Cat’s Paw

One of the greatest things in creation. Soft, tender, useful and warm. 

Until the claws come out of course. Or if you’re a mouse, in which case this view is likely to be one of your last. Life is full of such opposites and we prefer not to dwell on them, seeing only the things that re-assure us or reinforce our feelings of comfort.

So on which topic I had a very angry TGR on WhatsApp tonight, who sent me a link to a rather terrible story of (yet again) the abuse of indigenous peoples by the Anglo-Saxon settlers. Several hundred graves in an institution’s grounds effectively wiped from history at the whim of the Catholic Church in Canada. This on top of stories of abuse and cultural genocide over a period of decades.

There is one word I value above all others: Respect. But the history of imperialism and colonialism is the antithesis of this, it is the attempted systematic destruction of someone else’s identity and history.

Read for yourself here 

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/cowessess-first-nation-says-751-unmarked-graves-found-near-former-sask-residential-school-1.5483858

As for my day, it was tediously routine and annoying but I did get out for two walks (clocking up 12,000 steps)  and when my work was done, drank a small quantity of beer and ate apple pie. I gave and received respect… Amen.