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 […]
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 […]