Why I Still Watch M*A*S*H

Culture / Personal Reminiscences / Pop Culture / TVOne Comment

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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 towards death. Death moves me, sometimes fascinates me (as our collective attitude towards it fascinates me), ……… click below for more ↓

Is This Your Bar of Soap?

Culture / Humour & Satire / Personal Reminiscences / Pop Culture2 Comments

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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 it right here. (sounds of busy airport terminal in background) Uhum. Uhum. Uhum. Look at ……… click below for more ↓

The Secret to Good Writing

Grammar / Language & Grammar / My Writing / Style & usage / Writing & FictionLeave a comment

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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, or trolling the Net for images of the Kardashian’s oversized ass, or scrolling through Facebook ……… click below for more ↓

Grammatical Hell in a Handbasket

Grammar / Language & Grammar / Style & usageLeave a comment

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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 story popped up on Mental Floss today: Post copy editor Bill Walsh explains that he ……… click below for more ↓

The birth and death of privacy

Critical Thinking / Manners & Civility / Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder / Technology & GadgetsOne Comment

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I was in a local grocery store recently and it was my misfortune to enter, and walk most of the same aisles at the same time as a voluble woman shopper. She spent her entire time there on her cell phone. From before she entered, through the time she collected her groceries, went through the cash register, and exited, she did not once stop talking. Loudly. And it was a very personal, intimate conversation, as I and those in her near vicinity heard. Not intimate as in sexual, but she talked about private and personal issues, about other people, her feelings, her job, ……… click below for more ↓

Our ruined reputation

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviourOne Comment

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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 the Block 9 debacle and its fallout. Or the anti-business-tax-hike-to-cover-council’s-pay-raise debacle. Or the anti-business assault on ……… click below for more ↓

Moved by myself…

Collingwood / Council / Language & Grammar / Style & usageLeave a comment

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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 to know – and speak – the basics. We expect them to speak better than some ……… click below for more ↓

Screw the Taxpayer

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Taxes / User fees and costs3 Comments

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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 raise will be coupled with an increase from the county, sending your taxes skyrocketing up ……… click below for more ↓

1914: My Grandfathers’ Year

Books & Reviews / Family history / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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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 they think, then, of the world? Of their leaders? Of their own nationalism? Of the ……… click below for more ↓

Slow Down and Keep Quiet

Critical Thinking / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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I’m tired. I’m tired of a-holes treating my town streets like their personal raceways. I’m tired of immature jerks racing along streets well over the speed limit, squealing tires, ignoring stop signs. I’m tired of drivers who think they’re above the law; that the laws don’t apply to them. That what matters is that they can do what they want and screw the rest of us. Look, we get it. You’ve never matured beyond the show-and-tell stage. You’re releasing your inner six-year-old. You want to have a tantrum in the restaurant or the mall or some other public space like ……… click below for more ↓

In Search of Kant’s Categorical Imperative

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Ethics & morality / Logic and reason / PhilosophyOne Comment

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I have not read Immanuel Kant. Until recently, I did not feel at all apologetic about that statement. But when I watched the video above, I realized how much I was missing. A remarkable thinker, he proves to be, whose thoughts about society, religion, behaviour and politics appear at first glance quite akin to my own cogitations. And in many ways, his conclusions – at least as stated in the video – seem very Buddhist in nature. That “categorical imperative” seems most intriguing, and familiar in many ways, and I want more explanation. The video, above, was posted on my ……… click below for more ↓

The End of Integrity

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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Collingwood Council has apparently decided it is better to be viewed as hypocritical than as unethical. Following a year of investigations of council behaviour by the Integrity Commissioner, Robert Swayze, council decided that, rather than reform their collective behaviour, it was easier to dump the IC. So no more pesky peering into how they conduct themselves or whether they are acting in the best public interest. And yet most of those elected to council this term were among the group loudly demanding the last council hire an integrity commissioner to protect the public trust. Is that hypocrisy? Some would think so. The ……… click below for more ↓

Read, Re-read, Repeat

Books & Reviews / Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasy / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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I’m currently re-reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantasy novel of Soviet life under Stalin, The Master and Margarita. Since this is actually a newer translation than the original one I read many years ago, I’m not sure it properly qualifies as “re-reading.” However, for me, re-reading a novel is uncommon. I seldom have the time to re-read, because my current reading list never dwindles (in fact it grows as I continue to add books to my library). Plus my interests and not static: I constantly seek to learn new things.* I always have a dozen books on the go, piled beside my bed ……… click below for more ↓

Why Do We Make Music?

Behaviour & Psychology / Culture / Music & Reviews / Musical Instruments / Science & TechnologyLeave a comment

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Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak. I’ve read, that things inanimate have mov’d, And, as with living Souls, have been inform’d, By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound. What then am I? Am I more senseless grown Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe! ‘Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs. Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night The silent Tomb receiv’d the good Old King; He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg’d Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom. Why am not I at Peace? William ……… click below for more ↓

A Sense of Pinker’s Style

Books & Reviews / Grammar / Language & Grammar / Style & usage / What I'm Reading Now / Writing & FictionLeave a comment

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I share one of Steven Pinker’s passions: I like to read style books, grammar books, language books. To me, they’re like literary chemistry sets. When I was young, getting a chemistry set for Christmas or a birthday opened a whole world to me. I’d explore all sorts of interactions and experiments until I had run out of chemicals to do them with. Used litmus paper littered my bedroom. Reading a book on style or usage is similarly exciting to me. How words can be placed, can work together, how they meld or conflict, the alchemy and the choreography of language, all ……… click below for more ↓

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