The principal of Vancouver's Templeton secondary published a "message from the principal" about the Fraser Institute's high school rankings in the Templeton's mid-May newsletter.

Canada hasn’t really contributed much to the art of barbecue, unless you count maple-syrup glaze or the wonderful Native method of cooking salmon on a cedar frame by an open fire. We’ve adopted a combination of methods and ingredients that reflect the distinct regional styles of barbecue in the United States, where the word barbecue, depending on where it is used, often refers to just the meat being cooked, usually pork of some type.

The Globe and Mail reported a few weeks ago that Hockey Night in Canada play-by-play guy Bob Cole has no intention of retiring.

Who the heck is Brad Boyes and where the heck did he come from?

The Vancouver Airport Authority announced that VANOC has named Vancouver International Airport the "official airport" for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Toronto is disappointed.

Some TV networks with ties to radio have decided that it would be interesting to fill hours of their daily schedule with studio footage of a couple of clowns doing actual sports radio. The Straight sort of disagrees.

The Vancouver Police Department admitted that its officers use Tasers on non-violent people. Isn't that headline news?

By Neil Shubin. Pantheon Books, 229 pp, $28, hardcover

If the world is really getting bulldozed by global corporations, how come life never gets any blander? Herewith, the biggest and oddest news of 2007, ripped from the headlines we couldn't forget...

New nonfiction by Paul Myers

The makers of Manufacturing Dissent found their film unwittingly echoing Michael Moore's first hit.

This past year really blew, with all of those power outages, the weird weather, sky-high gas prices, and so many Canadian soldiers coming home in coffins.

The sets in this year's batch contain punk rock's prototypes, swirly pop dreams, and primal blues.

By Michael Palin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 650 pp, $39.95, hardcover.

Southern B.C. is bursitng with alien bullfrogs and bucketmouths.

Royalty lacking loyalty

Octopussy

America, the bountiful

A big fist in a small pond

Good reason to go ga-ga

A dollar saved is a collar earned

Paris in the bling time

The saucier apprentice

Call dismay

Being fecetious

Germaine point

No parent should have to think of death while looking into a child's smiling face. All parents know that their children will die someday, but that inevitability is easily pushed aside in the face of one's own sure demise-with any luck, many years before theirs. Until then, mothers and fathers love and nurture their children and try to protect them as best they can.

The death of Long John Baldry last Thursday (July 21) has left a 6-7 hole in the local music scene he joined after moving to Vancouver more than two decades ago. The lanky, legendary British bluesman had already written his entry in the rock 'n' roll history books, though, with his pioneering rock, R?&?B, and blues explorations in the 1960s and '70s in his native England.

The curious food stores, restaurants, and other retailers in the Victoria Drive-to-Nanaimo Street corridor along East Hastings Street experience change within their ranks on a monthly basis. This flux seems to manifest itself most strongly between Nanaimo and Slocan streets, where one address (2474 East Hastings) has boasted at least five different Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in five years; good luck to Pho 888, the latest hopeful.

Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor, was teaching medicine in Vienna in 1847 when he noticed that students in his hospital were dissecting cadavers and then helping deliver babies without first washing their hands.

One of the most perplexing health-care problems of our time has a quarter-million Canadians getting ill from infections picked up in hospitals. Of those, as many as 12,000 will die, and the cost to the health-care system is at least $100 million every year.

Directed by Avi Lewis. Written and narrated by Naomi Klein. Rated general.

For Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, it's all about the people. The two journalists, probably Canada's best-known antiglobalization activists, are touring benefit screenings of their first documentary, The Take, across the country prior to the film's Friday (October 29) opening in Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. Tickets for the October 21 Vancouver showing were available only at such outlets as Ten Thousand Villages and People's Co-op Bookstore.

When will local media outlets finally summon the brass to tell the Vancouver police to fuck off?

The old marketing saw about identifying a niche market and exploiting the hell out of it makes a lot of sense sometimes. Look at where artisan breads, bagels, and organic foods got to in a relatively few years. Then again, look at boutique pretzels and designer popcorn. Some things just deserve relegation to the food court.

Starring Rowan Atkinson and Peter MacNicol. Rated general.

Starring Rowan Atkinson and Peter MacNicol. Rated general.

Directed by Michael Apted. Narratedby Robert Redford. Rated mature.

Directed by Michael Apted. Narratedby Robert Redford. Rated mature.