"I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Three months after suffering a stroke, Prairie Home Companion writer and broadcaster Garrison Keillor is more than ready to poke fun at the experience.

"I'm feeling fine," he said in an interview aired Wednesday on CBC's Q cultural affairs show. "If you're going to have a stroke, a minor one is the way to go."

Keillor, speaking from his studio in St. Paul, Minn., described why he drove himself to the hospital in Minneapolis after suffering a stroke this September.

"I didn't want to be any trouble to anybody, so, I got behind the wheel of my car," he said. "I felt a little odd, but I drove very carefully, very slowly, in the right-hand lane.

"And I got to the emergency room, and I stood in line as other people came up to the triage desk and talked about minor skin irritations and a mole that needed to be looked at and a possible ankle sprain. I stayed in line as I was brought up to do."

Keillor, author of Lake Wobegon Days and Life Among the Lutherans, has made a career out of satirizing his Calvinist upbringing, including its emphasis on never making a fuss.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary ... and other stories

Robin and Richard were two pretty men,
They lay in bed till the clock struck ten.

Believe it or not, this titillating little rhyme was penned by none other than Mother Goose herself. While most people generally equate nursery rhymes with young children and innocent playtime, the original poems are, in fact, more adult than we might think.

Jonathan Hobin photographs the darker side of Mother Goose.
Taking a closer look at the intricacies of the rhymes of Mother Goose is gay artist Jonathan Hobin. Fascinated with the darker side of childhood, Hobin has created a photo exhibit that depicts young children in fairytale scenes based on a handful of carefully selected nursery rhymes. Mother Goose will be on display at the Dale Smith Gallery in Ottawa Mar 6 -31.

Methodically constructed with every detail in mind, Hobin’s photographs illuminate a number of serious issues — such as spousal abuse, unplanned pregnancy, abandonment, depression, loneliness, eating disorders and phobias — that directly or indirectly affect young children.

Here is a link to the full Robin & Richard poem

Harper gets my (scape)goat

A staff member resigned and apologized Tuesday for writing a speech read by Stephen Harper in 2003 as leader of the Opposition that he plagiarized from an address days earlier by then Australian prime minister John Howard.

"Neither my superiors in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition nor the leader of the Opposition was aware that I had done so."

Lippert worked for Harper, then leader of the Canadian Alliance, when the speech calling for Canadian troops to be deployed to Iraq was written and read in the House of Commons.

Lippert, a former policy analyst for economic think tank the Fraser Institute, has announced his resignation from his current position working in the Conservative campaign headquarters.

The apology came hours after Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae accused Harper of plagiarizing from the Howard speech.

PHOTO: M.C. Escher, The Scapegoat from Diamond, S. Anger, Madness and the Daimonic, p. 80

Everyone but Conservative: 4 parties share arts platforms in Ottawa

Last Wednesday, hundreds of people from Ottawa's arts community heard how the federal government will support arts and culture — but only if the Conservatives are NOT elected during the federal election on Oct. 14.

Following noisy rallies in Montreal and Toronto, artists in Ottawa held the bilingual "Vote Culture Town Hall" at the University of Ottawa campus, inviting candidates from all five major parties.

Not one Tory candidate showed up to field questions and hear concerns about arts, culture and heritage policies and funding.

Was it Agatha Christie whodunnit?

Agatha Christie started writing detective stories to show up her sister, Madge. Since then, Christie has become one of the most popular detective science fiction writers of all time, selling over 2 billion copies of her books in 104 languages.

Still, one of the most sensational and mysterious events in her life was her own 11-day disappearance in December 1926. Although her defenders believe Agatha was suffering from some kind of amnesia, all available evidence suggest that she used her expertise as a mystery writer to set her husband as the prime suspect in a murder case - with herself as the supposed victim.