It’s finally summer in the American Great White North and as such, I’m planning to drive by myself within the next month or two from my current home of Minneapolis, where I’ve lived off and on for years, to my hometown of Milwaukee. 

Despite the fact that Milwaukee is… Read full post »

To mark both Canada Day (July 1) and Independence Day (July 4), I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit the highly controversial, not completely accurate, but still historically interesting pro-American recitation esteemed Canadian broadcaster Gordon Sinclair made famous in 1973.  A great ma/… Read full post »

Anyone who knows me at all (including those who have been kind enough to read my pieces on Open Salon), knows I love and admire Canada.  I visit various parts of the country as often as I can, publish opinions in a variety of Canadian newspapers, count several Canadians among my/… Read full post »

The June 20 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that effectively blocks a massive class action discrimination lawsuit brought against Walmart and could affect as many as 1.5 million past and present female Walmart employees has, in the tradition of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions, s… Read full post »

I know one is supposed to remember a dead father for things like the strength he displayed when faced with situations like four small kids fighting over one basketball or one television (okay, I was a child quite a while ago), how nice it felt when he put his arm around you,… Read full post »

For some reason, this year’s wedding season has me thinking about weddings that were supposed to be mine but for more than one usually sound reason, never took place.  I don’t know if it is age, overdue maturity, the world going to absolute hell all around us, or what that is/… Read full post »

If President Kennedy were still alive (and maybe even physically and mentally well), he would be 94 today.  Even by AARP’s much hyped definition of the New Old, that’s pretty old.

Still, given the grip the Kennedys retain on people able to remember all of their real and imagined all… Read full post »

Not that it was our business, but so many of us were certain there was more to the separation of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver than divergent career aspirations, past tales of him “groping” women and his cryptic statement from some years ago that he had indeed behaved badly at t… Read full post »

Is it just me or are some of the Republicans who people thought surely would run for president, but have either decided not to or are still sitting on I-might fences, just chicken?  Or, are some of them, maybe, just maybe, exhibiting good sense?  Don’t go nuts.  I just said maybe/… Read full post »

As if times are not still hard enough for many of us, I’ve been forced to come to terms of late with a horror I could not imagined a few years ago.  Cancer?  No.  A nasty romantic breakup or a home foreclosure?  Neither one.  Victim of a Ponzi scheme?  Nope.… Read full post »