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TOO MUCH TO WORRY ABOUT TO BOTHER WORRYING

TOO MUCH TO WORRY ABOUT TO BOTHER WORRYING

Open­ing an Inter­net brows­er ought to come with a “view­er advi­so­ry” warn­ing: “You are about to be car­pet-bombed with scare-mon­ger­ing adver­tis­ing and the media’s obses­sion with doom and health sto­ries”. That being unlike­ly, I sug­gest those us of old enough to remem­ber it adopt the catch­phrase of MAD Magazine’s Alfred E.Read the rest

WHEN THE ROYAL ‘WE’ MEANT THE NORMAL ‘US’

WHEN THE ROYAL ‘WE’ MEANT THE NORMAL ‘US’

Pro­nounce­ments and spec­u­la­tion about why Queen Eliz­a­beth II was beloved invari­ably include her dig­ni­ty, demeanour and ded­i­ca­tion to duty. While all those are valid, I think the sim­ple answer is that even as she con­duct­ed her­self in a man­ner to which most of us can only aspire, she was in a sub­lim­i­nal way, per­ceived as ‘just like us’.Read the rest

TOLSTOY HAS THE WAY, NATURE THE EXAMPLES

TOLSTOY HAS THE WAY, NATURE THE EXAMPLES

The glo­ries of Nature and a lit­er­ary giant may seem an odd com­bi­na­tion to help slow cli­mate change, but in fact, they’re a per­fect match. Nature pro­vides the encour­age­ment, the great Russ­ian writer Leo Tol­stoy penned the wis­dom: “Every­one thinks of chang­ing the world, but no one thinks of chang­ing himself.”Read the rest

A LITTLE RESPECT IS IN ORDER

A LITTLE RESPECT IS IN ORDER

Like many of my (male) con­tem­po­raries, I have no objec­tion to — and truth be told am hap­py to rev­el in — being called “a cer­ti­fied old fart”. I do, how­ev­er take seri­ous umbrage at the sug­ges­tion that age is by def­i­n­i­tion a deficiency.Read the rest

HERONS HAVE THE ANSWER

HERONS HAVE THE ANSWER

Every so often on an ear­ly morn­ing pad­dle, I come upon a great blue heron. Poised with silent, eeri­ly-still ele­gance, it’s wait­ing for small fish or frogs to come with­in strik­ing dis­tance of the dag­ger-like beak at the end of its long, sin­u­ous neck. The bird’s infi­nite patience and way of deal­ing with unwant­ed dis­trac­tions are traits many of us who are per­plexed or vexed by much of the world could use.Read the rest

A Pox By Any Other Name

A Pox By Any Other Name

Most efforts to treat the world’s myr­i­ad ills have fall­en short of inten­tions, nev­er mind expec­ta­tions. To give them a boost­er shot, I sug­gest look­ing to Shake­speare; specif­i­cal­ly, Juliet’s famous lament ‘What’s in a name…”
Think “Mon­key Pox”.Read the rest

THE LESSONS OF PENITENCE

THE LESSONS OF PENITENCE

“I humbly beg for­give­ness for the evil com­mit­ted by so many Chris­tians against the Indige­nous peoples.”
That sin­cere, if long-over­due apol­o­gy by Pope Fran­cis for the Catholic church’s role in the iniq­ui­ties of Canada’s res­i­den­tial schools, was wel­comed by many and con­sid­ered not suf­fi­cient by oth­ers. Be that as it may, his pen­i­tence car­ries a les­son for sec­u­lar zealots.Read the rest

Fouling the Nest

Fouling the Nest

As I slid past a thir­ty meter-high gran­ite cliff in my kayak this week, I noticed a slash of white just below a small cave-like crack in the rock. It brought to mind the proverb: “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest”, a typ­i­cal­ly human way to char­ac­terise fool­ish­ness by cast­ing unmer­it­ed aspersions.Read the rest