Quotes that resonate
“I’m not a crook.” – Richard Nixon “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” – Bill Clinton “The only charge that anyone can level against us is one…
Norman Farrell
Meet Andrew Nikiforuk
SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and The Tyee present: De-Friending Oil: An Evening with Andrew Nikiforuk How petro-dependency corrodes our humanity. And what it will take to pull free…
Idiotic neanderthals flourish
Lunch with Anders: Speaks from conviction and going nowhere, Laura Stone, iPolitics, October 1, 2012 “I actually think one of the great stories that was missed by journalists was that…
Regulating for benefit of regulators
CRTC exec who spent evening in Bell box operated in ‘gray area’: Ethics expert, DANNY JONCAS, QMI AGENCY, Toronto Sun, Sept. 28, 2012: “MONTREAL – Nine months after his appointment…
Match point for the good folks
So BC Liberals put an end to Liquor Distribution Branch privatization. Rich Coleman’s efforts withered under the scrutiny of one independent journalist and soon to be retired Liberal MLAs decided…
Abuse went beyond one person in one place
Laura Robinson’s incrimination of establishment man John Furlong led to quick and predictable responses in local media. Vancouver Sun scribbler Daphne Bramham painted a sympathetic picture of the man she…
Journalists slow to criticize colleague
Reader contributions at mainstream media sites are occasionally unreadable, occasionally delightful. Here’s one of the latter type from the Globe & Mail after Margaret Wente defended herself on charges of…
Another reason politicians so detested
Recipients of Kenney missive wondering how government knows their sexual orientation BY GLEN MCGREGOR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 24, 2012 “OTTAWA — An email extolling the Conservative government’s record on…
Politicspeak with simultaneous translation
The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee was writing about Nick Clegg and Britain’s Liberal Democrats but she could have been writing about the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals: “a string of the same weary…
Renewal without reform?
A skilled and practised word hunter, Ian Reid can flush out sources from behind stone walls. Thursday, he scooped the Legislature’s press gang and published Mea culpa, mea culpa, the…
The rumour mill
Here’s a quick one that came my way today from a pretty decent source. Within the next four months, Christy Clark will decide to focus on the important duties of…
September summer
The Spider’s Web The spider, dropping down from twig, Unfolds a plan of her devising, A thin premeditated rig To use in rising. And all that journey down through space,…
Words to ponder
“In any society where wealth and income concentrate overwhelmingly at the top, the affluent will almost always come to sneer at public services and the men and women who provide…
Tax avoidance, crippled services, monster deficits
“The Republicans have got the facts backward. A rising tide definitely raises all boats. They somehow believe that rising boats raise all tides.” William O. Beeman, commenting on Bill, Barack…
School begins again
Forty-eight years ago this week, I departed small town Powell River and took up residence at UBC’s still under construction Totem Park student housing. In those days, males and females…
Not so free speech
Piper Super Cub threatens Otawa Labour Day weekend, RCMP arrested the pilot of a Piper Supercub flying near the Gatineau Quebec Hot Air Balloon Festival. Not because Gian Piero Ciambella…
Serving the real masters
“Royal Dutch Shell PLC has begun construction on a $950-million project to capture and bury greenhouse gas emissions, the first of its kind to sequester carbon from Canada’s oil sands.…
In sheep’s clothing
Bob Mackin has an interesting piece in The Tyee about a newspaper tycoon and BC Liberal abettor. David Black’s bluster was about about oil refining but the part of Mackin’s…