Random Thoughts on “Black Friday” My wife Anne is a latecomer to North American culture. Growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia, she learned at a very early age to tune out the constant drumbeat of mendacious propaganda. This impermeable filter has served her well in the Ameri-Canadian commercial sphere where orgies of greed punctuate a perpetual..
Speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall November 25,2024 Here are a few excerpts from my speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall yesterday. Anne and I were protesting the proposed 120% hike for a monthly seniors’ bus pass slated for 2025. The entire five-minute speech is on YouTube at 3:09:25..
Noisy neighbours “Good fences make good neighbours” – Robert Frost “Hell is other people” – Jean-Paul Sartre We had been living in Paradise…until the new neighbours moved in. Before coming to France in the fall of 2021, we had never resided in a dwelling without at least one adjoining wall. And we paid the price..
Good morning! Muffins anyone? Muffins are an integral part of the overall flavour of our lives…Even the very word “muffins” and the muffin scene in The Importance of Being Earnest are worth repeating over and over again. Jack: How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t..
Our self-cleaning public washroom nightmare becomes a reality in Nîmes I just learned that our new home town of Ottawa, Ontario, is implementing a worthy project to provide public washrooms throughout the city core, including at least two self-cleaning facilities. 2025 City of Ottawa budget includes $1 million for two public washrooms in Centretown |..
Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust – or less than dust – in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing – Carl Sagan Celestial Deception: A Tanka poem Cocoon nebula Portending a butterfly To the naked eye… Our doors of misperception A cause for celebration?..
Seething Seniors: a letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen newspaper Dear editor, I’m writing in response to the article headlined Ottawa seniors seething about massive hike in OC Transpo pass price penned by Ken Warren and published on November 14. Ottawa seniors shocked by big hike in OC Transpo pass cost | Ottawa..
Elegy for My Grandfather: Remembrance Day 2024 My grandfather, Thomas McBryde, physically survived the trench warfare of World War One, including the Battle of Vimy Ridge (1917), when Canadian forces triumphed at the cost of more than 10,600 soldiers killed and wounded. Thomas McBryde screamed in his sleep throughout his long life, a victim of..
Female or juvenile ruby-throated hummingbird hovering by a dahlia A Haiku poem Fleeting equipoise Hush of regeneration Saved by art alone. How to Write a Haiku, With Examples | Grammarly Blog A haiku is a type of Japanese poem that always uses the same number of syllables in a three-line format: • the first line..
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan The Pelican Nebula Interstellar dream… Gestation…galactic spawn Nebulous frenzy Triumphant birth… illusion Pelican of lying eyes. Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears..