Like all boys growing up in Rome during the 1930’s and 40’s, the author was expected to join Balilla, Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Organization in Italy. An unwilling participant, he counters this activity by becoming a bicycle runner, secretly delivering pamphlets and other materials to members of the Resistance. Later, near the end of the war, after [...]
One final tip from the latest book, New Frugality. If you can, buy college in advance.
Between 1982 and 2007 the cost of fees and tuition rose 439 percent. Even when adjusting for inflation, the increasing cost of college education is greatly outpacing the purchasing power of the dollar.
So, if it is a foregone conclusion that [...]
Another financial tip the new book, New Frugality. You’re smarter than a wall-street money manager.
Index funds duplicate the performance of a particular stock market index. The most famous equity index fund is the S&P 500. It is made up of stocks of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies. They’re on that list because they [...]
Who can forget the iconic slow-motion Vangelis theme music? Or the race around the courtyard of Trinity College? Or Eric Liddell’s race in which he is tripped and heroically rallies.
Winning the 1981 Oscar for Best Picture, Chariots of Fire had it all. Stylish 1920’s fashions, beautiful Cambridge buildings (actually Eton), lush British estates, and a glimpse into [...]
What’s a modern-day Olympics without mascots?
Well, definitely still exciting but perhaps a little less fun. If you were able to watch any of the opening ceremony for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the emphasis on the traditional “First Nations” was obvious. The media and marketing moguls have carried it a bit further by designing some cute, [...]
Louise Penny , a former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter, steeps her mysteries in the French culture of Quebec. Her Chief Inspector Gamache series has been compared to Agatha Christie (a small village setting and large cast of characters and surprise endings) . In Brutal Telling, Gamache is called in when an unknown dead body turns up in local bistro. Penny’s skill is creating [...]
Everyone knows Dan Ackroyd and Michael J. Fox. And perhaps you knew that Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey were Canadian.
But did you know aboot Eric McCormack, of Will and Grace? And Matthew Perry of Friends? And Victor Garber of Alias?
Our very own Field of Dreams is based on Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, who is, [...]
Hollywood must have had some serious Winter Olympic fever in the early Nineties because almost all of my favorite movies featuring skates, ice and attitudes were made between 1992 and 1994–not that surprising when I remember that these were the years of the great split between the Winter and Summer Olympics, and in order to [...]
The triumph of the human spirit…pfft. More like triteness of the human spirit. I can relate more to putting in a modest amount of effort and then not just coming up short, but failing…catastrophically…in front of a sizable audience. I think most of us, therefore, are “Agony of Defeat” people.
ABC Wide World of Sports interposed [...]
We’ve been playing a lot of Canadian Spotting in our office as we gear up for the Winter Olympics, so I was gleeful when I came across a list of Canadian Authors which included Cory Doctorow–co-editor of the popular blog BoingBoing and author of several books including the YA bestseller Little Brother.
I will say up [...]
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