Canada
March 6, 2010
- Dear Canada. Way to go, you hosers. Did yourself proud and put on one heck of an Olympics. Congratulations for providing an incredible seventeen days of thrills and spills on the ice and snow and in the slush and fog. That was a winter games for the ages, except for that excruciatingly obvious lack of winter thing. As it turns out, Washington DC might have been a better host city, but who knew? ...
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March 2, 2010
- Some fifteen years ago, I decided, after toying with poetry, short stories, and newspaper articles, to write a novel. I did, it was published, and my ego found reason to give me a swelled head as I began to see the book appear in bookstores. The novel, a mystery, A Reason To Tremble, was a mass market paperback publication, published in Canada. Ugly things happened between U.S. distributors and ...
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March 2, 2010
- For the past several weeks, I have been immersed in watching the Olympics. I am sure I am not alone in this. From the opening ceremonies to the closing ceremonies there has been drama. There has been elation; there has been agony, tragedy, and more. Throughout the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, one phrase kept coming up and that was, "owning the podium". When all was said and ...
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February 21, 2010
- Though - to be fair - Kafka meddles in the politics of every country on earth. Kafka sees what 'they' don't want you to see. Kafka tells you what 'they' don't want you to hear. Kafka shows you that the ship o' state always has its hatches battened.Standing on guard against Tommy Douglas Tommy Douglas, leader of the New Democratic Party, speaks to an election campaign rally at Maple Leaf ...
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February 18, 2010
- INVASION FORCE BURNS US CAPITAL! PRESIDENT FORCED TO FLEE TO VIRGINIA! FOREIGN OFFICERS EAT HIS DINNER! YANKEES SACK TORONTO! BEAUTIFUL SPY BRIBES US SOLDIERS WITH MILK CHOCOLATE MADE FROM PET COW, SNEAKS SECRET MESSAGE TO BRITISH LIEUTENANT! PRIVATEERS PLAGUE ATLANTIC, CARIBBEAN, LAKE ONTARIO! The headlines -- with a few National Enquirer-style embellishments -- sound like they're from the ...
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February 6, 2010
- Canadian Writers Air Google Book Search GripesBy Leigh Ann Williams -- Publishers Weekly, 2/3/2010 8:03:00 AMA group of about 175 Canadian writers registered their objections to the Google Book Search settlement last week just before the Jan. 28 deadline for submissions to a New York court. David Fewer, an Ottawa law professor and director of the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest ...
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January 25, 2010
- Winter Olympics in Canada sound great for sports, but apparently they are worth a few chuckles too. The world is an ignorantly blissful place. I got this in the mail:These are some questions people from all over the globe are asking about Canada. Believe it or not these questions were posted on an International Tourism Website. Obviously the answers are a joke; but the questions were really ...
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January 8, 2010
- Browsing online and, by chance, click on The Toronto Islands, (Dreadnaught, 1983) a coffee-table size, non-fiction illustrated history ("a close-knit community, an island playground, an important historic area in the heart of Toronto"). I received a Canada Council grant and wrote the book in the early 1980s while living in Canada. Shock is to see it selling for $953.73. If only poetry ...
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December 25, 2009
- I like to do my bit to help the effort to save our planet. Last week in Rome my wife and I confronted a brand new recycling program which, mainly, seemed to consist of workmen loading enormous amounts of bottles into their tiny dump truck outside our window at 5 a.m. We cheered them on and put our bottles in the right bin. Unbeknownst to me, my Palestinian crime novels also played a part in the ...
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December 9, 2009
- Those who live in temperate or tropical climates probably never experience the hidden joys of winter in a climate like Canada's. Canadians love to complain about the weather, like long-married spouses who still cherish each other but can't resist getting in a few verbal jabs. Yes, winter is cold, snowy, and sometimes uncomfortable. Yes, the days are short, and sometimes dark. In fact, in a ...
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