Commentary

The statements, opinions, or views in the articles may not necessarily reflect that of the Goan Voice Canada.

G20 chaos: PM must pay up http://www.thespec.com/printArticle/797577 Howard Elliott | The Hamilton Spectator | (Jun 28, 2010) In this space Saturday, we asked if the G8 and G20 summits were worth the expense and disruption. We now know what transpired at the summits and in the streets. And we know the answer to that question is no. That world leaders should meet to discuss common concerns, problems and solutions, is a given. Maybe those meetings should be face-to-face, maybe they should be virtual. But surely there's a better way to do it. What happened on the weekend was entirely foreseeable. That fact in no way minimizes the violence, which was simply disgusting and which cannot be validated regardless of any real or perceived sins by government or big business. This was thuggish hooliganism, nothing less. We hope those guilty are charged, tried and convicted. A criminal conviction with the associated travel restrictions would be some small vindication. To the thousands of legitimate protesters whose passion and right to demonstrate is diminished, we offer empathy. But we'd also remind them they are judged by the company they keep. And to the Harper government, we say: Pay up. You brought the summit to Toronto, and have some responsibility given the near certainty violence would follow. Pay for the damages sustained by innocent businesspeople caught in the crossfire. It's the least you can do. Editorials are written by members of the editorial board. They represent the position of the newspaper, not necessarily the individual author.

Dukh Tiatr - Address delivered by Lourdino Rodrigues June 19, 2010 (Mogal Tiatr pollenarando. Ek gorjechi khobor sangonk maka dadla. Pun chod goroj assa hi khobor sogleani puri somzon geupak. Thodde amche Tiatr pollenarank Konkani puri somzona. Temchea passot make maffi korat hi khobor English baxen sangchi potta.) Dear fellow Goans, A Very good afternoon to you all. By your presence here today, you have demonstrated that, you do care for our language and culture. That is why, our actors feel that you need to know about the contributions made in the past at different times towards our culture. It hurts me to tell you that our language and culture is fast dying While the priests in the pulpits of Goan churches and the Tiatrists on the Goan stages are desperately trying to keep Konkani alive, in the households of Goa, English is slowly displacing Konkani. I am here to publicly acknowledge and thank those involved in guarding our language and culture in this part of the world . .First of all, I would like to thank The Goan Overseas Association. G.O.A is trying its best to safeguard our culture. , Late Richard Fernandes .started a group called Goan Theatrical Group for the propagation of Konkani through Tiatrs.. Prominent Goan actors such as late Richard Fdes and his wife Rosy Fernandes, late Frank Dsouza and his daughter Margaret,D’Souza,Nevis and Zulema D’Souza ,Martin and late Natalia Rodrigues, late Braz D’Cruz, Lena Remedious, , , Francis Fernandes ,Frank Fernandes, Lyn Souza Marques and a host of other actors worked very hard to put up Tiatrs. I believe only Goan “sorpotel,” sausages and “parra” last a long time. Anything else that is Goan does not last very long. That is why GTG ended its existence in the late eighties (1989) The hard work put up by these people should not be forgotten. On behalf of grateful community, I thank them and their families for their valuable contribution to the Konkani language.. When GTG ended,its existence, another group named Goan Konkani Troupe came up in 1989.  Since GKT was also Goan and it was neither “sorpotel” nor “para” it did not last beyond 2000. While GKT lasted,for glorious eleven years, various people worked hard to sustain it. These are a few of the names that come to my mind ;- Agnelo, Yolanda and Rhiza Gracias, Raymond and Charmaine Menezes ,Faria and Grace Fernandes Bernard and Birdie Gomes ,Silviano and Serah Barbosa, Jossie and Terry Corrasco, Winnie and Keith Crasto, Joe Vaz, Joe Moraes, Francis Moraes, Tony D’Silva, Olavio D’Costa A.C.Pereira-,Gerrard Sequira------and a host of other actors and volunteers. To those I have named and those whom I have forgotten to name, I thank them all. The future of Tiatrs looked bleak. Fortunately, Jr. Menezes and Marshal Fernandes filled in the vacuum with their private productions of Konkani Tiatrs; one of which you are witnessing today. I thank Marshal Fernandes for his valuable contribution to our Konkani cause. Jr. Menezes’ immigration to Canada in 1988 was a blessing to the Konkani stage. He brought to Canada a multitude of talents. His debut in “Familichem Nissanton “ 1989 and his acting in the following years brought him good reviews; so much so, that a well known Tiatr critic and the editor of South Asian observer Eugene Correia referred to Jr Menezes and I quote”Darling of the Tiatr lovers” unquote. Also,I am told that Mr Tony Barros of Goan Overseas Association of New Jersey in his speech quoted Jr. Menezes and I quote “Jr. Menezes, the legend” unquote. Out of about 20 Tiatrs that took place in Toronto so far, Jr. Menezes has acted in 13 of them; did comedy roles in all 13 and directed 11. He also wrote and directed twoTiatrs; one of which you are witnessing today. . Jr. Menezes introduced low budget special effects to the Konkani stage in Toronto. Most of the special effects you saw in the past and those you are seeing today are the “Brain Child” of Jr. Menezes People like A.C.Pereira, Alwyn,-Francis Constantino -and myself are only helping him to put his ideas into practice. . Raymond for all you have done to the Konkani stage on behalf of the grateful Goan community I thank you very much. Over the past decade or so, Jossie Corrasco has been working very hard.. The audience did not see her because she works behind the stage. It is a very demanding job. An actor studies about 1/10 of the play. Jossie as Play co-coordinator has to study the entire play. Jossie ,on behalf of the community, I thank you very much. Finally neither the Director nor the Producer can put up a Tiatr without the support of an audience. I wish to thank you all for supporting our Tiatrs with your presence. We Goans here today the audience and the actors; Tiatr patrons and actors of years gone by; can all rest happily that when our mother tongue sent out a distress call; we collectively stood up to answer. God willing, may the call be answered in the future I would like to end my speech with a quote from a great Konkani poet, late Prof. Manohar Sardessai in Konkani song; “Jedna avoin marlo ulo, Tedna tumi zale ube Goenche mhojea Goenkarando, Zaiat zague” VIVA KONKANI….VIVA GOAN CULTURE Enjoy the Tiatr. THANK YOU ALL.

Human element behind Air India probe http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/comment/article/562561--human-element-behind John Chick | 5 June 2010 03:39 The long-awaited release of the government’s Air India 182 report held little solace for the families of the 280 Canadians and 49 others who died over the Irish Sea June 23, 1985. Sixteen years before 9-11, it was at the time the deadliest terrorist attack in North American history. I know a little about this case because I lived it. In fact, it directly altered the course of my life. My father was a lead RCMP investigator on the simultaneous Tokyo Narita Airport bombing, which killed two baggage handlers. Had CP Air 003 not landed 14 minutes early, there would have been many more dead Canadians off the coast of Japan. While he’s never specifically told me it was the case, I’m fairly certain the toll the investigation took on my dad convinced him to ultimately take retirement five years earlier than he would have — meaning we had to move again. While the recent final report on Air India rightfully placed blame on CSIS and the RCMP for failing to prevent both disasters, it’s worth noting there were many fine investigators, including my father, who helped produce the only criminal conviction in either case — proving in court in 1991 that Inderjit Singh Reyat built the bomb that blew apart Japanese bag handlers Hideo Asano and Hideharu Koda. But in a country where many dismissed Air India 182 as an “Indian” tragedy, Narita would never get much media play in Canada. It’s long been suspected, but never proven, that Reyat was involved with the Air India bomb as well, perhaps something lost in the inexcusable disconnect between the then-new intelligence establishment and the national police force. CSIS had only been created less than a year earlier, virtually all its staff transplants from the old RCMP Security Service. A retired RCMP and CSIS person once told me that despite the shared roots, there were still areas of distrust between the two agencies. Why is anybody’s guess. There’s no question the flaws of the RCMP and CSIS were, and are, deserving of criticism. But remember, they are both staffed with humans, people who work hard and succeed at protecting lives in obscurity, often at great personal cost. And only get attention when they screw up. – John Chick is a copy editor at Metro. john.chick@metronews.ca

Reason and Passion - Creating the Balance http://www.mehfilmagazine.com/sufi_1005.cfm www.azimjamal.com | By Azim Jamal Your reason and passion are the rudder and the sails of the seafaring soul,” wrote Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-born philosopher, poet, and painter who wrote magnificently in both English and Arabic. “If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.” An equilibrium between reason and passion – between head and heart – is one of the essentials of Life Balance. It has been said that when the mind and the heart go to war, the body becomes the battlefield. The mind allows us to think, to reason, and to apply our wisdom to make a difference. The heart is where we feel. Through it, we love and use our creativity without inhibition. When we merge education of the mind with education of the heart, we strike a dynamic balance. We look with “both eyes” – the eye of the heart and the eye of the mind. We look at life as a whole, realizing that one element affects the other. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, explains that happiness comes from being balanced. He emphasizes that education without the balance of a warm heart can be dangerous and can bring unhappiness. Jesus taught that happiness belonged to the meek, the merciful, and the peaceable. But in driving the moneychangers from the temple, he showed that these qualities must be balanced with boldness. Paul showed faith in this principle when he spoke of his gentle approach to dealing with the congregation but his boldness in dealing with its adversaries. Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel peace prize laureate and first black Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, stresses the importance of a balance in our relationships with others. “In our African language,” he notes, “we say, ‘a person is a person through other persons.’ I would not know how to be a human being at all, except I learned this from other human beings. We are made for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence. We are meant to complement each other…. not even the most powerful nation can be completely self-sufficient.” Reason without passion is lame, and passion without reason is blind. Reason alone is dull, whereas passion alone can lead to destruction. When we marry the two, we have a wonderful synergy. Our reasoning protects us from doing silly things. Our passion gives us the drive to excel and go the distance. Reason draws from the mind, passion from the heart. Home vs. Career The balancing of home and career is the most common challenge executives face. Many feel compelled to make a choice between home and career. Life Balance will make that stark choice unnecessary. Technology was supposed to increase leisure time, presumably freeing us to spend more time with our families and less on the job. But technological progress seems to have brought us more things to do and less time in which to do them. A study by Health Canada shows that almost 60% of Canadians who are employed outside the home cannot balance work and family demands. Most give higher priority to their work than they do to their families. This is not uncommon in many countries. Flextime, which allows people the flexibility to schedule work time around family time, has been a major help in balancing family and work. Flextime, for example, might enable an employee to work 90% of a normal week for 90% of the pay. This could be enough to allow a parent to spend time with children after school. Flextime could also mean taking every other Friday off or working from home one day a week. Flextime is especially helpful for double-duty mothers or fathers who frequently are victims of role overload. Life for them can be a daily grind of cooking and cleaning, supervising homework, driving children to school, looking after elderly parents, and running endless errands in addition to earning a living. We’re living now in the age of burn-out, in which workaholics pursue frenetic lifestyles that hog their time, drain their resources, and leave them empty and unfulfilled. Many people engage in activity for activity’s sake, burying themselves in work or play to avoid facing real personal and spiritual needs. Others are in love with money, and seek to express that love by spending all their waking hours pursuing their careers. But truly successful people know that balance is essential to achievement, and they make room for quality time for family, friends, spiritual interests, and hobbies.  Lee Iacocca, as president of the Ford Division of Ford Motor Company and CEO of Chrysler, put in long days on the job. But he was also committed to staying home every weekend, enjoying time with his family, going to church, and reflecting on his life and times. A true leader is one who is holistic and balanced. From Life Balance the Sufi Way by Azim Jamal and Nido Qubein. Azim Jamal is the No. 1 Amazon Bestselling Co-Author of The Power of Giving: How Giving Back Enriches Us All (published by Penguin). Now available on Amazon and at major bookstores.