Chuck Strahl, Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons has announced he has lung cancer.
The 48 year old has been an MP since 1993.
Some newspaper columns ‘write themselves’. Some of them are written after extensive research, while others are just human interest stories. Often, (for a part time, occasional writer like me) they happen in [...]

In May 2005 a man in a tuxedo was found soaking wet wandering a beach at Sheepless in the UK and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Kent.
The mystery of who he was captivated the media world wide.
Now after searches in several countries involving over 200 names, The Piano Man chose to talk. His [...]

The deepening tensions between Iraq’s basic communities are being played out in the constitutional deliberations. The divisive debate about federalism is perhaps most troubling. With the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Iraq’s most powerful Shi’ite political party, now demanding an autonomous Shi’ite region in the south to mirror the Kurdish region in [...]

The NYT’s Frank Rich looks at the attacks on Cindy Sheehan as a tipping point.
When the Bush mob attacks critics like Ms. Sheehan, its highest priority is to change the subject. If we talk about Richard Clarke’s character, then we stop talking about the administration’s pre-9/11 inattentiveness to terrorism. If Thomas Wilson is trashed [...]

There is a good interview with John MacKay, a political reporter and writer in Canadian Christianity.
MacKay has written several books. His latest; The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper will be out in September.
The book is reviewed by Peter O’Neil of The Vancouver Sun.
Mackey suggests that Harper differs from the militants because he falls into the category [...]

I was working at a radio station in Burlington when a storm moved in off Lake Ontario. It was a Saturday, the weather was bad and the news director had come in to help out.
There were three of us in the station, the staff announcer and us two newsies.
Stations are grounded with copper, but that [...]

A family member who lives in Toronto send some photos of the results of the storm system that moved from Wisconsin through the Great Lakes area yesterday.
This is an area family members exercise in daily. The comment in the email was “don’t you just love the way mother nature puts us in our place?”

I don’t [...]

Facinating tale of how a convicted Canadian spree killer uses his fans to relay messages on Usenet.