Randy | December 16, 2012
If your anger goes forth, withhold your sword; If your sword goes forth, withhold your anger. ~ swordsman’s axiom Last week’s tragic attacks on school children in the United States and China have been met with the predictable media frenzy and polarized posturing on both sides of the gun control demarcation line. It happens every […]
Randy | December 12, 2012
The words “lost knowledge” conjure imaginings of arcane wisdom once known in antiquity, but that has disappeared from the ken of Man leaving the world a lesser place. Regrettably, this is not the case because, more often than not, knowledge isn’t so much lost as misplaced, and each year more time is spent by researchers […]
Randy | December 5, 2012
The strongest emotion I remember from every one of those trips was the overpowering sense of freedom that came over me the moment I felt my canoe leave the shore at the start. At that instant, nothing back in the so called “civilized” world mattered. Only the real things mattered, and if you’ve ever experienced […]
Randy | November 28, 2012
If you want to be a musician, but the only time you play your instrument, or even think about it, is during your half-hour weekly lesson, you’ll never become a musician. You have to think about it all the time. Eat it, breathe it, dream it. You practice constantly, even when you have no instrument […]
Randy | November 17, 2012
A hot woman who is also competent in the use of weapons is a mainstay in cinema, and yet when those skills are taken out of the realm of art and inserted into life, it’s often seen as remarkable – even bizarre – by the same people who thought it so wonderful in the movie […]
Randy | November 11, 2012
When evil stalks upon the land, I’ll nyther hold nor stay me’ hand, But fight to win a better day, Over the hills and far away. ~ Over the Hills and Far Away, John Tams arrangement ~ At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, in a railway car […]
Randy | November 7, 2012
Earlier this year, on the subject of The Book of Five Rings – The Definitive Interpretation of Musashi’s Classic Book by Stephen F. Kaufman, I wrote – Musashi was perhaps the greatest swordsman who ever lived, and yet it would be a mistake to approach the Book of Five Rings as a guide to learning […]
Randy | November 4, 2012
In Norse mythology, Hugin (Thought) and Munin (Memory) are two Ravens that serve the God Odin, flying daily over the world and returning to him with the information they’ve gathered. It’s said that Odin was troubled by the prospect that one day, Hugin, Munin, or both might fail to return. According to one translation of […]
Randy | November 1, 2012
As part of my professional life, I spent 17 years operating and working in the emergency services dispatch centre in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. I designed it, set it up, wrote the policies and procedures manual, personally selected and trained every person who ever worked there, and by the time I was finally able to get […]
Randy | October 31, 2012
“True Love is passionately fierce on a primal level, and no mating pair possessed of its power can be defeated. The best an enemy can do is kill them. Both of them, for to leave one alive is to guarantee doom. A man blessed as I, and a woman blessed as Mrs. LFM, lives every […]