This tribute is about fifty years overdue. Teaching was the first of my three formal professions, and in many ways my happiest and best. Among the highlights was watching the unfolding and blooming of a young girl called Tracy. Tracy was one of those kids who sat at the back of the class, her goal…
Things were different in the Halifax of 1835. Then, as now, Nova Scotia’s capital was a busy seaport and naval base, the largest city in the region, and a hub of political and cultural activity. But as much as Atlantic Canada today is known as a bastion of sensible and progressive politics, in those days…
In both my current profession as an advisor and my former profession as a lawyer, nothing makes me cringe more than officious bombast posing as legalese. And perhaps the most cringeworthy phrase is “please be advised”. “Please be advised” represents everything that is goshawful about goshawfulness. If I speak legalese, will people suddenly think I’m…
The Madawaska River drains from majestic Lac Temiscouata in Quebec and flows through a mountain valley into New Brunswick, where it meets the St. John near Edmundston. It’s a glistening gem of a river, set in a gentle and verdant valley. Nestled in the valley, near the river’s shore, is a highway rest stop that…
There was a time when people had memory and machines didn’t. That’s now pretty well reversed. There was a time when making changes in documents, or photographs, was laborious and not for the faint of heart. Today, changing history is trivial– just a couple of buttons. And just wait until AI really gets going. What…
On December 12, 1901 at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, Guglielmo Marconi reported that he had received the world’s first transatlantic radio signal, a series of clicks transmitted from his antenna in England. There was (and remains) some scepticism, so in 1902 he repeated the signaling from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia to England. Either way, Marconi was…
A recent article set me off, not because of its content (it was rather vapid) but because the preppy little princess who authored the thing kept chirping on about “the septuagenarian”, apparently her new favourite word. Septuagenarian? What the heck are “septuagenarians”? Are they custodians of septuagens? Maybe officers in the Roman Senate? Perhaps septuagenarians…
Marshal Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch was, by all accounts, a brilliant and insightful military leader, the Supreme Allied Commander during the last years of World War One. His opinion of airplanes? “They are interesting toys, but of no military value.” Not long before that war, the motorcar had come into vogue, and in many jurisdictions…
Two things caught my attention this week past. First, Mondrian’s “painting” New York City I has been hanging upside down for over seventy-five years, and nobody noticed until now. And the second, not unrelated, is the CUPE strike in Ontario. To be fair to Mondrian and the critics, the “painting” is actually just a whole…
What’s up? Well, waiting times in Canadian emergency rooms are up, for one thing. In fact, waiting times for everything medical in Canada. What else is up? Violence and abuse toward medical personnel is up. Overcrowding is up (Canada ranks 31st of 34 OECD countries in hospital crowding). The number of Canadians without a family…