Columns

Dear Barb—News Kid on the Block

Dear Barb: I am a mother of a 7-year-old daughter.  My husband and I are news addicts.  We always have CNN on in the background when we are home.  Often my daughter is in the room playing or drawing while the news is on.  I assumed she wasn’t listening to the TV, but I was… Read more »

[blue rare]—Intimations of Mortality

I am the poisoned worm at the bottom of the mescal bottle.  I am the air bubble in the bloodstream, the psychopath’s machete, the malfunctioning soviet-era satellite careening from the bright blue skies.  I am as beautiful as wolfsbane, as sleek as a bullet or a blade, as crooked as a funnel cloud, as sudden… Read more »

Beyond Literary Landscapes—The Lost Generation

From my early beginnings as a young introvert, the public library has always been a bit of a refuge.  Years later, not much has changed, albeit with an additional affinity for endless hours spent scouring second-hand bookstores to add to my ever-growing “to-read” pile. From one bookworm to another, this column will be underscoring and… Read more »

Homemade is Better—Three Cheese Chicken Roulade

February is so close to being done, and we are getting closer to spring.  Here in Edmonton, it’s supposed to get a bit colder and then warm up soon.  I hope you’re staying warm wherever you live, and I hope you enjoy making and eating this recipe. It started with an idea for chicken roulade… Read more »

Dear Barb—Parenting Other People’s Children

Dear Barb: My best friend, Tessa, has a teenage daughter who is doing drugs and I don’t know what to do about it.  Should I tell her, or should I mind my own business?  I learned about this from my teenage son who goes to the same school as Tessa’s daughter.  He says she is… Read more »

Fly on the Wall—Is Education a Training for Herd Compliance?

Like Arctic Cariboo shifting en masse from the Northwest Territories to their Alaskan calving grounds, universities, from a bird’s eye view, can seem to be merely training paddocks for herds of sheeple.  Critics’ stereotypical assumptions are that pupils, shorn of individual thoughts, emerge trained in a series of right answers and proper methods.  Willing and… Read more »

Beyond Literary Landscapes—Latin American Modernismo

From my early beginnings as a young introvert, the public library has always been a bit of a refuge.  Years later, not much has changed, albeit with an additional affinity for endless hours spent scouring second-hand bookstores to add to my ever-growing “to-read” pile. From one bookworm to another, this column will be underscoring and… Read more »

Music Review—Drive

Artist: Captain Kaiser Album: Rhyme & Reason Single: “Drive” Belgian alternative/punk band, Captain Kaiser, has released the new single, “Drive”, from their forthcoming album.  The album, titled Rhyme & Reason, is set to be released later this year.  In the meantime, “Drive” is available for streaming anywhere you get your music, and has an accompanying… Read more »