Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day 2021

I am having trouble writing my usual Remembrance Day post. In 2021, Canada finally lost its first war since the Chilcotin War in 1864 (the Chilcotin still belongs to the Tsilhqot’in, and that road was not driven through it). So far, our government has shamelessly betrayed the people in Afghanistan who helped it. Canadians are... Continue reading: Remembrance Day 2021

Remembrance Day 2020

Mt. Douglas as seen from Mt. Tolmie, November 2020 Today is Remembrance Day. I am not as mobile as I would be in an ordinary November, and neither of the ways people often talk about Remembrance Day feels right to me. Some people turn it into a festival of peace and... Continue reading: Remembrance Day 2020

The 9th and the 11th

The plaque in memory of the Canadian Corps outside the Malatesta wall and the Roman gate of Rimini, October 2018 A few weeks ago I came to Rimini from the north fresh from the silversmith’s church in Ravenna. Caesar came that way a long time ago as the first strike in... Continue reading: The 9th and the 11th

Keeping Just One Cloak

In 1837, the remaining Protestants living in the Zillerthal in eastern Tyrol were ordered to convert to Catholicism or leave. Mathias Schmid (d. 1923), “Vertreibung der Zillerthaler Protestanten im Jahr 1837/Letzer Blick in die Heimat,” 1877. In Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck; catalogue number Gem 3718. Photo by author, October 2015. Xenophon,... Continue reading: Keeping Just One Cloak

Remembrance Day

War is a very old and very common custom, and so are commemorating it, celebrating it, and praying it away. Others more learned than I have commented on the war which was raging in Europe one hundred years ago. Today I thought I would share two perspectives on war from four thousand years ago.