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Remembering Absence of Malice
Two recent passings brought to mind the 1981 movie Absence of Malice. The actor Wilford Brimley died on August 1 and screenwriter Kurt Luedtke died on August 16. Luedtke, a former reporter and executive editor of The Detroit Free Press, wrote an imaginative screenplay about investigative journalism gone wrong. Brimley portrayed a disheveled but shrewd…
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Narratives Validated or Disrupted
By now, the narratives the Trump and Biden campaigns are advancing have become clear. Trump depicts himself as a bold and strong leader who has ensured the prosperity and protection of Americans in a hostile world. His achievements include legislating the tax cut, reshaping the judiciary from the top down, withdrawing the US from international…
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My Five Most Popular Posts
Now that I’m devoting more time to my blog, I’ve decided to look for factors that have made previous posts popular, at least as measured by site visits. Google Analytics tracks site visits back to November 1, 2015, so I used it to determine my five most popular posts over the last five years (regardless…
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Just Published: “A Narrative about Teaching Narrative”
I have just published an article about my 30 years’ experience teaching a course on narrative and management in which I discuss how I kept updating and improving it. The article is in Public Voices, an open-access journal that focuses on public administration, the arts, and creativity. Here is a link to the most recent…
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Precursors without Successors
The Sixties were a decade of both self-questioning (national identity and French-English relations) and coming-of-age (Expo 67 and the Centennial, the Maple Leaf flag) for Canada. That decade saw two major political narrative texts, the CBC’s television series Quentin Durgens MP (1965-69) and Arthur Hailey’s 1962 novel In High Places. The television series was about…
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Not-so-Heroic Canadian Politicians
I’m starting to revise the chapter of Public Representations on Canadian political narratives. This will take several weeks, and I’m planning to post on sections of the chapter as I revise them. I’ll begin with the introduction. In 2004, the CBC held a competition to select “the greatest Canadian.” The winner, championed by TV personality…
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A.k.a. Ephraim Borinsky?
In Jewish services, participants are often asked for their Jewish names, which are sometimes Hebrew names and sometimes Yiddish names. The distinction came to mind recently as I was attending services to say Kaddish for my sister. My parents gave me the aspirational names Sandford and Fredrick because they hoped I would do something prestigious…
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Canada United, the US in Chaos
The two countries’ proximate national days occasion a moment of reflection, particularly about the Covid-19 pandemic. The rapid increase in cases in the US is leading to self-examination and comparison with other countries. Recently Anderson Cooper was comparing the US to Italy and Korea. His conclusion was that the US is now in as bad…
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Succeeding on the Manuscript Journey
Recently I sent a paper to an editor asking if it was suitable for her journal, and she ended her reply wishing me well on my “manuscript journey.” I cringed. Journey lately has taken on the connotation of a process with challenges, successes, and failures that ultimately may not end well. The phrase “cancer journey”…
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Corruption, Superstition, Idolatry
Participating in daily services online, as I’m now doing to say Kaddish for my sister, makes me think more deeply about prayers I have been saying all my life and often take for granted. The Aleinu is the second last prayer in Jewish services, followed by the memorial Kaddish prayer. Aleinu, to me, is the…
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The Work of Remembering
The shivah for my sister Irene has now concluded. Sitting shivah in a time of isolation is frustrating. Therefore, I deeply appreciate the many people who reached out to me or my mother, my brother Michael, or Irene’s husband Irv Ash to express condolences or to make donations in her memory. As an alternative to…
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Irene Borins Ash, 1952 – 2020
My beloved sister, Irene Borins Ash, died on June 7 of complications from pancreatic cancer, which she contracted three years ago. Irene had major surgery and two six-month rounds of chemotherapy and the cancer itself was now in remission, but it so weakened her body and spirit that she had become very fragile. Above all…
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Turn 71, Take Pension, Pay Tax
I’m approaching my seventy-first birthday later this week. Though 70 is seen as a milestone birthday, 71 is much more significant in terms of pensions and taxation. In December of the year you turn 71, you must begin receiving your pension. You must also convert your Registered Retirement Savings Plan to a Registered Retirement Income…
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Ford’s Fucking Up
Doug Ford’s initial response to Covid – 19 won praise because his previous performance as premier set such a low bar. Unlike Donald Trump, he showed that he takes epidemiological science seriously, he didn’t make the pandemic a wedge issue, and he played well with the federal government. But as the pandemic has worn on,…
- I am Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having retired in July 2020 after a 45-year academic career.
- My latest book, Public Representations: Screen Stories, Narrative, and the Public Sphere, co-authored with Beth Herst, was published in April 2026 by University of Toronto Press (open access).
- On this website I post blogs about politics, narrative, and my life experiences.
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