It’s so satisfying, isn’t it, to stick in the knife and twist it. Sweet revenge! Just desserts, serves the SOB right! When our tender sensibilities have been sideswiped by some high flying, smart-ass, self-important dork, nothing feels better than smacking them down, giving them a taste of their own medicine, putting them in their place….
Larry Roine was one of my mentors, a giant of a man physically and professionally. Among his many Giftings was that of negotiation– First Nations treaties, labour disputes, and high-end commercial tangles. Larry was one of the “go to” stars of difficult, passionate, and high-stakes battles. Although he was a towering Nordic warrior in his…
Just about a year ago I wrote about the spring peepers and LinkedIn and professional reputation (https://mailchi.mp/add1ae62cb03/resolution-for-15362377?e=[UNIQID]) and all such serious stuff. As it turns out, I need to write about the spring peepers again, but for other reasons. Last year, and for as long as I can remember, it was well into April before…
English is a funny language, isn’t it? Take our orthography, or spelling, for example. Exactly why is there still a “p” in pneumonia, or ptarmigan? How come know and no are pronounced the same? And why do the Brits insist on spelling it “neighbour” while the Americans want “neighbor”? If you’re going to get finicky…
The English language has an unusual construction shared by few others. Even those related languages such as Dutch and German, which have a similar construction, make far less use of it. We call the structure a “phrasal verb”. Phrasal verbs are, as you might imagine, phrases, or groups of words, which behave like a single…
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” goes the old Scottish saying. While all of us spend some time riding wish-horses, it seems to me that those who form entire wish-cavalries live on the ends of the political spectrum. This isn’t “If you build it, they will come”– there’s no actual creation of a ball…
So, Donnie and Mikey have a genius idea: round up all eleven million illegal immigrants in the US, detain them in federal holding pens, process them, and deport them. Sounds like a simple way to solve the festering problem of all those illegals, right? Well, in the spirit of Ronnie Reagan, let’s play the role…
Immigration crisis? In Canada, there isn’t one. Yet. Truth be told, in most of our developed societies, we have an immigration opportunity. In fact, we have an immigration need. Canada and many other first world nations are facing down a dearth of talent and of new taxpayers to fill the gaps left by our declining…
When I was a little kid, the Second World War was still in the very recent past. My Dad and Mum and all of their friends were freshly returned veterans and for them and their parents, one of the pressing social issues of the day was what to do with “all the DPs.” “DPs” were…
On the St. Lawrence, on the south of the island of Montreal, lies the very old district of Lachine. The name itself in French simply means “China”, and therein is a funny and instructive tale. As is well known, by the end of the Middle Ages most Europeans were either ignorant of the American continents,…