Dog On A Root

- jim Young “By the way, you can use the radio anytime you want. No extra charge. It works good too. Listen.” - 1050 CHUM I graduated from Warnica Public School in Painswick in 1965. Or did I just “pass”? Potato, potahto. The point is, I was growing up and heading to high school. Following the tradition that my paternal Grandfather had started with my older cousins and sisters, he bought me a Sony Transistor Radio as a graduation gift. I was first exposed to CHUM Radio, which was broadcasting the latest hits of the day from their studios on Yonge Street in Toronto, on my sisters’ radios. But now I had my very own transistor radio to listen to whenever and wherever I wanted. I felt like I was the coolest teen in the world. In fact, I felt like I had discovered CHUM Radio. I remember going to visit my Grandmother who we called Gaga, when she lived on Onslow Crescent in Toronto. I was totally shocked one day when I walked into Gaga’s kitchen to discover her kitchen radio was tuned to 105...

- jim Young “Like your body, your mind also gets tired. So refresh it with wise sayings.”  - Hazrat Ali You’ve probably noticed that I like to use quotes to open most of my articles. I began collecting quotes a very long time ago when I was in high school. The small, red, 6-ring binder that I saved them in went with me everywhere. In it I had amassed the  thoughts of authors, politicians, comedians, songwriters, actors, philosophers, poets - just about anyone that had something to say that intrigued me on some level. Most were celebrities but many were my peers, my family and my friends. I often turned to my red binder in times of loneliness when I sought comfort, wisdom, inspiration or sometimes just entertainment. Many times I would read them aloud to my friends and we would discuss their wisdom - or their folly. Resources like the internet of course were not available so I gathered my quotes from sources such as magazine and newspaper articles, television, movies and the ra...

- jim Young “A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.” - William Blake Peter van Oordt makes an excellent statement in his video, justifying his refusal to be vaccinated, with mostly strong, sound reasons to support his decision. It's actually one of the best cases I've heard. I will not challenge his few weak points as it is not the purpose of this article to dispute the merits, or lack of, of vaccination policies. The claim however, that he was fired for "making this video" is misleading. In the video, van Oordt publicly and blatantly states his intent to violate the township's vaccination policy. Right or wrong, in a province where termination does not require a reason, that's inviting trouble right there.  It was probably also not a wise choice on van Oordt’s part to film the video in uniform in the firehall where he was employed. There was nothing in his presentation that required the credibility of his position as a firef...

- jim Young “We can talk all night, but that ain't gettin us nowhere. I told you everything I possibly can, there's nothing left inside of here… Now don't be sad, ‘cause two out of three ain't bad.” - Jim Steinman I came, I saw… well two out of three ain’t bad. It’s time for the truckers to pack up and go home. They’ve made their point.  They can call it a “win” and go home while they’re ahead.  I know, I know the “plan” was to stay until the government reversed the vaccine mandates Was anyone really naive enough to think THAT was ever going to happen? If you don’t like the government we currently have in place, you certainly won’t like a government that changes their mind on a whim every time a bunch of people get together to organize a protest against something they don’t like. I believe they call that kind of government, anarchy. And I don’t think the majority of Canadians are ready for the alternative which would be an outright revolution. Trudeau was never going to...