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Columns | Mar 10

Anthem should reflect all genders

Like all Canadians watching the Olympic Games, I was in awe of our athletes’ talent and elated by their successes.
But I also felt an unfortunately familiar anger over the exclusionary - let’s be clear here, sexist - language of our national anthem. Why did Hayley Wickenheiser or Christine...

Columns | Mar 10

We are the keeper of our brother’s children

New parents stand out. Like the couple wheeling their little one into the big store the other day. Lots of fuss and attention to details. Everything had to be just right, apparently, before they could set off to look for the items on their shopping list. The baby’s seat had to be adjusted and...

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Columns | Mar 10

Wartime diary paints a fascinating picture

War in Val d’Orcia – An Italian War Diary 1943-44 by Iris Origo
There is a famous, much-photographed, Tuscan view of a long and winding road lined with cypress trees – the quintessential picture of Tuscany. It was designed and planted by a British landscape architect, Cecil Pinsent, on...

Columns | Mar 03

Springtime a precarious time for loggers

Springtime a precarious time for loggers

An early spring left loggers high and dry.
Early March was nail-biting time for the old-time lumber woods boss.   
Each time a “jobber” contracted to harvest a given quantity of merchantable timber from a lumber company’s holdings of standing pine, he bet blind in a high-stakes...

Columns | Mar 03

Time to do away with standard tests

Back in the late 1990’s, way, way back in the days of Mike Harris and company, it was decided that all Ontario schools would be required to test every child in Grades 3, 6 and 9 for achievement levels in math and English.
 The results of these tests were and continue to be the benchmarks...

Columns | Mar 03

An affair leaves heroine to her own devices

The Ginger Tree By Oswald Wynd
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd was published in 1977, but the story it tells begins in 1903. We read the diary entries of the fictional Mary Mackenzie, and her letters – over the next 40 years.
We meet Mary Mackenzie aboard a ship on her way...

Columns | Mar 03

Getting back to the basics

When a few parents get together socially it usually doesn’t take too long for the conversation to get around their job of being parents.
Especially since this little group could boast of at least 11 children among them and a few grandchildren as well.
The question that seemed to trouble...

Columns | Feb 24

Red Bones, third novel in mystery series

Red Bones by Ann Cleeves
Red Bones is the third installment in the Shetland Quartet by Ann Cleeves. But with the success that this series has brought her, I think she may have to keep her detective, Jimmy Perez, alive and somehow let him continue in a new series, after the fourth, and...

Columns | Feb 24

Love amid a changing Spain, in Belle Epoque

Spain, in 1930, was an absolute monarchy, backed by an archconservative clergy, with a military backing in the old glory of the times of Francisco Pizzarro and Hernando Cortez. The military draft was still in place, asking young Spaniards to sacrifice their lives in colonial pursuits.

Columns | Feb 24

Wowed by nature

It was a big, noisy bunch of abut 40 school kids - or whatever number might fit into those highway busses. They had, in a way, invaded a fast-food restaurant along the highway for a lunch break.
They were from the city. You knew that they had to be from the city, because they looked like a...

Columns | Feb 19

A quieter time of the year at the sanctuary

A quieter time of the year at the sanctuary

We call this the quiet time of the year – not because we are doing nothing; all the enclosures not in use are being scrubbed spotlessly clean. The entire downstairs of the barn, where baby animals will be cared for, has been repainted and is gleaming white.  New enclosures are being prepared...

Columns | Feb 19

Essence of Olympics lost with Canada’s rush to the podium

In 1896, Pierre de Coubertin realized his dream of the creation of an Olympic movement when the first Olympics in modern times was held. Coubertin believed that amateur sports could create a better and more peaceful world by educating youth through sports by creating opportunities to compete without...

Columns | Feb 19

Why building a house out of straw makes sense

It is funny but I suppose understandable that the concept of building a house out of straw bales elicits a great deal of disbelief from people. Indeed, when you consider that we grow up with the tale of the Three Little Pigs ingrained in our psyche, it is only logical to be pre-disposed to believing...

Columns | Feb 17

Jam Breakers, a song for the men of the 122nd

Jam Breakers, a song for the men of the 122nd

Parry Sound’s “Timber Wolves” and Muskoka’s “Cracker Jacks” went to war.
By late1915, it was apparent that the Great War would drag on much longer than originally anticipated. Consequently, Robert Borden, Canada’s prime minister, resolved to double the size of the nation’s armed forces to half...

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