[PHOTO] Old City Hall Cenotaph

Old City Hall Cenotaph
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

Wikipedia puts it best.

The Old City Hall Cenotaph is located at front steps of Old City Hall (Toronto).

Originally built after World War I to commemorate Torontonians whom lost their lives in services for Canada, the memorial also commemorates those whom died in World War II and the Korean War.

The site is one of several locations used for Remembrance Day in Toronto, Ontario. Remembrance Day is on November 11.

[LINK] Happy bicentenary, Abraham Lincoln!

I'd like to thank the Great Liberator, the man who managed to keep a goodly chunk of our common continent--at least--from plunging into a prolonged nightmare. We should all be happy that Harry Turtledove never got a chance to write history textbooks, for several reasons.

Anyhow. Did you know that "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was part of the Grade 4 music class curriculum on Prince Edward Island in the 1980s? I still find it a great song. Here's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance.

"West Side Highway" (Watch on YouTube)

[LINK] Happy bicentenary, Charles Darwin!

It's only fitting to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the man whose use of (among other things) inductive logic revolutionized our understanding of the living world. I count the fact that he also helped make the field of biology that much more comprehensible for a young man from Prince Edward Island way back when as an additional bonus.

[LINK] "Darwin, Lincoln, we salute your birth"

I like Don Lindman's article from the Chicago Daily Herald.

Two hundred years ago two boys were born, one to a prominent English family and the other to a dirt-poor Kentucky farmer who could barely write his name.

As Adam Gopnik writes in the February 2009 issue of Smithsonian, a lot of pebbles splash into the tide of history. Almost all make a small mark that soon disappears in the flow of the tide, but occasionally one comes along that changes the direction of the ocean itself.

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were ocean-changing pebbles, both born Feb. 12, 1809.

Darwin's ideas of the evolution of species triggered changes in science that have been of tsunami size. Lincoln's stance on racial equality and on the strength of the democratic system of government have not only brought about irreversible changes in American society but triggered similar changes in many other nations around the world.

These two men were not the only ones who contributed to events. They weren't even the first. But they stand as leaders and symbols of their causes.

Darwin was studying for the Anglican priesthood when he went on a five-year voyage as a naturalist on board the HMS Beagle. He returned to England with the data from which he formulated his theory of the development of species through evolution.

For 20 more years he gathered data and reworked his theories before finally making them public. In doing so he eventually became the poster boy for progress among scientists and the poster boy for evil in the eyes of the church.

However, after nearly 200 years of additional evidence and study Darwin's ideas are more deeply than ever ingrained in the workings of science, while religious opposition has weakened considerably.

Every generation seems to revisit Lincoln and his ideas, and posit some new and revisionist rewriting of his history. One common idea is that Lincoln really was a racist, and that his Emancipation Proclamation and his anti-slavery speeches were tools in his real political concern - keeping the nation together.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lincoln grew in his opposition to slavery, but there's no need to force an either/or decision on his motives for going to war. He appears to both be a believer in the cause of freeing the slaves and also in the cause of keeping the nation together.

Had he not kept the nation together, democracy as a viable political system would have failed.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a friend of the new nation, wrote in the early 19th century: "I will refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called upon to hold together forty different nations covering an area half that of Europe."

That government did hold together, and over 230 years later it stands as the beacon of freedom and self-government for the rest of the world. It also stands as a representative of the struggle for civil rights. That is one reason why Barack Obama's election was so significant on the worldwide scene.

Both men had their flaws. We may disagree with some or many of the ideas they held. But Darwin and Lincoln were two of those rare pebbles that made the ocean turn around and flow in a different direction. We celebrate their birth.

[LINK] "The Parkdale Seal: 1879 to 1889"

I recently came across an interesting and amusing historical item in regards to the west-end neighbourhood of Parkdale. Between 1879 and 1889, Parkdale was a municipality independent of Toronto, but then, as Matthew Blackett tells us at Spacing Toronto, the annexationists

The 1998 creation of the "megacity", a merger of all of metro Toronto’s cities and boroughs, was the last in a long line of annexations. Places like Forest Hill, Swansea and Parkdale were once independent towns with their own municipal buildings and councils.

I was perusing the book Parkdale In Pictures: Its Development To 1889 by Margaret Laycock and Barbara Myrvold and published by the Toronto Public Library, when I stumbled across the former town’s coat of arms (Parkdale existed only as an incorporated village/town for 10 years from 1879 to 1889). Unlike other Canadian coat of arms (and even Toronto’s)--which usually depict beavers, bears, lions, griffins, etc--the Parkdale version was much more humble and personal.

The town seal reflected the occupations of the first elected members of the village council. It was made up of five representatives: one reeve and four councillors for each of the wards (St. Vincent’s, St. Martin’s, St. Mark’s, and St. Alban’s). John Gray Jr., elected as Parkdale’s first reeve, was a nurseryman, so he was represented by the maple tree near the top; the scales of justice symbolized the barrister James B. Davis; a book for bookseller Charles Frankish; a bull’s head for butcher Joseph Norwich; and a quill for the local bookkeeper Udney A. Walker.

And just like the massive opposition to the 1998 megacity creation, the annexation of Parkdale created a lot of debate. After the votes were cast on October 27, 1888, the pro-annexationists won. Laycock and Myrvold described the the hours and days that followed: "A victory parade of about 100 annexationists carrying torches or lit brooms was led by the Toronto Bold and Iron Works band. The public arguments continued for days while accusations of cheating spread... Ex-Reeve Hugh McMath even launched an unsuccessful lawsuit to quash the vote."