Last week I went for a walk below the Scarborough Bluffs, the 12,000 year old cliff along the north shore of Lake Ontario created by a giant glacial river during the last ice age. After a long winter, I walked in the spring sunshine there, and explored the woods that grow in the deep gullies … Continue reading The Lost 11 year-old Loner |Was he really Lost?
Autism and Toronto’s Van Rampage
When a van drove down Yonge Street April 23, 2018, our first real spring day in this city, deliberately attacking pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring at least 14, it was with added dismay that I learned that the alleged driver, Alek Minassian, age 25, has been diagnosed with Asperger's. It wasn't a surprise though. Young … Continue reading Autism and Toronto’s Van Rampage
Watch out for Narcissists and Sociopaths
(This was a post on my previous blog, Loner's Highway, where I presented narcissists as another type of loner. Because they're such problematic people, especially for shy people, I'm including them here.) According to The Everything Guide to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, by Cynthia Lechan Goodman, MEd, and Barbara Leff, LCSW, someone may have narcissistic personality … Continue reading Watch out for Narcissists and Sociopaths
The Dairy Farm |A Galactic bailout for Earth?
This little story was written in 1993, but given the financial fiasco that civilization got itself into in 2008, and hasn't really got out of, with the giant problems of global warming, habitat destruction, over-population, and the need for some kind of global government still staring us in the face as we continue to quarrel … Continue reading The Dairy Farm |A Galactic bailout for Earth?
Watch out for Sociopaths
This was originally a post on my previous blog, Loner's Highway, where I was describing the different types of loner. Sociopaths (sometimes called psychopaths, an older term) are a very different kind of loner. Contrary to what most people think, they are not demented haters of humanity. They like the rest of us very much. … Continue reading Watch out for Sociopaths
In Defence of Bullfighting | The Old Matador
Because I eventually want to put a collection of my SF short stories on this site, I'm introducing another one today. During the winter and spring of 1969 I was in Mexico City, working from Monday to Saturday teaching English in a busy school on the Insurgentes. On Sundays, I regularly visited the famous Plaza … Continue reading In Defence of Bullfighting | The Old Matador
My Lost Book – Skol
Though I've been told that my novel Skol is the best of my books, you would never guess that from its sales. My other novel, The Birdcatcher, has had many readers over the years, and the first edition of The Shyness Guide was once selling well enough that I was threatening to break even financially. Meanwhile, Skol has had no following at all. … Continue reading My Lost Book – Skol
Rescuing Jude
Have you read Thomas Hardy's 1895 novel, Jude the Obscure? If you haven't, it's the story of Jude Fawley, a shy, intelligent, sensitive boy, then man, who is too shy, intelligent and sensitive to fit into a callous, indifferent and hypocritical world. Jude is working class, but he longs to become a Greek and Latin scholar … Continue reading Rescuing Jude
Wild New York
Recently I came upon a post by a Toronto journalist celebrating the many ravines in Toronto, the refuge of much local wildlife, valleys created by the rivers that run south through our city. As someone who has been exploring those places since the 1960s, I know them well and I celebrate them too. But when … Continue reading Wild New York
Alan Conrad 