Blogging - Pouring Words into the Storm

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Today’s Blog Post

Blogging - Pouring Words into the Storm

Each morning I sit and think. The thoughts that come forward have been percolating for the past days. Each morning more ideas flow and meld with what has been in the stew.

This Blog that I prepare is kind like the Slow Cooker that we use to prepare some of the meals we have at home. At first it doesn’t look like much but then the savoury smell comes with promises of a wonderful meal ahead.

Many of the thoughts are random bits and pieces tossed together and then stirred a bit more, a few more ingredients added and voila there it is. It doesn’t actually come completely together until the time is right and the heat has brought it to the point of ‘just about right’.

This past week I rounded a corner with Blogging in a couple of areas. I make note of them here with email comments and some simple notes that I share with you. Direct comments I have generally clicked through about the posts themselves. These comments have come from people directly involved with the things that I wrote about.

On March 1, 2010 I wrote about “Cinderella and PMS” referring to Helena Guergis actions in a PEI Airport. I posted it and then sent a copy to my MPP, Dean Del Mastro. He in turn replied via Jeff Westlake with the following…
"Good Morning Murray,

MP Del Mastro will not comment on the behaviour of a fellow Member of Parliament. MP Del Mastro agrees with the Office of the Prime Minister that as Minister Guergis has apologized, the matter should be considered closed.

Best,
Jeff Westlake
Constituency Assistant
Office of MP Dean Del Mastro
1600 Lansdowne Street West
Peterborough, ON
K9J 7C7


705-745-2108 (p)
705-741-4123 (f)
delmad@parl.gc.ca"

Then the next day I wrote the piece “The Honorable Helena Guergis doesn’t matter any more”…never to hear from the PM or MP again about the matter.

This week Helena Geurgis was ousted from her position and put out of the inner circle of the Progressive Conservative Party – by the same PMO that stated “the matter should be considered closed”.

It seems that there was more going on than they would let on. Cinderella kind of messed up big time… or was it her husband and his bragging to very well off people that he had an inside way to get things done… possibly referring to his wife and her close connections with the PM and my MP?!?!

Do you think that they actually read something like my silly Blog!? I was shocked to hear she was bounced out. I just asked that she go back to the PEI airport and say she was sorry for freaking out at the staff on her birthday. Sheesh!

In a positive way and a way more sensitive issue I wrote another piece entitled “Project Hero – Baloney” on March 26, 2010. Yesterday I received the following email from another Professor at the U. of R. I consider this to be a great compliment and a demonstration of the quality and class of these professors.

Quote…
“Hi Murray,

Thank you very much for the letter you sent to Joyce Green in support of the stand she and the other 15 of us have taken regarding the scholarship Project Hero. Your own creative way of addressing this issue is much appreciated.

We are extremely grateful for the time you took to express your solidarity at this trying time for all of us who signed the letter in opposition to Project Hero and Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

As you can imagine, there has been widespread distortion in the mainstream media regarding the contents of our letter, and a vilification campaign directed in part by right-wing politicians connected with the Conservative Party and the Saskatchewan Party. As a result, we have been at the receiving end of a wave of vitriolic hate mails, full of terrible language and demands that we be fired from our university positions.

Over the last few days, however, as the contents of our letter have become more widely distributed and understood, we are receiving increasing numbers of supportive letters such as yours.

We can’t thank you enough for your support in opposing expressions of Canadian imperialism and the glorification of war on our public university campuses, the creeping militarization of Canadian politics and society, and our right to freedom of speech.

In solidarity,
“C”, on behalf of 15 who signed”
End quote..

I was humbled to receive this email. Thank you “C”.

I responded by then writing to my friends at the Regina Leader Post with a shorter version of my original post asking the “Letter to the Editor” folk to consider it.

“How can you ever expect these people to consider a retired person’s letter from Peterborough, Ontario to publish this or even consider it in that newspaper?” you may ask – because I asked myself that.

But if I thought, “I should write to the Leader Post” but then never did it, I would be just like almost everyone else.

I am not just like everyone else and I have to do something!!!

If nothing else happen I have supported some frightened and stalwart University Professors that could easily be affected by Political Prowess in that small University or Regina.

By the Professors standing up for what they believe they have now just ignited another generation of “Murray Lincolns” that may also stand up for what they perceive and say something.

There are still some thinkers in this world.

And with University Strategists, the “PMO” – that is the “Prime Minister Office” Staff, that are oh so good at what they do, and local MPs that are very careful to say it just right… THESE THINKERS need to say something.

At this point there have been 29,344 visitors to the 624 Posts that I have made since June 2008. The Chart below shows a little of this past week’s visits…

As I prepared sermons each week for almost 35 years, I doubt very much that an average of 450 per week listened to what I said. And the fact that 36,703 pages of the Blog have been read to date simply blows my mind. Never ever did I get that result from Sermons Preached!

Is it worth it all? You better believe it! Thinking is never without rewards. It hurts at times and at times when you wonder if any one ever really cares. But in the end you know that you do… and when you do… even that makes a difference.

I am celebrating today in my 65th year, 362nd day and 8th hour. Wahoo!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/