Lorne Riley visits the Pyramids after speaking at international conference on Global PR Trends

Lorne Riley, the son of Jackie and the late Lorne Riley, a graduate of Chapleau High School, is the head of corporate communications at Dubai International Airports, He is also a graduate of Carleton University. 

Lorne's father, with his friend Keith J "Buddy Swanson", founded the Chapleau Junior B Huskies of the International Junior B Hockey League. Lorne and Buddy were two of Chapleau's foremost hockey figures in the community's history.

The following article first appeared on www.kamazooie.com. Lorne spoke at his first international conference and took the opportunity to visit the Pyramids. Congrats, as always, Lorne. Thanks for letting me share the story

BY LORNE RILEY

For the first time in my career I was invited to speak at a conference, in this case "Global PR Trends" held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cairo, Egypt. The presentation went swimmingly as I talked about Dubai Airports' communication strategy and how it delivered value to the business. If anything I could have shortened it a bit, but I digress. Over dinner that night the conference organizer, Kosta Petrov who hails from Macedonia, insisted I take full advantage of a very rare opportunity to see the pyramids before leaving Egypt. Given the conference started at 10:00, I could feasibly take a quick tour and be back in time for the morning session.

With rubber arm firmly twisted, I set out at 0700 from the hotel in Cairo to the pyramids in Giza.

 It was only an hour drive through the streets of Cairo...to be honest I enjoyed the colour and grit of the city enroute as much as the majesty of the pyramids. After a mildly harrowing drive (dodging pedestrians, donkey-powered vegetable carts and beat up Fiats) we arrived at the pyramid site where I was introduced to Ali, owner of the tour group that would be tasked to take me through the site.

After some minor haggling, we settled on a price and I set out on a horse drawn cart. I could have opted for a camel but taking pictures perched atop one of these ornery beasts is nigh impossible so I opted for the speedier more pragmatic option.

My guide Ahmed told me since the 'revolution' tourism unsurprisingly has fallen off a cliff. Once up to 40,000 tourists would visit the site per week but those volumes are down to a trickle. In fact there were only a handful of other tourists visible on site during my tour.

I felt bad for our horse who had to take a galloping start at some of the hills before he laboured to a crawl as he neared the top ...but as Ahmed put it 'that is his job'. Although I did wonder how much he cleared after taxes.

As we wound our way around the site, I was provided a few interesting historical facts about the pyramids. The stones (some granite, some marble depending on the pyramid) were brought in by boat from Memphis and other parts of Egypt and dragged up a 'causeway' to the thousands of slaves who, like the good stallion who pulled us along, toiled selflessly to immortalize their masters. Over 2 million stones were laid in the biggest pyramid which took 20 years to complete.

There are several false entrances and only one true entrance. And despite the common perception that they are hollowed out crypts heaped with artifacts and treasure, walkways are mere tunnels and the pyramids are all but solid stone.

Anything valuable has been removed from the site and sits in museums in Cairo and around the world. That includes the nose from the Sphinx which sits in a London museum.

After a quick tour of a crypt or two (photos not allowed) we returned to Ali's HQ and I headed back to the hotel, and the conference, pleased that I decided to forgo duty for self and create a lasting memory. And I made it back to the hotel by 1015...so only marginally late!  As for the picture immediately below, I was provided every assurance that no other tourist has ever used a similar pose. If you look closely you will notice that I am not actually touching the top of the pyramid...I only appear to be! 

As usual, thanks so much for taking the time to read!  

Cheers

Lorne

CrossWalking: Showing our Love for the City

By Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Next Friday, Christians from different churches in Cranbrook will join together for the eleventh annual Good Friday CrossWalk.

 It’s a spiritual pilgrimage through the streets of downtown Cranbrook. This is worship in the streets! We pray for our city, its leaders and all who live here. We pray for our nation and for the world.

The CrossWalk begins at 10 am on Good Friday at the Clock Tower. From there, we will carry a cross through the downtown core of the city and stop at several locations.

At each stop, we read a passage from Scripture and we pray together.
Our prayers will embrace the city and its people, leaders and governments around the world, our legal system, our health care system, caregivers of all sorts and those who need to be surrounded with prayer and compassion and grace.

We pray for the victims and perpetrators of war and hatred. We pray for all whose lives need to be held up in the light of God’s love. We end with prayers for the churches and other faith groups, all who seek to live with peace and compassion in the world. We pray that we might learn to live and work together with compassion for the good of all people.

Why do we do this?

We do it as a faithful witness to the grace and compassion of God. We hold up our city in prayer so that God’s love might surround and embrace us all with healing grace. We journey together, bearing witness to Jesus who comes to our world with a different vision of what a whole and healthy life looks like.

Cross Walk 2014 

God’s vision for the world is of a community of compassion and companionship. It’s a world where power resides in service and self–giving love, not in might and coercion. It’s a vision of healing and restoration so that all people may live together in peace with justice.

For faithful Christians, the cross is about an alternative vision of what life could be like. Jesus didn’t die on the cross primarily so that we could get to heaven. Rather, he was executed by the state because his vision of life was so radically different that he was seen as a threat. In the cross, we see the depth of Jesus’ passion for a world based on a radical equality among all people. We see the power of God’s love, which holds us up even in the midst of the most painful suffering.

In our CrossWalk, in our prayers, we give voice to that vision. We don’t ask God to come crashing into our world to set everything right. Rather, as we pray, we make a fresh commitment to live by the gospel values of compassion, peace, justice and wholeness. We make a public act of witness that we walk with Jesus, that we share that same vision of a life made whole and new.

Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall talks about prayer as “learning to see the world through God’s eyes.” As we pray, we learn to view the world with compassion and grace. We learn to seek justice for all people. We seek to live on this earth as responsible and faithful people who care for one another and who care for the earth as well.

CrossWalking is one way in which we renew our commitment to walk in the way of Jesus. It is a way that leads to a cross, since walking this path faithfully will bring us into conflict with the world and its values.

God invites us to be partners in what John Dominic Crossan calls “God’s great cleanup of the world”. We work in partnership with God, so that the gospel values of love and compassion and justice might triumph in our own lives and in the world.

God has a deep, abiding and profound love for the world. Our prayers for the city and all its people, for peace and justice, for hope and healing, reflects our longing to participate in God’s passionate love affair with the world.

As we journey through the city, we feel the burden of the cross we carry. At the same time, we experience the reality of its liberating power. We renew our commitment to the crucified and risen Christ as we commit ourselves to serve Cranbrook in love.

Join us on Good Friday, April 3. We begin at the Clock Tower at 10 am. I invite you to journey with us. Come pray with us. Come show your love for Cranbrook. Come carry the cross with us. Come and give witness to an alternative vision of what life could be like.

Rev Dr Yme Woensdregt is the Incumbent at Christ Church Anglican in Cranbrook BC

The Commander in Chief is endangering Canadians

Perrceptions by Gerry Warner
“Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came” was the title of a forgettable 1970 movie that ironically seems to have some prescience now as Commander in Chief Stephen Harper prepares to expand our Iraq misadventure into an even larger war in Syria.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe Syria has declared war on Canada.
In fact, Syria is embroiled in a five-year civil war that shows no sign of ending and is, therefore, in no position to declare war on anyone, little alone us. But this minor detail doesn’t bother our brave Commander in Chief, who’s so eager to get into an even bigger war that he hasn’t even bothered with the diplomatic niceties of telling the Syrians he’s declared war on them, something that’s supposed to be done under international law and the United Nations in the vain hope that it will cause the country declaring war to have second thoughts.
That technically makes Canada an international war criminal, but our eager Commander in Chief doesn’t worry about technicalities even though our US partner in this dangerous venture took the time to inform the Syrians.
And what was the Commander in Chief’s justification for expanding this dangerous venture that has already taken the life of one Canadian? In the past, he said Canadian F-18’s would only go into Syria with the “clear support” of the Syrian government. But Tuesday in Parliament, he said: “The reality is that the Assad regime does not have the will nor the ability to counter the Islamic State in Syria.” In other words, the Syrian government, led by Bashar al-Assad, is in such dire straits from the civil war that it’s incapable of fighting back.
Obviously we have a very brave Commander in Chief.
Our brave Commander also likes to stoke the fears Canadians understandably have about ISIS, the fanatical, jihadist, terrorist group that has overrun parts of Iraq and Syria and committed ghastly beheadings in the name of a perverted brand of Islam that the great majority of the world’s Muslims don’t support. But the PM ignores this in a brazen bid to enrage his core supporters into supporting a holy war against a small but blood-thirsty band of Islamic fighters capable of causing havoc in the volatile Middle East, but with no capacity whatsoever to harm anyone in North America.
Does ISIS have missiles capable of hitting Canada? No.
Does ISIS have an air force that could drop bombs on us? No.
Does ISIS have a navy capable of shelling our shores? No.
Then what are we doing in Iraq and Syria attacking ISIS? Good question!
Unfortunately, ISIS does have a sinister way of harming us thanks largely to our Commander in Chief’s so-called “strategy,” which is playing exactly into their blood-stained hands. Remember the good ol’ days when Canadians were known internationally as peacekeepers? Now, thanks largely to Canada’s participation in the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and now Iraq and Syria we’re no longer seen as international good guys. We’re now seen as another Western, imperial power riding on the coat tails of Uncle Sam dropping bombs indiscriminately on Muslim believers in the Middle East whether they are jihadists or not. And so they hate us and out of that hatred and thanks to the Internet they’re able to recruit “lone wolf” terrorist wannabes in our own ranks that in a few isolated cases have succeeded in killing us. That’s the tragic consequences of what Harper’s bellicose, war mongering strategy is doing to us. Yet, if the polls can be believed, a majority of gullible Canadians support him.
Surely expanding this war in the most war-torn part of the world has deadly consequences we can hardly fathom. Don’t you think it’s time then to hit the re-set button on Harper’s folly?



Gerry Warner is a retired journalist that has lost all respect for the Commander in Chief,