Some years back we went to a sheep-herding demo, the classic border collie vs sheep contest. No contest. For the sheep, it’s just one indignity after another, for the dogs, it’s sport. And it’s beautiful, the orchestration, the shouts, the whistles, the turning of the flock first this way, then that, then funneling them into…
The great danger in lying to ourselves is that we know exactly what we want to hear. We are, all at the same time, our own con man, mark, and shill. We whisper in our own ears, and we fall for it, time after time. Or, at least I do. Perhaps no modern example demonstrates…
My natural paternal grandfather died long before I was born. In fact, he passed away when my own Dad was only five. Thus I only knew what I had heard, which wasn’t much. It also wasn’t nice. Apparently he was not known to have held a job, but sat at home smoking and brooding while…
It was August 1914 and the First World War had just begun. In those days, horses still played their part in the military, and veterinarians were nearly as important as doctors. So it was that in the first wave of Canadians to answer the call was a veterinarian called Harry Colebourn from Winnipeg. Harry was…
Before you conclude I have finally lost it (and not without evidence), the title is actually a close approximation of a Scots English rendering of “How now, brown cow?”. And a wonderful example of what has happened (and continues to happen) with English pronunciation. Interestingly enough, Middle English pronunciation was much closer to the current…
Those who had a father or grandfather who served in the Canadian military during World War Two are likely to have heard the word “buckshee”. My Dad used it all the time. I’m not sure I ever used the word, and my kids probably have never heard it. With the passing of his generation, the…
If only it were always Saturday night. But that’s not how life works, especially in economics. John Maynard Keynes was a British economist, perhaps the most influential of all times. He lent his name to an entire branch of economics, the Keynesian approach, likely the most durable of all economic theories. Keynes was troubled by…
There are a bunch of things about which we don’t like to talk. Death, certain bodily functions, taxes, for example. Another thing which rarely gets much press is poverty. I mean economic poverty. We live in a rather privileged society. Even the poorest Canadian lives better than the majority in many other countries. It’s rare,…
When I was about forty-two years of age, my Dad dropped over to my house one winter Saturday morning, looking rather troubled. “What’s up, Pop?” I asked. “We need to talk” was his answer. So, I put on a pot of coffee and we took our seats at the kitchen table, Dad looking like a…
Maybe it’s age, but as the years whiz by I find myself reflecting back over life, my fifty-plus years with Karen, my kids, my relationships with parents, friends, and even adversaries. Two wonderful careers, and now well into my third. The memories are more often than not happy and positive, but from time to time…