Roxanne Tellier – Whose Rights Are They Anyway?

The east end of Toronto has always been an interesting mix of peoples. Heavily treed and with many well tended parks, it’s a beautiful area, diverse and dynamic. 

Roxanne Tellier – Society’s Child

Kids really know how to push their parent’s buttons. As a smart-ass teenager in the sixties, I pushed quite a few myself. At one family dinner, while I silently pondered the lyrics to Janis Ian’s song, Society’s Child, I suddenly announced to the table, “I’d marry a black man, if I was in love with him.” 

CHICKEN ON A HOT PLATE by JAIMIE VERNON

For as long as there have been people with talent to share, there have been people waiting impatiently to exploit it. P.T. Barnum was the first to realize that a) you could make people pay a nickel to see a woman who couldn’t afford a Lady Bic razor on her face and b) you could pay the woman herself a penny if she would just stop shaving her beard off. Barnum was shameless in using any perceived talent (sword swallowing, knife throwing, anvil lifting) or any physical infirmity to sell tickets. He became massively rich and his ‘performers’ became slaves to the grind. Some were smart enough to negotiate riches in partnership with Barnum, others were just glad to have a few square meals a week and a place to sleep every night. It beat the alternatives.

Roxanne Tellier – A Crack in the Patriarchal Egg

At the end of the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King Jr famously paraphrased the words of Theodore Parker, American transcendentalist and pastor, when he stated, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Roxanne – On CMW, the Professionally Offended, and a PSA

In just a few days, the pilgrimage begins. Musicians, writers, broadcasters, exhibitors and salespeople will head for the Sheraton Hotel, where the 37th annual presentation of Canadian Music Week will be held from May 7th to May 13.

Pat Blythe – #MeToo/#NotMeToo and Rockin’ the Night Away…

Let me start by stating I am not a “political” person. I follow what’s going on the world to keep myself current but I don’t read nor do I decipher every minutiae that is written about “he who shall not be shamed” or anyone else for that matter. However, the latest in a very long string of accusations of sexual misconduct/harassment, particularly here in Ontario, well…..I’ve about had enough. I posted this in Facebook a few days ago and, generally, the respondents agree with me. What follows in a slightly edited version.
“For the first time in years, eons even, I sat down to read something other a computer screen (except for Tom Wilson’s book Beautiful Scars). This time it was the newspaper. The National Post actually. For some mysterious reason it keeps appearing on my front porch at least six out of seven days a week. But I digress……

Roxanne Tellier – Thoughts for a Winter’s Day

 

It’s Sunday. Column day. And I’ve got …nothing.

It’s not that I’m ‘blocked.’ No, I can think of a million things to say, and even good ways to say them.