Moms
Ah, Mother’s Day. I’m on a plane winging my way to see family in the UK, on Mother’s Day. LOML takes great pleasure in telling everyone, who’ll listen, the trip is his Mother’s Day gift to me. The truth of the matter is, he also takes pleasure in telling people he doesn’t buy me Mother’s […]
The midnight ride
The air gathering off of the lake has a soothing yet soaked ambiance to it. The window is lowered in my truck as I sit in a short line of quieted car engines waiting on the Adolphustown shore. I’m on the return from a Kingston jaunt and its a little past midnight. I spot the […]
An obit blitz
Time was when I would eagerly await the arrival of the morning newspaper to read about the political shenanigans of the day, Then I got a little older and wiser and turned to the comics first. As middle age settled over me, I was drawn to the baseball box scores. Then the Sudoku and Kenken […]
Bucket lists
A few years ago I attempted to put a bucket list together, but since then I’ve mostly ignored it. I think my list might have been a bit too pie-in-the-sky. However, since I’m not getting any younger, I’ve decided to cobble another list together. I have to admit, though, I am concerned about what happens […]
A fait not accompli?
It was a dark day for public libraries, the Thursday before the Easter Weekend. Just as business was closing, the Southern Ontario Library Service announced that, due to funding cuts from the Ontario government, it was immediately discontinuing its inter-library loan program. There is no corresponding budget increase for library systems having to rely on […]
Fill the trough
Moody’s, Schmoody’s. Moody’s Analytics is the corporation that creates credit ratings for big businesses and governments, all around the globe. Ontario’s credit rating has recently been downgraded a smidgeon by this organization. And as my friend indicated (in a round about way), if the Province’s credit rating is downgraded it costs all of us in […]
Hanami
It’s something, a thought stream that seems to want to re-run each year around this time; source waters for this consciousness being early days growing up in Ottawa, my dad a researcher and often into the family fold would arrive people from various world places, individuals working on thesis or particular areas of study who […]
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 […]