Here are some things that you should avoid doing during the moment of silence at a Remembrance Day service:
1. Checking your BlackBerry.
2. Groping your significant other (get up early and you’ll have time to fuck before you leave the house).
3. Whispering lame witticisms to the person next to you and laughing (or work on your material).
4. Taking photos with your phone.
I’m pretty sure that we can all do this if we put our minds to it, but if for some reason you can’t, please don’t show up next year. (Luckily enough, all of the worst offenders left about halfway through. What a surprise.)
Also, a special frown of disapproval goes to the motorcyclist who went down the street behind the square like five times really slowly, revving the engine the whole way. What’s your story? —Let’s have a moment of PEACE to remember the victims of war and regret its horrors
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.
It doesn’t matter what others are doing, only what you yourself is doing during that minute. If you’re thinking about the disrespect of others you’re not respecting what you should be.
I agree except for the foto taking…. who cares?
as an ex forces person, this just burns my fucking ass too. if you don’t have any fucking respect, stay the fuck away. us fools didn’t put our lives on the line for these assholes to sneer, snicker or any other derogatory type of sound, movement or anything else other that just 2 fucking minutes of silence. you know what that means, it means doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing for 2 whole minutes. but if you can’t do that, then the next time a war or battle is called for canada to be in, you get your smarmy fucking ass over to where ever the hell it is, and see if you like being shot at. just fucking disgraceful.
I think his story is
“Once upon a time a fucking asshole drove his motorcycle by services honouring our war dead, while revving his engine. Strangely enough many of the crowd though he was a complete douchenozzle”.
OB, did you happen to see the asshats’ colours? If so what group?
Before Alexa was Halifax’s Member of Parliament we had the dubious privilege of being represented by a slipshod lawyer who resembled a WWII Barrage Balloon with a mouth the size of Bedford Basin and a brain no larger than a dehydrated pecan. Watching her laughing with one of her fartcatchers during the 2 minutes of silence was something I was only too happy to reminder her of when she hauled her sweating bulk up to my door at election time. She lost and then we inflicted her on the good folk of Boston where she directly contributed to the tragic “Bean Famine of ’98”
Screw off OP I’ll take photos if I damn well please, maybe you can add to your list, looking around at everyone else and making mental notes about what should and shouldn’t be done! asswipe…
I see nothing wrong with taking a photo. Just another way to remember those who serve.
I think the problem stems from making November 11th a kind of ‘holiday’ and giving lots of people the day off.
There was a time when Remembrance Day services were broadcast and folks tuned in, whether at work or at home or at school and paused in whatever they were doing to observe a minute or two of silence. I think that was a more fitting and significant way to remember the fallen.
In our school, we assembled in the gym and were addressed by the Principal and, usually, a veteran. A trumpeter from our school band would stand outside the gym and down the hall and play “The Last Post” (one year that was me). The effect was very haunting and moving, hearing those notes echoing through the empty halls and classrooms as we all stood perfectly still in the gym. Afterwords, we all went back to our classrooms and back to work.
I think this kind of commemoration is more fitting than just giving everyone the day off so they can sit around watching tv.
Maybe folks wouldn’t like it, though. People are different now. Back then (mid-sixties) veterans were all around. My father and most of the fathers who lived on our street had been in uniform during WWII.
To my way of thinking, turning November 11th into just another day off has somehow deflected attention away from its original purpose and turned it into a public spectacle or sorts.