school life

End of summer, back to school, time for JFKs

So, my children, like children everywhere, are about to return to school.

This brings some uncertainties. It’s my children’s first-ever September back-to-school in Canada.

More so, I’ll need to work at having more JFKs again.

Before I explain what a JFK is, let me say that in

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That’s it. I’m moving to Canada … or … The (lying, monstrous) Donald

Today’s offering is about Donald Trump. If you have limited time, please instead read this piece on the same subject matter by Michael Coren, in today’s Toronto Star. As I have just told Michael, what he has written is powerful, thoughtful and poignant. It deserves our attention. Thank you, again, Michael. + The New York

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Talking to my dinner plate again

So, it’s that time, Single Daddin’ It, again. As you might recall, this is when the children’s mother is out of country and I am left to look at my dinner plate and ask it certain existential questions, like, if I were an animal (I mean, in the furry or feathery sense), just what restaurant

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Crossing through Brussels. Staring down the principal.

So, it’s Day 5 of our official return to our own home, Day 4 of the kids’ return to school, that is their Canadian school, this, their annual routine here in Hamilton for the next couple of months. Of course, this is long enough to get new clothes (thank God for mothers willing to do

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I’m under 11. I can play. No, really.

When it’s all over (this two-lives-for-the-price-of-one business, this travel and observing and returning home, then leaving again and looking more and writing at least some of it down), it’s the traffic that I will miss the least. Of all the dangers and perceived dangers of the developing world that were ruminated on to the point

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Bantleman’s nightmare, the Brownshirts, and Jesus for president

I woke up this morning and, as I often do, told my wife what I dreamed. Just a dream. Then I read the morning news. That was the nightmare. Trump continues to … you know. Then another story, another nightmare. Burlington’s Neil Bantleman is going back to jail, for 11 years apparently, this because Indonesia’s

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Winning and losing and other sacred moments

It’s morning, just past sunrise, and the youngest, Child #3, gives me a big hug at the door. “Wish me luck, Daddy!” she says. Today is Track and Field Day at her school. She will run and jump and all that. It will be good for her body and her soul too, and I am

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Want an educational trip? Go to Washington!

It’s Monday morning coffee at the kids’ school, a privileged school if for no other reason than it sits in the middle of Africa’s sunshine and offers parents morning coffee. I wonder aloud about sending the kids to Washington. Snow, you know, is healthy for kids, and so is the bitter cold, and the snowier

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