Author: Maurice Tougas

So, he’s done. He may not know it yet, but he is. Americans have come to their senses and vanquished the great orange menace, the story goes. Americans stood on the precipice, and didn’t jump into the abyss. Sanity returns. “You’re an illegal voter, and you’re an illegal voter, and

Old men yelling at clouds On Aug. 9, 1974, Gerald Ford took over the presidency of the disgraced Richard Nixon. During his speech to the nation, Ford made what would prove to be his only memorable statement: “Our long national nightmare is over.” At the time, calling Watergate a long

I was never a big fan of Halloween as a kid. I always had a fear of being mugged by bigger kids who might rip open my pillow case and steal my hard-earned booty. And, growing up in Edmonton, it wasn’t much fun to wear a snowsuit under a costume.

In October 1970, Canada was looking pretty good, at least in the eyes of a 14-year-old boy, mainly me. An avid newspaper reader in the early stages of a long addiction to news, I was pretty confident that Canada was just the best and safest place to live. While student

I confess to being kind of excited to watch the first presidential debate between Democrat Joseph R. Biden II (his full New York Times title), and Trump party candidate Donald J. (Jackass? Jerk? Juvenile?) Trump. And for about a half-hour, it delivered plenty of laughs and so many jaw dropping

As a forced-into-retirement man approaching senior citizenship, I watch a lot of TV. Actually, I’ve always watched a lot of TV. When I was a kid, when we had just three channels, I knew exactly what was on TV at any time of the evening. If we didn’t have the

Edmonton doesn’t have much to celebrate these days. The Oilers of the NHL exited the faux Stanley Cup playoffs in almost the fastest manner possible. There is no CFL team to cheer for this year, and even if there was a season, we wouldn’t know what to call them. In

So it’s a 30C day in August, and the Stanley Cup playoffs are in full gear. What’s wrong with this picture? Everything. The only ice I want to see in August is in my rye and Coke. (Confession: I don’t drink rye and Coke, and I don’t even know if

A lot of Canadians – particularly young, American-media obsessed Canadians who have never been taught enough about their own country – seem to believe that Canada and the United States are basically the same country. The best example of this is the phoney controversy over the name of the Edmonton

You’ve got to hand it to Donald Trump. Just when you think he couldn’t go any lower, he digs himself deeper. The man’s consistency is amazing. Trump was in full maniac mode this past week. With his country spiralling towards near anarchy, Trump chose not to address his troubled nation

I’ve always pictured Minnesota as being as close to a Canadian province as you’ll find in the United States. It’s northern, it’s cold, and it’s nice. So watching the city of Minneapolis set ablaze by protestors this past week – with the utterly surreal sight of a police station set

Here in Peoples Republic of Alberta, life is returning to some semblance of normal; or, if I may employ the most overused expression of the day, the ‘new normal’. If this is the new normal, then let me off this train today. Welcome to the new normal This week, my

Well, I managed one full week without mentioning you-know-what. One week is about all one can accomplish. So let’s take a quick look at some COVIDicisms … This past week, Bryan Adams, Canada’s gift to mushy love songs, was in the spotlight for Twitter comments he made about COVID-19. Adams,

The things you notice while you have nothing else to do. The other day, I was having my daily glass of beer with my wife. (This requires some explaining. We used to split a can of beer, then graduated to an entire beer each. For some reason, we still split