A zinger from Singer
My favourite ethicist, Peter Singer, is at it again. Professor Singer, of Princeton University and the University of Melbourne, is a frequent burr under the saddle of conventional thinking, perhaps best known for his views on our ethical obligation to respect animal life. He modestly refers to press coverage of him as the “world’s most […]
Did someone say chocolate?
What do you get when you put two sons, two daughters-in-law, two granddaughters, one brother, LOML, one father of a daughter-in-law and I into a small house? Chocolate/Easter Weekend, that’s what you get. I know I’ve said it before, sometimes it is difficult to find a topic for the weekly column and sometimes the column […]
Performing the Full Eight Unks
A friend and musical collaborator was putting on a concert in Ottawa a few weeks ago, and invited me to participate by singing a nonsense song I had written a few years ago called Chipmunk Strut. Fastidious readers of this column will recall that the song has earned me precisely $36.10 in royalties. I don’t […]
Celebrate
Thank you Marilyn K., knowing you was a gift. Nah, Marilyn and I weren’t “bosom buddies” and we didn’t spend very much time together. When we did see each other, the conversation was easy and the laughs were infectious. In this great big world, you were a friend by so many different degrees of separation. […]
The split rail
Clayton said it like this. Our thoughts mind you are rain and the ‘lessenin’ we boil it, stew it that is, well, the more there is to the good. Also, he went on to say, thoughts kin point to where the turkey shit in the buckwheat. I think I know that one, I replied. Leather […]
Justinio and Jolanda – the movie outline
Memo to Steven Spielberg From David Simmonds The plot summary below is better than a Shakespearean tragedy, You could make it into a movie bigger than Citizen Kane—and make yourself a bigger star than Orson Welles. I await your prompt response. Justinio is the first born-son of Pietro and Margherita. Pietro, now deceased, was a […]
Taming of the tangles
I remember the moment as clearly as if it had just happened. My then 15-year-old, daughter said to me, “Mom, your hair is kind of pinkish-brown.” I knew it was. I was hoping no one else would notice I’d made a terrible mistake in my “I can colour my own hair” escapade. She noticed. It […]
Make way for Snowplow Parents
Helicopter Parents, step aside and make way for Snowplow Parents, Snowplow Parents don’t just supervise their children’s lives: they clear away all obstacles to their children’s success. They do whatever it takes—lawful or unlawful. The leading cohort of Snowplow Parents is the group of 33 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, charged with […]
Your neighbourhood
The older I get, the faster time seems to fly by. March 2019, roared in like a lion and, as I write this, it’s looking over its shoulder and snarling a little bit. March may not go out like a lamb and April will be three days old when this column in The Times hits […]
The night bridge at ice-out
I’m thinkin’ it’s past midnight, but without a timepiece it really doesn’t matter because here is a place of no-time. A thinking spot, a seat of intercession, a hideout I come to often, albeit past months of slack days and lost hours and other topics I can no longer remember, caused me not to be […]