As I continue to work on my book on the British anti-slavery West Africa Squadron, and the role of my fourth great grandfather William Pennell, who spied on the Portuguese and Brazilian slave trade. Inspired by the indigenous people of Canada, I wrote a draft chapter about the Doctrine of Discovery, which authorized European colonialism […]
One mistake, a blunder, can sink an otherwise excellent documentary.The documentary was Athens Birth of Democracy, which I watched the premier when it was broadcast on PBS Nova, on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. ( Video geoblocked on the website) The blunder was this sentence which refers to the Athenian navy and how citizen rowers helped […]
Hunting the Archangel convoy in 1813 (Long read) Just before midnight on July 19, 1813, at about 71 degrees north latitude, in the Barents Sea, north of Norway’s Cape North, above the Arctic Circle, the midnight sun was low and near the horizon as the United States Navy frigate, USS President, 44 guns, Commodore John Rodgers, set […]
(Long read) It was the summer of 1965. I just turned 15. That August, I first encountered Frank Herbert’s Dune as I browsed the paperback racks in a small independent pharmacy on Toronto’s Yonge Street, north of Lawrence Ave, close to the old Glen Echo trolley bus loop (I can’t remember the exact spot).I still […]
This is an edited excerpt from my current nonfiction book project about the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron enforcing the ban on the slave trade between 1819 and 1822, the story of two Black seamen who served on the Squadron’s HMS Pheasant and the role of my fourth great grandfather, William Pennell, British consul in […]
It’s early in the season for the new anchor of the storied CBS Evening News, but with three regular broadcasts, Tony Dokoupil has fouled out every night. That doesn’t look good for the third-place network news show. Breaking news can always disrupt a carefully planned remote newscast that is out of the studio and on […]
So who is this Bari Weiss, the new editor-in-chief of CBS News? She was a critic of cancel culture who is now a leading advocate of cancel culture from the right. In one of her founding columns in her Free Press blog, “The New Founders America Needs” from a 2022 address at the “conservative” University […]
On Tuesday, November 11, 1975, I was just a few months into my first reporting job, mostly as the police reporter, on the Sudbury (Ontario) Star. That day would unexpectedly provide me with my first news “scoop,” a UFO story that would eventually be picked up across North America, first by the wire services and […]
This is really a story about my crock-pot. A “vintage” Sunbeam Heritage Pot slow cooker. On Wednesday night, I planned take a photo as I sat down for my dinner (something I seldom do, not usually given to posting food pix)when Blue Jay Dave Schneider opened Game 5 of the World Series with a solo […]
In my first professionally published science fiction story in Analog, November 1988, the Toronto Blue Jays meet the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. The story is “Wait Till Next Year.” It begins in the year 2048, not 2025. The morning before the seventh game of the World Series, the universe changes. In the […]