Opinion

I live in West Kelowna. I enjoy reading your editorials in the Daily Courier periodically and want to comment on this morning's edition concerning the Paris crisis. I agree that the worst thing we can do is a knee jerk reaction.

While the B.C. Liberals are required by law to periodically appoint a legislative committee to review the province's Freedom of Information law, those reviews tend to bear no fruit because government is not bound to implement the recommendations.

At least they could agree on Stanley Lanyon. After more than four years of negotiations and mediation, including a two-week strike in March, UNBC's faculty and senior administration are still a zillion miles apart on pay and various benefits.

The Paris attacks are the top news story this week and possibly for the year. Intelligent people are assessing and looking for reason. There is talk of ideology but idiocy would be a more suitable term.

That Prince George's citizens would sign a petition against some Syrian refugees coming to the north is a deeply troubling and sad indictment of our city. In the wake of the Paris attacks, there are rumours linking the Islamic State to the refugees.

Over the weekend, my parish prayed a litany of saints for the people of Paris. A litany is simply a series of petitions read by clergy with a congregational response.

On Sept. 17, 2001, just six days after 9/11, President George W. Bush made a gracious and generous gesture.

By now, there's a pretty good chance you've seen Jody Paterson's Facebook post. Which speaks to a lot of pent-up emotion over the Orwellian approach to the flow of scientific information under Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

I recently watched a very inspirational Ted Talk by a Vancouver doctor named Gabor Mat. He has been working for a number of years with people who struggle with addictions and are thus marginalized.

John Reimer was born on the prairies in 1931; at the age of four his family moved to a small farm in the Fraser Valley where his father worked in the construction industry.