Adapting to saving the planet

Since the time of Lenoir’s “hippomobile,” it’s taken us 150 years to wean ourselves off combustion engines.

I’ve never been afraid to seek advice, particularly when it comes to legal matters, health care or buying a car. Several weeks ago, I raised the challenge of buying an electric or hybrid car in front of some knowledgeable friends. I play summer hockey with a group of men almost all of whom have worked in the automobile industry all their lives. When I asked what make and model of electric or hybrid car I should consider, just about all of them had the same answer:

“Within a year or 18 months,” they said, “they’ll all be making EVs (electric vehicles) of some sort. Not just Tesla, Toyota and Hyundai. Everybody.” (more…)

Promises, promises, promises

When they’re everywhere, this time of year, how do you swear off these as a resolution?

One of my friends recently announced to me that he was going to get fit in 2017. Another promised she would eat more sensibly starting this week. And I read about others who proclaimed this next calendar year they would be kinder, more forthright, better listeners, less ideological, more philanthropic and take up volunteering – all noble objectives, I should add. Eventually somebody asked me if I’d made any resolutions. Well, I chickened out. I chose a kind of joke, one of my father’s regular Jan. 1 comebacks to the question.

“Yup,” I said. “My resolution is to … not make any resolutions!” (more…)

All the news that’s fit to fake

Very much alive, but nobody bothered to check. Courtesy GordonLightfoot.com.

As I recall, it was an afternoon in February a few years ago. One of my journalism students came to me with a cell phone in his hands – you know the pose, with head bowed, eyes mesmerized, phone illuminating his face – and a look of incredulity. He looked up at me and announced the news.

“It says here Gordon Lightfoot is dead,” he said.

“What?” I said, then added with a tone of say it ain’t so in my voice “No.” Then, I asked him where he was reading such news. (more…)

Keepers of the shelves

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School librarians give students more than a Library of Congress number and a table of contents.

I think I remembered discovering it when I was about 11 years old. Until then, I had kind of dismissed it as a remote corner in my life. I think because I happened to be in a brand new school – in a village northeast of Toronto – there were lots of other places I chose to explore first: the baseball diamond, the cafeteria and gymnasium. Then, Mike Malott, my Grade 5 teacher, challenged us.

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