Cheers &Jeers

CHEERS: Important calls

What a lovely gesture to have installed an old green rotary phone in the middle of the woods on the Van Tassel Lake trail system near Digby.

As the story on page 5 points out, the phone is connected to nothing but the wind.

But, of course, it’s connected to more than that.

This Phone of the Wind – an initiative that started in Japan and has since sprouted up throughout the world – is meant to be a means for people to be connected with loved ones who have died.

While out walking – a peaceful and reflective activity in itself – people are invited to use the phone to call the people they miss. People who, no doubt, are always on the minds of their loved ones.

While the conversations may be one-sided, the love being felt is anything but.

CHEERS: Our lobster fishers

Another commercial lobster fishing season off southwestern Nova Scotia is around the corner.

Let us take this opportunity to wish all of those involved in this six-month fishery a safe season. Because, ultimately, that’s what is most important.

It’s looking likely, however, that it will be a stressful season.

Lower prices paid to fishers for their catches, coupled with higher expenses, won’t be a great combination.

And we will likely see the impacts of this in the local economy, which is truly driven by the lobster industry.

All we can do is hope for the best and count our blessings each day when those on the sea return home safely.

JEERS: Racism

Last week Sport Nova Scotia held its first-ever NS Sport & Recreation Anti-Racism Week.

As part of this week of awareness, a few athletes publicly spoke out about painful, hurtful and uncalled experiences they’ve gone through.

Hockey goalie Mark Connors, a teenage black athlete, spoke about having the N-word hurled at him by spectators – both players and parents – while at a hockey tournament and being told that hockey is a sport for white people.

University basketball player Aiyanna Empringham spoke about the time her Indigenous heritage was called out because others felt, simply put, that she didn’t look the part. Because of their ignorance, she was accused of lying.

There is no room for racism anywhere in our society, yet sadly it occurs daily.

To have it directed at young athletes is equally disturbing. Sport is an area where athletes of all skill levels should feel safe. It’s also, often, an area where young people build up self-confidence and selfesteem.

All of this can be undone, and have long-lasting impacts, by ugly and hateful words.

If you’ve ever done this to someone else look in their mirror.

They are not the bad people. You are.

This is not what sport is about.