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Very often, in writing this diary, we tell of the less pleasant things, as well as some of the good things about the area. Our purpose in providing this information is to enable buyers to beware. No-one else will tell you the unpleasant things about an area. We have never seen information like this made available before. Buying a home is the most expensive investment you will ever make. We are not sales people. Apart from our own homes, we do not own any property in the area. Please do not write to us telling us the good things about this area .. any sales person or the local tourist office can provide that information. Of course, they are only interested in selling. That is the only information they want you to know. For other such matters of interest about Guelph go to http://www.sentex.net/~oficserv/Guelph.html

Tuesday 11th September 2001

A terrible day, an unspeakable day. I have taken the liberty of paraphrasing Shakespeare's Henry V's "Call to Battle" speech, from Act IV Scene III:-

If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our Country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man
more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who does feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And money for transport put in his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then he will strip his sleeve and show his
scars.
And say: 'These wounds I had on Crispin's
Day.

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot
But he'll be remembered with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall their
names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But they in it shall be remember'd;

The few, the happy few, the band of brothers;
For he today who shed his blood
Shall be a brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen abroad now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not
here
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any
speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

On the subject of the training of "bin whatsizname's" attack force: It occurs to me that he has many wives and masses of sons and daughters. If he took the time to have a few trained to be pilots for this specific suicide mission .. one wonders in what other professions his other children and followers may be trained!! Canada is so desperate for doctors, the criteria have just been lowered. On an impersonal level, one still wonders what other followers of "bin" may have been trained over here in professions where they could at any time carry out terrible missions. Even if the Afghans hand over "bin" what of his many children? And, on the same subject:

In addition, I would recommend reading "About Men" by Phyllis Chesler. Turn to Page 154 to learn about the male of Iranistan. (Phyllis, as a young woman, was at twenty, "the foreign bride of his third-born son, gone from him for ten years, to study in America" .. etc. So, she writes with authority on the subject):-

"Unknowingly, I have wandered into our human past. It is a relief, finally, to enter the archetype of the Family of Man, in a slightly tarnished, but still unbroken form. Here I can sit down in the lap of the Tribe, with my ancestors still whole and quite visible.
What is dangerously submerged, and even more dangerously denied in Western minds, walks unselfconsciously about in Iranistan: existing, prevailing, taken for granted.
In Iranistan, I first became sensitive to the deadly and complicated love-play among men. Here, where the center still holds, I was able to see how normally powerful, how normally cruel, fathers are to sons; and how daily, how familial an occurrence fratricide (the killing of family members by their fathers) is.
Here, in a "foreign" place, I learned to see what was hidden in more familiar Western places. Here, where male rivalry seemed to resolve itself in a highly ritualized separation of the sexes, I began to understand that men, not women, are the deadliest killers of men on earth".

Eventually .. as you may read, Phyllis made her merciful escape from that terrible society. But, she has obtained, I think, very important and helpful information about their behaviour. This book was very favourable reviewed by numerous well known people .. including Dr. Robert Seidenberg Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, SUNY at Syracuse.

Link to the Movies Pages at "movies.yahoo.com"

Visit a site for many photographs of North American Birds and animals.

Rhona Raskin Home Page at http://www.rhona.com.