Pig Penn – warped perspectives in the Penn State scandal

Very puzzling, but markedly less infuriating than the sexual abuse and cover-up scandal shrouding Penn State University, is the thoughtless, pigskin-headed response last night by student mobs to the sackings of the university president and, much more of an issue, the football coach. Now that’s an improvement! Watching a news conference held by the university’s [...]

Where I am

Hibernating almost exclusively in Twitterverse @KennChaplin during Canadian election at the expense of my blog and Facebook…not intentional, just seems inevitable.

Awesome task (or perhaps not): bridging the perspective gap

Excerpts from my tweets (and a RT) from early this afternoon: Death by daily repression and near-starvation or death by desperate martyrdom via the State responsible? Your choice? #Bahrain #Libya #Yemen MD from #Bahrain: “Pls, pls, where is the #UN; we need the world; ppl are being killed in the streets!” Ambu’s BLOCKED frm #PearlRoundabout [...]

We Talk About HIV/AIDS

h/t Amanda

Engaging more in my mental health care

The mass shootings in Tucson, and the evolving picture of the mentally deranged man being held responsible, continue to both intrigue and inform me. I eagerly watched three of the Sunday morning news shows: NBC’s “Meet the Press”, ABC’s “This Week” and last, only because I wanted to highlight it, CNN’s “State of the Union” [...]

Sarah Palin incites stupidity, why not worse?

“If a Muslim put a map on web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.” (tweet from Michael Moore) I have nothing but best wishes for the victims and families of today’s gun madness in Tucson. Speaking from family experience, the first brain [...]

The re-activation of an AIDS activist

While no one could say that I had ever completely stopped my AIDS activism I have, I would suggest, limited myself in recent years to writing or speaking about it on a smaller scale. It was consistent, determined protests – some of which I was a part of – that led to government speeding up [...]

Ya had to know I’d have a true John Lennon story of my own, didn’tcha?

I just wouldn’t bet on it ever making it into The Complete History of Music. On the evening of December 8, 1980, a Monday, I had attended the regular weekly meeting of St. Catharines City Council in my capacity as a news reporter for a local radio station. I returned to the office, housed in [...]

For Mark Dailey, a tweet

RIP Mark Dailey – 1st hrd read’g v/o of film intros o’nite whl I @ undiscl. TO loctns; + incl’d in acct of my ’03 smash http://tiny.cc/a41ia

Celebs with $900 sunglasses and Mama’s medicine chest in their undies can be silent today if they want, not me!

I’m all for vaccuous celebrities shutting their yaps today, especially as a fundraiser, but if I don’t tweet or “poke” or “like” it won’t be because I’ve gone silent for World AIDS Day. How many years passed before those in power, like Reagan for example, even mentioned AIDS? And Canada continues to sell out on [...]

Town Crier silenced

‘The voice of Valleyfield’ has died and, while I hadn’t given him any thought for many, many years happening on to this story in The Gazette brought back great memories. Anyone of a certain age from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Québec will remember this man’s voice as he drove around town making paid announcements via loudspeakers on the [...]

If ‘video killed the radio star’…

All-news networks are killing broadcast journalism. So, of course, we need this. Watch Newsworld CBC News Network or CTV News Channel and you’ll see what I call news jockeys – personalities, like the disc jockeys of radio days, who intro and extro songs news of the moment, as told by someone else. Bonus points apparently [...]

Some of the moments that made Canada believe

Click here for a video montage of “the moments that made Canada believe” which aired on CTV in the hours leading up to the gold medal hockey game that brought competition to an end.

No, no, thank YOU Brian Williams!

Leaving behind a thank-you note was a very kind gesture. I am a regular viewer of NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and so I thoroughly enjoyed coverage he and his team gave the Winter Olympics from Vancouver for two weeks.  They even did a nice piece with the two Brian Williams. Brian Williams meets [...]

CTV Ottawa: the lead story is their own newsroom

CTV Ottawa is, sadly, the lead story on its own, and every other, newscast around eastern Ontario today.  A massive fire early this morning destroyed the newsroom as well as the station’s extensive archives.  That is a particularly poignant loss as longtime news anchor, and public servant extraordinaire, Max Keeping retires in April after an [...]