The Inverness Oran

Columns and Letters

Column: From riches to richer

Details: Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 January 2022 13:22

January 19, 2022

-by Frank Macdonald
    A conversation I was having with a friend several years ago, was about a man we both knew, recently deceased. He died, we learned, with a million bucks in the bank. Wherever he went after death, he obviously couldn’t take it with him.
   “Stupid fool!” my friend said. “I’d be ashamed to die and have people say I saved a million dollars. Better they said I spent a million dollars before I died.”
   Of course, this was at a time when a million dollars was substantially more money than it is today. Now it’s merely a game show jackpot. I suppose millionaires don’t even receive invitations to billionaires’ get-togethers. And the price of a ticket to that club just got a lot higher.
   Over the past two years, the rest of the world has been just trying to survive COVID-19 and its daily risk of exposure, trying not to become one of its 850,000 US death to date (31,500 in Canada.)

Letter: Changes in attitude

Details: Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 January 2022 13:24

January 19, 2022

Dear Editor,
Attitude is crucial to everything we accomplish or don’t accomplish in our lives no matter what our goals are – whether that is learning how to play a musical instrument or achieve a particular vocation. Our beliefs determine a great deal about our attitude so I invite you to think about the following – “As wonderful as science is, science cannot see nature from an Aboriginal lens. And the big difference there is that science sees nature as an object; the Aboriginal lens sees nature as a subject. Because it’s through the language, it teaches you that everything is alive, physically and spiritually.” – Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall.
Our attitude towards our planet has changed enormously in this last century. We have gone from taking our weather and climate for granted to being very concerned to say the least. One issue that came to the foreground was when scientists discovered the ozone layer that protected humanity from harmful solar rays was being depleted by our use of harmful chemicals. World leaders came together in 1997 and signed what is now known as the “Montreal Protocol” which banned the use of those harmful chemicals almost world wide. This was a huge success.