Newspaper columns

Goodbye Superman

My relationship with Superman is not what it used to be. I now feel closer to strangers on the news. Like that nurse. More on her in a minute. But when I was a boy, Superman was like God. Faster than any bullet. More powerful than a train. That’s Clark Kent, a shy Daily Planet reporter, secretly wearing that big, bold Super-S

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Hope and compassion during time of COVID-19 terror

When I was boy we rarely attended church because my father thought church people were a bunch of phoneys. Still, he had enough sense to give us kids a decent idea of the Creator God, human sin, and eternal forgiveness, through Sunday morning TV-lounging when

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Longing for that long tomorrow

The moment with my boy had nothing to do with coronavirus and all these anxieties. But there I was lounging on the couch, and there he was, beside me, playing his guitar and singing about the end of the world. It’s that JP Saxe song, If The World Was Ending. It’s a love song, really. One that asks, during the world’s final curtain call

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Some roads less travelled in Nigeria

EGBE, NIGERIA ✦ We’re on our motorcycles — my friend Rick has offered me his for the afternoon — at a place called Prayer Rock. It’s a lookout at the end of a bumpy, winding dirt road near this historic town in Kogi province, a brown patch of earth in central Nigeria that’s been touched by Canada. It’s my last day here. The spot seems as

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Settling for only the best

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ This column is about UCU’s new, yet-to-be-named vice- chancellor. But first let me tell you about the Ugandan who was happy to tell me about his recent marriage.“ Congratulations,” I said, before asking, “How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

I said congratulations again. “That’s a good age.”

Then, like a good counsellor

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Hockey night in Uganda – remember this

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s hockey night in Uganda and you’re running, running, chasing that little red ball that’s, of course, (this is Africa), held together with just hope and tape. During a break, you ask a question. How old are you? “Twenty-one,” someone says. “Nineteen,” says another. “Twenty-two.” Another

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FaceTime during African sunrises and other musings

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ This morning I FaceTimed the family. Child Number 1, a musical girl, was having sinus pain. So I looked up there and noticed Taylor Swift and a hall of high school girls having a party. Looks like they’d moved from my daughter’s inner ear. I suggested this may be causing her pain,

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