Norm’s Notes

  • Sic Semper Tyrannis

    We’ve always had tyrants, and we always will. Tyrants, after all, are simply extremely successful entrepreneurs who have co-opted their systems to obtain control over most or all of the available human and economic resources. And having done that, “much wants more”, so before long they will wage war, at someone else’s expense, to get…

  • Walter

    Saskatchewan’s Ukrainian diaspora has blessed our country richly. Walter Terentiuk was of that stock. Walter never left home without his spiral-bound pocket notebook and a stubby pencil. He’d listen carefully to everything you said, asking insightful questions, and from time to time stop you and take notes. Later, the notes went into his meticulous records,…

  • Wrecking Square Pegs

    Paul Collins, writing about autists, says “Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It’s that you’re destroying the peg.” Collins’ dictum brought me up short, not because I’ve had that much experience with the autistic, but…

  • Special

    Everybody needs to feel special. And, to be sure, everyone is special. Unique, in some way or another. Heaven knows, this blog keeps banging away at that very concept. But it needs to be special for a good reason. A useful reason. A noble reason. Not a trumped-up, selfish reason. Let’s take my very personal…

  • Hero

    On August 19, 1942, just over six thousand commandos, mostly Canadian, were dropped off on the beaches at Dieppe, an exploratory raid to test invasion theories. Although the defenses were well known, little had been done to soften up the bunkers and pillboxes glowering down from the cliffs. It was not pretty. Nearly two thirds…