Jul 21
I’ve come to adore my cardiologist, even though he sometimes delivers disturbing news and forces me to contemplate my mortality every time I’m in his office. I didn’t always feel this way about him. Read more
When I would visit my friend Neal Evans’s house as a teenager, it was always full of his mother Lee’s presence. This included artistic vigour, lots of projects, and a strong dose of social activism in the air. Read more
At this time of the year Vancouver is verdant, warm and blooming. And well it should be: spring has already been on the go for two months, or sometimes even four. Read more
Just before Tarek Lubani and John Greyson returned to Canada from their 50 days of captivity in Egypt last October, the coverage of the incident reached a sensational peak in the Toronto media. Ezra Levant of the Toronto Sun red-baited the two Canadians as they lay captive in Cairo, calling them left-wing attention seekers, professional agitators – that is, blaming them for their own predicament. In the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente went a step further, outing Greyson as a gay activist in her column.
I CHANCED UPON an amusing story online this week, about a Swiss guy who installed a wood stove in his Volvo, to counteract Europe’s recent freezing temperatures. It brought back a flood of memories about growing up with Volvo wagons.
ALTHOUGH SHE grew up in Ontario, and camped as a teenager in Algonquin Park, Marling came to love the Canadian west. Her favourite spot was the beach, dykes and mud flats ringing Tsawwassen, B.C., her home for the last two decades of her life. Even in her 70s, she led family crabbing expeditions across the mud flats. She followed the ebb tide on foot, hoping to grab a straggler or two with her barbecue tongs as they scuttled for deeper water. The outdoors put her in touch with her family heritage and her faith. Although she loved music, theatre and visual art, she found the most solace in nature.
the write stuff 