the pomegranate tiger

'Tis the season for unsolicited gifts in the mail. In my neck of the woods, it starts after Halloween runs straight through Christmas. I'm sure I'm not the only household that gets unsolicited freebies from charitable organizations. You know, stuff like Christmas cards, note cards, calendars, notepads, and enough address labels to plaster my entire house. Given that I hardly ever send anything by post anymore, the address labels are practically useless. Yet, over the last number of years, they keep coming and coming and coming. Sometimes they're from organizations that I already support and sometimes they're from organizations that I've never heard of. Usually, there is a nice covering letter either thanking me for past contributions or encouraging me to support their much needed work or new project; they go on to say they've enclosed a "gift" for my invaluable support; and they all have one purpose - to prey on feelings of guilt (because m...

At some point someone will put up the worldwide numbers about who and how many people followed and watched the US election night results. I suspect the numbers will be unprecedented. What I do know is that on election night, Canadians were more than slightly interested in the outcome. Almost everyone I know was either watching TV coverage or following the election results online. My son without a TV went to a neighborhood pub and watched in a party-like atmosphere and when the results came in, everyone cheered, clapped and stomped; here, at home, I watched with my husband; my younger son followed on the internet between working on a research paper; people at the NHL hockey game in town listened with earphones on their radios and when the results were shown on the Jumbotron over centre ice - the hockey fans stood and cheered. We watched John McCain concede defeat in a most gracious and conciliatory speech and we watched Barack Obama deliver an inspiring and hope-filled speech for Am...