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‘The last show’: Memorial service for Calgary children’s entertainer Buck Shot

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2 hours ago

September 20, 2024

CALGARY – It will be the last show for longtime children’s TV star Ron (Buck Shot) Barge as a memorial is held Friday in Calgary.

For 30 years, Buck Shot and his sidekick Benny the Bear entertained Calgarians with songs, puppets, the birthday book and his nifty battered cowboy hat.

Barge died at home last month just 10 days short of his 88th birthday.

The memorial is set for noon at the Centre Street Church.

“It’s like the last show. That’s why we did it at noon,” said his son Ken.

“It’s at noon because that’s when ‘The Buck Shot Show’ would start … 12 o’clock every day,” added his daughter Brenda.

“We’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be nice to have the memorial because Dad would love it.”

“Buck Shot” was one of the longest-running children’s shows in Canada, surpassing “Mr. Dressup,” which ran for 29 years, and “The Friendly Giant,” which aired for 27.

Barge was asked to develop the show when he was a cameraman and floor director at CFCN in Calgary. He had a knack for interviewing kids in the audience and getting actual responses.

The show ran from 1967 to 1997, but Barge continued in his role making special appearances at events.

“It’s just for people who want to celebrate him. We’ve had so many beautiful things said online,” Brenda Barge said.

“It’s been such a reawakening of who my dad was because it’s been a lot of years since he was Buck Shot.”

A musician most of his life, Barge played in bands from the time he was 16. He played piano and sang with the Stardells for more than 20 years in Calgary.

His family said he loved the show and the character he created. Since the show was done live, it led to a number of pranks being played by people working on it.

“The birthday book was the primary target and the hired hands would put either a bad joke or a bad picture or something that was not appropriate for children’s television and my dad would have to keep a straight face while he was holding that stupid book,” said Ken.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2024.

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Our Obsession with Convenience is Harming Us and Our Planet

Published

1 hour ago

September 20, 2024

Nick Kossovan

“Comfort is the worst addiction.” – Marcus Aurelius

The stickiness of the Internet and social media is largely due to our obsession with convenience. (read: instant gratification) The digital world offers an unimaginably massive and convoluted buffet of conveniences. 24/7/365 access to news and information, instant messaging, unlimited entertainment, and online shopping is accessible through your hand-held device, which is not much bigger than a credit card. In all its forms, the Internet capitalizes on the relationship between convenience and increased consumption.

Advertisers and marketers lost no time capitalizing on the golden opportunity the Internet’s convenience provides to intensify our wasteful 1st world consumerism. Consequently, our world is increasingly dominated by tech companies and apps, enabling us to order takeout, have anything delivered to our doorsteps, and swipe left, hoping to find our soulmate.

As we become more addicted to the convenience of shopping from the comfort of our homes, we’re inadvertently harming ourselves psychologically and environmentally. The Sears Catalogue, founded in 1887, was the Amazon that never grew. 137 years ago, our forefathers could’ve gotten everything by mail. This would’ve made sense since cars weren’t around to make shopping and transporting purchases easy.

So why wasn’t the convenience of shopping from a mail-order catalogue widely adopted?

I don’t know. Was it the 6 to 8 weeks it took to receive your order?

Lately, there’s a lot of talk about loneliness and isolation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released in April 2023 a report titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, which found that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.

Would it be a stretch to assume the rise in loneliness is a consequence of our taking advantage of the Internet’s many stay-at-home conveniences? Not so long ago, malls—marketplaces and shopping districts before them—were community-like hubs, akin to town squares, where you met your friends, ran into neighbours, and even made new acquaintances. You saw people, you connected.

Malls don’t only offer a plethora of retail outlets; they also provide social experiences, an experience many people are abandoning, instead opting to shop in the most environmentally damaging way humanly possible: shopping online. Rather than going to the store to try a jacket on to see how it fits and looks, many people now order five jackets online and return four.

Ordering online has a significant negative environmental impact. That ‘must-have’ avocado slicer you bought online will arrive in a box the size of a doghouse, packed with enough bubble wrap to protect a mini fridge.

Those over 50 can remember when shopping wasn’t a daily, let alone a 24/7/365 activity. People used to write something called a shopping list. Then, they went to the store or mall and gathered all the items on their list at once. Then, they took their purchases home, put everything in its place, and felt the satisfaction of a job well done. On the other hand, when you order online, robots and humans, who are treated like robots, pack your Tim Hortons Original Coffee blend, Single Serve Keurig K-Cup Pods, in an oversized box and deliver it to your home along with three other giant boxes, each containing one item, which likely could have been purchased locally. Then we appease ourselves—claim we’re concerned about the environment—by stuffing all that packaging into blue bins like they’re a portal to plastic heaven. According to the Government of Canada website (www.Canada.ca), only 9% of Canada’s plastic waste is recycled; the rest ends up in landfills, waste-to-energy facilities or the environment, such as the ocean.

Shopping online for stuff you likely don’t need, knowing its negative impact on the environment, while crying about the environment is sheer hypocrisy. Every time you click buy it now, a tree gets its wings.

No one wants to think about the child labour in Bangladesh who made the Nike hoodie they ordered off Amazon, the ship, air, rail and truck that transported it, or the landfill the hotdog toaster they bought on impulse—prompted by an ad you saw on Facebook—will eventually end up. We just want that t-shirt that says “Mindful.”

Online shopping is wreaking havoc on our planet’s environment. The kicker is we’ve sold ourselves the false narrative that online shopping is eco-friendly. Making a list, getting off the couch, and getting it is much better for our environment and has the added benefit of meeting people and maybe even finding your soul mate.

Thanks to the Internet, you can go days or weeks without speaking to anyone. Time spent online is time spent being sedentary and not having real-life interactions. Online shopping reduces our social and community interactions, leading to loneliness. I’m sure you’ve noticed, as I have, that social skills, especially amongst the Millennials, Generation Z, and the current Generation Alpha, are deteriorating. You can’t experience all life has to offer sitting on a couch—I know there are exceptions.

Another reason to avoid shopping online is privacy. Going to a store is buying and leaving without creating a trail of cookies and tracking/analyzing.

______________________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

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A’ja Wilson set records. So did Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. WNBA stats in 2024 were eye-popping

Published

2 hours ago

September 20, 2024

Anne Joseph

A’ja Wilson had a season like none other in WNBA history. Caitlin Clark set records and made the Indiana Fever the biggest draw in the women’s game. Angel Reese rebounded like nobody the league has ever seen.

The WNBA regular season is over. And the stat sheets were filled like never before.

Lots of records — most points, most rebounds, most assists, even most people at a game — fell during the WNBA’s 28th regular season. Wilson, Clark and Reese were in the middle of many of those moments.

Here’s a look at some big numbers from the season:

A’ja Wilson: Will it be u’nanimous?

Wilson did things this season that have never been done in the WNBA. (And never been officially done in the NBA, either.)

Most points in a season, most rebounds in a season and most blocked shots in a season. That’s never happened by one player in one year, until now. The Las Vegas star set WNBA records with 1,021 points and 451 rebounds, plus led the league in blocks with 98.

Another record for Wilson: points per game with 26.9, breaking Diana Taurasi’s mark of 25.3 that stood since 2006. WNBA teams didn’t always play 40-game seasons, so 1,000 points wasn’t even a remote possibility in the days of shorter schedules. The scoring-average record takes away any debate from where Wilson’s 2024 season should rank.

It seems certain that she’s going to be MVP for a record-tying third time. The only real question is whether she gets all the votes. “U’nanimous,” Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo said on social media last week, and it didn’t need any explaining.

Caitlin Clark: Rookie numbers stand alone

Clark broke the WNBA single-game record for assists with 19, broke the season record for assists with 337 and finished her rookie Indiana season with a resume of averages beyond compare.

Others have scored more, rebounded more and one player — Courtney Vandersloot — has averaged more assists in a season. But nobody in WNBA history ever averaged as much in all three categories as Clark this season: 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game.

There have been only four other instances of a player averaging 15-5-5 in the WNBA. Clark is the first in the 19-5-8 club.

Clark also had 12 games of at least 10 points and 10 assists, another single-season record. Only eight players in WNBA history have more such games in their entire careers.

Clark also had two triple-doubles in her rookie season. No other rookie in WNBA history has ever had one. And her 122 3-pointers — the second-most by anyone in any WNBA season — was another rookie record.

Angel Reese: A rebounding machine

Reese would have set the WNBA record for rebounds in a season had she not missed Chicago’s final six games, citing a wrist injury. (She had the record briefly with 446, before Wilson caught her toward the end of the regular season.)

The rebounds-per-game record is hers though: 13.1, which is 10% higher than the previous mark of 11.9 set by Sylvia Fowles in 2018.

Reese’s 26 double-doubles were another rookie record; Tina Charles had 22 (in a 34-game season) in 2010. There were six instances in the WNBA this season of someone grabbing 18 or more rebounds; Reese had five of them.

Another big number: Ticket sales

Last season, 227,979 tickets were sold for Indiana Fever games. This season, the number was 643,343.

That’s a 182% jump. That’s Caitlinmania.

WNBA attendance soared to a level not seen since the late 1990s this season, with around 9,800 tickets distributed on average for each game. That’s up nearly 44% from last season, and the huge increase in Fever tickets accounts for the overwhelming majority of that leaguewide growth.

The Fever destroyed the previous WNBA record for average attendance; 16,084 tickets, on average, were sold for Indiana games (both home and away) this season, way ahead of the previous mark of 13,398 set by the 1998 New York Liberty.

And Thursday, as the season closed, Clark was involved in another record: 20,711 attended Indiana’s game at the Washington Mystics, a WNBA all-time regular season mark.

Where she went, fans followed: There were 37 games this season that drew crowds of 16,000 or more, and 32 of them were Indiana games.

Notables: A few stats that stood out

— Atlanta’s Tina Charles became the WNBA’s all-time leader in rebounds (4,014) and double-doubles (194), getting those marks with a 10-point, 10-rebound effort Thursday as the regular season ended. She passed Sylvia Fowles on both of those lists.

— Dallas’ Arike Ogunbowale was already the league’s record-holder for minutes in a season (1,493 in 2023), and this year she broke the record for minutes per game that Katie Smith held since 2001. Ogunbowale — who also tied the WNBA single-game record for 3-pointers with nine against Indiana on Sept. 1 — averaged 38.58 minutes; Smith’s record was 38.56. If Ogunbowale played one fewer minute this season, Smith would still hold the mark.

— Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier had eight steals in a game against Los Angeles on June 14. The last time a WNBA player had more steals in a game? July 10, 2003, when Ticha Penichiero had a league-record 10 for Sacramento.

___

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Four people found dead in Temiskaming Shores, Ont., house fire: OPP

Published

2 hours ago

September 20, 2024

Anne Joseph

TEMISKAMING SHORES, Ont. – Ontario Provincial Police say four people are dead after a house fire in Temiskaming Shores.

Police say all four were found dead inside the home on Paget Street, in the community of New Liskeard.

OPP say officers and firefighters in the northern Ontario community near the Quebec border responded to the fire around 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

Police did not identify the victims or their relationship to one another.

OPP say they are investigating alongside the fire marshal and the coroner.

In a written statement, Const. Siobhan Christo said, “due to the ongoing investigation and out of respect for the family, no other information will be provided at this time.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 20, 2024.

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