"You Canadians!," my cabbie laughed as I climbed into the back seat and complained about the cold. "Always talking about the weather. In my country, we have two weather reports. 'Now it is the rainy season' and 'Now it is the dry season'."

That lighthearted exchange came to mind when...

I just spent two days with some smart, thoughtful people, talking about something everyone knows is coming, but most of us are in denial about. No, not climate change. Our aging population. Here's a small slice: in 2000, there were 600 million people 60 and over worldwide. By 2025, that...

Why is "Banks Giving" a headline we never expect to read? And isn't it time we acted in unison to do something about that?

Like you, I've grown increasingly uneasy about the money financial institutions are making. And the obscene bonuses paid to senior people (you can be sure that...

Are you like me -- suddenly realizing that the holidays are only weeks away? And are you totally and completely convinced that you don't want to give the same old, same old this year? Then my favourite New Radical gift ideas might just come in handy. Hopefully you'll find something...

When Elham Seyed Javad heard that five Muslim girls were ejected from a tae kwon do tournament in Montreal for wearing hijabs, she felt sick to her stomach. "I was in shock because I play a lot of sports myself - especially soccer - and to have to stop playing...

The publications that are thriving these days are those whose readers are wealthy. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, for instance, just wrote about Tatler, the gossip magazine about the lives of the very rich, which is doing well all over the world.

I read the...

This is the true story of a couple of ordinary Americans who thought, once they turned 60, that life would be uneventful. That maybe the marriage of their three children - and the grandchildren to come - would be the highlight. Instead, they've just won a prestigious award that honours...

"Math is the easiest subject for kids to learn."

Say what?

Yup, that's what John Mighton believes. And he's got everything he needs to back up this counter-intuitive assertion.

Let's start with the commonly-held view. "Math is hard." Even Barbie said it. We somehow grow up thinking that either you're...

Last night, I sat at the top of my steps and wept. I cried over all the problems in the world. And for how tired I am. That's not something that's easy to admit, but I think it warrants saying.

What brought it on? That afternoon, I had coffee...

On December 7, leaders from 192 countries will gather in Copenhagen to determine the future of our planet.

They're all part of the UN Climate Summit, which aims to create a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol. Try to imagine who's going to be at the table, and...

There we were, two middle-aged, Prada-clad women with great haircuts, sitting in a boardroom. Between us on the table, her Blackberry buzzed relentlessly. She ignored it, I suspect, because her mouth was hanging open. Although I'd been her number one speechwriter for many years, somehow I'd never mentioned what I...

Have you asked yourself that question? I hear it from people all the time. First, it was baby boomers eager to shift from success to significance at midlife. But, more and more, it's coming from young people just starting their careers. It's a question that has never seemed more important....

If you were interviewing Linda Ronstadt, would you be tempted to ask her to sing a few lines from your favourite song? Oh, I don't know, maybe "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"? Or "Heat Wave"? As soon as our conversation was set up, I started playing her music. A lot....

OK, budding New Radicals, tell me you don't want to be part of this.

Riders for Health has just announced that they're working with Stanford University's Graduate School of Business to demonstrate how reliable transportation can reduce preventable disease in Africa.

I've written about Riders for Health before....

Bankers are looking over their shoulders these days. There have been calls for a cap on their bonuses - the issue was even discussed at the recent G20 summit - and there's little sympathy that these highly-paid folks report feeling like scapegoats.

It's no secret that some people earn more...

"Your eyes, it's a day's work to look into them." American composer and performance artist Laurie Anderson wrote the line that came to me when I first saw Cindy, the girl whose photograph appears at the top of this week's column.

She lives in Zambia, and is about to...

Have you ever flown somewhere and, out of the blue, the captain makes an announcement that you're about to pass over, say, the Grand Canyon, and adds that people on the right side of the aircraft will have a great view? And then everyone from the left side leaps out...

Is thinking about wisdom part of getting older?

Lately, I've been wondering what wisdom is. Here's how my dictionary defines it, "Understanding what is true, right, or lasting." I've been living with that definition to see if it seems, well, true, right, and lasting.

I also want to know...

Driving through farm country this week - lush green fields, huge blue skies, produce stands filled to bursting - I was listening to a piece on the radio about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. They played Joni's song, of course, and I sang along at the top of my alone-in-the-car...

Michelle and Tal offered me their cottage for a week this summer. Prime time on a northern lake. How could I say no?

One morning I slipped down to the dock just as the sun was rising, and curled up in a Muskoka chair with a pile of newspapers and...