August 22, 2011 archive

Canada’s Jack Layton Succumbs To Cancer – And Leaves An Awesome "Final Letter" to Canadians

Jack Layton, Leaders Tour - Tournée du Chef - Jack Layton
Today is a sad day for our friends up north in Canada - Jack Layton, leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP), passed away this morning at the age of 61 after multiple battles with cancer. The Globe and Mail has a nice tribute to Layton and pretty much every Canadian media outlet is currently writing about his death. For those with no clue who he is, his Wikipedia entry provides a detailed background on his life and work.

I never had the privilege of meeting Jack Layton, but certainly knew of him and read about him / saw him on TV all the time. When we lived in Ottawa, Ontario, from 2000-2005, the NDP was first led by Alexa McDonough with Layton taking over the leadership reins in 2003. Given that as Americans living in Canada we couldn't vote, we didn't have any direct connections to the political activities going on... but as a hardcore political junkie[1], I was fascinated by the Canadian political system and how very different it is from ours.

After moving back to the US in 2005, I've tried to keep up with what is going on north of the border. It's actually quite hard given that our mainstream media here in the US pays almost no attention to what's going on up north. My main news conduit actually has been through the Canadian friends I follow on Twitter and Facebook... their links have kept me up-to-date with what's going on in Canadian politics.

And so it was that I followed the rise of the NDP and their amazing success in the 2011 election with the NDP becoming the official opposition party for the first time in history.

And while it was known for some time that Layton was ill, the finality of his passing certainly has shocked a nation.

Layton's final letter to Canadians, though, is what is also getting a great amount of distribution today. The 2-page letter is available online for all to read and continues the positive tone he always seemed to promote. I was naturally drawn to his language relating to people fighting cancer:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer

The letter goes on to talk of Canadian politics, of the youth of the country, and a great final section to all Canadians.

He ends with what I'm sure will become a widely quoted/tweeted/retweeted/posted text:

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Indeed!

R.I.P., Jack Layton. Thank you for all you did for Canada and through that for the larger world.

P.S. And as a long-time sci-fi fan, I admittedly have to respect a politician that can be found (circa 1991) wearing a Star Trek uniform! ;-)

RIP Jack Layton. 1991 Star Trek Convention

[1] Hey, I live in New Hampshire... it's hard NOT to be into politics!

Image credit: mattjiggins on Flickr. It turns out that this was also chosen as the official portrait used on Layton's Wikipedia page.

Facebook Now Reminds Us Of What We Posted One Year Ago?

When did Facebook start showing you "On This Day in 2010"? Is this new? Or something I've just not noticed?

While in Facebook today, I noticed this box appear on the right side above the sponsored ads:

Facebook oneyearago

Now, I've subsequently not seen that box anywhere when I've been in Facebook, and I can't for the life of me remember precisely what page I was on when I saw that box.

It's curious that Facebook would do this... just randomly show me one of the status updates I posted a year ago. I say "curious" only in that it's not clear how I would really interact with that post. I mean... would I be so overwhelmed by nostalgia that I would click on the comments or likes to see what comments were left on that post? Maybe... but that seems a bit of a stretch.

I didn't dislike having that box appear in my sidebar. It was actually more interesting than seeing the ads that I usually ignore (and obviously interesting enough to write a blog post about ;-). It was just strange... since I'd never seen this before.

Have others of you noticed this kind of box appearing inside of Facebook?


If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:


A Monday Morning Reminder About Those Best Laid Plans…

HandswithinkIt's Monday morning. For me, summer is effectively over. My vacation week ended yesterday. It's time to get back into the flow of work and life and get out there and kick some serious _____. I was up early and went for a 5K run this morning focused on speed and came in just over 8:30/mile even while pushing the jogger stroller the whole way.

I had all sorts of blog posts planned... I knew I had to run out to Staples to get a printer cartridge so that my fax/printer/scanner could fax out a document (a rant for another day!)... but I expected to be up in my home office around 8:20am pounding away on those blog posts.

Then... I made a critical mistake.

I handed my used-and-theoretically-dead inkjet printer cartridge to my 2-year-old to carry into Staples because she wanted to "help".

Other parents or those interacting with toddlers reading this undoubtedly know what is about to happen...

HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL "FAIL"???

Leave it to the 2-yr-old to discover that yes, indeed, the cartridge did have some ink in it... and to get that ink ALL over her hands... and on her clothes... and subsequently on my hands....

Oops.

So there I was at the checkout counter using some Purelle and paper towels they had to attempt to clean up the major parts of the mess. The cute little hands you see in the picture here are after most of the ink was scrubbed off... but back at home where I could use some more aggressive soap.

As it was all unfolding, I felt myself starting to get agitated and anxious because I had all these plans! I had things to do, articles to write, messages to send... I could feel my blood pressure rising even as I externally was calm and patient.

And then I breathed deeply.

And reflected that this is the reality we all live in...

life happens.

You can plan all you want... you can make incredible plans, in fact... only to have them derailed by some little action, perhaps by your own action as it was in this case, or perhaps by circumstances outside your control.

The measure of ourselves as people is how we choose to react to those changes to our plans and what we learn from those changes.

In my case, I just sighed and went about the actions of trying to clean up all the ink... (and I made a note to myself that it's probably better NOT to let the wee one hold "dead" ink cartridges ;-)