It was on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen’s March 17 “Saturday Observer” section. The paper sat on a table beside Mom’s comfy chair, where she keeps anything she wants to pass along to me. She knows that, like Jamie Hubley, whose passing touched me so deeply, hockey stories wouldn’t normally need to be on [...]
I join the outcry today over the sentencing of convicted serial pedophile Graham James to two years in prison for the sexual abuse of Theo Fleury and Todd Holt. Counter-intuitively (because I knew it would just get me stirred up) I watched the news coverage of the lawyers’ statements and victims’ reactions. Graham arrived at court [...]
Please read this from Scott Dagostino, whose writing makes me admire the way his mind works. Being someone who might preemptively describe myself as naive (which endears me to world-wise friends and the ne’er do-well-alike), I must say the title of Scott’s post took me in with more than its most obvious sarcasm and led [...]
This is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Multiple Olympic medallist Clara Hughes, lead spokesperson for the campaign, was on CTV News in Toronto today. From among the calls she fielded came this articulate gem, “To kill the pain too often means to kill oneself.” However, and this was Clara’s message, help and hope are available to [...]
This story from Xtra! Vancouver infuriates me: AIDS groups remove ‘AIDS’ from their names. If “AIDS” still carries too much stigma, which it does, that is what to work on, not re-branding! I know, at 51 years of age, I am an old fart from the club kids’ point-of-view. Well hang on to your brain [...]
h/t Amanda
A really great read from Torontoist: Michael Kimber Is Out.
“I think you might have bipolar disorder,” he (psychiatrist) said. “Oh, thank God,” I answered. Surprise registered on his face. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that reaction before.” “No, I am so relieved,” I said. “Now that we know what it is, we can fix it.” Andrea Ball (Statesman.com) – Jared Loughner and the [...]
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” [...]
Gun control activists are not just concerned about the criminally insane having guns. (Such diagnoses are too often only made after a shoot-’em-up anyway!) Otherwise sane people can act violently, too, and guns just make things that much worse. When I hear criminals dismissed by news-jockies as “crazy”, “unbalanced”, “off”, I sometimes take on those [...]
Each author in this series has generously given me permission to post their work. The views and experiences shared are their own. Where applicable, links will also be provided at the end of the piece. AIDS didn’t become important to me until somebody I knew died. I imagine that is also the case for most [...]
This is an autobiography, her third, of someone whose slow-motion train wreck – no, a series of fast-moving train wrecks – was seen, at least in part, by political watchers and gossip magazine readers the world over. We suspect the ending is happy, and we know to expect several of the deeply sad climaxes, but [...]
