91原创

On Canada Day last year, I stood in a remote spot in Belgium known as Essex Farm. It lies beside one of the numerous canals that drain the well-watered landscape.

If you really don鈥檛 care what the media write, you don鈥檛 use Ottawaspeak. You don鈥檛 say your chief of staff has resigned when he鈥檚 really been fired 鈥� or vice versa.

I don鈥檛 know how often I鈥檝e heard mothers call after their departing children in that apron-stringy sing-song reserved for maternal advice: 鈥淢ake good choices, hon.

Glyn Jones鈥檚 approach to life is to take it as it comes. He鈥檚 103 years old and lives comfortably in a Sidney care home, so it looks as if that鈥檚 working out for him.

A massive object is hurtling toward me. It鈥檚 not Nature Boy racing to get the last of the pumpkin pie from the fridge. No, the massive object in question is a giant snowball whizzing through space toward the sun.

鈥淕ive up your hope.鈥� This is what I was told a mere two days after touching down in Iraq.

Humanity is a vast and infinitely diverse entity but regardless of the many differences, there have always been teachers. There were always people who inspired others, young and old, to pursue a higher standard of life.

The authors of the B.C. Ministry of Education鈥檚 draft curriculum have a penchant for lofty gerunds 鈥� transforming, rethinking, redesigning 鈥� to describe their work.

At the beginning of September, we decided we needed a web page dedicated to our WHL hockey team, the Victoria Royals. So we built one: http://www.timescolonist.com/royals Easy to remember, easy to find.

It couldn鈥檛 have gone better for Alberta Premier Alison Redford if she鈥檇 planned it. Which she didn鈥檛. The bizarre on-again, off-again, on-again nature of the meeting with B.C.