My daughter is collecting her pennies and nickles and dimes to give to the poor here in Winnipeg. It’s through a program called Pennnies from Heaven. She gets a penny or two for things she does around the house and then has collected them in a small container. We’ll be putting the coins in a collection jar at school on Friday.
I just finished watching Seoul Train, the independent documentary about the many hundreds of North Koreans who escape their poverty and plight by fleeing to China every month. The hateful Chinese refuse to honor these families as refugees or give them asylum and return them to the North Korean government. The Koreans then imprison, torture, and kill these people. Despite China’s paper commitment to the UNHCR, it refuses North Koreans admittance. It was an incredibly moving portrait of a few families who braved everything they had (which was only their lives) to have freedom. Real freedom. Not the kind that is spouted about by politicians or academics. The freedom that these North Koreans are seeking is of the most primal sort: the capacity to live. That’s all they want and the film makes very clear that there are 20 million people in the country who do not have just that.
Here in Canada, the Conservatives (capitalized because it is a party not an ideal) are wanting to cut down the national tax from 7% to 5% over the next few years. The adline goes “Stand Up for Canada.”
I got a call from the financial arm of the automotive company from whom we purchased our car a few years ago. The message left said “Mr. Boardman, please call us as soon as possible about an … important financial matter.” With much anxiety (and under the assumption that I somehow owed them thousands of dollars), I called the number left and the company representative told me they need my address to mail me a check for $29.37.
One of the cats has been throwing up. It appears to be happening every other day.
I’ve lost touch with a lot of friends and colleagues in New York.
Need a cookie.