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 [...]
I reached another marker this week in my posthumous, intriguing, fan-like relationship with Montréal poet Émile Nelligan (1879-1941) when Craig’s partner, Claude, drove me to the site of his burial in Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Even with a map of the cemetery it took us a while to find Marker #588 in Section N. At 350 acres, [...]
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 [...]
I have been scanning some photos stored in shoe-boxes and managed to touch up several from a class trip to London which took place during March Break in 1976. (How fortunate I was – what a privilege – to have been able to go on such a voyage as a high school student!) It was [...]
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 [...]
Mr. G’s eye exam has been changed again, maybe for the last time, so that the antagonist, though dead for more than a decade, might only be identified by his last initial and the responsibilities he held. (Anyone familiar with the school at the time does not need to have him named.) I’m doing this [...]
Imagine my delight, and yes pride, to learn that LGBT Lanark County had won its bid for a Pride Day proclamation in Perth for June 18. (This was also the first I’d heard of LGBT Lanark County. Their web site is pretty impressive!) The Perth Courier, and an advertiser-householder known locally as the EMC, both [...]
When I vote in advance polls this weekend I will not be asked to dip a finger in purple ink. Armed guards will not be inside or outside the polling station. My vote will not be influenced by bribes or intimidation. Sad then, isn’t it, that so many Canadians, having seen the struggles for democracy [...]
I know, I know – George Frederick Handel’s famous work is actually an Oratorio. (A musical would require lots of period costumes and at least one big dance number! Now imagine combining that with Mel Gibson’s gratuitously blood-letting Passion of the Christ. No, let’s not.) This was the time of year, probably forty years ago, [...]
Songs from a Lost Homeland, which originally aired on Al Jazeera English last year, is in the programming rotation again this weekend. Is there a song in the west right now with even a small percentage of the punch of these musicians? I hope you get a chance to see the entire documentary. There’s another [...]
One of the first activists’ songs that had any resonance for me was “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” (1961) and then “Give Peace A Chance” (1969). Dylan’s “Blowin’ In The Wind” (1963) was an anthem, if ever there was one, and I remember making a connection with “One Tin Soldier” in 1969. While grown-ups [...]
David Letterman, noting Yoko Ono’s 78th birthday last week, joked that she celebrated by breaking up The Jonas Brothers. Back in the twilight of sixties, perhaps early seventies, a much-appreciated Christmas gift (namely for my older brother Craig but which the rest of us took full advantage of) was a record player. Not just any [...]
