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Adventures with Knives Introduction A Taste for Adventure Every adventure has a high and a low – if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be an adventure. The low point of an adventure, the black hole, is dark and scary. You feel alone, and you want to go home. Something you ate has caused you to fear... read more
Bucket List | Travel
By BOB FOULKES International travel always amazes me. I get into a magic tube not much bigger than a Wayne Gretzky cigar and after a movie or two, I emerge in a far, far away place. I always feel a little like Dorothy and Toto. Vietnam is not Oz but it’s definitely not... read more
Bucket List | Classics | Travel
By BOB FOULKES Cambodia is one of those countries known to the western world as an unfortunate circumstance, the Killing Fields of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Over a short time, one quarter of the country’s population was brutally murdered, mostly the urban, educated and the successful were butchered by a Chinese sponsored/funded/armed madman.... read more
Bucket List | Travel
BY JOHN SKINNER Book Boy is somewhere between 10 and 15 years old — it’s hard to be exact because Cambodians often look younger than they are because they’re smaller than we are, due mostly to poor nutrition. He makes his living selling on the street. He may or may not go to school. He... read more
Bucket List | Health & Fitness
By BOB FOULKES Regardless of how worldly I think I am, I’m confronted with the fact that I’m not. There are two constraints in my life. The first is that, as I age, I suffer from what my friend calls a hardening of the attitudes. It concerns me. The second is equally alarming: I Iive... read more
Classics | Frivolity
New York Yankee great Yogi Berra once said, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it. ” And a lot of other stuff like that. He wasn’t alone in his world. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson (left) on being a role model: ”I wan’ all dem kids to do what I do, to look up... read more
Guides & Books
By BOB FOULKES I read an interesting book over the holidays, Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007), a controversial Polish writer who chronicled big political events around the world for decades. He was a journalist, a poet, a philosopher and a keen observer of the uses and abuses of power. Imperium, probably his most famous book,... read more
Guides & Books | Health & Fitness
By BOB FOULKES Is it just me, or are there more rude people in the world today? I went to an afternoon movie on Saturday; we arrived early to get good seats. By the time the trailers started, the theatre was about one-third full. Sitting behind us and slightly to the right were three... read more
Guides & Books | Travel
Monitoring an election in Ukraine opens a Canadian’s eyes By BOB FOULKES A few weeks ago, two things happened to me independent of one another. I finally tracked down a book that I had been looking for and I went off to Ukraine for my second electoral observation mission. The book is called From Dictatorship... read more