Roxanne Tellier – Stop LYING To ME!

With apologies to Al Franken, I am utterly sick of Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them. Sick to death of the posturing, the gaslighting, the sneaky grins that escape their mouths when they think we can’t see them.

Roxanne Tellier – Who Really Won the War on Terror?

In 2001, I had a small eBay business that was doing pretty well. I had five people that worked with me to expedite the collectibles that I shipped around the world. About 90% of my business income came from American buyers. 

That summer had been slow, as summers were, but as we headed into September, and with the holiday season approaching, I wasn’t worried about ramping back up to pay my staff. In fact, in preparation for the busy season, my husband and I had planned a well-earned vacation to Western Canada, to see my family there. We would be flying out on September 13^th.  

Roxanne Tellier – It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over

In 1865, after the collapse of the Confederacy, Confederate General Joseph O.Shelby, aka “the Undefeated” and his “Iron Brigade,” a band of about 600 soldiers, rode south to Mexico. There, after a grueling three-month slog through the desert, they offered their services as a ‘foreign legion’  to Maximilian 1, an Austro-Hungarian who had been installed as emperor of Mexico in 1864.

Roxanne Tellier – Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt

People are utterly fascinating, if you have the luxury of standing back and simply observing the way they think. Mesmerizing, but oftentimes, head-shakingly and misguidedly, arrogant. Best to avoid them in groups.

Take this week’s Supreme Court decision on carbon taxes; in his decision, Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote that “Climate change is real. It is caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities, and it poses a grave threat to humanity’s future.” 

He added, “The evidence clearly shows that establishing minimum national standards of GHG price stringency to reduce GHG emissions is of concern for Canada as a whole. This matter is critical to our response to an existential threat to human life.” 

Roxanne Tellier – My Fellow Americans

It is believed that the first president to use the term “my fellow Americans” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his Inaugural Address of 1933.

Roxanne Tellier – Reeling in the Years

“You wouldn’t know a diamond if you held it in your hand.” Truer words never spake, Messrs Becker and Fagen. Ah, the things Americans have thrown away in fits of pique.

The domestic terrorists that sacked the Capitol on January 6^th  did a gross disservice to themselves, and every other American citizen or visitor to America, that will have impact for the next many decades. If they thought wearing a mask, or being ‘cancelled’ for their QAnon views impinged upon their ‘freedumbs’ before, they’re about to find out the very hard way how much more they lost with that day’s sedition.

Roxanne Tellier – Montreal, Cemeteries, and Donovans

My family has a tiny burial plot on Mount Royal, in the Cotes de Neiges cemetery, and that’s where the bones and ashes of my ancestors have been interred for over a hundred years.

It’s been two months since my aunt’s passing. The clan will gather this week to bring her ashes home.

“Patricia Donovan, daughter of Freda (James) Donovan and Denis Patrick Donovan, the last of her generation, died March 29, 2019 in Ottawa. 
Born in Montreal, Patricia lived most of her life there. She enjoyed travel, and worked for a time in Washington, D.C. She moved to Toronto and cared for her mother until her mother’s passing. 

Roxanne Tellier – Hiding the Mueller Report Under a Rabbit

Happy Easter! Did you find any chocolate in inappropriate places today?

We’re not religious, nor do we have any little ones in the house, so we just sort of forgot about the whole thing until we tried to buy some milk, and found the grocery store closed Friday.

Roxanne Tellier – Exit the Idiot Whisperer

Ever have, oh, I don’t know… about 6 or 700 of ‘those days,’ where you start to wonder if it’s actually possible that you just might have woken up on another, identical, but much stupider, planet?

Roxanne Tellier – Mother’s Day, CMW and This is America

My mother has been gone since April of 1992 … 26 years ago. There are days when it feels like we were playing a spirited game of Rummoli only yesterday, and other days when I can’t remember what it was like to have my own little family.  After my mum and grandmother died just days apart in that horrible year, the tenuous link we had with Montreal was broken. While I’ve been ‘home’ a few times since then, Quebec hasn’t really drawn me back for decades.