Everyone down here in the States is talking about the Tea Party. It is a grassroots protest movement named after the famous Boston Tea Party that preceded the original American Revolution.Their motto was: No taxation without representation. And that same charge, that was aimed at the British crown in 1776, is now being aimed at their own federal government in Washington....
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I think the U.S. will soon pull out of the recession. It's very simple, really. They all spend money.  I honestly don't know how they do it. But as I travel around the Southwest, I see so many new cars. In the hotels and restaurants and casinos I work at, I see so many people who seem to have an endless supply of disposable cash. Recession? What recession? That seems to be the attitude....
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There are things a Canadian has to get used to when dining in the United States. The first thing is the size of the portions. The food is piled high. The rule of thumb seems to be – quantity not quality. There is no such notion as too much of a good thing. Enormous steaks will come with equally enormous mounds of melted cheese on top. And desserts will be large enough to feed a village in Bangaladesh. ...
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Welcome to the new era, West Islanders, when you will be expected to pay more and more for the privilege of living adjacent to the once-great metropolis of Montreal.You will be pleased to know that the delusion of grandeur, the Montreal tradition so epitomized by Jean Drapeau, goes on. But in an all new way. Instead of inspiring enormous and expensive civic projects that will bleed taxpayers for decades, it has become a huge sink hole of entitlements that will bleed taxpayers for...
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The record-breaking film Avatar is a visual wonder; and also a wonderful example of the sentimentalization of nature.It portrays a beautiful and wholesome naturalism that stands up to a crushing militarized civilization fuelled by greed. It is Pocahontas meets Michael Moore. And although we leave the theatre identifying with the heroic blue aboriginals, all but the most deluded among us know they never existed and they never will....
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I believe in travel as a cultural experience. So while in Los Angeles last week, I was eager to partake in some local culture. I went online and secured tickets to see a taping of the Jay Leno Show.It was an unusual time to be there. The show had just been cancelled. And at the moment the problems at NBC are the talk of the town. Jay has not been drawing the numbers needed for his time slot and is being demoted to a later spot. The current holder of that time slot, Conan O’Brien, is...
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I am in California once again. I never get tired of coming down here.I flew here to visit my mother. "How long did it take you to fly here?" She asked."Four and a half hours," I replied. "In the air. And four and a half hours on the ground. In lines.""That must be why they call them airlines," she said. "It's an equal mixture of time spent in the air and time spent in lines."...
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To quote my great-great uncle Charlie: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times….”That’s the new year’s template: It was the time of endless paradoxes.  It’s 2010 – twenty-ten. I like that name. It’s concise. The years slip by so fast. I still sometimes write 19… on the date line of my cheques. I must be a residual victim of Y2K. (I know what you’re thinking: He still writes cheques?)...
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If only we could have known in 2001 how this Oscar-winning film title foretold what would happen in 2009?Question: What’s the worst phone call you can get?Answer: Hi this is Tiger Woods, can I speak to your wife?So here are my thoughts about Tiger Woods. I don’t know much about him. He was a golfer – right? I always thought that his was an unfortunate name for a golfer – “Woods.” But maybe that just tells you a lot about my golfing....
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I have read explanations on why we have a tree, why we have lights and why we give presents. Apparently, it is all part of an ancient fertility festival that would take place at the darkest, coldest, most unfertile time of the year. In those ancient times, we humans believed in “sympathetic magic.” That is, we believed that if we wanted to affect a change in nature – in this case to bring back the light and the fertility to the land – that we should imitate the result we desired,...
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