Dog On A Root

- jim Young  "Adam was but human. This explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent." - Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson A facebook friend of mine recently posed this question on Facebook. I don't know if the notice was actually sent by Facebook or not and I'm not going to take the time to research it. What is interesting is that it quickly evoked a couple of replies suggesting this action was a result of the Canadian Government's passing of Bill C-11. "Censorship at work." That wasn't my interpretation of Bill C-11 at all. From what I understand, Bill C-11 is not about censorship, but more about royalties and fair pay for fair play that will bring the internet more in line with over-the-air broadcasting regulations. Facebook is suggesting they "can't share the news".  That's not en...

- jim Young “Animals are born who they are, accept it and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.” - Gregory Maguire It’s been 2 long years since we’ve had the opportunity to return to our favourite Caribbean Country - Cuba. So when the opportunity came up for a holiday in June, we were champing at the bit to go. “Why would you want to go to Cuba in June?” is the question we are asked most. It’s a fair question, as the real temperature is often in the 30’s with a few extra degrees caused by the humidity tacked on to make it feel even hotter. But when you’re on vacation and the biggest challenge of the day is getting from the swim up bar to the beach bar to the ocean, extreme temperatures don’t seem to be as much of an issue, so we have often willingly accepted the challenge. What we hadn’t counted on however, was that while it’s only been 2 years since we’ve been to Cuba, it’s been 7 years since we’ve been to Cuba in June. It wasn’t so much that we’d forgotten just ...

- jim Young “Now if I come on by, when you’re out in the sun, can I wave at you just like a friend? These days when everyone’s taking so much, there’s somebody giving back in. Straw hats and old dirty hankies, moppin’ a face like a shoe, Thanks for the meal, here’s a song that is real, from a kid from the city to you.  - Murray McLauchlan In 1944 a small group of mostly farmers contributed $2 each to form the “Innisfil Farmers’ Credit Union” . The IFCU opened with assets totalling just $40.  My Uncle Harold Wallace was one of those farmers. You may remember my Uncle Harold from my Great North Arrow Article “Bacon And Eggs In The Summer of ‘66” , June 2022, Issue 6, Volume 9. Two dollars may not seem like a lot of money now but in 1944 and especially for a farmer, it was hard earned money that was received from the fruits of their labour, often produced literally from blood, sweat and tears. With no office to work from, the IFCU was set up in the home of Treasurer-Manager Lloy...

- jim Young “Nostalgia is the heart's way of reminding you of something you once loved. It travels in many forms; on a song, or in a scent or in photographs… but no matter how it comes to you it will always have the same bitter-sweet taste.” - Ranata Suzuki  My first allowance, when I was a young boy, was 25 cents a week. My chores were washing the outside of the windows on our house and cutting the lawn in the summer. Feeding the dog was a year round task but other than that, I don’t really recall that I had to do too much in the winter. Shoveling the snow in our laneway was too big a task even for my father. We didn’t have a snowblower however, so the laneway was always just filled with snow. “Never shovel anything you can drive through,” my father taught me at an early age. And it seemed to work for him, because he rarely got stuck. My father also taught me that “you’re never stuck as long as you’re moving” and he could somehow manage to get his car out of any situation so lon...

Trump's response when asked if he was concerned about his voice on the confidential documents' "audio" recordings.