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Opinion General
LOEWEN: Re-awakening the wonder at Christmas
Whither the concentration, usually so easy to summon when it comes to writing these weekly columns? Whither the inspiration, that comes unbidden throughout the week, offering up rare and delightful subjects with which to wrestle into the texts you’ve come to expect? Whither the sardonic wit, the well of woe, the Wheel Of Fortune waxing...
PARKER: How Taylor Swift saved Christmas
Several years ago, in the throes of holiday hubbub and debacle, my cat attempted to climb the Christmas tree. As all of these stories go — and we all have one of these stories — the tree came crashing down, breaking almost every single ornament in the process. Left over and free of harm, however,...
GOG: Showing the kids how it’s done on the ski hill
A friend who read my recent mumblings about the awfulness of winter suggested my attitude might improve if I found something enjoyable to do in this dreary season. He suggested skiing. Since I used to be rather good at that, I considered it a fine opportunity to impress some of today’s youth with some old-school...
LOEWEN: Want to experience joy at Christmas? Turn off the TV
Family gatherings can be marvelous measures of familial love and support. The crackle and spark from a well-stoked hearth, the mellow numbing of mind after a few cocktails shared in the proper spirit of the season, the laid-back luxuriating in one’s favourite chair with the soft chatter of folks well-fed -- all of these aspects...
PARKER: The importance of being your own dungeon master
SEVEN ADULTS TOOK THE OPPORTUNITY TO LET GO OF THE MOULDS THAT WE TRY SO HARD TO FIT INTO OUR DAY-TO-DAY “Should I use my force punch or my scorching ray?” I asked the table seriously. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short 27 years on this planet, it’s that if you can’t...
HELSTON: What a young Vernon artist showed us all this week
Marie-Anna Michaud didn’t start rinsing paint off a vandalized mural because she was disturbed by the obscenities scrawled there. She didn’t do it to right a wrong, and she didn’t do it out of anger for the perpetrators. No one asked or paid her to do it. Her act of kindness came as a surprise...
GOG: He knows you when you’re driving
Last week I had occasion to drive to the Fraser Valley, not long after a minor snowstorm. When I arrived I was inevitably asked “how were the roads?” “The roads were fine,” I replied. “It’s the idiots on them that make it difficult.” Here for your edification, and in the name of public safety, is...
LOEWEN: Remembering John Lennon; a cautionary tale
We marked the 34th anniversary of John Lennon’s murder on Monday the eighth of December. The failure to neutralize an unsettling agent in America's midst by the paranoid Nixon administration and the machinations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was carried out, eventually, by Mark David Chapman,...
PARKER: Two macarons can make a right
I’ve never confessed to being much of a baker. In fact, I’ve openly confessed the opposite. True, I don’t give myself much credit. I mean, I can bake gluten free Graham crackers from scratch, and that’s more Martha Stewart that your average threat to the kitchen. However, I’m not winning any awards. I’m not going...