Back in the middle of this past March 2016 my esteemed colleague Citizen X was telling us : “The wisest thing I’ve come across on the American presidential primaries lately urges that 2016 so far is ‘democracy as depicted by Hieronymus Bosch’” (from the Huffington Post’s “Top 12 Reasons This Is The Most Depressing Election […]
[UPDATED AUGUST 4]. Does anyone really think the US presidential campaign of Donald Trump is the only weird thing going on in the global village right now ? Whatever else, the start of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this coming Friday will confirm that this is a bizarre year across the planet. See, […]
GREAT LAKES REGION OF NORTH AMERICA. JULY 8, 2016. Almost all aspects of the  US election campaign strike me as too much over the top at the moment. Maybe it’s just the summer heat. (Or maybe it’s just that the 2016 US election really is crazy, as all our US friends keep telling us, again […]
[UPDATED JUNE 22, 23 : scroll below for LFB’s VERY LAST-MINUTE THOUGHT. LUNCHTIME, JUNE 23]. It first became altogether clear to me that the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom across the seas this Thursday, June 23 was serious, when I met the UK uncle of a friend of my son, in Canada on business […]
The appalling ISIS-related terrorist attacks in Paris this past Friday make at least one thing clear. How a person reacts to such international events in a place like Canada (or even the United States, sometimes) can depend a lot on general political brands that have nothing to do with terrorism. According to the Toronto Star, […]
A few days ago my TV viewing partner and I caught up with the more or less new Grace of Monaco movie (aka Princess Grace on some listings), which in our part of the world apparently debuted on cable at the end of May this year. It’s directed by Olivier Dahan (from France) with a […]
Until recently Toronto’s new mayor, John Tory, was widely loved in opinion polls. Â As in “Tory’s approval rating remains strong” (April 13), and “Still in the honeymoon stage … Mayor John Tory continues to enjoy a soaring approval rate” (May 8). Yet it seems that the worm has now started to turn, as it inevitably […]
The world being what it is at the moment, even (or especially?) in Canada, it is difficult not to be  at least somewhat cynical about the trial of the suspended senator Mike Duffy, that starts in an Ottawa courtroom today. From this angle Andrew Coyne strikes the right note in a National Post article, headlined […]
If you live in the North American northeast and are fed up with winter, join the club. My ultimate goal is just to transcend the moment. So I have decided I like the almost-waist-high snow walls between the sidewalk and the road, glistening in the sunlight. “As we face unafraid / The plans that we’ve […]
Some time ago now I was assigned the task of congratulating the new mayor of Victoria, BC, Â Lisa Helps – for declining to swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II during Mayor Helps’s inauguration the week before last. Maybe just because I’m getting older and slower, in the midst of the very rapidly gathering holiday season, […]
