Musings by Rod McQueen

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. Everywhere you turn these days the world seems to be coming apart at the seams. Climate change, global warming and greenhouse gases are causing flooding in Africa, ten feet of snow in California, Colorado lows, and tornadoes touching down whenever and wherever they want. In the cities, everything seems to be coming asunder. Toronto is now more congested than New York, meth addicts are all too visible on the streets, and a gang of girls as young as thirteen swarm and beat a homeless man minding his own...

There’s been a lot of ink spilled in recent days about the closing of the thirteen Nordstrom stores in Canada. I feel badly for the 2,500 employees who will lose their jobs and the mall owners that have to fill the empty spaces. As a loyal Nordstrom shopper who has bought goods in U.S.-based Nordstrom stores over the years while visiting in New York, Florida, and California, no one was happier than I was when Nordstrom first arrived in Canada in 2014.  I was well served with outlets. There was a Nordstrom in the Eaton Centre, a short subway ride...

I love baseball. With players now in spring training, I begin to look forward to the season. I usually attend half a dozen Blue Jays games as part of a group with shared seats just six rows behind the Jays’ dugout.  But changes are afoot, and I fear for the game. In the last couple of years, Major League Baseball tried to speed up games by automatically putting a man on second base if the game went into extra innings. That was minor compared with this year’s numerous new rules. For example, pitchers and batters will have fifteen seconds to...

The first ghost-written modern-day book that I am aware of is the autobiography of Lee Iacocca, published in 1984. As CEO of Chrysler Corp., he resurrected the company. Right on the cover are the words “With William Novak.” Novak was reputedly paid $1 million for the collaboration. Every ghostwriter since has sought that same cover line “with.” Few have been paid in the seven figures. My first role as a ghost was for Sean O’Sullivan. At twenty, elected an MP in 1972, he was the youngest parliamentarian at the time. He won again in 1974 and then, in 1977, resigned...

Canada has been a whipping boy forever. The references to our incapacities are legion. In Sean Connery’s last James Bond film, Diamonds are Forever, Bond’s enemy in that 1971 movie was Blofeld who had taken up a position on an oil rig where he operated a laser satellite that had already blown up nuclear weapons in China and North Korea. As Blofeld sought other targets, the dot on his world map indicating a possible strike point crossed over Canada. He said something like, “If we hit Canada, it would be a long time before anyone knew.” These days, The Economist...

Paul Waldie’s story in The Globe and Mail today reminds me how lucky we Globe readers are to have such excellent coverage on the war in Ukraine as well as its impact elsewhere. The piece, a heart-wrenching story about abusive treatment of Ukrainian refugees by Russians living in the former East Germany was just one of many situations on which Globe journalists have recently reported. In addition, Waldie usually manages to write his weekly instalment about someone in Canada who has donated to a good cause. I don’t mean to focus solely on Waldie because Globe coverage of Ukraine is...

Over the holidays I learned a Hungarian tradition about eating that stands you in good stead for the year. My partner declared that, according to lore, on New Year’s Day you have to be careful what you eat. You can’t eat fish, because it will swim away on you. You can’t eat chicken, because it will fly away. You must eat pork because a pig digs beneath him so stays grounded. We had bacon sandwiches. With that foresight in mind, here are my top ten predictions for 2023. No Toronto team will win a championship, not the Raptors, Blue Jays,...

Dear Readers: Happy Holidays to all and may 2023 bring you and your families good health and much joy. If it’s not too late, may you do what you have always wanted to do, but never got around to it. Rod McQueen

My maximum bet has always been five cents. You don’t win much, but you don’t lose much either. Well, there was that one time I went to Las Vegas where I gambled $20 on slot machines. I was such a low-roller that the $20 lasted for five hours despite free Coronas handed out by skimpily-clad waitresses.  Somehow, earlier this year, the federal government and the provinces colluded to permit online betting in Canada. I say somehow because I don’t recall there being an announcement from either Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford about what I consider to be a major change...

Sometimes in life you seem to be losing control. When the future is uncertain, the only safe place to go is to the past. Not the places you visited, or the various jobs you held, but the family members you knew who are no longer around. On my father’s side my only recollection of his father is of a moustache and pipe behind the wheel of car coming down his driveway near the small town of Nottawa, near Collingwood. As for my paternal grandmother, I was a scared young lad being pulled to toward her open coffin. My mother might...

I never paid much attention to the Toronto Star. When I was growing up, we subscribed to the Globe and Mail. Such habits acquired while young tend to remain in later life. But reading John Honderich’s memoir, Above the Fold, makes up for my void on this topic. Honderich was, of course, a foreign correspondent, editor, publisher, and an owner of the Star, so his life story is a fascinating read. The fact that he died earlier this year, after completing this work, makes everything all the more poignant. The family story begins near Kitchener, Ont., with his Mennonite forbears and moves along to his father,...

Surprise! Inflation’s no longer a problem. At least that’s what analysts were saying after the stock market rose sharply at the end of the week. New York was up more than 5 percent during the last two trading days and Toronto was up slightly less. In the U.S., in October, the consumer price index was up 7.7 percent year-over-year, marking the fourth straight month of slowdown. In Canada, the Bank of Canada’s Tiff Macklem, our man at the inflation helm, has not quite declared an end to rate hikes, but he has found a new foe: employment. Macklem declared that...

I’m going to declare up front my position on Ontario Premier Doug Ford. I’ve never liked him and I probably never will. Mind you, he’s a better man than he was during those early days in office when his idea of being in power was riding around the province enthroned in some kind of hopped-up RV. Better, but only slightly. It’s hard to know where to begin in my litany of foolish proposals, but let’s start with his plan for a roadway that impinges upon the Niagara Escarpment, a wonder of nature that countless citizens maintain and enjoy trekking along...

I don’t watch the news nearly as much as I used to. Does anyone? Drones in the Ukraine, the convoy, floods in Pakistan, students shot in the classroom, lockdowns, hurricanes. I’m sorry to say that such travesties have become so regular that they all run into one another. When I do watch the evening television news, it is certainly not CTV, my former mainstay. Some executive’s ageist and sexist comments caused Lisa LaFlamme to lose her job and I disappeared at the same time.  I might watch the first ten minutes of The National but CBC News is not what...