Bouquet...
To the organizers of Red Deer’s torch run celebration for a remarkable display of pride and pageantry, and to the community for embracing the event.
As the countdown to the Vancouver Olympic Games begins in earnest (the opening ceremonies are just 20 days away), Central Alberta was ready for some Games-related fun. Enter the local torch festivities committee, led by the redoubtable Lynn Radford. The preparations were impeccable, the entertainment first-rate, the deserving final torch bearer (Ron Woodward) a well-kept secret, and the fireworks spectacular. And those were just the highlights.
As the Olympic torch has traversed its way across the country, community after community has taken a stab at hoisting national spirit onto a local pedestal. In each town, the arrival of the torch was a welcome mid-winter diversion and a salve in tough economic times. At the same time, communities were able to raise awareness and cash for Olympic athletes and the next generation of outstanding young competitors.
Like most other things, the people of Central Alberta set a standard few other communities could imagine, let alone pull off. Then the local organizing committees smoothly pulled it off.
In each Central Alberta community, on Jan. 15 and 16, thousands lined the streets to salute the chosen torch bearers, to pay homage to the national pride inherent in Olympic competition, and to bask in a moment of community togetherness. From Hobbema to Ponoka to Lacombe to Sylvan Lake, from Innisfail to Bowden, from Olds to Trochu, Torrington and Three Hills, we gathered to cheer, party and enjoy the company of our neighbours. Each community had its own moments of warmth and pride.
In Red Deer, though, the celebration was multiplied and multiplied again. Music, dance, fireworks, displays — and speeches — made for a memorable evening. Thousands of people left Westerner Park that evening with broad smiles. What could be better testimony to a job exceptionally well done?
— John Stewart
Dart...
To weapons manufacturers who inscribe Biblical references on their deadly products.
Trijicon of Wixom, Mich., supplies a high-tech telescopic gunsight for the U.S. military that uses a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium to create light that soldiers can use to shoot accurately in the dark. Nothing wrong with that.
But the gunsights being manufactured by Trijicon are stamped with raised lettering referring to two Bible verses, John 8:12, and 2 Cor. 4:6.
Christians do believe that Jesus is the “light of the world” in the John reference, but they do not consider proselytizing their beliefs on instruments of death is a proper use of scripture.
Muslim Iraqis are being trained to use them, which raises other questions as well.
History is already littered with examples of twisted extremists killing in the name of God as the embodiment of love and light.
This, really, is just sick.
Perhaps they should have looked at Matt. 26: 52 — “Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword.”
— Greg Neiman
Dart...
To the brainless wonders who last week destroyed an ice sculpture being painstakingly shaped near a Parkland Beach home on the northwest end of Gull Lake.
Laurence Rooney, his wife Barb and friends were pouring heart and soul into this four-metre work.
They were close to finishing when a bunch of yahoos decided to do something stupid.
Shielded by the darkness, they attacked the statue, which was built from large chunks of ice frozen in garbage cans and other containers.
The vandals decapitated its 90-kg head, using a rope or chain and a vehicle.
Another chunk of the statue, weighing about 20 kg, was found down the road.
“We had the basic shape of it. We were just starting to flesh it out to what we were going to make and then it disappeared,” said Rooney.
It is incomprehensible that anyone would find pleasure in destroying the work of another person, particularly when that work is meant to bring joy to the general public.
— Rick Zemanek