By Jim Poling Sr. Movies set in times past sometimes reflect times present. I was thinking about that while re-watching the Hollywood classic Chinatown starring Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson. A brief refresher: Nicholson plays…

Reflections during a dismal post-election pre-Halloween week: Presumably and hopefully blackface will not be part of Halloween costuming this year. It was when I was a child. The only concern back then was expressed by…

The acorns are the first alarm. Night breezes rustle the oaks shaking their capped nuts from their branches. I hear them hitting the steel roof above my bedroom. My slippers crack and crunch them when…

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was a solitary child with no interest in things that amused other children. His sole plaything was a fat red crayon with which he drew world maps. His crayoned maps showed a…

By Jim Poling Sr. Fifty-seven years ago last week – Sept. 27 1962 –  Rachel Carson published Silent Spring the book that really got us thinking about what we are doing to the environment. Silent…

There is no better place to sit and think than on one of the rocky outcrops offering entrancing views of the magnificent Haliburton landscape. I am sitting on one now staring down at the mysteries…

Relax people. Let’s refocus and reset our thinking. We need not allow septic tank politicking for the Oct. 21 federal election to distract us from thinking about the critical issue affecting us all: What is…

By Laurie Sweig The stages of competence define how we learn. Four very distinct stages have been identified. Here’s the breakdown: • Stage One - Unconscious incompetence: We all have to start somewhere, and this…

By Jim Poling Sr.   The campaigning has yet to hit full stride, but federal election day is just over a month away with plenty of serious issues to debate. There is one issue that…

By Jim Poling Sr. Silence is not always golden. Sometimes it is sorrowful even hurtful. It was all that when the thunder of newspaper presses at The Hamilton Spectato r faded to a whisper then…

By Jim Poling Sr.   Trees, I believe, are smarter than humans. They are more grounded, obviously, but they also have an advanced sense of life, a more mature understanding of what it is all…

By Jim Poling Sr.   H. G. Wells, the English author of The War of the Worlds, once wrote that human history “becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” In today’s unsettled…

By Laurie Sweig I am gratefuL that I have not suffered from plantar fasciitis. I have known many people who have. It sounds painful and debilitating. Plantar fasciitis is the inflammation of the thick band…

By Jim Poling Sr.   I’m following the lead of Donnie Trump. I’m withdrawing from a treaty and building a wall. I have to do it to stop thieving neighbours from stealing my corn. Every…

By Jim Poling Sr.   There are times when the best thing anyone can do is to get lost in the woods. I don’t mean seriously, dangerously lost. We always should know where we are…

By Jim Poling Sr.    Here’s a follow-up-up to last week’s column about how angry, autocratic politicians are working to turn voters against journalists. Journalists ask questions about questionable government affairs. They dig out facts…

  By Jim Poling Sr.   It was a close call. Very close. I was driving a narrow dirt road that took a sudden, sharp turn. A turn directly into a piercing July sunset.  I…

Asking the critical question   By Jim Poling Sr.    Reality often is more brutal than fiction. You realize that when reading The Border, the 2019 novel about the Mexican drug cartels and their American…

One definition of posture is the position in which someone holds his or her body when standing or sitting. Somewhere along the line we’ve added the qualification of “good” or “bad” when it comes posture.…