From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. There’s much talk lately about the need to reduce red tape. We live in a country in which people are swimming in it, just trying to keep afloat.…
Not the time to forget
By Emily Stonehouse I’ve been sitting with this document open all week. A Remembrance Day editorial. There should be lots to say. How we remember. How we honour the fallen soldiers who have bled out…
That unequal tax exemption
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. “Politics will always break your heart,” Catherine McKenna once tweeted on the social media platform now called X. She should know. She suffered a barrage of verbal attacks…
Living in a world of despair
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. There is much controversy over whether mental illness is a significant cause of mass shootings, which are becoming a common occurrence, notably in the gun-crazy United States of…
Litter boxes and lies
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. I’ve never been a fan of cats. I find them self-obsessed and neurotic. If I was a cat fan, however, I certainly would not be dressing up as…
Replaced by a computer?
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. I’ve tried to ignore all the hype about artificial intelligence (AI). How it will transform work and reinvent business. How it will replace me as a writer. Any…
We want baseball, not Moneyball
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. Baseball broadcaster Buck Martinez said the Toronto Blue Jays’ 2023 season would be a disaster if they could not advance past the first wild-card playoff round. They didn’t.…
Time to get thinner
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. The Farmers’ Almanac is forecasting heavier than usual snowfalls for the Great Lakes region this coming winter. That’s good news, in a perverse way. More snow means more…
Time to say goodbye
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. The turning leaves tell us about change; the need for it and the importance of making change at the right time. Autumn leaves turn colour then drop to…
Harvest time and hungry kids
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. And so we enter the time of plenty. Crops ripen in fields. Apple trees hang heavy with fruit. Autumn is the time of plenty of food. The time…
Clowns that aren’t funny
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. My laptop computer is driving me crazy. It’s like it has been invaded by those evil clowns you see in television commercials. You know, the ones with white…
Apocalypse Today
From Shaman’s RockBy Jim Poling Sr. Scenes of utter devastation from Maui, Hawaii, the Yellowknife, N.W.T. and B.C. wildfire evacuations, plus the Halifax flash flooding bring to mind a single word: Apocalypse. We are living…
Here comes the Brrr?
From Shaman’s RockBy Jim Poling Sr. This summer’s weather has in no way been traditional, and neither was the spring that led into it. Heat and drought brought record wildfires in parts of the country,…
Beauty born in the mud
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. The best thing about mid-summer are the blooms. Orange day lilies stand wild and bold on the roadsides. Pink and white lilliums and purplish-blue hydrangeas bring an explosion…
Is the world getting happier?
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. Some good news: Despite weather disasters and war the world apparently has become a happier place. The annual Gallup Global Emotions Report shows people around the world generally…
A time of skim and scan
From Shaman’s RockBy Jim Poling Sr. A very old guy with snow-white hair and snow-white beard fishes the ocean for weeks without catching anything. Finally, he catches a mighty marlin, but sharks eat it before…
An animal uprising
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. There are signs that the animal kingdom is fed up with us and beginning to rebel. Two-ton killer whales are ramming yachts and fishing boats. A sea otter…
Finding a way to say thank you
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. Thumbs up to my little sister. She can turn mud pies into chocolate cakes. Or, a bad experience into something helpful to others. She was bike riding with…
Smoke gets in your head
From Shaman’s Rock By Jim Poling Sr. Our spring and summer of smoke is being called abnormal. It’s not. It’s a new normal that scientists predict will become an even more normal part of our…
The right to rest in peace
From Shaman’s RockBy Jim Poling Sr. While ships searched for the submersible lost while visiting the Titanic gravesite, I visited another gravesite. I was back in northwestern Ontario, where I was born and raised. On…
Only in America
From Shaman’s RockBy Jim Poling Sr. No matter what calamity the world suffers, the only really important news in the United States these days is Donald Trump. News networks feverishly report his limo leaving Trump…