Author: Ian Chadwick

Retired writer, editor, reviewer, media relations & communications consultant, municipal politician. Ukulele player. Aficionado of Shakespeare, Horace, Machiavelli, Chaucer, Cicero, Homer, socialism, science, Godzilla, ERB, & tequila. Curmudgeon, skeptic & cynic. Lay historian. Community volunteer. PC gamer. Avid reader. Woke socialist. Loving husband. Companion to one dog & three cats. Passionate about my small town. Perennially curious about everything. My writing is copyright © protected.

When good people do bad things in groups

The headline is taken from a piece on Science Daily on a study about how groups change personal behaviour and morality. The study is reported on the MIT website. I’ve seen that change myself, many times over the years, and most recently locally. The study adds intelligence on the neurology of how such group activity changed people. The report itself is called “Reduced self-referential neural response during intergroup competition predicts competitor harm,” which of course would have most people’s eyes glazing over. But the authors of the report start by asking a salient question: Why do interactions become more hostile when social ……… click below for more ↓

The Hollow Crown: Henry V

2014-06-12 2016-07-05 Books & Reviews / Culture / England and Britain / Film & ReviewsOne Comment

As I started to watch the last film in the Hollow Crown series, I wasn’t sure whether Tom Hiddleston was up to playing the iconic role in Shakespeare’s most patriotic (and jingoistic) play. I thought Hiddleston’s Prince Hal in Henry IV had just a little too much of Loki – and maybe the bully – in it for me to see him as a majestic king. But I was quickly won over. Whether the movie itself was good Shakespeare is another question. First a note on the lighting and sets: in Richard II, it was all light, bright and colour ……… click below for more ↓

The Hunting of the Snark

2014-06-11 2014-06-11 Books & Reviews / Culture / Humour & Satire / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading Now / Writing & Fiction2 Comments

I’ve always wondered why Lewis Carroll’s wonderful poem, The Hunting of the Snark – an Agony in Eight Fits – has never been redone, rewritten in a modern version, with modern references and people. It seems to lend itself to revision, at least to my eyes. Perhaps it’s because this sort of whimsical, satirical poem is not popular these days (it was written between 1874 and 76, a decade after Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and three decades after Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense). Perhaps it’s because it’s a long poem, and reworking it all would be a considerable effort. After all, it’s ……… click below for more ↓

E-readers: worth the investment?

2014-06-11 2014-07-31 E-books & E-readers / Science & Technology / Technology & Gadgets / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

I have a passionate, somewhat obsessive, relationship with books. Real books: paper, ink and glue. Not digital books. I have a lot of books and I treasure each one like an old friend. I love reading – I read books at least an hour every day, and usually much more. The feel of a book in my hands is a comfort and a delight. I worked in book publishing – a dream job for anyone with a passion for reading. I’ve never been seduced by an e-reader – even though at heart I’m a techie geek who likes hardware and gadgets almost ……… click below for more ↓

The Hollow Crown

2014-06-10 2014-06-11 Books & Reviews / Culture / Film & Reviews2 Comments

I’ve watched three of the four productions in the 2012 TV series, The Hollow Crown, this past week, and am greatly impressed by the productions and the acting. Wonderful, rich stuff. The series consists of the second Shakespeare tetralogy, the Henriad: Richard II; Henry IV parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, each roughly two hours long. I expect to see the last remaining one this week. (N.B. A new production of the first tetralogy, The Hollow Crown II, is in the works this year). There’s a bit of an irony in the tetralogy’s name: Henriad, because Henry doesn’t appear at all ……… click below for more ↓

Talking to water, yelling at rice

2014-06-06 2014-06-06 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery4 Comments

Dr. Masaru Emoto thinks you can hurt water’s feelings by shouting at it. No, really. Stop laughing. He’s written a bestselling book about it – The Hidden Messages in Water – and he’s convinced a whole lot of people that he’s right. But of course, the sheer numbers of believers doesn’t mean he is. Dr. Emoto has a degree in “alternative medicine”* from the Open University of Mumbai. According to CSICOP, “the only requirement for this degree are one year of study and completion of one research project.” Other sites call it a “diploma mill.” Well, that’s at least a year’s ……… click below for more ↓

Twenty years of strategic planning

2014-06-05 2014-06-05 Collingwood / Development & Growth / Municipal Politics / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

Twenty years ago – May, 1994 – the Town of Collingwood started a community-based strategic plan. That report was released in October, 1995. Then in October, 2000, Vision 2020 released its Blueprint Collingwood. These two documents are generally forgotten by the general public today, but they have been the basis of planning, of policy and strategic targets by councils and staff ever since. No particular council or mayor can take credit for the accomplishments; they’ve been achieved over more than two decades of effort and resolve. This post is simply to point out that these visionary documents were neither ignored nor ……… click below for more ↓

Pondering Responsive web design

2014-06-04 2014-06-04 Computers & Programming / Personal Reminiscences / Theme & CodingLeave a comment

I’ve been building websites since the early 1990s, and have had my own websites continually since 1995. For a few years, I did website design and analysis for commercial clients – mostly small local businesses. I even taught web design at a local adult learning centre for a couple of years. Way back when the Net was relatively new, I even did some pages for local events. Although I do less coding today, mostly for my own use, I still have an interest in the developments in web technology and layout. I taught myself the basics of HTML back when it was version 1.0, ……… click below for more ↓

Is silver safe as a medicine?

2014-06-03 2014-06-03 Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

The short answer to that headline question – based on everything I’ve read of late – is no. It’s not that silver has no medical uses – one form has been used in dressings and bandages as an antiseptic (not, as is sometimes claimed, an antibiotic). Silver nitrate is sometimes used to treat warts and corns. However, the benefits and long-term risks of silver in any form – especially an ingested form – have been not been fully researched. It’s not that colloidal silver – an entirely different product from topical silver – may not have health-related benefits. It’s just that we don’t ……… click below for more ↓

The Three Stooges

2014-05-24 2014-05-27 Culture / Film & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Pop Culture4 Comments

I bought a DVD set called The Ultimate Three Stooges this weekend.* I was rather surprised that even 20 DVDs could not contain all of the film work the trio (more on that, below) put together in their long career. But it does contain the core – and the very best – of their work, including several rare and forgotten early pieces. I’m delighted to have it – before this set I only had a scattered collection of pieces, but nothing this comprehensive. I grew up in the 1950s watching the Three Stooges in B&W on a TV that showed ……… click below for more ↓

Random grumblings for a Sunday afternoon

2014-05-04 2014-05-05 Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Why can’t I buy Yorkshire Gold tea in town? I can buy Barry’s tea, from Ireland, and Morse’s tea packaged in Nova Scotia locally. As well as other brands. Surely someone can bring in Yorkshire Gold… and yes, I’ve gone to every grocery store in town and asked for it. Even Sobeys – where I had been told it was available – the staff there had no idea what it was. Never heard of it, I was told. Barry’s tea is nice: a bit on the robust side, which we like, but the tea bags could use a tiny bit more ……… click below for more ↓

Reading music and music theory

2014-05-04 2014-05-06 Culture / Education & Learning / Music & Reviews / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

I write about reading a lot, because I read a lot of books. There are other kinds of reading – other languages, too – that I don’t write much about. Reading music is one of them. It’s a different language; a symbolic language with its own grammar, punctuation and rules. As far as reading music goes, I’m semi-illiterate. I’ve been playing music – guitar mostly – since the Beatles had Ticket To Ride on the hit parade, back in the days of AM radio and 45 RPM singles. But I’m self-taught: no classes or schooling, just a lot of practice ……… click below for more ↓

Irony and cognitive dissonance

2014-05-04 2014-05-04 Collingwood / Municipal Politics / PoliticsOne Comment

Politics is as full of irony as it is full of cognitive dissonance. And I don’t mean simply in politicians and their agencies: it is everyone and every group, every agency and every organization that dabbles in politics. Sooner or later, the irony comes out. And the cognitive dissonance sets in. Irony is a difference between the appearance of something and its reality. As Google brings up the definition: “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.” Amusing may be subjective. Irony surfaced recently in local ……… click below for more ↓

Seeing evolution in action

2014-04-28 2014-04-28 Evolution & Paleontology / Science & TechnologyLeave a comment

The pop-science notion is that evolution takes a long time. Millennia, many millennia; even millions of years. But is that always true? Can one actually see and measure evolution in action? Can it happen in such a short time as to be recorded? Peter and Rosemary Grant say they have. And it’s the subject of a new book they co-authored based on their research. Their story was reported in the April 23 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. It’s a terrific read if for nothing more than their 40-year tale of dedication, science and adventure on the isolated Daphne Major Island, ……… click below for more ↓