Tag Archives: inspirational

Canadians responding to blockbuster film ‘Sound of Freedom’

The Niagara Independent, July 21, 2023 – It is a summer scorcher: Sound of Freedom. One doesn’t have a pulse if unmoved by this “must-see” film. The movie deals with the uncomfortably disturbing subject matter of child sex trafficking for prostitution and pornography. Yet, it is not subject matter as it is the political spin that certain groups put on the production that is making it notorious. In the last couple of weeks, Canadians have been spellbound by the movie and they have also been witness to its politics.

From the business side of it, Sound of Freedom is a remarkable success. The American Christian movie production and distribution company, Angel Studio, made the film with a budget of $14.5 million. Industry news magazine Variety reports that the movie earned more than $32 million over the American Independence Day week. It crowd-funded another $24.7 million from its audience that week. Then on the July 15-16 weekend the film registered a surprising 37 per cent rise in the box office compared to the first weekend. It has now grossed over $85 million (not including the crowd funding).

Sound of Freedom is a tension-filled psychological and action flick. It is based on real life events of a former agent for the American Department of Homeland Security. Lead actor Jim Caviezel portrays Tim Ballard, a man haunted by the horrors he has witnessed in his job investigating human-trafficking. The story centres on Ballard’s determined commitment to reunite two Honduran children with their father. The audience is taken on this quest as the children are first kidnapped, transported by shipping container to Columbia, groomed, and sold into a pedophile sex trafficking network.

One of the most thoughtful reviews of the movie was Walker Larson’s critique, “But maybe the film’s greatest strength is its careful handling of such difficult material and its ability to inspire… The movie doesn’t shy away from the darkness and difficulty of the subject matter… We come close enough to it to see the reality in all its bare and brazen horror… Yet, at the same time, the film does not wallow in the muck, and it is far from despairing. It keeps hope and beauty and heroism alive.”

A core facet of the film is its religious overtures, providing enduring hope that light can shine through the darkest of evils. Many times, characters assert “God’s children are not for sale” and, at critical moments, Tim Ballard recounts the scripture: “Better a millstone be hung around their necks that they be cast into the sea that they should ever hurt one of these little ones.” In one of the most introspective scenes of the movie Ballard is moved by Vampiro, a compatriot in the rescuing of children, when he confesses, “When God tells you what to do … you cannot hesitate.”

This and more is reflected on by Dr. Jordan Peterson in a poignant interview with both Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard. They discuss the nature of good and evil and faith in God in the podcast The Fight Against Worldwide Child Slavery and the Sex Trade.

It is all weighty stuff and, with the release of the movie, Canadians are awakened to the realities of human trafficking and the horrors of child sex crimes. Lee Harding, reporter for The Epoch Times, interviewed former Winnipeg MP Joy Smith who in 2014 was responsible for spearheading legislation entitled Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. The bill passed parliament and made purchasing of sex a criminal offence for buyers, not those providing the sex – often the victims.

Joy Smith also started a foundation to specifically address human trafficking – an effort that in a dozen years of operation has helped more than 7,000 cases of exploitation. Smith states, “This was a great movie, and you could apply it to Canada any single day.” She confided in the interview, “I liked it very much because it was very real and very true… I get a flashback of things I’ve seen, things I think I’ve tried to forget.”

“… there’s so many victims out there, so it takes a nation to stop human trafficking. People should become educated about it, to prevent this from happening in the first place, because after it happens, it takes years and years and years and years of rehabilitation.”

Lee Harding also connected with Cathy Peters, an anti-human trafficking advocate in Vancouver, who explained that recent trends in Canada have child traffickers targeting children as young as 10. She claims, “Schools really have become recruiting grounds for gangs and for human trafficking, and I don’t think Canadians are aware of that.”

Peters is troubled with the nature of the crime and prevalence in the country, “Sexual violence [is] the deepest and worst form of trauma a human being can experience. That is why that movie is so powerful because it gets that message across of the harm—the deep, deep, debilitating harm that is caused by the abuse of children.”

Given the gravity of the issue and the fact that human trafficking and child sex exploitation are a concern in Canada, it is wholly tone-deaf that the country’s state-owned national media organization — CBC — would want to denigrate the film and its Christian overtones. In a CBC Radio segment reviewing Sound of Freedom, Radheyan Simonpillai was provocatively insulting in dismissing the film as a “dog-whistle” for “xenophobic, pro-Trump, pro-Life types.”

Simonpillai backhanded both the film along as well as the hundreds of thousands of concerned Canadians who have seen the film. He said, “We can’t say that the movie itself is made by QAnon types. But certainly, their political goals make it something that QAnon conspiracy theorists would rally behind. Just like racists rallied behind Trump without him having to say anything overtly racist.”

This CBC insolence echoed a number of other derogatory critiques from U.S. and British progressives who went out of their way to politicize the movie and denigrate its audiences. For example, Mile Klee of Rolling Stone went as far as to pen an op-ed titled “‘Sound Of Freedom’ Is a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms.”

Yet, these insults are a silencing tactic, a page torn directly from the progressives’ playbook: how to label and shame people and ideas with the objective of squelching and devaluing the message and, ultimately, cancelling the opponent. In Canada, leave it to the CBC to overlay their biased political lens on as serious subject as child sex trafficking. (More next week regarding the current fixation of the CBC as well as the Trudeau government on the politics of youth and sex.)

Still, the fact is human trafficking, child grooming, and sex abuse and slavery are real things. Today, Tim Ballard manages an organization Operation Underground Railroad that is committed to fighting the crimes of human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. His organization cites sobering statistics:

  • 70 million files of child pornography existed in 2019 – 78 per cent involving children under 12.
  • Sex trafficking is the most common exploitation of victims in the United States. In other countries, victims are often forced into domestic servitude, migrant labor, sex-tourism, military operations, sweatshops, and street begging. When the person’s earning potential declines, their organs may be harvested for sale.
  • 40.3 million persons are trafficked globally today – 10 million of those persons are children.
  • “At any given time, there are an estimated 750,000 child predators online – and they all have a key to your house via the Internet.” (FBI)

To reiterate Joy Smith’s statement: “…it takes a nation to stop human trafficking. People should become educated about it…”

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com

Photo credit: Angel Studios

LINK:  https://niagaraindependent.ca/canadians-responding-to-blockbuster-film-sound-of-freedom/

Remembering Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera died earlier this month, July 11, 2023 at the age of 94. Kundera is a Czech novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet whose works combine erotic comedy with political criticism and philosophical speculation. His best-known work is The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

By George selects some of our favourite bons mots from this insightful and provocative author. R.I.P. Milan Kundera.

 

The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.

There is no perfection only life.

Optimism is the opium of the people.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

You can’t measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.

For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.

 

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com.

Wisdom of Jordan Peterson

In the early weeks of 2023, By George Journal featured in its social media Canada’s most renown intellect — Jordan Peterson.

Here are the series of memes that attracted a great deal of attention from our followers. (ed. – Right click on the image and “copy”. Go ahead and spread the wisdom!) 

In the last two years, Jordan Peterson quotes made the By George Top-10 quotes twice. Here are the bons mots that were recognized as the top quotes of the year in By George Journal’s social media.

Follow By George Journal on Facebook and on Twitter and receive quotes like these Peterson bons mots as well as a daily #ByGeorgeQOTD each morning.

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com

A Christmas Story: A Slice of Life

A Christmas Story by Carol McAdoo Rehme

A SLICE OF LIFE

Jean heaved another world-weary sigh. Tucking a strand of shiny black hair behind her ear, she frowned at the teetering tower of Christmas cards waiting to be signed. What was the point? How could she sign only one name? A “couple” required two people, and she was just one.

The legal separation from Don had left her feeling vacant and incomplete. Maybe she would skip the cards this year. And the holiday decorating. Truthfully, even a tree felt like more than she could manage. She had canceled out of the caroling party and the church nativity pageant. Christmas was to be shared, and she had no one to share it with.

The doorbell’s insistent ring startled her. Padding to the door in her thick socks, Jean cracked it open against the frigid December night. She peered into the empty darkness of the porch. Instead of a friendly face — something she could use about now — she found only a jaunty green gift bag perched on the railing. From whom? she wondered. And why?

Under the bright kitchen light, she pulled out handfuls of shredded gold tinsel, feeling for a gift. Instead, her fingers plucked an envelope from the bottom. Tucked inside was a typed letter. It was a…story?

The little boy was new to the Denmark orphanage, and Christmas was drawing near, Jean read. Already caught up in the tale, she settled into a kitchen chair.

From the other children, he heard tales of a wondrous tree that would appear in the hall on Christmas Eve and of the scores of candles that would light its branches. He heard stories of the mysterious benefactor who made it possible each year.

The little boy’s eyes opened wide at the mere thought of all that splendor. The only Christmas tree he had ever seen was through the fogged windows of other people’s homes. There was even more, the children insisted. More? Oh, yes! Instead of the orphanage’s regular fare of gruel, they would be served fragrant stew and crusty, hot bread that special night.

Last, and best of all, the little boy learned, each of them would receive a holiday treat. He would join the line of children to get his very own….

Jean turned the page. Instead of a continuation, she was startled to read: “Everyone needs to celebrate Christmas, wouldn’t you agree? Watch for Part II.” She refolded the paper while a faint smile teased the corner of her mouth.

The next day was so busy that Jean forgot all about the story. That evening, she rushed home from work. If she hurried, she’d probably have enough time to decorate the mantle. She pulled out the box of garland, only to drop it when the doorbell rang. Opening the door, she found herself looking at a red gift bag. She reached for it eagerly and pulled out the piece of paper.

…to get his very own orange, Jean read. An orange? That’s a treat? she thought incredulously.

An orange! Of his very own? Yes, the others assured him. There would be one apiece. The boy closed his eyes against the wonder of it all. A tree. Candles. A filling meal. And an orange of his very own.

He knew the smell, tangy sweet, but only the smell. He had sniffed oranges at the merchant’s stall in the marketplace. Once he had even dared to rub a single finger over the brilliant, pocked skin. He fancied for days that his hand still smelled of orange. But to taste one, to eat one? Heaven.

The story ended abruptly, but Jean didn’t mind. She knew more would follow.

The next evening, Jean waited anxiously for the sound of the doorbell. She wasn’t disappointed. This time, though, the embossed gold bag was heavier than the others had been. She tore into the envelope resting on top of the tissue paper.

Christmas Eve was all the children had been promised. The piney scent of fir competed with the aroma of lamb stew and homey yeast bread. Scores of candles diffused the room with golden halos. The boy watched in amazement as each child in turn eagerly claimed an orange and politely said “thank you.”

The line moved quickly, and he found himself in front of the towering tree and the equally imposing headmaster.

“Too bad, young man, too bad. But the count was in before you arrived. It seems there are no more oranges. Next year. Yes, next year you will receive an orange.”

Brokenhearted, the orphan raced up the stairs empty-handed to bury both his face and his tears beneath his pillow.

Wait! This wasn’t how she wanted the story to go. Jean felt the boy’s pain, his aloneness.

The boy felt a gentle tap on his back. He tried to still his sobs. The tap became more insistent until, at last, he pulled his head from under the pillow.

He smelled it before he saw it. A cloth napkin rested on the mattress. Tucked inside was a peeled orange, tangy sweet. It was made of segments saved from the others. A slice donated from each child. Together they added up to make one whole, complete fruit.

An orange of his very own.

Jean swiped at the tears trickling down her cheeks. From the bottom of the gift bag she pulled out an orange — a foil-covered chocolate orange–already separated into segments. And for the first time in weeks, she smiled. Really smiled.

She set about making copies of the story, wrapping individual slices of the chocolate orange. There was Mrs. Potter across the street, spending her first Christmas alone in 58 years. There was Melanie down the block, facing her second round of radiation. Her running partner, Jan, single-parenting a difficult teen. Lonely Mr. Bradford losing his eyesight, and Sue, sole care-giver to an aging mother….

A piece from her might help make one whole.

 

SOURCE:  https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-christmas/inspirational-christmas-stories1.htm

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

Bons mots of Queen Elizabeth II

This week in social media the By George Journal featured some of the most notable quotes by our Queen Elizabeth, in her memory as the #ByGeorgeQOTD. Here are those posts…

Follow By George Journal on Facebook and on Twitter and receive a daily #ByGeorgeQOTD.

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

Dozen Inspirational Quotes by Dani Johnson

Dani Johnson is a very successful American life coach. Here are a dozen of her inspirational quotes to set you on the right path and provide that required motivation to achieve what you have set out to accomplish.

“ACT. Actions kills procrastination and creates momentum to keep yourself motivated to keep moving ahead.”

“Work harder on you than everyone else and you will become unusually successful.” 

“If you never step up, you never step forward.”

“Never stop being teachable. If you think you know everything, you will never learn anything.” 

“No matter what you do or what industry you are in, make a decision to master the basics. I promise it will pay off! Do not get bored in the basics. Do not settle for “good enough”. It’s time to truly master the basics!” 

“When you have a vision for your money, when you have a purpose for making money, you will make more of it.” 

“No matter what economy we’re living in, there’s ALWAYS opportunity!” 

“Most people fail because they walk away from what they have already built because they have been seduced by shiny objects, better opportunities, or better jobs.” 

“While most people are shrinking their dreams constantly to fit within their income circle, 2% of the population are finding ways to increase their income to fit their dreams’ circle.” 

“You can choose to be a person ruled by excuses or choose to be one that is actively changing their life and radically impacting others”. 

“Procrastinating might help you get by, but it won’t lead you down the path to success. The only thing you can do to beat procrastination is to take action.” 

“Success is never convenient. In fact, neither is failure, so no matter what you are going to be inconvenienced.” 

 

SOURCE: https://addicted2success.com/quotes/20-inspirational-quotes-by-dani-johnson/

Chris George, providing reliable PR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer or experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

 

10 existential thoughts of Joseph Campbell

I don’t think people are really seeking the meaning of Life. I think we’re seeking an experience of being alive…we want to feel the rapture of being alive.

Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

You’ve got to say yes to this miracle of life as it is, not on condition that it follow your rules.

If you are to advance, all fixed ideas must go.

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.

Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called “the love of your fate.” Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment-not discouragement-you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

 

12 poignant quotes of Alan Watts

Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.

The future is a concept, it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That’s one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.

No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.

People sometimes fail to live because they are always preparing to live.

Don’t hurry anything. Don’t worry about the future. Don’t worry about what progress you’re making. Just be entirely content to be aware of what is.

Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.

By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us.

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

 

Life’s Beauty Tips

A passage written by American author Sam Levenson are “words to live by” — an instructive passage to enrich the soul and share the best of yourself with those you love and all you encounter. 

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.

We leave you a tradition with a future.

The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.

People even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.

Never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

Your “good old days” are still ahead of you. May you have many of them.

 

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com

#1 Christmas Movie : “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Through the years By George Journal has featured “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Argumentatively, it is the best Christmas movie ever, a moving account of a caring, community-minded, family man who struggles with inner-doubt and comes to fully appreciate the love of family and friends. In our crazy, mixed-up world, it doesn’t get better than this.

Here are quick links to By George posts on this remarkable movie, one that must be re-watched (again) these holidays.  

Drop us a note and let us know when you have viewed “It’s a Wonderful Life” this Christmas season. Enjoy!

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

The Folded Napkin

(A story forwarded from a friend to pass along.) 

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counsellor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie.

He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down’s Syndrome. I wasn’t worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don’t generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The ones who concerned me were the mouthy college kids travelling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded ‘truck stop germ’; the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a breadcrumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table.

Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag.

If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home.

That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down’s Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine. Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Bell Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Bell Ringer a withering look.

He grinned. ‘OK, Frannie, what was that all about?’ he asked.

‘We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.’

‘I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?’

Frannie quickly told Bell Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery then sighed: ‘Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be OK,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.’ Bell Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t get that table where Bell Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,’ she said. ‘This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup.’

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed ‘Something For Stevie’.

‘Pony Pete asked me what that was all about,’ she said, ‘so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.’

She handed me another paper napkin that had ‘Something For Stevie’ scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: ‘Truckers!!’

That was three months ago. Today is a week before Christmas, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.

His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called ten times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy.

I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.

‘Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,’ I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. ‘Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!’
I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins ‘First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,’ I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had ‘Something for Stevie’ printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. ‘There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. ‘Merry Christmas.’

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes
from the table…. Best worker I ever hired.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.

At this point, you can bury this inspirational message or forward it, fulfilling the need! If you shed a tear, hug yourself, because you are a compassionate person. So, send this story on and share the joy. 

 

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

The iconic “It’s a Wonderful Life”

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 1984, Director Frank Capra expressed amazement on the film’s elevated status: “It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. The film has a life of its own now and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I’m like a parent whose kid grows up to be president. I’m proud… but it’s the kid who did the work. I didn’t even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea.”

(According to American film historian Stephen Cox, in a 1946 interview, Capra described the film’s theme as “the individual’s belief in himself,” and that he made it to “combat a modern trend toward atheism.”)

BTW – Director Frank Capra later sighted this film as his personal favorite. Likewise, James Stewart said that George Bailey was his favorite performance.

Director Frank Capra on the set of “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Chris George provides reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? Call 613-983-0801 @CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

A Dozen Memes on Existential Matters

Here are a dozen featured #QOTDs relating to existentialism from the By George Journal’s social media feeds over the last two months.

Click into By George each day for inspiration and motivation – on Twitter and Facebook!

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com

In Flanders Fields – John McRae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNIATIONS.

 

Dulce et decorum est – Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

(ed. – DULCE ET DECORUM EST are the first words of a Latin saying taken from an ode by Horace. These words were often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean “It is sweet and right.” The full saying ends the poem: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” which is “It is sweet and right to die for your country.”)

Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

 

It is the Solider! – Charles M Province

It is the Solider! Not the Minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

 

Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Fallen – Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

 

Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

Lest we forget

Poignant quotes and verse, lest we forget…

poppies-field

  • The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them. – Czeslaw Milosz, The Issa Valley
  • The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children. – William Havard
  • We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. There is no task that is more important or closer to my heart. – Albert Einstein
  • When our perils are past, shall our gratitude sleep? – George Canning, The Pilot that weathered the Storm
  • And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave. – Joseph Drake
  • When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow we gave our today. – John Maxwell Edmonds
  • The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem. – Aaron Kilbourn
  • They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation. – Henry Ward Beecher
  • To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. – Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground
  • I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, ‘Mother, what was war?’ -Eve Merriam
  • In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. – Jose Narosky
  • For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. – William Penn
  • They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. – Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen
  • In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. – American General Douglas MacArthur
  • And each man stands with his face in the light of his own drawn sword. Ready to do what a hero can. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • Nurture your minds with great thoughts, to believe in the heroic makes heroes. – Benjamin Disraeli
  • Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. – Michel de Montaigne
  • Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened. – Billy Graham
  • The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. – Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
  • Heroism … is endurance for one moment more. – George F. Kennan
  • The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. – Benjamin Disraeli
  • Give me American supply lines, British planes, German officers and Canadian troops, and I can take over the world. – German Nazi General Erwin “The Fox” Rommel
  • Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear. – William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

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Remembrance Verses

Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead!
Laurels and roses on their graves to-day,
Lilies and laurels over them we lay,
And violets o’er each unforgotten head.

– Richard Hovey

 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.

– William Collins

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Cover them over with beautiful flowers,
Deck them with garlands, those brothers of ours,
Lying so silent by night and by day
Sleeping the years of their manhood away.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their future forcast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.

– Will Carleton

 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– John McCrae, In Flanders Fields

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Chris George, providing reliable PR & GR counsel and effective advocacy. Need a go-to writer and experienced communicator? 613-983-0801 @ CG&A COMMUNICATIONS.

 

Jeremy Bentham quotes

Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1747) was an English philosopher and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

Bentham defined as the “fundamental axiom” of his philosophy the principle that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”

Bentham’s students included his secretary and collaborator James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill, the legal philosopher John Austin, and the American writer and activist John Neal.

 

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.

Every law is an infraction of liberty.

The question is not “Can they reason?” Nor “Can they talk?” But “Can they suffer?”

Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.

Reputation is the road to power.

Without publicity, no good is permanent; under the auspices of publicity, no evil can continue.

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

Kind words cost no more than unkind ones . . . and we may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. If you would fall into any extreme let it be on the side of gentleness.

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com