As I start to write here in northern North America, the headlines from the old heartland of the Ottoman empire far away, between the Mediterranean and Black seas, are not encouraging. (See : “Police lock down Taksim, PM shows off in Istanbul” ; “Turkish PM says it was his ‘duty’ to oust protestors occupying Istanbul [...]

QUEEN’S PARK, TORONTO. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013. 4:45 PM. [UPDATED JUNE 12]. So (as Premier Wynne might say) the 2013 Ontario Budget bill has now passed third reading, 64–36. This may have surprised you, if you were paying serious attention to such Toronto Sun headlines as : “PCs call for former Liberal staffers to turn [...]

Dr. Dave Town from Orillia, Ontario offered an intriguing comment on my recent post about Senate reform,  “Is doing anything sensible with the Senate of Canada just a vain fantasy?” (And I believe he is the same person I have now intriguingly discovered on the “gossip-stew of the internet” : successful chiropractor by day, public-spirited  [...]

I have now collected 32 recent press articles on Senate reform in Canada, and the current senator expenses scandal in Ottawa. They start with “Canada PM calls for Senate reform amid expenses scandal” on Tuesday, May 21, 2013. They end on Friday, May 31 with : “Move to elected senate, says former Liberal leader … [...]

[UPDATED MAY 25]. As this strange week in Canada’s most populous metropolis (also most domestically hated and now “internationally” laughed-at) draws to a close, Mayor Rob Ford has at last broken his silence about the “Allegedly Seen Smoking Crack” video of which he is said to be the Toronto star. Following our earlier report in [...]

Kudos to Google Canada for including a “Mountie in the iconic bright red uniform and broad-brimmed hat … in front of mountains, forest and water” on its home page today, in commemoration of the “140th anniversary of the North West Mounted Police.” In case you have forgotten, the North West Mounted Police were established by [...]

We have begun to renovate the bar at the top of the counterweights home page over the past few days. Much remains to be done. Among the starters we have retired our ”Streetcar Named Rob Ford” page. We were getting too jaded about the circus act the current mayor of Toronto, Canada has been offering [...]

WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2013. GANATSEKWYAGON, ON.  So …  here back east (well at least on the north shore of the most easterly of the North American Great Lakes, in anglophone Central Canada), we have only recently passed from May 14 to May 15. But already it seems that the current Western Canada Provincial Politics Syndrome [...]

Like many others, I am still trying to figure out new Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau, and what he may or may not mean for our Canadian future. I note such recent headlines as : “Quebec undergoing a Liberal revival, new poll finds” ; “Justin Trudeau Liberals jump to seven-point lead over Tories, [...]

I was quite deeply into reading poetry (or verse, as some said), from about my late teens to my early 20s. Then the practicalities of life pushed me in other directions. I returned for a brief time in my late 30s. But fate again conspired to focus my thoughts on the more prosaic realities of [...]