Recent Columns

It’s dinner time and once again the kids just HAVE to talk about sex, which is quite remarkable considering the only Miley Cyrus they watch is from the days when she was a fully-clothed Hannah Montana who kept her tongue to herself. Of course, the best way to end any kids’ sex talk is to […]

She’s an astronaut, a space walker, a scientist of scientists, way up there in the cosmos, first floating free for some time, just on a tether, then, after some drama, getting into a tiny space capsule, into her driver’s seat of sorts. She is bright and pretty and has a one in ten million view of creation, […]

If there is one thing I’ve learned about fatherhood since the condition fell on me (like a piano out of a 4th-floor window) it’s that today’s fathers are perfect. Always. Yep. Every day. Sunup to sundown. And because today’s fathers, and mothers too, are perfect, they should be given great honour. I tell my kids this in subtle ways. For instance, […]

(The UCU Standard - Monday, March 31, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s a new day, a good day, a day when you’ll be tested. Yes, it’s time for another exam and you, dear UCU student, are out of bed, finished your breakfast and walking with a confident smile. This is why today is such a fine day: you know the answers, every one of them. Because you know the questions too. Nobody is suspecting that you’re a cheater because you know the game and you play it with skill

The truth is that if it wasn’t for My Bride, I’d be living on some deserted island hunting wild boar and eating coconuts and running around a fire as crazy as the Mad Hatter. But she rescued me from that life some time ago and brought me to Yemen. (YEMEN! of all places.) And now, […]

My daughter vomited on the way to school yesterday morning. This, of course, is the sort of thing that makes any parent’s heart go pitter-patter, thump-thump, yes, one of the golden moments of any dad’s day. In our family, on what is a rather onerous school-run every weekday morning, vomiting, in fact, is sort of shared […]

The newspaper, one of Uganda’s national dailies, is open on my desk. “What are you reading?” asks Liz. “A story about a new law.” I don’t elaborate. The story says Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni may soon meet with U.S. scientists on the matter of homosexuality and its causes. Museveni signed Uganda’s new draconian anti-gay law recently after […]

“Hey, let’s talk about sex!” I said. I couldn’t help it. It was at the dinner table yesterday evening and Mom wasn’t there and it just sort of tumbled out.  You know, like “Hey, pass the carrots, will ya?” Now, sure, I know my kids are sort of young. But I’ve already had some pretty […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, March 15, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦Fear is a strange thing, which is why it’s so hard to look into the eyes of another human being that you’re about to gas or bomb or, in the case of Uganda’s gays, throw to the lions. This is also why President Yoweri Museveni recently refused to meet with Uganda’s gay community – there were repeated requests – before signing Uganda’s infamous anti-gay law. The new law means even touching with the intent of a homosexual act – try to prove or disprove this one – will get you seven years. Short of jail, a life-sentence for a single homosexual act, there’s obviously also a new chill on the street here.

Once there was a dad who, every morning on the way to school, would pray for safety on the road. He was in a foreign country and the driving was the most dangerous part. Sometimes he’d even pray at other times of the day, ‘God, just keep me alive in this place for the sake […]

(Christian Week - March 12, 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ By now you’ve heard plenty about Uganda’s new toughened laws on homosexuality, the news that spread to the West with the fanfare of a dark sporting event. Even short of jail—terms range from seven years to life—it’s a new day of survival in a horrible state-sanctioned chill. Several weeks in, like so many things in developing nations, it’s hard to know all that’s happening. Was that murder really a robbery gone bad? And that street beating? Why did she really lose her job? Many things simply don’t make the news here in Uganda.

I’ve always liked older women. When I was in Grade 2, Queen Elizabeth was … well … quite something, up there on the classroom wall at Maple Crest School, looking down at me with that hot outfit and crown and all. Those were fine days. The only woman who could compete with the young queen was […]

(The New Vision - Saturday, March 8, 2014) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s International Women’s Day and we’re all happy to celebrate women in Uganda and around the world, but the truth of the matter is that it’s the men who need to come to terms with who they are and why they’re around, or it’s all for nothing. This is the strangeness of this big yearly celebration. Women’s Day largely revolves around the hard times women face because their men are so hopeless. Plenty of husbands and fathers don’t pull their weight and don’t understand or care how desperately their families need them. Now I am not about to beat-up myself or my brothers everywhere because I have nothing better to do. The Daughters of Eve are just as fallen as the Sons of Adam. But have an honest look into the homes of Uganda. I’m imagining you see what I see. It’s a bloody mess.

Hannah’s adoption continues to make the news, this time in Uganda’s national  daily, the New Vision. Faithful Reader knows all about the good news of the recent adoption approval we received from the Ugandan court. This, after we fostered Hannah for three years, and then after a further wait of more than 500 days. That’s […]

One day long before anything known as social media was dreamed about, I was the newcomer, new to a certain Ontario town – it was my first newspaper job – and new to a certain life. I needed a bit of friendship, if not guidance and direction. It was a Sunday morning when I walked […]