others in an area where few supports remain. There are good deals to be had at the silent auction, too. But really, don’t just come for deals, because after all, they are looking to raise funds. So put aside your Scottish genes, or in my case, Polish/Czech Wartime Frugality, and have a great time.

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Consider also coming to Prince Edward Island, the land of Anne of Green Gables, for the National Life Conference. October 23-25. My talk is about abortion and its effects on the family. But let’s be honest, the real reason to go is so you can stand steadfast, looking out over the ocean while the wind blows your decidedly not red hair back–and consider whether you really love Gilbert or not.

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Finally, Rachel’s Vineyard is having a retreat, November 8-10.

Rachel’s Vineyard is a safe place to renew, rebuild and redeem hearts broken by abortion. Weekend retreats offer you a supportive, confidential and non-judgmental environment where women and men can express, release and reconcile painful post-abortive emotions to begin the process of restoration, renewal and healing.

Another group doing good work, to help after abortion. I think it must be a tough journey, and I’m grateful groups like Rachel’s Vineyard exist to help along the way.

I liked this article. I can’t say I ache for re-tweets (I hate twitter too much for that) but I feel a definitive underlying sense of relief when I leave my phone at home or turn it off. And I frequently worry about the occupational hazard of thinking in soundbites.

Yet I struggle to live up to my own plan. I check my e-mail too often. I ache for the tiny endorsement of a retweet. I panic at an hour’s loss of cell-phone reception. I entrust ever more of my life and library to third parties, from Amazon to Apple, whose “ecosystems” seem to absorb me.

There truly is a blog for everything. You can find what seem to be some pretty good sandwich recipes at this site.

People are incensed that this woman is cooking for her man. I am not. Cook away, I say.

I met a guy. I made a sandwich. I started a blog. And I enraged feminists everywhere. On Wednesday, I wrote in The Post about how my boyfriend Eric’s joke remark after making him a snack — “Honey, you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring!” — inspired me to do just that and chronicle the project on a Web site, 300sandwiches.com.

Except he is not “her man.” Cuz they are living together, which means one or the other of them has one foot out the door, so to speak. Cohabitation is, as they say, good preparation for divorce. Sad to say, since so many people do it for the opposite reason.

So while no one would accuse me of being a feminist, (Editor’s note: Actually, people have tried, but I assure you, the feminists don’t want me), this “300 sandwiches until engagement” seems to be getting things in the wrong order.

All she can do at this point is keep making sandwiches and hope for the best.

I hope he keeps to his end of the bargain.

This past weekend, on the first day of Fall, my four-year-old niece appeared in my room (“The Auntie Chamber”) at my sister’s house wearing a skirt, a hat and holding a flower. She announced, and I quote, “I just wanted to look a little bit pretty to welcome Fall.”

Got me thinking if you could bottle up some of that four-year-old enthusiasm for the small things, life would be more fun. I told Faye this story, and we’ve been celebrating every day, via text.

I personally am going to try and look just a little bit pretty tomorrow to welcome the weekend. Thursday (today) is pretty good but Friday is even better, I think we can all agree.

Faye Sonier has a post about the defamation suit that two crisis pregnancy centres launched against Joyce Arthur. They are not going to pursue the case further. As Faye notes in her blog post,

In 2009, Arthur wrote a report for the now-defunct Pro-Choice Action Network (“Pro-CAN”) entitled Exposing Crisis Pregnancy Centres in British Columbia. With the help of government funding via a Status of Women Canada grant of $27,400 and the proposed research goal of “expos[ing] the anti-woman and anti-feminist agenda of CPCs,” Arthur eventually issued her assessment of CPCs. Her report claimed, in short, that CPCs employ unethical tactics and strategies that hurt and deceive women.

Since the report was garnering more internet attention than it deserves, the Vancouver and Burnaby CPCs launched a defamation suit against Arthur and Pro-CAN in hopes that the court would order Arthur to withdraw or correct her report. Strategically, and given the great costs of litigation these days, the CPCs and their lawyer carefully chose the allegations made in the report that they deemed most defamatory but also simple enough to disprove in court…

Unfortunately the court found that the report was so unclear in its attributions of wrong-doing that a reasonable person reading the report wouldn’t necessarily think that the Vancouver and Burnaby CPCs were guilty of committing those particular ethical breaches.

I wish that they would have. There is nothing quite so malicious as trying to take down the only centres that actually offer women support in crisis pregnancies. This is (or rather should be) a point of intersection for pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

It goes without saying that not every woman is excited to be pregnant, and there really ought to be help made freely available. Right now our only free (government-sponsored, sanctioned and paid for “choice”) is abortion.

My sister has been reading some Czech history after seeing a movie about “normalisation” after Prague Spring in Czech Republic at TIFF called Burning Bush. She sent me this quote:

Pravda vítězí, ale dá to fušku” (The truth prevails, but it’s a chore.)

-Jan Masaryk

Resonated with me.

The movie looks quite devastating, as the truth of the story is, by the way, but my whole family sat through it so I plan on seeing it when I can, too.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDeXc5mxAXU]

I am impressed with what CCBR is doing here. I’m also impressed with this coverage. From May 2013.

Not a link to the group, sorry. Rather, this is a link to my friend Jasbir’s new blog, in which he discusses a recent Ted Talk about masculinity. The Ted Talk is posted on his blog too. Interesting stuff.