Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Armchair Mayor Column Page 10 of 33

Weekly Column: Let’s Never Get Tired Of Making People’s Lives Better

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On November 27, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Health, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on November 26, 2018. 

It’s 4am on Saturday. I wake up thirsty and amble my way into the kitchen, fill a glass with water and drink it to the last drop. I return to bed and snuggle back under the covers. Warm and comfortable, I fall back asleep.

The first thought that surfaces on that bright and sunny morning goes straight to the boy at the heart of one of the saddest community tragedies that took place in Kamloops, as someone recently called it on the fundraiser page. Jessie Simpson, whom I mentioned in a recent column, questioning whether the justice system betrayed his cause (I think it did.)

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Weekly Column: What’s The Best Way To Deal With Lack Of Empathy?

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On November 19, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday, November 19, 2018. 

Every now and then certain news makes me go silent. ‘How is that possible?’ is all I can think. Such was the case of the recent break-ins (yes plural, since it happened in two consecutive nights) at the Merritt compound of the Nicola Valley Search and Rescue. In one word: heinous. The organization, like the rest of them across B.C., is run by volunteers. An admirable group of people to say the least. You’d think even a thief (or however many) would just believe enough in bad karma and skip the ‘job’.

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Weekly Column: Remembrance Day Files – It Feels Like Family

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On November 16, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories, Self-improvement, Social issues

‘In Flanders fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below…’

It is impossible to describe the deep reverence the reading of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s famous poem conferred to the sea of people gathered around the cenotaph on Remembrance Day. It is one of those situations that can be summed up by an overused but adequate phrase: ‘you had to be there.’ The words of the poem are haunting, and the images they conjure stay alive in the hearts and minds of us all. Every single time.

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Weekly Column: Let’s Always Remember

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On November 5, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on November 5, 2018. 

My grandfather was a WWII veteran. He died when I was nine, and so did the stories that he might have been inclined to share. I have old photos of him in uniform, and I know a few of the jolly stories – including how he courted my grandmother – family folklore that made us kids giggle. But I do not know the anguish, the pain, the horror he experienced as a WWII soldier.

Hence the silence that was draped all over my thoughts when, as a kid, I was passing by the cemetery. There were many rows of graves of WWI and WWII soldiers; the tombstones that said ‘unknown soldier’ were far more numerous than the ones with a name. Back then, as a child, I shuddered thinking what it must be like to lose my mom or dad that way.

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Weekly Column: Is Our Justice System Letting Us Down?

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On October 29, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday, October 29, 2018. 

Once again, I toss my midweek-written column. I had started writing about the troublesome aspect of our present-day life, which is the excess we have created. Put in the context of the growing mountains of garbage, plastic waste in particular, it seems ridiculous and irresponsible to add more to the pile. But we do, and every weekly flyer is proof to that. I was also mentioning the absurdity of seeing Christmas items already in stores (the story of garbage has many chapters indeed.)

I will save it for another week; nothing will change in the meantime, except for more flyers arriving in the mail tempting us to buy more so we can have more so we can actually have less. Among other things, less gratitude and a lesser sense of responsibility towards our future; our children’s future.

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Weekly Column: Hope Can Reign Supreme Even Under Dire Circumstances

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On October 22, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on Monday, October 22, 2018. 

I started writing this column before Saturday. It was to be about the environmental mess we’re in, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) and the increasing difficulty in finding hope.

Saturday morning came, sunny and beautiful (almost impossible to not feel hopeful on a sunny October morning,) and the voting places got busy.

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Weekly Column: Restriction On How We Use Cannabis Have Their Place

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On October 15, 2018

In Armchair Mayor Column, Health, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Motherhood, Self-improvement, Social issues

Originally published as a column on CFJC Today Kamloops and Armchair Mayor News on October 15, 2018. 

October 17 is just around the corner. Cannabis will be legal (and the province expects a hit from the first orders, predicted to come as a huge wave as many want to make history by ordering as soon as cannabis becomes legal,) and many others are bracing for what the legalization brings about.

One of the concerns is driving while under the influence.

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