For reasons I don’t understand, I’ve always had a thing for celebrity deaths. Weird, right? And in keeping with that weirdness, here is the most comprehensive list of the famous, near famous and formerly famous who left us in 2022. And there were some big ones, as the Grim Reaper
Continue readingAuthor: Maurice Tougas
In This Corner: Do kids still play with toys? Yes, MY toys!
The other day, one of my sons asked a seemingly silly question: do kids still play with toys? At first, I thought the question was weird, but as he explained, with all the electronic games and online distractions available, do kids still want and use hands-on toys? The teachers in
Continue readingIn This Corner: The World Cup is over. For me, anyway
There is a silver lining to Canada’s abrupt and rather humbling dismissal from the FIFA World Cup … I won’t have to watch any more soccer. Oh, I might tune in to the odd game, just so I can feel like a member of the human race, since most of
Continue readingIn This Corner: Bad days for billionaires
Next time you’re paying $5 for a head of lettuce, consider this – things could be so much worse. You could be a billionaire. I mean, c’mon. These poor schlubs are losing hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars! Makes your problems seem kinda puny, right? Yep, these are not
Continue readingIn This Corner: How TSN is hurting the Grey Cup, and the CFL
Once upon a time, most of Canada would gather around the ol’ RCA (or Philco, or Dumont, or Electrohome) to watch the Grey Cup game, the championship of the good ol’ Canadian Football League. It was one of the most Canadian things you could do, right up there with ordering
Continue readingIn This Corner: Grounded: one man’s airline hell
My son Scott recently experienced a truly dreadful experience trying to fly out of Ottawa. Here’s his blog … When I was a young man, I visited a friend of mine in Austin, Texas. One of the unpleasant byproducts of visiting The United States is dealing with the American airline
Continue readingIn This Corner: The U.S. is on the edge of madness. Can it happen here?
As a political junkie, I find elections fascinating. Unfortunately, we tend to have them only once every four years or so here (depending on the state of the bromance of Justin and Jagmeet), so if you want your fix of politics and elections, we must look to the Formerly-Good Ol’
Continue readingIn This Corner: Four future Danielle Smith scandals
I don’t think anyone will disagree that Premier-for-now Danielle Smith has gotten off to a rocky start. If I may mix my metaphors, you might even say she blew up on the launch pad. Many of her problems stem from her work history as a newspaper columnist and, most recently,
Continue readingIn This Corner: Boo! Now that I have your attention, here are some scary movie suggestions.
The month of October – where we in Alberta begin the gloomy wait for the first cold snap (which might last five months) – has over the past few years transitioned into an entire month of horror. And I don’t mean the beginning of the Danielle Smith era (which might
Continue readingIn This Corner: Is Danielle Smith too much, even for Alberta?
She’s ba-a-a-a-ck! When Danielle Smith accepted the leadership of the “United” Conservative Party last week, with an underwhelming 54 percent of the vote after six ballots, she took to the stage cackling. She laughed and laughed and laughed, like someone who couldn’t believe what just happened. It reminded me of
Continue readingIn This Corner: “Henderson has scored for Canada!”
Is there a more famous phrase in Canadian history, coined on this day 50 years ago? To be honest, I’m at a loss to come up with another famous Canadian phrase. The only one I can come up with is “He shoots! He scores!” coined by the same man, Foster
Continue readingIn This Corner: It looks like we’re stuck with Chuck III
And so we say goodbye – a very, very long goodbye – to Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Canada and her other realms, Defender of the Faith, etc. Or just Liz to her friends. By any measure, the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II has
Continue readingIn This Corner: Pierre Poilievre’s biggest selling point is who he isn’t
‘Look at me! I’m a cowboy!” So, Pierre Poilievre has been anointed as the new leader of the Conservative Party, and by an overwhelming majority. Canadians will now have to learn how to pronounce and even spell this guy’s name (go ahead, try to spell it without looking at this
Continue readingIn This Corner: Canada-Russia ’72: When Canada stopped
Today, September 2nd, marks the 50th anniversary of Game 1 of the Canada-Russia Summit Series, the single greatest sporting event of all time. An exaggeration? I don’t think so. Just ask any old-timer who remembers the Summit Series. Canadian hero Phil Esposito and Russia’s amazing Vladislav Tretiak. It’s now five
Continue readingIn This Corner: Three more skills we have lost to the internet
I recently read a book called 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet, by Pamela Paul. I highly recommend it. It’s a funny and thoughtful read, full of sharp observations about how the age of instant access to everything has changed the way we live. And the chapters are short
Continue readingIn This Corner: Lessons learned from a wedding
My youngest son got married last weekend. The outdoor venue was beautiful, the weather warm but not hot. The bride looked wonderful, the kind of bride you would see in a bridal magazine (I assume). The groom and his party – two of them my other sons – never looked
Continue readingIn This Corner: Alberta ‘children assigned female at birth’ names 2021: From Aabha to Zyrie
Last week, we looked at Alberta baby boy names for 2021. This week, let’s look at baby girl names, or, as the Postmedia story stated with an apparently straight face, “children assigned female at birth”. Seriously. We can’t even use the term ‘baby girl’ anymore? The top girl names were
Continue readingIn This Corner: Alberta boy names 2021. From A to Zyril.
Every year around this time, the Alberta government releases lists of every name given to babies born in the previous year. The media tends to concentrate on the top 10 names (Noah, Jack, Oliver, Liam, Theodore, William, Ethan, Levi, Benjamin, Henry for boys; Olivia, Charlotte, Ava, Emma, Amelia, Sophia, Isla,
Continue readingIn This Corner: A Canadian quiz for our delicate times
Happy 115th birthday, Canada! To quote from the great Russian philosopher, Yakov Smirnoff, what a country! In honour of the birthday of this semi-great dominion (I’m sorry, is the term ‘dominion’ considered offensive today?), I present for your edification and enlightenment the utter unofficial All-Canadian Quiz. Please note that the
Continue readingIn This Corner: How Queen Elizabeth saved the monarchy
First things first, let me be perfectly clear: I am a devout anti-monarchist. Everything about it is impossibly stupid, and diametrically opposite of everything democracy is supposed to be. Even when I was a kid, on the rare occasions when we had to sing “God Save the Queen” (that actually
Continue reading