TORONTO – In a third world country like the Philippines with so many poor people, rumour and gossip seem to be the national pastime. Texting (email) costs only one peso, a mere few cents Canadian. Even if this is the Philippines, poverty has not stopped citizens from engaging in online chats, Facebook and Twitter. And they feel important for they all have something to say, for after all they are a part of a larger social group.
TORONTO – The Honourable Joe Comuzzi (in the pic above), my friend of thirty-three years from 1988 (when we were both elected to serve in Canada’s Parliament), passed away on New Year’s Eve. For twenty years, until he retired in 2008, he also served as my self-described “older brother”. We were not related. Luckily, I did not protest too vigorously.
TORONTO – We publish a letter to the Italian newspaper Corriere Canadese from a parent whose child suffers from trypanophobia, the fear of needles, and cannot get him vaccinated because pediatricians, faced with the child’s resistance, refuse to do so. (more…)