George...

[fajrdrako]

I just had lunch with George. He's the son of Aunt Isie, who, when she was alive, was my favourite relative. Not George takes that place. It was a wonderful lunch.

George is in town with his union at a CUPE conference. We talked about mutual relatives, and the importance of a sense of community, and the way union politics work. They passed a motion that all communication in all branches of Ontario CUPE must be in both French and English, even in loclas where there are no francophones. It sounds like a waste of money and effort to me.

George is interested in actively working in politics - I'm not sure I knew this, since George and I have never really talked about politics before, but he's the kind of person with whom I seem to usually get into the personal or political morality, and I usuall agree with - or at least approve of - not just his politics, but his approach to life. He says if he was staying in Peterborough, he'd probably run as an N.D.P. candidate there; as it is, he is probably moving to Nova Scotia.

I hope he does something with his sense of social justice. He was saying that there is a detention facility near Kingston where CSIS is holding detainees without trial or charge, in the interests of anti-terrorism - our own Guanatanamo Bay North. I hadn't known. So much for democracy; and so much for my state of cynicism that, though I hadn't specifically known about this before, I suspected it was happening and I'm not surprised. Not under Harper's government.

On a happier note, my cousins might be having a reunion in Ontario in August, in which case I can join them. I'd like that.

It's not as if I have many relatives, and it's not as if I see them much.