Knee Surgery, Day 6
Aficionados of slow food, mindfulness, and slow thinking should add knee surgery to their list of life-focusing activities. It certainly makes everything move more slowly and deliberately. One does not…
Ian Chadwick
Knee Surgery, Day 5
Accomplishments come in little packages. Last night, I managed to get myself up and into the bathroom to pee twice, without having to wake Susan up to help me get…
Knee Surgery, Day 4
The other thing you lose with mobility is dignity. And that loss can affect you deeply, albeit not physically, but certainly a blow to your morale and ego. We are…
Knee Surgery, Day 3
If you want to see just how bad the roads and streets are in the Town of Collingwood, just drive over them a few hours after knee or other surgery.…
Knee Surgery Day Two
Well, I’m back from the hospital following my knee surgery. It was a “Total knee arthroplasty (TKA), also known as total knee replacement,” described as a “surgical procedure that involves…
Godzilla Minus One: Some Thoughts
I have been watching Godzilla films since the late 1950s or early ’60s, when the edited American version (1956) of the 1954 Japanese original was released and was finally shown…
The Disappearing Semicolon; Has English Education Failed Us?
The media, both legacy and online, continue to herald the death of the semicolon. Perhaps this is meant merely as a distraction from the events unfolding in world politics, particularly…
The Troubling Lack of Empathy Among Conservatives
Empathy is a nasty word to conservatives. Elon Musk recently showed his contempt for the very notion of considering another’s feelings, calling it “civilizational suicidal empathy.” And then, to make…
What if Julian Jaynes Was Right?
In 1977, Princeton University psychologist Julian Jaynes published his controversial book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Hardly a title that should have captured the…
The Honeymooners: The Imaginary Greatness That MAGA Wants to Return To
Ever see The Honeymooners? Unless you’re at least as old as I am, it’s unlikely you ever saw the TV show when it was first broadcast in the mid-50s. It…
WTF Canada? We Needed to do Better!
The Canadian federal election is over and the counting has finally finished. The Liberals under Mark Carney got 168 seats, four short of a majority. That’s disappointing because it weakens…
No, Elon, We Won’t Be Going to Mars Soon
Delusional SpaceNazi and democracy destroyer Elon Musk says his company will launch its first rockets to Mars in 2026, and could have human missions sent to the Red Planet as…
Collingwood’s Mystery Councillor
Who is Ian MacCulloch? We were only told by the town that he’s the newly-appointed councillor, chosen this month by council to fill the seat vacated by Brandon Houston, who…
Can Mark Carney Save Canada From Trump? Let’s Hope So.
Mark Carney, our new Liberal leader, is campaigning to be Prime Minister of Canada. His main opponent, the rage-farming, grievance-mining Trump mimic Pierre PoiLIEvre, is campaigning to be governor of…
Trump Mimic PoiLIEvre Voted The Most Likely to Roll Over to Trump
The grievance-mining, rage-farming, puerile Trump mimic Pierre PoiLIEre was voted by Canadians the political leader most likely to cave in to Donald Trump rather than stand up for Canada against…
Rage-Farming Trump Mimic Poilievre Scrambles to Pretend He’s Pro-Canada
The trade war that the racist and fascist felon and Putin asset Donald Trump initiated against American allies Canada and Mexico, as well as against China, Colombia, and other nations…
WTF Ontario?
Seriously, WTF? How could such a corrupt grifter like Doug Ford not only get re-elected, but get his party of lackluster cons, conspiracy cultists, Talibangelists, and ne’er-do-wells elected as the…
Chaucer’s House of Fame
Recently, while I was reading in bed — as is my nightly habit — I came across some lines (641-660) from Book II of Chaucer’s early poem, House of Fame,…
Sidewalk Ethics and Etiquette
There is a theory that a person’s moral compass may be judged by how they deal with shopping carts. Those with even a modicum sense of ethics and morality return…
Dither, Dally, and Doddle
If I were looking for a single word to succinctly describe Collingwood Council, it would not be ‘decisive.’ Nor would it be progressive, capable, innovative, or enterprising. I would not…