Revolutionary Moderation

Desiderantes meliorem patriam



At any time, there may only be one hundred sixty-five living Companions of the Order of Canada. There are three rankings to the Order of Canada, and Companion is the highest civilian honour of chivalry the government of Canada awards - the Canadian equivalent of India's Bharat Ratna, or Japan's Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum.



Yesterday, Her Excellency the Governor-General named four new Companions to the Order of Canada. Of the four, two of them I could not care less about, though I'm sure they're very fine fellows - I mean, Companions and all. An economist and some sort of business-person... I'm sure you can find out a great deal about them if you're so inclined.



The other two, Leonard Cohen, C. C., and Stephen Lewis, C. C. both have biographies too extensive to try to sum up in my pithy little blog, but one good (short) one of Lewis can be found here. Meanwhile, there's more biography in a hundred-odd words written by Cohen than in ten thousand written about him. But for you non-Canadians in the crowd, here we go:



Stephen Lewis, C. C. is a former Ontario NDP leader who has done extensive humanitarian work since his political career ended, most recently as the UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. My first exposure to him was as a pundit, where he appeared on Morningside with the late Dalton Camp for the Tories, the late Erik Kierans for the Liberals, and the late Peter Gzowski hosting. (That's gotta feel a little lonely for Lewis.) His calm, reasoned arguments were a big influence to my eventual settling on the NDP as my own party, and seeing what he's doing now, I think I can remain proud of my party choice.



Leonard Cohen, C. C. is a poet-turned-musician. He started publishing poetry in 1956, and started publishing music in 1968. Amazingly, he still does both, to as much acclaim as he received nearly a half-century ago. His music has been the soundtrack to my adult life, ever since I was introduced to it at a relatively late nineteen years old, in 1988. I heard the album I'm Your Man for the first time after I was talked into it by a salesgirl who I had a bit of a crush on. Frankly, she could have sold me anything in my condition at the time (and she did - I hope she was on commission), but I remain grateful she sold me that. I heard Take This Waltz once, and needed to own everything he had published. I had absolutely no idea, but it was several trips back to the salesgirl for me, so it worked out fine.