letter to the sparkly new "Globe"

The other day, I was reading the "Globe," as I am wont to do. I still read it regularly, though I cancelled my subscription after seeing one too many smarmy pictures of Stephen Harper trying out his difficult new project - smiling. And I admire the colourful redesigned format - it's brave to put money into print these days, and I hope their gamble pays off.

But a few lines in Margaret Wente's column so infuriated me that I sat down and, in five minutes, wrote her a letter. As I was about to send it off, I decided to copy it to the Letters to the Editor.

Lo, this morning on rising, there were already two notes in my in-box - both from friends who also like to write to editors - about my letter in today's paper. I was amazed and of course, had to go to the corner store to buy a copy. The piece had gone so quickly from brain to "Sent" that I was afraid I'd be humiliated by its contents. But it's okay. Funnily enough, I had just decided to resubscribe, and now that they've shown such great good taste in their letter selection, I shall do so with the greatest pleasure, even if their columnists - and photographs - sometimes drive me nuts.

Here's it is, edited to the bone (they cut it, expertly, in half) and titled "Low bar":

Excoriating Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty for "fooling around with all-day kindergarten"? (Two and a Half Cheers for Rob Ford, Oct. 5.) Do you think that for the millions of families in this province with young children, all-day kindergarten is some kind of silly frill? Decades ago, my friends in France sent their children to all-day school starting at the age of 2 - paid for by the government.

Our politics now, thanks to the extremely low bar set by our neighbours to the south, is increasingly about getting elected by appealing to people's worst instincts - selfishness, greed, paranoia. Rob Ford would be right at home at Sarah Palin's side.

The first thing I did after reading it? Call my mother, in Ottawa, who I knew would be in bed reading the "Globe." As she was, and proudly read my letter aloud. "Oh dear," she said, "Rob Ford will be really angry at you."

"He's always angry, Mum," I said. "And he can't single me out - millions of us feel the same way."

She's sick today, and I'm not there to take care of her. Now that, at sixty, I am much less worried about my independent children, I'm much more worried about my increasingly vulnerable mother and aunt. I guess for us middle-aged care-givers, keeping the worry level just about even is nature's way of making sure we don't forget we're women.