POINT OF NO RETURN: A STORY ABOUT LOVE, MURDER AND FORGIVENESS
What is your connection to the Island of Newfoundland?
Beyond the Fence
Family, Friends, Hometown, Ferry and Train Travel, Breathtaking Landscape, Unique Culture and more… POINT OF NO RETURN: A STORY ABOUT LOVE, MURDER AND FORGIVENESS is Jerry Rideout’s recent tale of life, love, faith, migration, survival, conflict and murder is brought to life through detailed and descriptive writing about the people, places, and rugged reality of the characters and land in which their stories are told. A compelling story and descriptions of Newfoundland that resonate with my visits to the island and the rugged landscape and unique people... Excellent work!
One of the most moving experiences this Boomer can recall from the time I have spent near Wreck Cove on the Atlantic Coast of Cape Breton is the disc of the rising sun spreading light on the ocean and revealing tens of small crafts of lobster fishers that have been “hauling traps” with the day’s harvest of lobster for hours before dawn.
The recent movie “Little Lorraine” reveals some of the danger and economic returns of this fishery that Atlantic Canada has shared with Maine since my grandfather’s time when the status of this particular catch moved from “poor peoples” food to a high end, high value, offering of the best restaurants.
Fifty years ago my first job, in my novice time as an electrical engineer, was with NB Tel in Saint John, about an hour away from the US border at St Stephen/Calais where you could work in St. Stephen and show your driver’s licence to US Customs and have lunch in Calais.
At that time, the Cable TV from the United States, that NB Tel carried on the microwave network, originated in Bangor. The audience in Maritime Canada came to understand our human connection to Maine as another phase of a much longer relationship of cooperation and competition with New England. The bottom line of my appeal is this: The economic damage to Maine, and perhaps lobster processing in New Brunswick threatens to be great.
The political gain of pinching Trump in an electoral cycle threatening the reelection of Maine US Senator Susan Collins is likely to be at the cost of hardworking American cousins with whom we share life on the Atlantic that can be challenging.
In many ways this tariff will devalue Canadian policy toward neighbours in the same way that Trump has devalued the relationship of the Presidency with Canada as merely a financial transaction.
The increase in wildfires has the effect of increasing the release of the green house gas (GHG) that is largely responsible for trapping heat in the atmosphere and drying out the boreal forest and making it more vulnerable to wildfire.
Wildfire Cycle
This is a positive feedback effect that can spiral out of control.
As a son of Industrial Cape Breton who was born there with fellow “boomers” almost 75 yrs ago, I found this movie resonated with the all too common experience of loss of employment for the main breadwinner as the steel and coal industry cycled from full shifts to shut downs under the tyranny of capitalism and brought into stark relief the morality of the extent to which displaced workers may have to go to provide for their families.
Most of my pre high school years were lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Anne’s and much of my school, spiritual, and social life revolved around this parish.The connection of the community to the Church in the movie and the closeness of the parish priest to the life of the people was reminiscent of my experience.
My dad was an electrical engineer who worked for the Dominion Coal Company and the successor public Cape Breton Development Corporation. We lived in a mixed economic neighbourhood in Glace Bay and a few “pit heads” along the coast were visible from the backyard. The relationship he had with the miners was mutually appreciative. He had a “pit bag” with a miner’s headgear and made trips underground to engineer and maintain the electrical motors and equipment upon which mining the “black gold” depends. My brother and I frequently spent what seemed to be hours in the car in the parking lot of one of the collieries on a weekend or during “miner’s vacation” in the summer as Dad needed to stop to check some electrical equipment. We were not discouraged by this experience as we are both now retired after careers as electrical engineers.
While I was studying prior to graduation from Nova Scotia Technical College, I was employed by Public Works Canada as part of a crew of surveyors who “staked out” roads and parking lots for the visitors to the Fortress Louisbourg National Historic Site. The movie displayed a bit of this impressive historic restoration that was constructed by coal miners displaced from the mines. This model of public works of national importance becoming employment for displaced workers, even those who had to be retrained, is an excellent option for support that has seemingly been forgotten. My trip to Louisbourg from Sydney was along the highway that is a few kilometers inland from Little Lorraine but the excellent cinematography of the movie captured the centrality of making a living on the sea that is so much a part of life in Canada’s Ocean Playground, and the opportunities for illegal enterprise based on a coastline with thousands of coves and boats of all sizes and purposes in and out of the harbours. During the days of “Prohibition” in the United States “rum runners” supported themselves addressing the thirst of the Republic to the South and today a visit to the coastal towns of the Maritimes reveals the wealth of some “respected families” who engaged in this “trade”. The "libertarian" view of not taking personal or social responsibility for the choices of others that may be detrimental to their health, particularly if it would threaten your sincere efforts to improve the lot of those close to you was brought into conflict with the long standing ethic of miners and “socialists” that we are our keepers of our brothers and sisters and the equitable distribution of the wealth of work is essential. This movie “moves” us to ponder the paradox of “progress” that we have to confront, particularly returning to an economy that prioritizes returns for the shareholder over sustaining families and communities. “Little Lorraine” creatively and dramatically with excellent acting clarifies the future decisions we will need to make as AI displaces the workers of today.
Recent news of the Prime Minister of Israel refusal to cooperate with Iran peace plan and images of the destruction of Gaza and the attacks on Lebanon brought some research to mind on International Humanitarian Law and the apparent refusal of the IDF to use AI as a guide to the proportional and discriminate conduct of war that this technology can facilitate.
AI and impact on death in Gaza (May 2024)
The admonition of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew to extend the restriction on retribution proclaimed in the Book of Leviticus as “an eye for an eye” was hopefully made possible with modern AI supported intelligent surveillance and targeting systems that have been proven to be able to locate, identify, and select a weapon response that “neutralizes the target” with minimal "collateral" death and destruction.
Humeyra Pamuk, writing for Reuters, reports that US President Donald Trump has chastised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the death of civilians due to the tactics of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon.
Summary in Reuters Article:
Trump said Israel need not bomb entire apartment buildings to target Hezbollah militants
Rebuke comes amid tensions between Trump and PM Netanyahu over Lebanon, Iran deal
White House said Trump still has a strong relationship with Netanyahu (Pamuk, 2026)
A White House official said:
"There has been no greater friend to Israel and a fighter for peace than President Trump...Americans and our allies around the world are already safer for the United States and Israel’s bold actions to deny the Iranian regime the ability to develop a nuclear weapon,"
There is no indication that Trump's comments would translate into meaningful policy that would force Israel to rethink its military tactics in a way to ensure greater protection for civilians.
Israel has faced sharp criticism from other countries, particularly during its assault on Gaza that has killed 73,000 people, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israel says it never targets non-combatants and says militant groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Hezbollah regularly use civilians as human shields. (Pamuk, 2026)
Some other background is contained in these earlier posts.
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