The most expensive paper is Saturday's Daily Star, which I believe is about $1.05 with tax.
I reckon any of the papers is about the size of a single section of the Windsor Star or the Ottawa Citizen - even the Saturday paper. I do, however, feel somewhat more informed than I have every been with either paper. For small papers, both have remarkable international, national and local coverage. In the past week, I have gotten stories on McGuinty's intended taxation changes, changes to delivery/publications at the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News and regular updates on Obama. I have been updated about Zimbabwe, Italy, India and Sarah Palin is a regular subject, as is Ottawa politics and how this economic crisis is actually affecting the world! Professional and amateur sport, as well as things like biodiversity month are covered, and regardless of the size of the paper, the ice-guessing contest gets a page. What is the ice-guessing contest you ask? I quote:
"A river goes out neither late nor early. A river goes out precisely when it intends to. And, because rivers are nortoriously secretive and don't talk much about their intentions, the trick for us is figuring out when that will occur. The day that happens is the most important date on the spring calendar.
...Ever since 1896, the ice going out in Dawson has signalled the arrival of spring. Back then, people would make bets on when the garbage on the ice - because the river was not only used as the city outhouse it was also the town dump - would start to move. There has been an ice pool run every year since - 113 years of people trying to figure out when the river ice intends to leave.
...a wooden tripod. The time of the ice going out is recorded when the tripod moves sufficiently to stretch a wire that runs from it to a clock on the shore. When the wire gets tight enough, it stops the clock, and that's when we finally know what the river has known and intended all along. When someone notices the river is moving, they call the fire department, which then alerts the entire town with the fire siren - no matter the time of day or night. Almost everyone, including the kids in school, heads down to the riverbank to watch the ice go out."
Mike and I have both put our bets in - date, hour, minute. How could you not when someone walks up in the coffee shop and asks if you have money. When the answer to the question 'what for?' is I need $2, one must review the results of the past 113 years and comply.
While the ice breaking is one of my favourite articles, I will sign off with the following article found in the Yukon News on April 1. Anthony, this one is for you!
Yukon Government launches Walking Dead Action Plan.
The Yukon will be "undead ready" by 2012, according to a new $6-million Walking Dead Action Plan announced last week by the Yukon government. "This plan provides key opportunities for Yukoners to remain safe from the threat of re-animated corpses," said health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart in an official release this week.
The centrepiece of the plan is a $2.3 million package to promote "zombie-proof" housing in Whitehorse communities. Home builders will receive subsidies of up to 50 per cent for the installation of acid sprinkler systems, fortified window shutters and roof-mounted flamethrowers.
Opposition members hailed the new legislation as an "important step forward" in making Yukon an important commercial and industrial centre for the post-zombie-apocalypse. "The North is uniquely positioned to become a world leader in undead management," said Hart.
The Yukon is the first region in Canada to institute zombie legislation. "We're finding more and more that provincial and territorial governments are woefully unprepared for even the most minor living-dead apocalypse," said Tim Korman, a living-dead specialist at the University of Victoria.
The plan also sets aside $630,000 for law enforcement training in zombie control.
In 2002, a zombie epidemic struck Alaska's Kiska Island. Police, unaware that the walking dead can only be felled by a shot to the head, uselessly aimed their pistols at the torsos of the undead.
Growing up in Northwestern Ontario with a river in our backyard, our family also had a yearly tradition of guessing when the ice would go out. Friends and neighbours who would stop by would also be asked to participate. They would judge the amount of snow that we'd gotten that year, if there was any recession on the banks of the river, etc. And then place a bet (for free - you just won bragging rights). We would literally spend hours watching the ice flow down the river as kids. The true date of the ice going out was when all ice that was found in our section of the river was completely free of ice (even if ice was flowing from further upstream). Thanks for sharing this - it gave me a trip down memory lane! And yes, I'm a hick.
ReplyDeleteZombies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletelate April 1st? H
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