Author: Ian Chadwick

Semi-retired writer, editor, reviewer, media relations & communications consultant. Former municipal politician. Ukulele player. Aficionado of Shakespeare, Horace, Machiavelli, Chaucer, Cicero, Homer, and tequila. Curmudgeon and cynic. Lay historian. Godzilla and ERB fan. PC gamer. Avid reader. Skeptic. WordPress/website tinkerer. Loving husband. Companion to one dog and two cats. Passionate about my small town. Perennially curious about everything. My writing is copyright © protected.

Judas, a Biography

Long before Darth Vader, long before Lord Voldemort, long before Stephen Harper, Judas Iscariot reigned as the supreme icon of evil in Western mythology. Judas betrayed God. How much worse can you get?* For 2,000 years we’ve used the term Judas to refer to anyone who betrayed anything, any cause, any belief, any friendship. Yet, like all the icons of evil that came before, and who have followed, Judas holds a fascination for us that transcends his actions. Dante consigns him to the ninth circle of hell, … click below for more ↓

Council’s First Year Reviewed

As we come close to the end of 2015, it’s time to take stock of what your Collingwood Council has accomplished in its first year in office. Let me start by saying it’s up to you to decide whether we have the best people at the table to represent our needs. Or are they gormless, brainless, pursing a political agenda set for them by unelected outsiders, and/or blindly following the lead of administration staff? It is up to you to decide whether they have lived up to their … click below for more ↓

Consultants Run Amok

As the old saw says, a consultant is someone who comes in to solve a problem and stays around long enough to become part of it. So how many consultants’ reports does it take for council to figure out we’re spending too much money on consultants’ reports? More than three, apparently. Three is the number of consultants’ reports included in the preliminary budget alone (the one that recommends raising your taxes almost 4% and gives council another pay increase as a reward for doing so…!). Three consultants’ … click below for more ↓

Teas or Tisanes?

I suppose it’s crotchety of me, but whenever I hear the term “herbal tea” used to refer to an infusion of leaves or fruits that contains no actual tea, I get shirty. They’re actually not tea at all, they’re tisanes, a pleasant French word that means’herbal infusion.’ They should be called such and labelled appropriately in stores. Tea is, properly a plant originally from China: Camellia sinensis. How the word came to be used as a descriptor for any hot drink in which leaves were … click below for more ↓

Myth and Meaning

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us find within ourselves. So says Joseph Campbell in an interview with … click below for more ↓

Why I Still Watch MAS*H

The news of Harry Morgan’s death at 96, back in 2011, saddened me. I’m at the age when it seems far too many icons of my youth are dying off. Not from some misspent life or accident; from old age. And the process accelerates as I age. I now understand why my grandparents and then parents read the newspaper obituaries. I haven’t quite succumbed to that, but I’m sure the day will come. No, I’m not being morbid. Or maudlin. I have, I believe, a healthy attitude … click below for more ↓

Is This Your Bar of Soap?

This is side five. Follow in your book and repeat after me as we learn three new words in Turkish: Towel. Bath. Border. So begins Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him, from the first album released by the Firesign Theater, in 1968 (on later albums spelled as Theatre). Everything in it is a misdirection, a sidestep, a pun, an unexpected segue, a joke-within-a-joke, an opening to another place you hadn’t expected to be led to. May I see your passport please? Yes, I have … click below for more ↓

The Secret to Good Writing

Spoiler alert: the secret to writing well is…. (insert drum roll)… writing. Writing a lot. Every day. Every possible minute you can spare. Writing and writing more and then writing even more. But doing so within a pre-specified limit. Oops… Now we all know that, aside from some local bloggers and EB columnists, most of us get better the more we practice a thing. Writing – aside from the aforementioned inept exceptions – included. It means not vegging in front of the TV all night, … click below for more ↓

Grammatical Hell in a Handbasket

The Washington Post has started the apocalypse. Yes, they have. And the whole world is about to go to hell in the proverbial handbasket because of it. The maw of Hell has opened… The Post has decided after decades – centuries? – of editors, writers and grammarians arguing about the lack of gender-neutral singular pronouns in English, to accept “they” as the stand-in. Can you see the dominoes starting to topple? I shudder with that. It’s a diagnosis of grammatical ebola. There is no vaccine. The … click below for more ↓

Our ruined reputation

Collingwood’s reputation is in tatters. But you wouldn’t know that from the local media coverage. A story in the Stayner Sun this week illustrates just how bad it has become. It should have been front page in this week’s Connection: Clearview Township mayor chastises neighbouring Collingwood for airport decision In the story, Clearview’s mayor and deputy mayor rebuke Collingwood – our council and administrative staff – as being anti-business, anti-growth and simply being bad neighbours. Well-deserved criticisms if you’ve been following the airport debacle. Or … click below for more ↓

Moved by myself…

After watching Collingwood council meetings on Rogers again, I felt I should re-post a link to a piece I first wrote several years ago, then again in 2014, then re-wrote in April of this year: Me, myself and I Every time I watched the meetings, I also watched councillors say the same thing: “move by myself.” The incorrect use of the reflexive is like nails on a blackboard. We don’t expect all of our elected officials to be English majors, or great orators, but we do expect them … click below for more ↓

Screw the Taxpayer

Sitting down? Good. You might want a drink, too. A strong one. Ready? Get a grip on your chair. Here goes: Collingwood is looking at a 3.9% tax hike for 2016. And that’s just its own portion. Let me help you up. No, that isn’t wrong. It’s the proposed budget hike this council is contemplating. It was presented to council at an all-day meeting last week. The Connection reported on it, Dec. 2, in case you missed it (nothing in the EB, though).* That municipal tax … click below for more ↓

1914: My Grandfathers’ Year

As I read further into Max Hastings’ book, Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, I wondered, as I have done in the past when reading similar books about that time, what my grandfathers must have felt when that war broke out. What it meant to them and their worldview, and to their imagined futures, both at the start of the war, and then at the end, after four years of struggle, of deprivation, of fighting. What was it like to finally come home? What did … click below for more ↓