The Canadian Forces Snowbirds. Photo: Master Sgt. Becky Vanshur/Released, U.S. Air National Guard
For me, Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition is a touchpoint, reminding me of my childhood, and a sign that summer is coming to an end. When I was a child, my parents, siblings and I would come to the CNE, as we called it, several times during its three-week season.
I like watching the Olympics, but I see only overblown virtuism and commercialized pretense in the notion that the games bring together the global village in a glow of equality and peace that will somehow contribute to the betterment of humanity.
In chapter 12 of Rudy Wiebe's 1962 novel Peace Shall Destroy Many, the young protagonist, Thom Wiens, is reading a letter from Joseph Dueck, a schoolteacher who has left the community to serve in the medical corps in World War II.
