Columns

Lost & Found – Living on Borrowed Time

I’ve always loathed the notion of “living on borrowed time,” even though I’m confident that God wears a watch as big as the moon and with no dials. ~Jim Harrison I went to the doctor, and he told me I have no more than eighty or ninety more years to live. I can’t tell you… Read more »

The Good Life – The Web of Our Influence

It is sometimes very tempting, and dispiriting, to imagine that we have very little control over what happens in the world around us. Throughout the world, there are wars, riots, and signs of impending economic and environmental collapse. Sometimes we feel insignificant and powerless, as though we were plankton caught up in the great surge… Read more »

Music To Eat Lunch To – The Tender Box: The Score

Release: October 2006 Label: Universal Tracks: 11 Rating: 3 Before I get deeply involved in a description of this album and its merit (or lack thereof), let me first explain my rating system for these reviews. Like most scoring charts, mine starts at one and ends at ten, with ten being the best. Simple. But… Read more »

Lost & Found – A Place of Ice

When we were very young, we would stay well away from that lake. We would avoid it like the plague. We would stay away, because it was the place where Old Man Thibeault would drown kittens in a wool sack. Because it was the place where fish with human faces swam in the shadows and… Read more »

The Good Life – Enough of the Horror

And so it begins. I’m talking about the news coverage of the Robert William Picton case. As you are almost certainly aware, Picton is the man accused and currently being tried for the murder of six women who had disappeared from Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. It is an immensely long and complex trial, and because… Read more »

From Where I Sit – Shoulder Saga V

The aftermath of my November surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and related problems continues. While I have every reason to believe that all this will have been worth it when I’m totally recovered, it is not for the faint of heart. I undertook the surgery and subsequent physiotherapy because I believed I would… Read more »

AUSU This Month – AUSU Handbook/Planner

AU Students Applaud Affordability Framework New policy addresses many concerns, but barriers still exist Athabasca University Students’ Union – Friday’s press release on the Affordability Framework for Post-Secondary education included a number of surprises and addressed many of the concerns expressed in AUSU’s 2005 submission to the A Learning Alberta Steering Committee’s post-secondary review. Requests… Read more »