The Blue Jay is one of Canada’s best known birds. At our house we can have a dozen at our feeders. Rowdy, curious, clever and aggressive, Cyanocitta cristata is one of our prettiest birds, and it knows it. But it’s not blue. Come on, you say– why, even the Latin name hints at blueness! Well,…
Just recently, my dear and ever-patient wife sent me an e-mail asking my opinion about a Christmas gift for one of our grandchildren. Like many of us, I use Gmail. As I was opening and reading her question, Google had already proposed three responses: “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”, “I think that’s a great idea!”,…
It’s hard to believe that it’s over fifty years since Pat Robertson launched his own broadcasting network featuring The 700 Club. Frequent guest Jim Bakker would soon, with his wife Tammy Faye, go on to run their own PTL Club. But this is neither to celebrate nor denounce Robertson and his endeavours, rather to point…
So said an official of a Florida municipality after Hurricane Michael blasted his city into the next county. “Individuals”? These were Moms and Dads and kids. “Deceased”? Sorry, sir, they actually died and left heartbroken families. Others were merely gravely injured, and many had their homes and worldly goods turned into uninsured rubble. This was…
With all eyes on the US midterms only a few days hence, observers around the world are beginning to understand that Donald Trump was quite right to speak of “rigged” elections, although not exactly as he meant. Notwithstanding the belief of many Americans, their country is not the world’s only democracy, nor its oldest, largest…
What follows comes from over three and a half decades of legal practice. I’m no project manager, but I have learned (often the hard way) that there are a handful of essential questions you need to ask before setting out on an important project. Of course, you also need to ask yourself other questions about…
I’m sure you’ve wondered why “pants”, “trousers”, “jeans”, “britches”, “dungarees” and all such legwear are plural, and come in pairs. A pair of socks, a pair of gloves, sure, but how can a single garment be considered a “pair”? Well, as most odd things in our odd language, there is a historical explanation. For the…
In an earlier Friday Briefing a passing reference was made to Brân the Blessed, also called Bendigeidfran, the Giant King. As told in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/myths_mabinogion.shtml) , the epics which predated the Arthurian legends, Brân led his troops in a campaign of vengeance against a king who had married but abused…
Sean O’Sullivan was nothing if not a boy wonder, being elected to Parliament at age 20, at that time the youngest ever to sit in the House of Commons. Even at that tender age he was politically experienced, having already served as assistant to John Diefenbaker, and tagged for greater things. But just as his…
Recently my friend and colleague Nathalie Plamondon-Thomas (https://www.espeakers.com/s/caps/profile/29959) and I were kidding around about the importance of encouragement within organizations, and she suggested that maybe companies and associations should appoint Chief Encouragement Officers. Half in jest, half seriously. Think about it. The major reason companies and organizations lose good staff and mid-level leaders is that…