From the Souris Consolidated’s own Stand Up anti-bullying campaign, to vice principal Lynn Sherren’s Extra Mile Award, and most recently receiving one of 20 grants across the country from Indigo, the school’s students and teachers have shown their innovative and compassionate spirit time and time again.

It’s a good thing the people at Souris Consolidated know their own incredible value. If they let it be determined by the province and the English Language School Board, the message would be this:

You’re not worth a new school. You’re not worth moving out of a poisoned school. And you’re not worth finding new classrooms when an entire floor of that school has been deemed unsafe to learn in.

It is so disheartening to think of students as young as six being rushed into a library, a staff room, and a computer lab after being told that no - the classrooms they’ve been working in weren’t actually safe.

Respecting opinions is extremely important in today’s society. It’s written into our constitution. However, it was shocking to see a picture of a small child, in The Guardian, holding a banner saying, “Unborn babies are special persons. Let them live.”

As a firm believer in education, it’s hard to understand why someone would allow this to happen.

Women who seek abortions have many reasons for doing so; financial strain, medical issues, familial problems, are only a few. No one should be judged for their decisions, especially when there is no way of knowing what they’re going through both mentally and physically.

A child, who has not hit puberty and presumably knows very little about reproduction, should not be taken into the streets and allowed to endorse an opinion she doesn’t understand.

I’ve always wanted to write these immortal lines, ‘It was a dark and stormy night,’ but no it really wasn’t. It was though, as the fella says, ‘pizzin’ rain the latter part of the Saturday night card at the ‘Charlottetown Driving Park’. Still, it was pretty good racing and a decent bet at $24,871. Of prime interest to the local folks was Willie Murphy’s trot win with the Cindy Macdonald trained Diamond Mine. He’s owned by Crapaud’s Boyd Leslie and hit the wire in 2:02 flat. Jonah Moase’s Big League made it two in a row, when he captured the Preferred in 2:01.1 on an off track. Lee and Trevor Hicken’s All Turain made his first start of the season in the class and finished fourth. The CDP now moves to two nights a week and the next card there will Thursday night. Post time is 7pm.

National columnist Chantal Hebert wrote a striking column last week speculating that the legacy of Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be policy related, but a lingering image of nastiness.

It was a typically thoughtful and insightful piece. Harper has few ‘big idea’ achievements, other than pandering to his Conservative base. It can be argued his government is the anti-bunch; it’s anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-small town, anti-government oversight, and anti-seasonal worker.

And that’s just to name a few.

It’s exciting to see parents taking their kids trout fishing but it’s disheartening to hear some of them apologize to the little ones if they leave empty handed.

It’s hard not to feel regret over this misguided message.
Fishing teaches patience and it’s a skill anyone can learn if they’re interested in it.

But the real benefits of a day, or even an hour or two beside a pond can’t be measured by the number of fish added to a creel.

Entertainment in the outdoors comes with watching birds, casting your imagination into the clouds, listening and identifying the sounds of nature and spontaneous visual games to make up and play.

Adults grumble these days that kids don’t know what to do if they’re take away from their computers, TVs, headsets and telephones. Did it occur to anyone that perhaps someone needs to show them that imagination is a wonderful and healthy pastime?

The following note is from Donna Gorrill of Wigmore Road, PEI:

“When I read your last article I then knew what had to have made the odd marks in the tree beside the shed. Then just a half hour ago I saw my first Yellow Bellied sapsucker. I got this shot through the dining room window and that was lucky as it flew away on my next try. So I went out to get shots of the tree to send along for you to see.

“Wings at the Feeder this past month have been the normal ones: Crows, blue jays, mourning doves, chickadees, juncos, song sparrows, both male and female hairy and downy woodpeckers and crackles. A little more out of the norm are the re polls (which I haven’t seen in a week or so and I was seeing up to 20 at a time) a couple of chipping sparrows have been around every day for a couple of weeks and all last week there was a white throated sparrow pecking around. And that’s a wrap-up of Wings at the Feeder Wigmore Road edition!”

A gathering at a brief Blessing of the Fleets service in Murray Harbour Sunday afternoon was small compared to the number of lobster fishermen involved in the industry.

However, the fact that only about 30 people showed up for this meaningful ritual by no means diminishes the high respect and concern others share for the people who each spring set out on the water to earn a living.

In the foreground, with their backs to a chilly north wind, ministers from surrounding communities offered caring words of hope and praise through prayers and song. In the background, there was a definite air of anticipation as seasoned hired hands and anxious captains baited and loaded their traps onto their boats for opening day. The setting was sublime.

“The root causes of terrorism is terrorists.”... Pierre Poilievre, Conservative MP

When the saturnine M Poilievre got that zinger off during the CBC television program Power and Politics, host Evan Solomon was clearly gobsmacked by such mind numbing inanity.

Solomon went after him three times, trying to determine whether that was truly what the politician had said and was truly what he meant.

“Really? That’s it?” responded Mr Solomon in utter disbelief at the idiocy of the declaration. “The root cause of terrorism is terrorists? That’s it? You have no other cause?”

M Poilievre backed off not a millimetre from his mindless definition, great for a bumper sticker, but ludicrous as an underlying philosophy for an approach to dealing with terrorism.

“Our land, our water, our natural areas, our viewscapes, and our architectural heritage, will not look after themselves. If we do not provide responsible stewardship now, we run the risk of losing them as we know them, forever...” - Report of the Commission on Land and Local Governance (December 2010)

There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about land use on the Island.

Horace Carver is leading a commission to review the Lands Protection Act, which hasn’t been reviewed in 30 years. A Land Use Task Force has been formed to work with the public on developing policies that will ensure continued economic development while retaining agricultural and scenic lands on PEI.
Public input is key in both of these government-led ventures.

As a lifelong beach bum and avid hiker for the past 10 plus years,
I have seen firsthand the changing scenery of our landscapes, particularly along the shoreline.