Bambi has no clue why, but her Youtube kept showing her videos about ducks today.
A man taking his duck to the subway of New York.
Another person taking his duck to Ikea… Well, not really another individual; indeed, Bambi could not resist to the temptation of watching the second video. When she did it, she discovered it was the same man in the video above. This means the same cute duck!
Now, why would anyone think of taking a duck to a crowded human-made place like a subway? She wondered. Of course, this man is free and his duck does not seem to be miserable at all. On the country, it appeared to be relaxed and happy even. Surely, not afraid of people who took picture of it or even touched it.
Anyhow, Bambi will spare you the third video seen on her Youtube screen about ducks exploring a house. She just want to end this post with a friendly thought for this cute duck, for a charming pelican bird in Beirut she has older posts on (as you can see further below), and for a couple of ducks, which visit her backyard, almost every spring. She loves these two dearly. If she may, she will offer them ALL two songs, one in French and the other in English, hoping you will enjoy them too :)!
Some songs make our hearts melt. “Petit papa Noël” [Little Santa] is one of them for Bambi; maybe because it reminds her of her happy childhood. Yes, all the magical Christmas times (despite the ongoing crazy civil war). Indeed, for a very long time in her early and not-too-early years of life, this melody was her preferred song. Is it still the case in her middle-age, at least during the month of December of each year? If you wish, you can take a guess :).
Bambi refuses to go to bed without sharing what her friend Mona kindly sent her today. Yes, you can hear and see the grandaughter of the late Mr. Charles Aznavour singing “La Bohème“.
How beautiful… How moving. Bravo for her talent, obviously running in the family!
Thank you Mona for this discovery. Bambi loves you and misses you so much ❤️.
Grandaughter:
Grandfather with English sub-titles… May his memory be eternal:
Bambi learned from a tweet by journalist Roula Azar-Douglas who works with L’Orient Le Jour that the latter won the prestigious Francophonie Award of the Académie Française. Bravo! “Mabrouk”!
Below is the evidence in a tweet, a picture, and a video… of course all in French :).
Following this, Bambi will congratulate L’Orient Le Jour, with its more recent twin English-speaking sister L’Orient Today, with two songs: (1) The first is about the beauty of the French language, obviously in French, by Mr. Yves Duteil; and (2) the other is about heartfelt congrats with the Lebanese-Arabic song “Mabrouk” [ or Congrats] of Mr. Ramy Ayash.
Thank you l’Orient Le Jour for keeping us informed about Lebanon, the Middle East, and about the world, including sometimes fast and accurate news related to us here in New Brunswick and Canada!
Bravo to L’Orient Le Jour! A picture taken from L’Orient Le Jour.
Bambi just learned from a Le Devoir article thar Radio-Canada [the French CBC] has suggested to its hosts and journalists offer their apologies live in the event of an unexpected mention of the n-word. Not only that; it has also announced that reruns of its programs will henceforth be purged of all offensive language that has no “editorial rationale“.
Here is Le Devoir article, by Mr. Boris Proulx, with French content: https://bit.ly/3AYImow
Please pause for a few seconds and think of the following, with Bambi:
Does this mean that our great Canadian author and pride, Mr. Danny Lafferière, cannot mention the name of his OWN book, “Comment faire l’amour avec un Nègre?” without apologies followed by censorship?! As a reminder, or for those who do not know it, Mr. Laferrière is of Haitian origins (no, this is not a self-identification of a so-called “blackness“. For those not familiar with the French language, the term used above is different from the English connotation.
A picture taken from Amazon Canada website
Does this also mean that a host who happens to be a historian, for instance, can no longer mention the title of Vallières’ book, “Nègres blancs d’Amérique” chosen on purpose to score the whole historic point of his book about French-Canadians (https://bit.ly/3VKQEIz)?
A picture taken from the Renaud Bray Bookstore website
Does this mean that an expert, whether academic or from the general public, educating an audience about the harm of mockery, insult, and racism cannot use an example of a bad word in French anymore? What if it is someone sharing a personal experience?
Since when the French language and culture is as vulnerable to this modern form of neo-colonialism of an exported and extremely authoritarian wokeism, like in the rest of Canada?
Why is the French CBC increasingly diving into the business of censorship and cancellation now?
When will we take a break from our collectively insane times to reflect on such guidelines and their impact on our society? Do we want to live in fear-based society where we are all walking on egg shells? Is this socially healthy and wise? And what’s next?
Are we resorting to such guidelines out of conviction? Or out of fear of extremists of the left (similar to fear of the right or of religious extremists of all kinds)? Or are some of our decision-makers or elites of our society extreme themselves to that extent?
It is one thing to have private media taking such decisions. We understand and they are free. It is another thing to have our public media engaging in such authoritarian practices that the majority of tax-payers do not endorse; whether they talk about it publicly like Mr. Proux, Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté in le Journal de Montréal (ttps://bit.ly/3FggdvY) or all the non-expert citizens and deer like Bambi.
Think of it, even the organizers of the Stanford Academic Freedom Conference (November 4-5, 2022), that resulted in MANY signatures of courageous scholars openly supporting academic freedom-freedom of expression, got scared of an aggressive mob. Dr. Frances Widdowson, one of the speakers, was precisely defending the right of journalist Wendy Mesley to reference Vallière’s book cited above at the time. What did the conference organizers do? They censored “this part for fear that it would be used to delegitimize the conference“. These were the words of Dr. Widdowson herself in an update about her legal case. Bambi is proud to have supported the latter and is eager to read her writing about what she perceives to be the problems of all this in the January issue of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship Newsletter.
Lebanon is just 10,452 square kilometres, or 4,036 square miles, in which about 6 million people live. Tiny country, isn’t it? Yet, it has BIG complications when it comes to electing its President.
Thanks to Orient Today (https://bit.ly/3Vq5N2A) for explaining to Bambi, in just five minutes, how this process usually takes place.
If you are interested, you may wish to watch the following brief French-speaking video, sub-titled in English, which addresses the following issue: “For the fourth time in Lebanon’s history, the country is facing a presidential vacancy. Since the end of Michel Aoun’s mandate on Oct. 31, Lebanese MPs have held six parliamentary sessions to elect his successor, but without success. How does the presidential election work and why is it stalled today? Can Lebanon remain without a head of state for several years, as in 2016? We take a look at the situation, in video“.
Is there anything more moving than this beautiful song on paternity bereavement?
Bravo and thank you, Mr. Mario Pelchat for candidly sharing with us your heartfelt words reported in Noovo Moi (https://bit.ly/3EN4WSf). Even if you “don’t spend your life crying”, Bambi did it on your behalf (and not just yours…). when she listened to your most recent song. She is so happy she just discovered it, although it was released seven months ago:
“I don’t have children, I’m turning 60 and I find it regrettable. Obviously, I don’t spend my life crying, but I’m sad not to have had this chance to leave offspring, to have a child who would say to me: “I love you daddy”».
« Je n’ai pas d’enfant, j’arrive à 60 ans et je trouve ça regrettable. Évidemment, je ne passe pas ma vie à pleurer, mais je suis triste de ne pas avoir eu cette chance de laisser une progéniture, d’avoir un enfant qui me dirait: “Je t’aime papa”. »
If you are interested in reading them, below you can find a quick English translation of the lyrics of Mr. Pelchat’s song. Bambi hopes you will enjoy the latter, and its lovely video production, as much as she did. To conclude this brief musical post, of course, she is grateful for the assistance of Mr. Google Translate. A usual, she thanks him for being her loyal friend :).
The child I
don’t have
“It’s for you, the child I don’t have,
A few words
that I write to you,
To tell you
that deep down I don’t know
Who makes
the choices in our lives.
It’s for
you, the child I don’t have,
Without
sadness and without regret,
A few notes
in the heart and in the voice,
Which I
wanted to share.
If I had
been a father,
Would I have
learned, would I have known how to do?
If I had
been a father,
Since your
first cry, would I have had the way?
But life
doesn’t wait, dreams pass,
In the
ledger of time so many questions fade away, ooh,
Wherever you
are, maybe it’s better,
Like that…
It is for
you the child that I do not have,
A few words
and this desire
To finally
come out from the bottom of me,
Everything I
ever said no
I ran, ran
without stopping,
Maybe I only
thought of myself?
Today I
wanted to talk to you about it,
You the
child that I do not have.
If I had
been a father,
Would I have
learned, would I have known how to do?
If I had
been a father,
Since your
first cry, would I have had the way?
But life
doesn’t wait, dreams pass,
In the
ledger of time so many questions fade away, ooh,
Wherever you
are, maybe it’s better,
Like that…
Would I have
followed the paths of your life?
Would I have
done anything to love you?
If I had
been a father,
Would I have
learned, would I have known how to do?
If I had
been a father,
Since your
first cry, would I have had the way?
But life
doesn’t wait, dreams pass,
In the
ledger of time so many questions fade away, ooh,
Dr. Frédéric Bastien is a historian and a professor at Dawson College in Montreal, Québec. Bambi learned from Le Devoir that he filed a complaint (https://bit.ly/3imgrZc) with the Human Rights Commission of Québec and of Canada because his rights have been violated in an advertisement for a position of Canada Research Chair in Canadian-Québec History that excludes “white men” from calls for applications at Laval University. Such positions are rare to open and to be filled. Imagine that this university advertised the position as follows (https://bit.ly/3U90Euc):
“Only applicants with the required skills AND who have self-identified as a member of at least one of these four underrepresented groups (women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and persons belonging to visible minorities) will be selected”.
Do you find it fair to Dr. Bastien and to other highly competent, so-called white male, historians who would have wished to apply to the position? Bambi doesn’t. She is actually shocked by such increasingly common advertisements of academic positions in Canada!
Indeed, here is another example for you tweeted by Mr. Jonathan Kay, along with sarcastically thoughtful comments. It comes from the University of Calgary’s Haskayne Business School (https://bit.ly/3GOW0hX). Please take the time to look at its language. Does it makes any sense? Is it logical? Is it fair to both those excluded and included in it? Does it really bring fairness to those applicants who may get the position? Why aren’t we allowing them to compete on the basis of merit only? Don’t we think they can do it and succeed like others?
Why is Canada getting into these potentially discriminatory hiring practices? Why are we doing this to ourselves?
Is this the most optimal way to recruit excellence? And does excellent have a colour? Bambi has always thought the latter needs a brain and hard work only.
Furthermore, why is Canada increasingly resembling countries like Lebanon with its quotas of hiring for this or that position in the public sphere or in politics? Is this wise? Is this smart?
As a reply to a different, yet related, question by a faithful reader of this blog in a comment about an earlier post shown further below [hello Fred : )], Bambi partly provided the following insights using her birth country as an example: “… divisive societies more and more relying on identity or sub-identity characteristics for this or that position, for this or that privilege. Bambi will give an example, not related to Canada. Take Lebanon, for example, where religious affiliations are used to determine the President of the Republic must be (Maronite) Christian, the Prime Minister Sunni Muslim, and the Parliament Speaker Shiite Muslim. Keep also in mind that all other public posts are also divided according to religious quotas. So, someone like Bambi can never get the chance to become neither president, nor prime minister, nor parliament speaker there… If we come back to Canada’s context, we now have here what we call “self-identification” and we have groups that are seen as holy more than others…”.
To come back to Canada and to Dr. Bastien, Bambi would like to conclude with his sharp words, hoping they will make us pause and think twice before continuing this hiring trend in our schools, businesses, governments, etc.
“We are in a drift. We think that fighting discrimination with discrimination is not a good way to go. It will just stir up tensions. A position in history is rare».
Those of you who read this blog regularly may recall how much Bambi appreciates Mr. Nicola Ciccone, a much talented Canadian singer-songwriter.
Bambi considers herself lucky because she went to graduate school with him. She will always remember not just his talent, but also his humanity and sensitivity. In her dictionary, this is called heart intelligence.
The song below is just an example of the above. Although its lyrics are in French, Bambi took the time to quickly translate them for you into English, of course with the assistance of her faithful friend, Mr. Google Translate. The English lyrics appear at the end of the video sub-titled in French.
To conclude this brief musical post, Bambi wishes Mr. Ciconne much love, as per his song. Same wish not just for him, but also for each one of us here at home and abroad. May our hearts be overflowing with love and humanity all year long, not just in this magical season of the year. May the kindness of love prevail in our hearts, instead of the blindness of hatred or the coldness of indifference.
“All I want for Christmas is love
Just
like when I was a kid and my father was still living
Although
we were said to be very poor, with him I did not feel it
When
he took me deep in his arms
All
I want for Christmas is love
As
a teenager, my mother liked to play tricks on me
For
me to have twice as many gifts, she wrapped the boxes of cookies
Then
put them under the tree before midnight
It
may seem quite pointless
But
these are the most beautiful Christmases
That
I’ve had all my life
The
rest is just hardware
The
best gift ever
It’s
to share your life without detour
All
I want for Christmas is love
All
I want for Christmas is love
All
I want for Christmas is your heart
At
the beginning of our relationship, I was more lost than misfortune
But despite my little apartment where our New Years were piled up
We
found room to dance and sing songs
All
I want for Christmas is your heart
Today I have a big house, but it’s empty without your candour
I
remember when, at the stroke of midnight, we released our most beautiful
follies
