Monday night’s council meeting again underscored why the town needs someone new in the role of integrity commissioner. Lawyer Robert Swayze presented his report about a complaint filed against councillor Deb Doherty and it was accepted by council in a recorded 6-2 vote*. But his report shared the same flaws his
Continue readingAuthor: Ian Chadwick
Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: Musical Sources
Trying learn a song from an old songbook or sheet music can be difficult unless you already know how the song goes. Many of our group are introduced to the music in our songbook only through my version when I play in at our meetings. And, I admit, my version may
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Defining Classical Music
I listen to classical music a lot, even more than before since the arrival of the new classical FM station in Collingwood. But while my listening at home is through a selected collection of CDs, the content played on radio – internet radio included – is more eclectic. Airplay often includes
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Another TEOTWAWKI
TEOTWAWKI – The End Of The World As We Know It – has been predicted ever since humans looked up in wonder at the sky and decided it was peopled with invisible beings. Beings who wanted to do us harm, it seems. And as quickly as we people the sky,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Rest In Peace, Mary Chadwick
Mary Bernice Chadwick passed away quietly in the morning of April 13, 2015 in her room in the Tony Stacey Veterans’ Care Centre. She had awakened that morning, and spoke briefly to staff, but nodded off shortly after. She never awoke. She was 95 years old and lived a full,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Lovecraft’s Tales of Terror
No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace. Ex Oblivione, 1921. Along with Edgar Rice Burroughs, my teenage reading covered a lot of genres, but I gravitated to scifi and fantasy. Fantasy in those days didn’t offer the same overflowing bookshelves of cookie-cutter tales we find
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Master Shih Te’s Words
I see a lot of silly folks who claim their own small spine’s Sumeru, the sacred mountain that supports the universe. Piss ants, gnawing away at a noble tree, with never a doubt about their strength. They chew up a couple of Sutras, and pass themselves off as Masters. Let
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Spring Breads
It’s been a while since I wrote about baking bread. During the election campaign last fall, my baking was sidetracked somewhat, but I did manage to get a few loaves in. Last month I got back to baking in earnest. However, along the way, I ignored my levain and it
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Cold Camembert, Collingwood Style
Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth made comments last week about how awful it is to eat normal airplane food as an excuse why she billed more sumptuous meals to her taxpayer-funded expense account. Her arrogance only made Canadians agonize more over how we should abolish or reform the patronage cesspit of our appointed Senate. Her words
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Ontario’s Assault on Health Care
Earlier this month, the Ontario government took a shot at real medicine when it became the first province in Canada to regulate homeopathy. What the government should have done, if it had any real concern about our collective health or our health care system, is ban it. Instead, although it at
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: ERB and Barsoom
Tara of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon which she had been reclining, stretched her lithe body languidly, and crossed toward the center of the room, where, above a large table, a bronze disc depended from the low ceiling. Her carriage was that of health
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Gated Communities
I’m not a big fan of gated communities, but even if I don’t personally want to live in one myself, I understand the reason for them, and sympathize with homeowners in those zones. Apartments are basically gated towers that restrict access to residents or keyholders and no one complains that they
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Pompeii: Swords-and-Sandals Flop
As a film setting, the town of Pompeii in the first century CE is a lot like the deck of the Titanic in 1912: no amount of special effects or clever script writing is going to save it from the disaster awaiting. As a film, Pompeii has a lot of
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Revelations about Revelation
It’s got treachery, betrayal, politics, violence, skullduggery, sex, war, philosophy, politics, religion, an empire teetering on the brink of collapse, mystical visions, rebellion, emperors and slaves, angry priests accusing other priests, unrepentant martyrs going to their deaths in the arena, and the end of the world looming over it all. What more
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Thurber’s Writings & Drawings
Books of James Thurber‘s cartoons and writing were always on the shelves at my grandparents’ home, as well as on my parents’ bookshelves. I read them, as I did everything else on those shelves, when I was quite young. I still remember his odd, eccentric cartoons with their primitive lines but
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Abdicating Responsibility
Collingwood Council has, in its short time in office, abdicated much of its responsibility to the business of government and to the people of this town. Council has sloughed off the duties they were elected to shoulder with remarkable alacrity. Some of that responsibility landed on staff, who assumed control of
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month in Canada. I don’t know if this gets widespread acknowledgement much less appreciation among the public and in the schools, but it should. Poetry is an important part of our cultural lives, although it seems to me our collective passion for it has waned over
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Closed for Business, Hostile to Seniors
Closed: that’s the message Collingwood Council sent to business during its recent budget discussions. We’re making it more expensive to run a business here, and by the way, we’re hostile to seniors and low-wage earners, too. Under the tissue-thin pretense of keeping taxes low (which they aren’t, really), council approved a staff
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Two New Ukulele Reviews
I just added two new reviews to my ukulele site: the Kala Eight-String mahogany tenor and the Vorson Electric, solid-bodied, steel-string tenor. You can find the site here with all the reviews and other information: vintageukemusic.com/ukuleles/ Or jump directly to the new reviews themselves: Kala Eight String Vorson Electric
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Responsibility of Free Speech
In January, 2015, Marie Snyder, on her blog, A Puff of Absurdity, raised the question of how free should speech be. I share her concerns about the apparent limitlessness of our rights: our right to free speech is not matched to any inherent responsibilities, civic or moral, to behave in
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