Author Archives: Lorne Anderson
On Church and State in Rowan County
The case was huge on Twitter and Facebook. Depending on your slant, either a Christian was jailed for her faith or a scoff-law was put in her place, when Kim Davis, County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, was jailed for contempt of court (she has since been released). Her crime was to defy a court […]
Spencerville Fair – April Wine
The first time I saw April Wine in concert there were 30,000 people who came out to see them. Or so their manger claimed in a series of advertisements he took out after the show to promote the band. The whole truth was a little different. Yes, there were 30,000 people there. However no more […]
Bumbling Bureaucracy
I got a letter from the government. They wanted me to get a new health card. I ignored it. Ontario has been “upgrading” the cards citizens use to access our healthcare system. When I first moved to the province the cards were paper. Sometime in the 1970s they switched to plastic cards, red and white […]
Elizabeth Regina
When I was first in school, a long time ago now, we started every day by singing God Save The Queen, which at the time was still officially the Canadian national anthem. The present anthem, O Canada, has been around for more than a century, but didn’t become official until 1980. I mention this today […]
More View From The Top
Yesterday I did want to celebrate the first day of the school year here, so I took a break from posting pictures from the ruins of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. My Monday picture post was popular enough that it seems only right to let you see a little more of the view. Iraq isn’t […]
September Again
It has been the same ritual every September. I ask my daughter how her first day of school went. It may It have been good, it may have been indifferent, but she always manages to tell me “I hate school.” For eighteen straight Septembers that was our ritual. Until last year. Suddenly she was excited […]
Today’s Deal
But 1 Get 2 FREE! Sounds like a great deal. I’m not sure I need more ties (does anyone?) but at that price I would at least look. But there’s a catch. The offer, which showed up in my email this morning from a Moores, the Canadian men’s clothing chain, is good today only. Today […]
View From The Top
Today a dictator’s-eye look at northern Iraq, some pictures taken from Saddam Hussein’s bedroom in the ruins of one of his palaces. I never get to go anywhere. I guess this was an exception. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so I’m just going to shut up and let you enjoy this spectacular […]
Tea In The Ruins
The Peshmerga guards ask if we would like some tea. I don’t drink hot drinks, but I know it would be culturally insensitive to refuse such an offer. So I sit with a glass of hot tea, very sweet the way Iraqis like it, and look out over the valley, a view worthy of a […]
The Road Up The Mountain
Stay on the asphalt and you’ll be fine. That is the basic warning on the red triangular signs. Or so I was told – I can’t read Arabic. But it seemed to be a sensible precaution. If I was a dictator I would probably plant the odd land mine around my palace too. And somehow […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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