Randy | December 22, 2012
“The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” ~ Johnny Carson Here in Canada, fruitcake is a staple of this season, less often eaten as a dessert than as a point in itself. Much maligned by its detractors, I feel a […]
Randy | December 21, 2012
Beginning today and running up to include New Year’s Eve, this will be the first in an eleven part series of articles in which I will make personal observations on the season of Yule as I have come, and am still coming, to know it. With those words a year ago, I ended my […]
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 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 24, 2012
A Choir of Crows By LFM Deep within a forest once I heard the strangest thing. What must have been a hundred Crows Had gathered there to sing. What some might find disturbing And offensive to the ear, I heard to be an ode of joy To all that Crows hold dear. Curious, I closer […]
Randy | October 22, 2012
This poem came to me as Mrs. LFM and I were walking on a gravel beach deep within the presently deserted wilderness wonderland that is Kejimkujik National Park. To quote one of my earlier articles, “The Park, locally referred to simply as ‘Keji’, encompasses a vast area that has been inhabited by the Mi’kmaq People […]
Randy | October 3, 2012
“Everything in Nature is about efficiency and balance, which is why life is, first and foremost, an exercise in energy management. For example, the Way of the Wild demands of each parent that their offspring be made self-sufficient as quickly and efficiently as possible. A tool need not be a physical artifact – rest assured […]
Randy | October 1, 2012
October again, and the harvest is in, by every definition of the word. Welcome to another season of Dark Sentiments! If you’ve never experienced it before, “Dark Sentiments” is an annual series that appears here every October, each day of that month presenting observations and tales of people, things, doings, and goings on that come […]