All is right with the world! There was a possibility reported at the end of the last hockey season that CBC might not renew Don Cherry's contract. Canada-wide protest followed. (Yes, I know there were actually some who cared not, but for me and people like me, the idea of HNIC without Cherry was simply not to be considered.) Now, the official announcement has come. They have renewed his contract ... and the seven-second delay, as well. Well, whatever makes them happy. Cherry helps to make HNIC the institution that it is.
   A little addendum to the entry about my friend contending with Parkinson's. I just read a tiny six-line blurb in the September 2004 "Special Einstein Issue of Discover magazine. U.K. researchers have found that adult skin cells can be transfromed into the presursors of nerve cells. They say further experimnets could lead to new treatments for the disease.
   Last item. This one is relevant to one of my pet peeves. As a teacher, and as a student, I have always gotten a bit of a snicker out of courses that bill themselves as "World History" and then concentrate solely on the western world. If the rest of the world gets any mention in partcular, it is often as little more than a chapter in the story of Europe's colonialism. We fail to acknowledge that we were not the only bipedals on the planet capable of thought and innovation. This discussion could go on and on, about such topics as math and science, and more, but let's look at a rather humble little fact. While we of British heritage had still not even figured out the intricacies of combs, ( we didn't begin to comb out those tangles until after the Danes invaded in the 8th century, and showed us how!) the people of the Indus Valley of Pakistan had us beat on modern conveniences. Archaeology proves it, in one aspect, at least. The earliest known indoor toilets, which were discovered in that valley, date back to circa 2300 to 1750 B.C.