More Enjoy Fencing!

| March 25, 2016

“Sport Fencing”, will frequently be the inroad for many in pursuit of a broader exploration of the Blade Arts. While in its development it has veered decidedly toward being an athletic pursuit more than a combative one, Sport Fencing undeniably imbues the serious practitioner with a sound grasp of footwork, timing, distance, quickness of wit, […]

The Best Laid Plans

| February 24, 2016

Operating our security consultancy out of rural Nova Scotia, our average day is best described as what you might get if  the logistical and operational realities of All Creatures Great and Small and The Sandbaggers had a kid. In this family business, a gap on one’s dance card doesn’t take long to close, so our […]

No Man’s Land

| February 14, 2016

“The rash assertion that ‘God made man in His own image’ is ticking like a time bomb at the foundations of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be […]

This Aging Population Thing

| January 23, 2016

If taking away your physical skills means taking away all of your self-defence, you ain’t got shit. You might be a great fighting instructor, but everything you have only works when most good self-defence has already failed. Also, it’s all perishable. It won’t help you if you manage to get old enough, and realize that […]

A Long Winter’s Night 2015 – Day 9: The Strange Case of the Caller at the Library Window (Epilogue)

| December 30, 2015

On day 7 of this Long Winter’s Night, I related The Strange Case of the Caller at the Library Window, and even as I did, I knew the tale was far from over. Interestingly, I found myself shedding more than a few tears as I wrote this. Tell me if you feel the same reading […]

A Long Winter’s Night 2015 – Day 7: The Strange Case of the Caller at the Library Window

| December 28, 2015

I have always felt a comradeship with Ravens and Crows, and fortunately for me, the feeling appears to be reciprocated. What I have for you this Long Winter’s Night is the story of two fellow beings. One, a solitary Man interrupted at his ease by a persistent caller. The other, as it turns out, merely […]

A Long Winter’s Night 2015 – Day 2: All Things Great and Seasonal

| December 23, 2015

Cultural anthropologist Margaret Visser was for many years a regular on an assortment of radio programmes produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She has authored six books on a variety of subjects ranging from the traditions of dinner to the expression of gratitude, linking the origins of the world we know to that of […]

A Long Winter’s Night 2015 – Day 1: Another Winter Solstice

| December 22, 2015

Pre-Christian history is full of spiritual beliefs that personify the sun as a deity who dies and is resurrected, even as the sun that reaches its shortest period of life in the sky is reborn to linger just a little longer each day in the blessed march toward what is hoped to be a new […]

A Few Nights Ago in Dartmouth

| December 4, 2015

Approaching me in a dark parking lot while I’m strapping my child in their car seat is a REALLY stupid move. Don’t you know that a mother protecting her young is one of the most dangerous things to tussle with? ~ Mrs. LFM At approximately 18:30 Atlantic Time on the evening of Monday, 30 November […]

Trouble With Immigrants

| November 15, 2015

” … the anecdote goes, a Canadian immigration official was asked how many Jews displaced from what was left of Europe Canada would accept as immigrants, and was said to have replied, ‘None is too many.’ Whether or not the story is true in its placing the speaking of those words in the mouth of […]