Category Society
The Pew
I went to church, and was slammed by the passage of time. Nothing, and everything, had changed. It had been almost 25 years since I last visited Montreal’s Madison Baptist Church, the place my family attended pretty much every Sunday from 1957 to 1972. My formative years were spent there. Intellectually I understood that it […]
In The Park
While Ottawa is experiencing warm days and sunshine more like summer than fall, this pile of wood showed up beside the baseball diamond in my local park on Monday, a reminder that winter is coming. With the leaves on the trees only just beginning to change, it is a time of transition. Probably most Canadians […]
Haunting Words
“The cross or the machine. It’s always the same choice.” – Marcus Mumford, “Conversation with my Son” That line has been haunting me since the end of February, when I first heard Prizefighter, the latest album from Mumford & Sons. So much richness in a few words. I am not going to review the album, […]
Pissing Match
It has been attributed to many famous people who never said it, including Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. No matter its origins, there is a lot of truth to the idea that you should “Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel and paper by the ton.” As a publicity-seeker, you […]
Labour Day 2026
Today is a holiday in Canada. In the US also, though they spell it Labor Day. I guess the extra ‘u’ was too much like work, so they dropped it. Given that it is a holiday, I thought I would take today off – especially since today is a salute to workers, and posting here […]
A Relic of the Past
How are you at cleaning your car? Not the exterior, but the stuff you accumulate inside. Napkins, lip balm, plastic utensils and straws, wipes, tissues, sanitizer, cloth shopping bags, small ice scraper, a miniature umbrella, loose change for tolls, phone chargers, first aid items – all those things it is good to have on hand, […]
Were You Wondering Too?
I saw this T-shirt in a store in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. As tempting as it was, I didn’t buy it. But it did get me thinking. Does it seem to you that the level of general intelligence has gone down in recent years? Have people allowed themselves to sink to the lowest common denominator? […]
The Magic Word
I was arguing with an AI chatbot. And I was losing. Customer service has been delegated almost exclusively to machines these days. In theory that is more efficient. Certainly it is for the business, somewhat less for the customer. The AI chatbots are indeed artificial, but their intelligence seems to be sadly lacking. I wanted […]
The Deadline
I would be concerned if I didn’t know better. I received a “subscription termination notice” supposedly from my email provider. I had 48 hours to respond. What exactly I was about to lose was vague. What subscription? What account? And why did I receive the message three days in a row telling me my account […]
Under Pressure
Did they not get marks in high school? Given that they are now university students, they must have – you don’t get in without good grades. At the University of Michigan this fall, new students will no longer be told grades in many of the courses they take.. It is for their mental health. Apparently […]
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