Last week the “Ottawa – Carleton” School Board announced a big change coming soon in their neighbourhood. The Scholars of the Board will make students short of grades to graduate partake in the graduation celebrations. Awesome really, like when Christ turned Water into Wine and kept the party going. The Wise Scholars of Ottawa cover up for their failing to educate some of the young in their charge by cleverly excluding “graduation” from the title of the celebration. Henceforth, instead of “Graduation and Commencement Ceremonies and Awards”, it will be plain Commencement Ceremonies”. Neat, ain’t it? Here is how the Scholars of the Board explained the transformation:
"The main difference between a commencement ceremony and a graduation ceremony is that a commencement ceremony is more inclusive. This aligns with the Board's larger commitments to equity, inclusion, and diversity”.
Be darned! I thought the “Board's larger commitments” were to education.
Anyway, “Equity” sounds like equality, and in a sense it is. If you work 2 days for twice the pay I get for 1 day, there is equity, although our incomes are unequal. But that is not what the Board is after. Succinctly said, the Board seeks to hide the reality that the Board failed to adequately educate those who do not graduate. This makes the trick only one notch less deceptive than graduating those who do not not pass the grade. The exclamation is in the confusion of whether the Board’s mission is inclusion or deception.
This avant garde outpour of the School Board Scholars is traceable to the Greeks’ failure to understand equity, inclusion, exclusion and diversity. You can fathom the enormity of the historic wrong the Greeks are guilty of and which the Board eradicates, by looking at the Olympic Games, which the tiny Greek minority has imposed on the Earth-wide majority. In the Olympics, the winners get artfully woven Laurel crowns to wear on their heads while the rest are unceremoniously send home to “Try again, next time”. Yet, these are the real heroes, for if they had not lost, the winners could not have won! Do I miss something here?
This colossal failure of the Greeks to prevent dreaded exclusivity on the Olympic podium and their reckless neglect to prevent it from migrating onto Western Civilization, has caused generations upon generations of civilization-colonization harm. Let’s hope and pray that some of the Ottawa Board Scholars wiggle their way onto the International Olympic Committee, claim their minority rights and ensure that every athlete, including the doped, gets to the podium and is Medalled. Yes Sir! No more Podium Exclusivity, forever podium Inclusivity!
Now let’s have Trudeau Demon-ize the Greeks and Deity-ize the hitherto “hurt”, those historically suppressed below Gold, Silver and Bronze. Let’s make sure Trudeau credits the Board of Scholars for helping him apologize for the historic Olympic wrong.
These bring me back to the Order of Canada system I wrote about in the last column. I will go back on the 2015 document “The Order of Canada and Diversity”. It is a thoroughly modern document, probably authored by some ConSultants hired by the GG, to drill into our heads love for the Order. Indeed, this is in the title of the diatribe, encapsulated in the word “Diversity”. We must honour all, lest someone excluded feel hurt. “Inclusivity” is the name of the game. Forgive and forget Aristotle for urging us to forever seek to excel, the poor chap could not fathom the harm he was causing by aiding and abetting civilization, that is all!
This reminds me of a joke (I think it is). A PoParty junkie, approach the PoParty (Political Party) boss to get him a post in the municipal band. What instrument do you play?, the PoBoss inquires. I cant’ play any, the musician aspirant answeres. But the post I want is to wiggle the stick from the podium, he clarified. He didn’t get “included” in the band, but surely he was “excluded” form it. This only because it was before the Ottawa Scholars taught inclusivity to World .
“The Order of Canada and Diversity” diatribe summarizes what it takes to become “Order-ized”. It lists 10 “Fields of activity”, has nine bar-graphs and one photograph. The fields are: 1 Academic; 2 Activist; 3 Arts; 4 Business; 5 Communications; 6 Public Service; 7 Health; 8 Philanthropy; 9 Science; 10 Sport.
No space to discuss all but I will do #1 which reads: “Includes all non-science ... [but includes] mainly social sciences.” Sounds like spaghetti-omelette without the egg ...
True to their mission, the Order-givers (sarcasm has a reason) have listed the “merits” alphabetically. This, lest listing them in order of importance raises suspicion of inequality, I presume. They have included “lawyers” in two categories but have excluded “Engineers” from all. They have also fudged the “definitions”, as per the old Judge’s suggestion (See March 8 column). Evidently the Devil is in the detail ...
But by definition Honoraria are instituted specifically to include and exclude people, and do it on the basis of merit ... don’t they?