Four Pillars and a Double Standard

| March 3, 2013

A fire breaks out in your kitchen. You have and are permitted to own a fire extinguisher that is more than adequate to stop the blaze, but prohibited from using it in favour of running away to let the Fire Department handle the situation. An hour later, your house is rubble, and both your wheel […]

Which Side of the Lock is the Safety On?

| March 2, 2013

I’m in the throes of putting together a new Self Reliance Course series, and as usual, the Daemon that lives in my head pooped … I mean popped … out a poem. Behold … Ode to a Home Invasion By LFM My door was locked. You didn’t care. You kicked it from the frame. The […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – A Dose of Reality

| February 20, 2013

The search for the 13.5 meter (44 foot) fishing boat Miss Ally and her crew of five young Nova Scotia fishermen began last Sunday night when the Rescue Coordination Centre began receiving signals from the vessel’s emergency locator beacon (ELB). Designed to activate on immersion in salt water, the ELB signals from Miss Ally showed […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Clarity

| February 13, 2013

In last week’s edition of Worldly Wisdom Wednesday, I spoke of the The True Arte of Intelligent Discourse, and identified it as but a subset of the larger Discipline called Manners. Moving forward from there, let’s dig a little deeper. Why are Manners important? Because they garner approval from society, as well as from individual […]

Announcement of a Small Fierce Mammal

| February 8, 2013

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of an event for which I will be forever thankful to the Universe – the birth of my Beloved Diana, half a world away in Poland. Nearly a year ago, I commemorated her birthday with a poem. One of many she’s inspired, and will come to inspire. Yet this year of […]

No Man Meets a Friend in the Desert

| January 28, 2013

The title of this item is an English translation of an Arab proverb that has always been one of my favourites. It packs a lot of realism into a very small package. It was called to mind by reading a thread on a bushcraft forum I visit periodically in which the original poster asked how […]

The Ecology of Space Exploration

| January 14, 2013

A Dutch company is developing a “reality” show as part of its project to put an actual Human settlement on Mars beginning with the placement of a communications satellite and landing of the first supply ship in 2016. According to the Mars One website: Mars One is a not-for-profit organization that will take humanity to […]

Some Observations on Guns and Social Ills

| January 7, 2013

Society is over regulated, and it’s getting worse all the time. This becomes an inevitably self-perpetuating trend when laws put in place to control problem behaviours are crafted without regard for actual causes because when they fail to work, the tendency is to increase the severity on the grounds that measures already taken simply weren’t […]

Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Larry Niven Wrote the Template

| January 2, 2013

There’s a bit o’ readin’ in this here article today. Let’s start with this snippet. The entire article is linked to the title at the end of the excerpt. The controlling mindset of those attempting to protect every person from everything has gone off the deep end. From the anti-bullying movement to government intrusion in […]

A Long Winter’s Night – The Village

| December 30, 2012

Nearly two years ago I wrote about a wonderful piece of work by Solomon Simon called The Wise Men of Helm & Their Merry Tales. I recommend you go there now and watch the hilarious film adaptation made by the National Film Board of Canada under the title Village of Idiots. The lore is full […]