What Deranged Dictator Trump Might Do Next
Now we’ve all had our little victory dances around the kitchen thanks to the USian voters’ rejection of MAGA and the Deranged Dictator Trump in the midterms — mostly rejected,…
Ian Chadwick
Thank You, USian Voters
Canadians have been under a lot of stress these past few years from attacks, trade wars, accusations, lies, threats, and insults from the autocratic USian dictator Trump and his cabal…
Is the Internet Dead?
Are Humans in Virtual Zombie Territory Every Time We Post Online? It’s called the Dead Internet Theory. It’s not really a theory in the scientific sense of the word; it’s…
Canada is at War with the USA
Make no mistake: Canada is at war with the USA, and our government tacitly acknowledged that last week. It might not be bullets and bombs, but right now Canada is…
A Shameful Election Result
According to the Town of Collingwood’s election results page, less than half of the electorate here could be bothered to vote this year. This municipal election offered ample opportunity for…
Vote in Your Municipal Elections, Dammit!
Democracy is not fragile, but it is susceptible to decay and erosion. Democracy — even local democracy expressed in a town council — is like a houseplant: it needs attention…
No, It’s NOT a Theory. It’s Just a Story.
In his book, The Story of Stories: The Million-Year History of a Uniquely Human Art, author Kevin Ashton dedicates a chapter to how conspiracy “theories” have come to dominate the…
Collingwood’s 2026 Municipal Election, Part 4
By now (October 12), some of you will have already voted, since it’s an online voting system here that opened October 8. I don’t want to tell anyone how to…
The Lifetime Reading Plan
Author and editor Clifton Fadiman published the first edition of his Lifetime Reading Plan in 1960; a collection of his short essays about and descriptions of recommended authors and their…
Collingwood’s 2026 Municipal Election, Part 3
Local resident Ron Shulman has been writing about municipal issues in Collingwood and the Town of the Blue Mountains for the past several months. His Substack blog is called Two…
Collingwood’s 2026 Municipal Election, Part 2
How much more can you afford to pay in property taxes? Well, now think about paying more. A lot more. And paying a lot more every year. That’s what is…
To EV or Not to EV
I started driving rather late in life compared to others in my age cohort: I was 24 when I finally got my licence. A lot of my fellow hippies and…
Collingwood’s 2026 Municipal Election, Part One
“Politicians are the same all over,” wrote Nikita Khrushchev. “They promise to build a bridge, even when there is no river.” That quote came to mind recently. More than 400…
A Review of the Biopic Elvis
I grew up in the 1950s, and heard him on the radio (AM stations playing pop music, of course) in the late part of the decade when Elvis was at…
Now is the Summer of Our Disconnect
I was reminded this morning of Henry David Thoreau, who wrote about his bean field in Walden, his famous journal of contemplations about living on his own in a rustic…
How Another Film Triggered Fragile MAGA Men Into Manufactured Rage
Elon Musk, aka the MAGA SpaceNazi, was so triggered by Christopher Nolan’s recent film, The Odyssey (or more accurately the casting in it), that he huffily screamed on Xitter that…
Red Scare Number Three
The USA is going through yet another Red Scare — its third in barely a century — according to the paranoid, hyperbolic statements made by the Deranged Dictator Donald Trump…
-ocracies and -isms: How the USA Broke
Once upon a time, the USA was a democracy. While vestiges of democracy can still be found in the USA, it is being actively and aggressively eradicated at the federal…
Safety Razors and Shaving Again
It’s been a few years since I last posted about my excursions into shaving with a safety razor (double-edged blades). In my last post on the subject, dated almost exactly…
Richard Dawkins and “Cultural Christianity”
Richard Dawkins is no stranger to shaking the cultural tree to see what falls out. In 2024, Dawkins was interviewed by Rachel Johnson on British TV. He noted in that…