Dear Friend, The Guelph Squirrel Literacy Foundation needs your help. Can you find it in your heart to give generously? It’s almost Christmas, after all. We can’t tell you exactly what we do, because it’s all very complicated. But it’s very important. So send your money now! If you were sucked in by that...
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It’s way, way too early to be awake. The sun hasn’t even crested the horizon and I’m lying in bed, a blink away from a really nice dream, hammering the snooze button with a closed fist. As the radio DJ squawks on about something, it hits me: Why does this little plastic machine, with...
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“Those nerds are a threat to our way of life,” jock Stan Gable declared in the 1984 hit movie, Revenge of the Nerds. Seems we’ve been agreeing with Gable ever since. Let’s face it: we’re anti-nerd. They’re just not our kind of people. University of Waterloo professor Donna Strickland hears this distinctly North American...
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Turns out, I’m old. Specifically, I turned 30. Yes, you could say I should have seen it coming.  Firstly, the birthdays were always counting upwards. Secondly, I’ve been strangely drawn to Matlock reruns lately. Then, one day this month, I hobbled out of bed and that was it – I was old. The signs...
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Our parliamentarians made great strides in accountability this fall. They gave us… grand totals? Bending to criticism that the $143 million of taxpayers’ money our MPs spend each year on food, hotels, furniture and political flyers ought to be public, the House of Commons has released expense reports that finally removes the veil of...
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Early Sunday morning, after most Halloween parties had died down, two young men decided to do something really stupid. They took a step ladder and went creeping around Guelph’ McCrae House in the dark. After finding they couldn’t break in, they took what they could carry from the outside the building – a replica...
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Smart municipalities across Ontario, and Canada, are realizing that electronic vote counters make sense. They proved themselves again Monday night. In Guelph, these machines were able to count 28,072 ballots more quickly than any human and told us who had been elected well before bedtime Monday night. Voters could tune in to the city’s...
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It hasn’t been a good week to be a fella. The lights of Monday and another work day were just blinking on, and our national press was already bringing news that maledom itself was losing its way. The Globe and Mail called the male elementary school teacher the rare spotted owl of the education...
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The toll operator was talking like a preacher. “Do you trust in the GPS?” We blinked. Pardon? We just wanted directions. “Do you trust in the GPS?” Uh, hardly. We were stuck on some unfamiliar highway in Buffalo at night, trying to get home. And a woman in a slightly condescending British voice was...
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The last shot in the 21-gun salute was fired off, rattling the whole of Parliament Hill like an earthquake. Four Canadian fighter jets went roaring above the Peace Tower, so loud and so close you’d swear you could reach out and touch them. In their wake, the quiet was striking. David Johnston, the Sudbury...
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