Michael Atkins

Some of you might remember Eleanor Clitheroe. Her 15 minutes of fame came in the early years of this century.

Somewhere out there, just ahead of the blackflies is a small group of people across Northern Ontario knocking on doors looking to sign up enough people to bring the Northern Ontario Heritage Party (NOHP) back to life.

I remember chairing a meeting of an economic self-help group in Sudbury 30 years ago called Sudbury 2001. We were at the Cambrian College boardroom and a group of union members and politicians burst into the room to bust up the meeting.

The other day a guy named Evan Bayh, a 54-year-old Indiana Democratic Senator in the United States quit politics.

Someone said the other day the strike at Vale Inco might go for another two years. Sounds ridiculous.

There is a reason I’m able to spend some of my time pontificating on the absurdity of Canadian and provincial politics in these pages while overseeing four or five businesses. I don’t do much of the work.

Calgary, you might have tuned into the screaming match between Canadian television stations and Canadian cable companies. Amazingly, they are fighting over local TV. It is an oxymoron in this country. Local used to mean locally owned.

Notwithstanding my recent upgrade from Boomer to Zoomer status (you know, 60 is the new 25) things still seem to happen like the olden days.

If you live in the newspaper business an occupational hazard is called the “grip and grin”.

So, is the United Steelworkers Local 6500 strike against Vale Inco in Sudbury sheer stupidity from a union unable to read the tea leaves of economic reality, the strength of its foe or the relative prosperity of the agreement it has on the table? Or,