Columns
My son, right now, is car-obsessed. If you ever see him on the street or at home, he will always have at least one Hot Wheels in hand, sometimes one in each. We are also treated to a common refrain as we walk or drive anywhere or watch anything...
There is a particular kind of late-May fatigue that does not announce itself with drama or collapse. It arrives more politely than that, like a well-meaning neighbour who has wandered into the wrong garden party and decides...
In his recent column in the Globe and Mail, columnist Lawrence Martin took me by surprise when he mentioned that the average life expectancy for a Canadian was 82.2 years, while the life expectancy for the average American was only 78.4 years.
Avoidable waste, Sign of the Times, A new way of thinking
It can be seen all around; the custom of naming a park, hospital, arena or educational facility after a notable personage or someone (or their family) with enough money to donate to merit a name being honoured in perpetuity.
There are weeks when The Chaff arrives like a proud parade float, all glitter and conviction, rolling in with ideas honking from every direction.
As the editor of a newspaper, you are, at times, called to action in self-defence.
The visit of King Charles to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the naming, last week, of Louise Arbour to be Canada's next Governor General demonstrated the immense difference between our two side-by-side nations.
At what cost?, Change the conversation, The choice for the time
On Monday, I read an article in The Guardian whose headline began with the quote, "Y'all are pissin' me off".
We did not discover the tablets so much as recognize them at last, which is how Hydruian things prefer to be found. They had been resting in plain sight, behaving convincingly as something else.
You may have noticed that my column was missing from last week's paper - or maybe you were just grateful not to read something you resent.
As I mentioned in my column last week, I have had cause to go through back issues of The Citizen from about 10 or 12 years ago. Throughout that process, I've been reminded of names, businesses, situations and concepts that I'd either forgotten about...
May arrives like a soft rehearsal for certainty. The ground, having entertained doubt for months, begins to answer in green. Not decisively, not all at once, but with a confidence that feels almost borrowed from the future. It is a month of...
A task that is fairly easy in our 21st-century laundry took on quite a different aspect for the generations that have gone before.
Earliest settlers would have to send young Johnny to the stream to fetch water.
Learning to fly, All the wrong reasons, Free Fallin'
By now, no one is really a stranger to the erratic and irrational ways of President Donald Trump. He says something. He means it (or not).
Since January, The Chaff has been pursuing a simple question with very un-simple persistence. Should Wingham build a statue of Betty White, on the entirely factual basis that her grandmother, Margaret Hobbs, was born there?
We sat down to watch a Netflix show the other night and I was quickly reminded of how incarnantly writers in Hollywood or New York write about small towns.
When the first European settlers came to the area, their main concern was survival. To achieve that, they needed to feed their families and livestock, as well as have a way to earn money.
There is a certain professional obligation I, as the editor of this fine newspaper, have when one of the community's prominent local council members elucidates that "freedom of the press is dangerous" in a public, recorded meeting.
North Huron Council has taken a firm, steady, entirely reasonable stand against a flag and The Chaff, with due caution and a respectful distance from all fabric, must agree.