I’m Tired of Margaret Wente, I Really Am
Posted by Kevin on 1/18/2005 @ 8:39 am
Margaret Wente describes some of her hate mail and lessons learned in today’s Globe and Mail.
The most important lesson I’ve learned from all this concerns Newfoundlanders’ profound collective sense of their own history. They believe they’ve given far more to Canada than they’ve got back, and they’re convinced they’ve been cheated out of what rightfully belongs to them.
Proud, prickly and mad as hell, Globe and Mail, January 18
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I am a newfoundlander living in Ontario.I cannot tell you how much time I spend informing mainlanders that Newfoundlanders are actually a well-educated, hard-working bunch. It makes me proud that fellow Newfoundlanders are also taking a stance and not allowing people like Margaret Wente to get away with her sterotyping and ignorance. Let’s keep it up!!
Comment by Janice Heppleston — 1/18/2005 @ 9:26 amMargaret Wente is just a symbol of a much greater problem within Canada, after all, her work was approved by an editorial board. I would suggest that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians keep a record of all that is being said and written about our province and our people, good and bad. I’ve been doing a little of this recently and the results are absolutely scary. So much of it looks like white southern U.S. media work during the early 1960s, insulting editorials and joking T.V. journalists.
I have one suggestion for our premier. A space should be set aside in The Rooms which would display this part of our history within Canada. It’s time that the world saw the darker side of central Canadian culture, and where better to display it?
Comment by Cluny Way — 1/18/2005 @ 10:09 amCluny, I like your idea. I can only imagine the disgust coming from those not from the province. Speaking of disgust, anyone catch “Hatching, Matching and Dispatching"? I’m tired of Mary Walsh, I really am.
Comment by Brenda S. , St. John’s — 1/18/2005 @ 11:04 amTalk about sterotypes!! How can Canadians think any differently about Newfoundlanders when they’re fed a steady diet of these ideas by (some) Newfoundlanders themselves on the CBC?! Mary Walsh’s show was absolutely disgusting last night. The gratuitous cursing, the abuse of drugs and alcohol & the sexual situations were crude & offensive to me as a Newfoundlander living in Ontario who regularly tries to raise my mainlander friend & aquaintance’s awareness about Newfoundland and our people. I feel like we’re taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back all the time.
Comment by Melanie F, Ottawa — 1/18/2005 @ 11:58 amGood on you Melanie, you are right on re:M. Walsh I got sick of her long ago with her sick jokes. At first it may have been funny but over time it became too disgusting to watch. I’m glad I am not the only one to notice this. Walsh’s writers must really hate the people they make fun of !!!
Comment by Floyd — 1/18/2005 @ 12:22 pmHey Guys,
Comment by Robert O’Leary — 1/18/2005 @ 1:42 pmHas anyone read Wente’s latest article? If anyone knows where I can find it, I’d like to read it for a laugh and see how she responded to all the email’s we sent her after her first one there 12 days ago.
Thanks,
Robert
Here is Margaret Wente’s column from today’s G&M..
Proud, prickly and mad as hell
By MARGARET WENTE
Tuesday, January 18, 2005 - Page A19
‘You, my dear, are stunned as me arse,” one reader wrote. That was among the more courteous responses to the column I wrote 12 days ago about Newfoundland and Labrador, Premier Danny Williams and the flag flap. The moment it was published, the angry e-mails began rolling in. “I am a Newfoundlander, and damn proud of it,” went a typical e-mail. “I do not receive welfare, or EI. I work 40 hours per week and drive for two hours a day to get to and from my job. . . . Newfoundland is a very proud province with an abundance of hard-working people.”
Wrote another: “Racist remarks like yours about Newfoundland can only be emitted from a very sad, unhappy, uninformed and bitter person. At least that is what I tell my kids when they ask why you wrote such hurtful things about the place that they love.”
If flame mail could incinerate an in-box, mine would be in ashes. I’ve heard from more than 2,000 Newfoundlanders so far, and 98 per cent of them want to boil me in a vat of seal oil. One woman called me and burst into tears. A high-school student called to ask if I were as offensive in person as I am in print.
I never meant to say, nor do I believe, that Newfoundlanders are lazy welfare bums. My comments were meant to describe the province’s doleful economics and its history of bad policy leadership, and to reflect exasperation at Mr. Williams’s heated rhetoric. But people on the island took it personally, and I became a lightning rod for widespread resentment against the condescension and paternalism of the mainland. “Their sense of superiority and righteousness is incredible,” wrote one person, referring to people like me. “The belief they are the ‘hand that feeds’ is no different than the British colonialism that Newfoundland and Labrador endured for centuries.”
For days, my piece was read aloud and condemned on radio talk shows. It was reprinted and condemned in the St. John’s Telegram. I was denounced repeatedly by Mr. Williams, who refused to appear on any program I was on. High-school and university teachers began reading my column aloud to their classes as a prime example of racism and stereotyping. On CBC-TV in St. John’s, former federal cabinet minister John Crosbie shouted me down. He invoked Churchill Falls, reminded people how they’d been robbed since the 1930s, called my column “racist,” and blasted the “fat-cat elites” of Upper Canada.
Yet, from time to time, Mr. Crosbie has used language not unlike my own. In his memoir recalling his days in Ottawa, he accused more than one Newfoundland politician of “biting the hand that fed him so lavishly.” He once told former premier Brian Peckford that Newfoundland’s financial mess existed “despite the generous help of the government and the people of Canada.” But that was a long time ago.
The most important lesson I’ve learned from all this concerns Newfoundlanders’ profound collective sense of their own history. They believe they’ve given far more to Canada than they’ve got back, and they’re convinced they’ve been cheated out of what rightfully belongs to them. “You are completely ignorant of history,” hundreds of people wrote. “For decades, you mainlanders have taken everything we had.”
This narrative runs very deep. If you don’t understand it, you’re never going to understand Newfoundland. And this, to them, is what the fight over offshore resources is really all about. As Mr. Peckford says, “It’s not about the [Atlantic] Accord. It’s about our place in Confederation. It’s everything.”
I learned other lessons, too. I learned just how passionate and proud is the attachment of Newfoundlanders to their home. That attachment makes the rest of us look rootless. They grieve for all of those who’ve had to leave, and many of those who’ve left will always consider themselves exiles. “Newfoundland is the most beautiful place in the world and the reason we are still on this beautiful island is because we have to work like dogs to be here,” wrote one person. For all its hardships, they think life in Newfoundland is better than life anywhere else. “The way I see it, you wish you were a Newfoundlander instead of living in disease-infested Ontario,” another person wrote.
A few Newfoundlanders said they agreed with me. But not many. Mostly, they echoed the sentiments of the man who wrote: “You should be slapped with a cod and drenched in screech.”
mwente@globeandmail.ca
Comment by Jean — 1/18/2005 @ 2:28 pmThanks Jean for posting a copy of the article.
Regarding Ms. Wente’s latest, am I suppose to feel better now? The truth remains, Ms. Wente’s condescending, racist attitude still exists. She hasn’t changed her mind about Newfoundland and Labrador or its people. She is just hoping to appease us.
I will agree with her on one point though, John Crosbie certainly has a selective memory. I truly wish he would keep his comments to himself.
Comment by Brenda S. , St. John’s — 1/18/2005 @ 3:22 pmThanks Jean for posting the article.
Comment by Robert O’Leary — 1/18/2005 @ 3:26 pmWell, old Margie didn’t repent there very much, did she. She made some sort of pathethic attempt to dis’ John Crosby. I noticed that she didn’t dream of going head to head with our boy Rex, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
Just the same though, it didn’t sound like an apology to me. I really hope that she has learned her lesson. Glad to hear that she got blasted with over 2000 emails.
Anyway, lets hope that we get the royalties and build some sort of stable economic future for the Rock.
Robert (Calgary)
Thanks for posting this Jean. I cancelled my home delivery of the G&M after Wente’s last column and I will never renew it nor will I ever purchase another copy of it.
Ms. Wente still does not get it does she? She states in her article, “They believe they’ve given far more to Canada than they’ve got back, and they’re convinced they’ve been cheated out of what rightfully belongs to them.”
We know we’ve been cheated out of what is rightfully ours and it is ever so apparent in all the issues that have been discussed and published over the last month.
Obviously, she still thinks that we’ve received fair deals on our fishery, Churchill Falls, our lumber, the food fishery, etc. Is this woman so blind and naive that she actually believes what she’s written here?
She also says, “My comments were meant to describe the province’s doleful economics and its history of bad policy leadership”
Bad policy leadership?? Wow.
Is it bad policy leadership, when the then prime minister Pearson asked Mr. Smallwood not to ask for the right to allow the passage of the power corridor through Quebec even though the constitution stated otherwise. This was done by the graciousness of Newfoundland for the betterment of all Canada and at great expense to Newfoundland. Was Newfoundland rewarded for this act which probably saved the breakup of Canada?
Personally, I think she was in Great Britain when all the infected beef was over there and she is living proof that the mad cow disease can be transferred to humans.
I think slapping her with a codfish is not such a bad idea. It just might knock some sense in her.
Comment by Terry — 1/18/2005 @ 3:51 pmShe only got 2000 letters? Pity. Maybe it’s because there are people like me who would not, on principle, go the the G & M website to find her address. More power to the ones that did, though. Is anyone prepared to post her email address here? If she thinks this little piece of fluff is going to pacify us, she has again underestimated the pride of Newfoundlanders, and the pain caused by the profound insults she so freely spewed. Don’t kid yourself that this second piece was as freely written and off the cuff as the first. I sense this is not a woman who retracts or explains or backtracks for anyone, unless it has a direct effect on her or her income.
Again, if someone is willing to share her email address at the G&M, that would be great, thanks.
Comment by Margaret Harris — 1/18/2005 @ 7:59 pmIf anyone is interested, Margaret Wente’s address is mwente@globeandmail.com
Comment by Janice Heppleston — 1/18/2005 @ 8:19 pmOn a seperate but important issue, the PM sent his reply to the Premier on Friday past. I’m sure everyone has heard of it but if you are interested in reading it, it has been posted on the PM’s website at www.pm.gc.ca
Comment by Brenda S. , St. John’s — 1/18/2005 @ 8:42 pmM.Wente practiced the same sort of sanctioned scorning that M. Walsh and R. Mercer of State Comedians Inc have down pat. When the supposedly supine targets get up and fight, these comfortable media careerists are taken aback.
Toronto should not be accepted by all as an oasis of cultural superiority where the ambitious, armed with a helpful measure of deference to media commissars, go to show the folks left down on the farm how far narcissism can take you at the CBC.
Comment by Barry Stagg — 1/18/2005 @ 8:48 pmWell done Terry. I love your approach.
Comment by wayne — 1/18/2005 @ 9:10 pmI guess growing up in the ‘windy city’ of Chicago, Margaret Wente grew to believe that political and media agenda prevail over fairness. Maybe she believed no matter what regurgitated ‘rhetoric’ was printed eventually any repercussions would blow over and everyone would forget about the prejudice and ignorance displayed.
Well, proud Newfoundlanders seem to be teaching her otherwise.
How does that saying go…You can’t teach old dogs or is it dumb dogs?
Anyway, I DO love dogs and I mean no disrespect to my four legged friends with the comparison. My point is, education would be lost on her, she no longer matters.
While we as proud Newfoundlanders need to teach each other (and Canadians willing to listen to reason) about facts and statistics, we don’t need to teach Ms. Wente anything. Whether she knows it or not she’s served her purpose and now we just need to let her go away. . I would imagine her boss has explained the same to her… how she maybe going away…. Away from the G&M unless she curbs the backlash. Maybe her editor has explained to her how her views were always ‘charming’ and ‘interesting’, the same way one finds how “Kids say the darndest things” charming.
She might also be learning how she has jeopardized the existing or potential sale of G&M papers (‘news’ intentionally omitted) to the multitudes of Newfoundlanders forced into living away from home, and to wise Canadians who know BS when they hear it. While she may be blissfully ignorant to facts, chances are she is very aware of her editor’s concerns. Thus the reason for her pathetic attempt to reconcile with Newfoundlanders that she “likes” so much: because the same editor from whom she craved a pat on her little head is the same editor who has told her she better smarten up, help keep sales UP and fix this mess or she’s out on her ass.
So, on that note I will go back to my initial point:
Well done Terry, I love your approach. Stop buying and stop reading the G&M. Let the editors know about your decision and if you happen to find a copy of it in the garbage where it belongs, have a quick look as to who is advertising in it (i.e.Altamira investment services 1 800 263 2824). Contact them and let them know about your decision as well. Then we will see how much Ms. Wente really matters.
I sent this e-mail to Margrat Wente and the Calgary Sun:
I’m a former Ontarian and 25 year veteran of the Air Force. I chose to educate myself on Newfoundland political history before I retired here. Your glib references to your sketchy knowledge about what you think went on in Newfoundland politics and political history further demonstrates your contempt for her people. Your inability to admit mistakes, and accept responsibility for them, further demonstrates that you have no idea what the term accountability means. In developing leadership skills and learning from your bad decision making process, I rate you below standard as a member of our community. That is the community of our planet about which I am talking. Good luck in coming to terms with you spirituality, I will pray for you in my own way
I’ve included a blog entry as follows:
She only got 2000 letters? Pity. Maybe it’s because there are people like me who would not, on principle, go the the G & M website to find her address. More power to the ones that did, though. Is anyone prepared to post her email address here? If she thinks this little piece of fluff is going to pacify us, she has again underestimated the pride of Newfoundlanders, and the pain caused by the profound insults she so freely spewed. Don’t kid yourself that this second piece was as freely written and off the cuff as the first. I sense this is not a woman who retracts or explains or backtracks for anyone, unless it has a direct effect on her or her income.
Again, if someone is willing to share her email address at the G&M, that would be great, thanks
Seriously Shuddup unless you have a SINCERE apology once you educate and find yourself.
Fred from CBS
Comment by Fred Harris — 1/18/2005 @ 10:11 pmmwente@globeandmail.ca
Comment by Jean — 1/19/2005 @ 8:40 amTo read comments to - from - about Margaret Wente try this link http://news.google.ca/news?hl=en&ned=ca&ie=UTF-8&q=margaret+wente
Comment by Coleen — 1/19/2005 @ 9:29 pmHey Fred - Excellent stuff there, and I blush that you included my blog note. But… you said you sent this to the Calgary Sun. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Sun has been supportive has it not? Don’t you mean to say you sent it to the G&M? The Sun has columnists such as Paul Jackson and Licia Corbella and they’ve been very vocal in their support of us and this effort.
Thanks very much to those who have posted HER email address. I have to go write something very worthy of that hag, in terms even she might understand.
Barry - “State Comedians Inc."??? Excellent, son, excellent!!
Comment by Margaret Harris — 1/20/2005 @ 6:56 amTerry:
Bad policy leadership was turning over control of the resources to a private sector consortium to develop in the first place. Bad leadership is signing a contract without a re-opener clause and then BLAMING SOMEONE ELSE for your own mistake.
Bad policy leadership is keeping an ineffective, inefficienct and extremely costly denominational school system that produced a 44% provincial illiteracy rate, even though we really couldn’t afford it - in any sense of the term.
Bad policy leadership is the Sprung Greenhouse.
Bad leadership is pursuing offshore ownership long AFTER you knew you were going to lose in court, thereby delaying development of oil and gas by almost a decade.
Bad leadership is stuffing every available person into the fishery so that NO ONE could make a decent living at it without government handouts. Why? Well because the fishery was viewed as a social program, not a business or livelihood as it was before the 1980s.
Need I go on?
Hurling personal abuse at Margaret Wente or anyone else (Is she blind and naive?) hardly adds up to an intelligent argument against her comments.
Was she wrong? I am not sure about EVERYTHING she said. You guys might want to go over and read www.damianpenny.com, a guy from Corner Brook who supports Danny but agrees with Wente on some things. It gives you a different perspective.
Comment by Ed Hollett — 1/20/2005 @ 7:05 amEd Hollett brings up some well thought out points in his comment. Sprung was ridiculous. Denominational schools were unfortunate (but a symptom of the age?). It is bad policy leadership, somewhere along the line, that results in a huge unemployment rate and a dependence on EI. Certainly not all of this falls into the lap of Newfoundland governments for the past 50 years, but certainly some of it does. Maybe quite a lot of it, but this campaign is not about history.
Also, while I am very happy that people have used this blog to vent and express themselves, I also think that Ed makes another good point: hurling abuse at anyone is a waste of time. Believe me, I’ve gotten some interesting hate mail for starting this effort. Wente wrote an article that hurt a lot of people’s feelings, and reveled in low stereotypes. That’s the extent of her involvement in the Atlantic Accord dispute.
The most important thing on our plate now is the meeting next week between Martin and Williams.
Comment by Kevin — 1/20/2005 @ 9:49 amWe can go on all we like about “woulda, shoulda, coulda", but we are in today’s reality. And that reality is that Danny Williams is doing the best he can to address past mistakes, whether of the federal or provincial kind. Margaret Wente knows nothing nor cares an iota about the “real Newfoundland” and so to even contenance any of her views is both a waste of time and energy and of no consequence to the issue of the offshore resources. Thanks.
Comment by Anne — 1/20/2005 @ 10:55 amIn my last comment, I forgot the most important thing I wanted to say and that is a huge thanks once again to Kevin. I can’t thank him enough for all he is doing to help bring a fair deal for Newfoundland and to keep us Newfoundlanders connected wherever we are. Kevin, you deserve a medal!
Comment by Anne — 1/20/2005 @ 11:00 amEd;
Thank you for posting Damian Penny’s blog address. I believe you have one as well. Would you post your address? I would like to have the opportunity to visit.
Many Thanks,
Comment by Brenda S. , St. John’s — 1/20/2005 @ 12:25 pmBren S.
I agree with you Anne, whole-heartedly. Debating the mistakes of the past is a waste of time and energy, we hope that we’ve learned from them and hope they are not repeated.
Comment by Martha Collier — 1/20/2005 @ 11:46 pm“Maybe quite a lot of it, but this campaign is not about history.”
I think this campaign is a LOT about history, unfortunately.
It’s about people who are so spooked by the spectre of “Churchill Falls” that they are afraid to make ANY deal, lest it be a bad one. (The same fear is really what stalled Voisey’s Bay for most of a decade.)
And it’s about people like Crosbie and Peckford who are re-writing their own history, to their own convenience, and aren’t being challenged on it. If their “intentions” aren’t being followed under the Atlantic Accord, as they (ludicrously) claim, why didn’t they write the right accord – and give it legal language, not precatory language – in the first place?
Hey, I’m all for being forward-looking, but this whole debate is lousy with “history".
Comment by WJM — 1/21/2005 @ 10:16 amI have a hard time believing that the wench recieved an email where a newfoundlander claimed “your as stund as me arse". I am sick of people thinking that all Newfoundlanders have a speech/ grammer problem! I think she felt that putting a statment supposdily from a Newfoundlander with mornic grammer skills would prove her point, unfortunatly, it made most people dislike her even more.
Comment by Janye — 1/22/2005 @ 2:54 pmOh, and as response to her point about Mr Crosbie saying these sort of things before: . So what if Mr. Crosbie said horrible things about Newfoundlanders? If someone made a racist comment at an African American, do you think it is right to do it as well?
Ingornace is truly bliss…
Comment by Janye — 1/22/2005 @ 3:01 pmBrenda:
My blog addy is www.bondpapers.blogspot.com. You can also reach it by clicking on my name beneath this post.
Jayne, the point about Crosbie’s comments is that he was being a hypocrite (not a new position for him) by criticising Wente when he has said as bad. As I have continually pointed out to people, in 1990 he dismissed any efforts to change the Atlantic Accord as “absolutely bloody nonsense". Nothing has changed except that Mr. Crosbie is no longer the federal representative in NL.
Comment by Ed Hollett — 1/24/2005 @ 12:06 pmMargaret (not Margrat),
The reason I included the Sun was so that they could continue to stay in the loop to this blog. Yes, they have been supportive. Perhaps some day though the G & M will be hauled up on the carpet for allowing racist comments to go unchecked and Canadians will revere Nationalism outside of the G & M’s Ontario.
Fred from CBS
Comment by Fred Harris — 1/24/2005 @ 2:10 pmThe best thing Upper Canadians (aka Ontario residents) can do with Margaret Wente and her Toronto media ilk would be to wrap her and the entire staff at the Mop and Pail in duct tape and saran wrap, bus ‘em to Niagara Falls and throw them in the river.
Oh yeah, and don’t bother wasting perfectly good barrels… You can recover the dampened and slightly used duct tape and saran wrap later on in Lake Ontario.
Comment by Wendy Doherty — 1/25/2005 @ 4:13 pmHeres the letter I wrote to Margaret Wente. Hope u enjoy. Tim Hicks
Hello Ms Wente. My name is Tim Hicks and I’m from Newfoundland and Labrador, currently working in South Korea. I wish to say a word regarding your remarks concerning the “current squabbling between Ottawa and Newfoundland". I have agreed with some of your articles in the past, such as can be viewed on http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/gm990715.htm so I am not an ill-informed illerate from a “have-not province". I have a university education, but also consider myself an englightened individual always seeking to make my time on this earth worthwhile, and to make something of my life. Having introduced myself to you, now I wish to get to the point of this letter.
Do you know you are prejudiced? Think about that one. That is the impression you have given. NL’s
have a culture all their own, a proud history, and a place in this great country. L.B. Pearson, Pickersgill, and many others in Canada would be outraged at your remarks. Morally do u think NL’s are not allowed to democratically “voice their opinion” about how ITS resources are to be managed? Since we speak different, have strong moralistic beliefs, and have different histories up to 1949, does that give us the right to be alienated, mocked, and ridiculed as sub-Canadians or even sub-
North Americans? My answer is NO!!!!
From 1497 up to 1949 NL has been ruled over by aristocrats, and merchants. We joined this great country for a chance at true democracy, yet we have no say in our resouces for 60 years. NL brought
many billions of dollars of resources into confederation. WE deserve to have a say in its affairs. Know one one thing Ms Wente. You are an ignorant woman. You have no idea about the culture that “Korean variety-store owners who work 90 hours a week” have. I live here in Korea, and THAT IS their culture. That is their work week, that is their culture. Nor do u have any idea that you
discriminated against NL in your letter. I’m not discussing the flag lowering, but merely the fact that you didnt apologise for calling NL “a welfare ghetto” or comparing NL to Bangalore. You prejudiced ignorant woman! “If people had to work more than 10 weeks before they could collect EI,
they might have to move away” makes us seem like we don’t want to work. Well what the hell am I doing in Korea!!!!
I’m going to tell you a simple parable: A lady once withdrew money from a bank machine. Walking away from it she accidentally dropped $20. Before she even had a second to react, a man who saw her
drop it reached down, pocketed it as his own, looked at her with a satisified look, and walked away. Now i ask you, legally, the money was the mans because he claimed it as his own when it was on public property and had no identification. MORALLY, dont you think the man should have given it
back? Do you think it is proper for NL to have all its money taken on it, when it gets ridiculed for being a stupid, have-not joke in the middle of the peasant Atlantic Ocean. Morally Ottawa
should finally ensure NL is self sufficient. $1 billion dollars/year can go a long way don’t you think?
In the past there have many hair-brained schemes to get NL self-sufficient. But do you think the oil industry is one of them? I urge you to educate yourself further and the others in Canada who
agree with you that NL should “pay us back all the money we’ve sent you since you joined Confederation". NL came into this country with a $40 million surplus in 1949. We finally have a good business leader in Premier Williams. Our last great resource must not be looted.
Sincelry a proud Canadian and Newfoundland & Labradorian.
Tim Hicks
Addendum: Finally, you really dug your own grave when you mentioned “the Ode to Newfoundland". That isn’t something we penned to promote tourism! That was our NATIONAL ANTHEM when we were our own nation. HOW DARE you mock and ridicule a countries national anthem, and spit on its roots, even if the country no longer exists, and you disagree with the peoples concerns!! You truly are ignorant and prejudiced to both NL and “our great land north of 60″. You are a hateful, biggoted Canadian. This great country is more than the sum of its parts. Lets work together and share the wealth so that everyone is happy, without the hate.
Comment by Tim Hicks — 1/28/2005 @ 12:20 amOH MAGGIE GIRL, CLAM UP
Ms Wente,
Upon reading your January 06, 2005 diatribe, I was both amused and grateful that you professed to like Newfoundlanders. These facts alone will help me sleep easier as God alone knows what venom you would have spewed should you have felt differently. I would be interested to know how long you lived with my fellow countrymen and if you ever visited ” The Rock” let alone lived there. You caught my interest with your deadbeat brother-in law simile as it sounds as though you speak from experience.
Surly islanders? You really need to research your subjects or at least understand the meaning of the adjectives you so casually attribute to persons you evidently do not know. I do understand that the pen is mightier than the sword, however, I am astounded that a respected columnist such as you, with your God given gifts and talents, would stoop to character assasination in this way. Perhaps you should take your time and confer with your previous countrymen to evaluate their impressions of the Newfoundlanders they encountered during the stress of September 11, 2001. I sincerely doubt they would endorse your condemnation.
You mention siphoning off money from the haves to the have-nots is a game practiced by the Newfs and I can only say that if this is true they have had good teachers. Please enlighten me as to where the money has gone from our natural resources. We may have been naive when we joined Canada, however, we did not expect to be raped as part of the deal. By the way, the _expression “Newfs” is only acceptable from our friends.
You speak of Newfoundlanders relocating and also paint a graphic picture with your “vast and scenic welfare ghetto” imagery. It is unfortunate that you really do not know anything about the Newfoundlanders you claim to like. Perhaps the basic family values have disappeared from your life and perhaps you have never been fortunate enough to live in a beautiful safe area where you work hard and share your rewards.Unfortunately, when I read how much you like us, I was reminded of the Black Widow Spider - she liked her mate and we all know what happened to him.
In closing I would like to leave you with this thought - It is written that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I would say Newfoundlanders are guarenteed entry…….and you?
Comment by Inez (Jodi) Luck — 2/7/2005 @ 6:37 amThe Reasons That Induced…
To Margaret Wente, at Ontario.
‘Twas the greatest pleasure, my dear, with which I read your letter of the sixth of January, in response to the ungrateful complaints of the disagreeable folk of New Founde Lande. Amidst all the intolerable tendancies to pauperism of some of my companions, it is immensely refreshing to have come across a Lady who demonstrates a charming and well-informed sensibility so similar to my own.
I have lived for quite some time among the quaint fishers of the island, and sometimes sigh for a life as simple as theirs. I must confess, however, that I more often yearn to return to the comforts of the polite society at home, for the charms of this land soon wane, as its deficiencies soon become apparent.
Nothing can be more true, my dear, than that poverty is ever the inseperable companion of indolence. Their indolence appears in most everything with which they choose to employ, or rather choose not to employ, themselves. Many of them have forsaken the proud tradition of their forbears to seek a brief employment in other parts of our proud dominion during the warm months. When these rude peasants have laboured long enough to beg insurance from the sovereignty, or in their style, “the pogey", they return home as fast as they may, to spend the winter in idleness with their coarse women and numerous progeny. The winter is passed in a mixture of festivity and inaction; having dances and “scoffs” in their gayer hours; in their graver smoking, and drinking screech, around a warm stove. Even those Newfs that have maintained their forbears’ profession of happily plucking fishes from the sea in pretty twine nets display a sloth of offensive proportions. Even to sit up straight in the boat and steer seems insupportable to them, and they often have their wives or children do it!
That the Newfs have virtues, candor must own; but only a love of paradox can make any man assert that they have more than polished peoples. If you were to ask me what is the general moral character of the Newfs, I would maintain that they are simple and hospitable, yet extremely attentive to interest, where it does not interfere with that laziness which is their governing passion.
A fine gentleman once said to me that there is a striking resemblance between the manners of the Newfs and those of the savage tribes which inhabit the wild northern regions, and I am inclined to agree with him, as he was a man of letters and good breeding, much as you and I.
The very insolence of that cur Williams to make such preposterous demands of our gentlemanly administrators made the very blood boil in my veins. Imagine! As if the ignorant rabble know what is in their own best interests, and as if they haven’t already been dealt with in a most kindly, generous, and undeserved manner! Indeed, if your wise and censurious letter never put him in his place, it is through no fault of your own, my dear, but a sign of his own ill-breeding. Keep up the good fight, O Warrior of Words! We, who also bear the heavy burden of civilisation, share in your struggles!
Adieu! my dear! I can no more,
William Fermor
Comment by A. Baker — 2/11/2005 @ 10:12 pm“Toronto should not be accepted by all as an oasis of cultural superiority where the ambitious, armed with a helpful measure of deference to media commissars, go to show the folks left down on the farm how far narcissism can take you at the CBC.”
That is reasonable enough, but as someone else pointed out, the attitudes expressed by Wente in her article are representative of a wider problem with traditional Canadian values and ingrained, cultural notions. Much of this old ideology can probably be traced to the lingering spirit of colonialism which refuses to die in much of Canadian society (without pointing too many fingers).
The previous post is a letter which I wrote to Wente and a few other people about that.
Comment by A. Baker — 2/12/2005 @ 9:06 pm