Sadiya Ansari: What kind of brown am I? This violent chapter of history from almost 80 years ago is still complicating that seemingly simple question The partition of India and Pakistan makes identifying as being from either country more complex than it appears.

in today’s Toronto star, an article that told me a lot I had never had to think about: www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Americans celebrate America – well, that’s great. But do they have to do it at Canada‘s National Arts Centre?

All-star break is over, and #mlb is still inflicting “oppo taco” on play-by-play listeners every inning. You’d think they actually wanted to drive listeners away!

Am I the only #baseball fan who finds the All-Star break an unwelcome interruption to the season?

Ottawa lawyer raises concerns about police naming suspects in news releases An Ottawa-based criminal defence lawyer is raising concerns about police naming some suspects, while choosing to withhold others, in news releases following a crime.

Ottawa lawyer raises concerns about police naming suspects in news releases

You absolutely do.

Canadian wildfire smoke ruining Americans' summer, says letter from Congress members | CBC News Canadian wildfire smoke is travelling south and making it difficult for some Americans to enjoy their summer, says a letter from six members of Congress to Canada's U.S. ambassador.

Six Congressmen swallow cospiracy theory about Canada’s devastating wildfires www.cbc.ca/news/world/c...

Did not know that! One more reason to enjoy his appearance as Mr. Mycroft in “Sting of Death“ 🇨🇦

What a coincidence that Jimmy Swaggart is in the news (“prostitution scandals… dies at 90“) just as I’m finishing reading Sinclair Lewis’s novel Elmer Gantry, which is 98 years old and still meaningful.

Watching the livestream of high school graduation ceremony this morning (because grandson is in the band) and wondering how it ever came to be that “Pomp and Circumstance“, a.k.a. “Land of Hope and Glory”, moved from coronation music to the soundtrack of the academic treadmill.

Maine governor comes face to face with Canadian travel fears | CBC News Maine Gov. Janet Mills spoke to New Brunswickers Tuesday alongside Premier Susan Holt. The event gave Mills the opportunity to hear the concerns surrounding border crossings and visits to the U.S. Mil...

“It’s a terrifying thing“ crossing into the United States, Canadians say www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

You are not nostalgic about the 90s, 80s, or 70s. You are nostalgic about your own youth - whenever that was…

My chief tool for understanding US and world news is the daily reports from electoral-vote.com. They’re taking this week off, in a reaction to the current dark atmosphere around – well, everything – and I hardly know how to understand the headlines.

A useful model! I find myself writing with an irritating amount of ambiguity – maybe the reader can choose what dreadful fate befell?

There are plenty of reasons I can’t write fiction competently, but today I am realizing a new one: I apparently can’t perpetrate violence or disaster or even scandalous indecency on my characters, and without any of that, who cares what they do?

A certain Sherlockian is lamenting that she doesn’t have the Doubleday text along on her present road trip. Maybe what is needed is a Sherlockian app for phones, with story texts, search facility, and reference works. Any suggestions?

For US friends who may wonder: the United Church of Canada was founded June 10, 1925, as a merger of Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalsts. Together they sang “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.”

An important and emotional day. The United Church has been entwined with my life through childhood, service, and scholarship, and I even attend my local congregation once in a while.

An astonishing find! I can hardly believe it’s real.

Woah! But I think I can work with that. Thank you! (I might have known I could count on you.)

I need a random plot point, please. He is walking along the sidewalk after lunch, minding his own business, when all of a sudden… What?

Relevant in Canada too, where the church apparently seeks to be right out there!

The sky is grey here in eastern Ontario, a mere 2,800 kilometres from places like Flin Flon where wildfires are throwing ash into the wind. Health authorities are advising us against outdoor sports and heavy labour. You can smell the smoke.

The water is high today, and the whitecaps are gleaming, on Ontario‘s Mississippi River

Of course, not everybody agrees with nationalpost.com that government spending is automatically “bad”

Exactly. The power belongs with Parliament, not with the Prime Minister.

Just wondering, how long does “a higher than normal call volume“ have to go on before it becomes the new normal?

Very interested by comments from @studyinimagination.bsky.social essentially denouncing AI art in all forms and contexts. This is not an issue I have followed at all (being strictly a word person) and I’ll have to give the matter some thought.

I’ve been reading a book that keeps popping up on my social media. After six chapters, I’m terminally unimpressed. Have I given it a fair chance?

Alejandro Kirk just hit an opposite-field three-run home run for the #bluejays, and what do you know, I did not hear the announcers use the expression “oppo taco“. Maybe it’s time MLB dropped that stupid commerciall