It was an impulse buy. I was looking through the 70 percent off Christmas clearance rack at London Drugs when I spotted a book cover with the name “Peter Mansbridge” (of CBC’s The National). For almost thirty years, this trusted icon with the fatherly face on the evening news informed and comforted our nation through…
“Don’t tell me what the poets are doin’.” So wrote Gord Downie, the late leader singer of the well-known Canadian band The Tragically Hip, in 1998. Perhaps he didn’t mean this sentiment all that personally or seriously (he also published his own poetry collection with the not so serious title Coke Machine Glow). A serious…
Over the past few decades, the differences of interests, experiences and identities between rural and urban Canada have gotten starker, or at least more politically salient. In the most recent Alberta election, for example, the winning United Conservative Party formed a government with zero seats in Edmonton and only five seats in urban Calgary, while…
Remember when enthusiastic talk about the internet promised an Information Superhighway? The mood at the introduction of the Online Harms Bill last week felt more like a multi-vehicle crash site. Cyber-bullying, revenge porn, inciting violence and suicide, radicalization and terrorism, disinformation and hate-motivated crimes: these are a few of the online harms that injure real…
In the age of music streaming services, listening to an entire album is becoming less common. Albums are structured around singles that will garner as much attention and radio play as possible or risk being forgotten. Paul Simon’s most recent album is the antithesis of such an approach. As noted on his official website, “Seven…
In mid-November, James Dekker interviewed Ryan Struyk, Grand Rapids native and life-long member of the Christian Reformed Church. Calvin University named Struyk its 2021 Young Alumni Award winner. Struyk is Senior Producer for CNN’s Sunday “State of the Union.” Ryan and the show’s team won a 2023 Emmy Award for their coverage of the first…
I started writing articles about symbolism in video games in 2022 with The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. But I have been following the Zelda franchise for much longer than that. I first played Ocarina of Time at my cousins’ house in the late 90s. Many years and several years games later, I’m still following…
In church we talk about global and local missions. In justice circles a common slogan is “think global; act local.” In Canada these days the global is local in new ways that may prompt Christians to rethink our roles as Christians, as Canadians and as global citizens. Climate change and the pandemic bring the global…
Social media is a powerful tool for sharing our lives with others, but I fear it’s become more toxic than helpful in this age of hyper-identity politics and influencer ethics. So I have chosen to leave. Ideological divisiveness, self-interest and echo chambers define much of the space and narrative, where scapegoating is convenient, ideological accusations…
As a result of a misguided new law and the stubbornness of big tech companies, the Canadian news industry faces digital extinction. On June 22, the Canadian government passed Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act. This new piece of legislation requires big tech companies like Google and Meta to pay news publications…
The last book my dad loaned me was Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out. It’s a strange little book from 1975, all about loneliness. His copy is full of notes, shaky underlines, and emphatic arrows. Twenty years ago, when he first got sick, I read those marked-up passages so often I nearly memorized them. I hadn’t thought…
I didn’t see the Twin Towers fall. I didn’t even hear about it until September 12, when my mom called our tiny Moscow apartment at 6 a.m. local time with a horrible update: terrorists … planes … the world has changed. Word-of-mouth news. We didn’t own a computer and it would be another decade before…
|
Uploaded
Failed
|
 |
