Pique'n Yer Interest

It was a watershed moment. In August 2012 I attended an international symposium in Vancouver about the effects of climate change on various species of reptiles and amphibians.

I had not long returned to Canada after 15 years away in England when a colleague at my temporary job in Vancouver dropped a shocking, appallingly racist comment about indigenous people.

It was astounding to see just how swift and callous the reaction to last week's devastating Fort McMurray wildfires became in some less considerate circles of the Internet. Memes were posted with furious frequency, accuracy be damned.

Some may be surprised to hear it, but we sports guys get pretty amped up for election nights. We're always eager to hop in and help with the quick and dirty breaking coverage.

I was a typical gullible child. That's always true before you develop a capacity for critical thinking.

News that the stories of those who suffered at church-run residential schools, given as testimony by survivors to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, can be destroyed after 15 years, is disheartening.

Noted R&B crooner and closet connoisseur R. Kelly once wrote that age ain't nothing but a number.

It's funny how music gets itself so deeply intertwined with specific memories. There's a pop punk album my friends and I had on repeat throughout the summer of 2004 — to this day I can't listen to it without feeling high-school drunk.

On one hand, I suppose, we all grieve a little bit differently. And it's generally poor practice to question the sincerity of someone's mourning.

On a three-day trek through the rolling hills of Central Myanmar, atop one post-lunch climb, our guide pointed to two smokestacks about five kilometres apart in an adjacent valley and said: "One factory is for crushing limestone, the other is where t