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
Continue readingAuthor: Maurice Tougas
In This Corner: Tennis, anyone? Don’t you DARE!
In Victorian times, doctors had an expression: “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” Doctoring in Victorian times was a pretty iffy proposition; once they ran out of leeches, they were pretty much stumped. That expression has popped into my head many times over the past weeks. Yes,
Continue readingIn This Corner: And now, some good news …
So, for a chance of pace, let’s talk about something other than Covid-19. So-o-o-o, how about that weather, eh? Nice to have some sunshine for a change. But jeez, it’s awfully windy, isn’t it? … Watch anything good on TV lately? I’m rewatching Justified, which really holds up well. Where
Continue readingIn This Corner: And my COVID-19 test result is …
“Open wide …” All this week, I’ve had a cold. My sinuses were plugged like a frat house toilet, and I developed a cough that sounded like an angry harp seal. I’ve had this kind of cold many times before; it’s normally something you just endure for a week or
Continue readingIn This Corner: Make ’em laugh, make ’em laugh …
The cast of Arrested Development Last week, in an attempt to alleviate the tedium of the Coronapocalypse, I offered some dramatic fare to help you fill the thousands of empty hours. This week, I take a dive into the much trickier realm of comedy. I say trickier, because nothing is
Continue readingIn This Corner: Thank you, Philo T. Farnsworth
Cast of The Shield In this time of the Coronapocalypse, let us pause for a moment to salute one of the greatest men of history, a man who made this stay-at-home panic bearable. That man is Philo T. Farnsworth, one of the fathers of television. (For the record, Philo T.
Continue readingIn This Corner: Scenes from a mall
The only food court customer. On Saturday, at great personal risk, I went to a shopping mall. I know, crazy, right? Taking a risk like that? Am I insane or something? No, just painfully bored. After walking around the block about a hundred times in the last few weeks, my
Continue readingIn This Corner: Welcome to Panicville. Population: us
Have you heard that Tom Brady has left the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? This is HUGE news … at least it is right now. Normally, I wouldn’t care one iota about Tom Brady or the New England Patriots or the NFL, but these days I am
Continue readingIn This Corner: “Ma-ma-ma-my Corona …”
Two things concern me about the Coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19, a.k.a. We’re All Going to Die!! They are hoarding, and the stock market. Oh, and I suppose the virus. First, let’s talk about the panicked hoards of sheep stampeding through the toilet paper aisles. People (and by people, I mean idiots)
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, the Reckoning: Welcome to Wuss Nation
First things first: Canada is a great place to live. Prosperous, generally kind, accommodating, peaceful. All good stuff. Maybe it’s because Canada is so kind, accommodating and laid back that we are also a bit of a wuss of a country. Maybe because there are so few of us across
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, the Reckoning, Week 24: Raptors? What Raptors?
If you’re a regular reader of this blather, you’ll know that I am most decidedly not a “fan” of the Toronto Raptors (and for the record, neither are the millions of Canadians who suddenly became Raptors “fans”; they are bandwagon jumpers who don’t know a jump shot from a slam
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, the Reckoning, Week 23: Genocide? Not in my country
The final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (shorted to the ungainly MMIWG) was released this week. The final report was about 1,200 pages and cost about $90 million. This is an important report, but much of its value was wiped away by
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, The Reckoning: Week 22: Welcome to the new normal, and it’s not nice
It’s summertime here in Alberta (well, actually it’s not, but we tend to call anytime without snow on the ground summer), a time when the sun shines for 18 hours a day. At least, we assume the sun is shining. For the past week, what would have been a lovely
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, the Reckoning, week 20: The issue that won’t go away
If you want an example of how Canada and the United States differ, look no further than developments in Alabama this week. Alabama – a southern U.S. state with such a long history of fanatical conservatism and institutional racism that even people from Mississippi look down their noses at them
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens IV, the Reckoning, week 19: The Greens are coming, the Greens are coming!
Don’t look now, folks, but the Green Party has quietly become a force in Canada. In British Columbia, the Greens hold the balance of power in the minority NDP government. In the PEI election this year, Greens formed the official opposition, and briefly looked like they might win. And on
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Happens IV, The Reckoning, week 18: Jason Kenney goes to war
No one can say that Jason Kenney is easing into his new job as premier of Alberta. After appointing his cabinet this week (one from Edmonton, as expected, most of the rest from Calgary, as expected), Kenney proclaimed legislation passed by the NDP government that allows the province to shut
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Happens IV, The Reckoning, week 17: God bless the Bruins
The first 16 weeks of the year have been pretty heavy on the news side, what with elections and mass shootings and bombings and Mueller reports and SNC/Lavalin and resignations and expulsions from cabinet and the troubles with Trudeau, etc. So, this week, let’s lay off the major news for
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Happens IV, The Reckoning, week 16: The results, and Paris is burning
On Tuesday night, I was listening to Rachel Notley’s defiant concession speech. At one point, she said that child poverty in Alberta had been cut in half during her four-year reign. What? Really? Why was this the first I’d heard of this? Now, I don’t know if it’s true or
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Happens IV, The Reckoning, week 15: The end is near …
As a citizen of the province of Alberta, I will dutifully head to my nearby polling station to cast my vote in the provincial election on Tuesday. I admit that, even after many decades of voting, I still get a tiny little thrill about the democratic process. As Churchill said,
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Happens IV, The Reckoning, week 14: Debating the debate
During any political debate, voters and the media are always looking for the knock-out punch. Brian Mulroney famously destroyed John Turner in one debate in 1984, and Jim Prentice notoriously told Rachel Notley that “math is hard” in 2015, which backfired badly. So, was there a knock-out punch in the
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