Profile of Rick MacLean

Biography

Rick MacLean is an instructor in the journalism program at Holland College in Charlottetown.

All articles of Rick MacLean

• Sometimes when you just 'have that feeling', you're...
  "I just had a feeling," Beautiful Wife said. "Um?" "Are you listening to me?" My radar lit up. It's always wise to fire it up when that ...
• Yeah, I hear the phone ringing; it's not for me
  The phone rings. I ignore it. It's never for me, so why bother answering it? Besides, what is it about a telephone ringing? You're in line to ...
• How about signing an organ donor card? I did.
  The photo was as heart-rending as the story. Sarah Burke - the Canadian freestyle ski champion with a chest full of gold medals already, and her ...
• Day of free news may be ending at last
  Paying for your news! Horrors! It's such a novelty it makes headlines when a news organization decides it will charge for the online product it ...
• Predictions for 2012? OK, but consider the source
  Let's start with a warning: Considerable research suggests two things happen when a pundit becomes certain. One, they start to ignore any ...
• Buying ice cream offers up a brain lesson
  The cover of Jonah Lehrer's fascinating, 320-page book ‘How We Decide' features three ice-cream cones - one is chocolate, one vanilla, one ...
• "Was that bear poop I just ran through?"
  Runners are liars. It's just one of those things. You stand at the starting line, look across at the rest of those lined up with you, and start ...
• Musings on the colourof white
  "So, do you like this colour of white, or this one?" "Mmm?" "I said, do you like this colour of white, or this one?" Now, I'm no dummy. I managed ...
• Gun registry useless? That's not what police say
  The long-gun registry is not yet history, but the first reviews from those who care the most are coming in. And they are not happy. "They" ...
• Grapes out of step with reality of game
  No one has ever accused Grapes - Don Cherry - of being insincere, but his performance to start the new NHL season was an over-the-top ...
• Attack politics may have stung, but it worked
  Four more years. That's pure magic to any politician, especially newly re-elected Liberal Premier Robert Ghiz. Winning the top job is one ...
• Students facing sharp dose of reality
  It's coming. Call it sticker shock. And we're not talking about the financial costs, although those are considerable. Students who headed off to ...
• A sense of hope a victim of 9-11 attack
  The scene always mesmerizes those who watch it. One of the towers at the World Trade Center in downtown New York City is a burning, smoking ...
• Layton offered us more than petty politics
  First, there is the personal loss. Jack Layton has died of cancer and the loss will be felt first, foremost and most keenly by his family and his ...
• Should deathly ill have right to die? A tough...
  Gloria Taylor knows she running out of time. She has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS. And there's nothing pretty about Lou Gehrig's Disease - ...
• Royals find ways to stay relevant
  They came. They were seen — by millions of us. Then they were gone. Yet somehow, they just keep finding ways to make us care. ‘They’ are the ...
• Urban voters being ripped off under our system
  The next federal election - by law four years from now in October - should be a really big affair. Literally. The federal government ...
• Scold her? Heck no, her passion's refreshing
  Brigette DePape may be just 21 and - as of quite recently - unemployed, but give the girl her due, she knows how to make an exit. If you ...
• Postal service has bigger problems than costs
  “Going postal.” There’s an expression most postal workers wish had never existed. Wikipedia calls the term American English slang for ...
• BA, BSc? Not a big deal these days
  The days of the standard BA just might be numbered. And the BSc may not be far behind. The bachelor of arts and the bachelor of science. For a ...
• Will the Liberals look to another Trudeau?
  Justin Trudeau tells about his father. Perhaps it was ‘take your kid to work day’ and, if your father happens to be Pierre Elliott Trudeau ...
• Getting to see who Harper really is
  Now we’ll find out just who Stephen Harper really is. He has been kept on a short leash by the voters of this country for years. His ...
• Some things always come to those who wait
  March break. Beautiful Wife is working. Beautiful Daughter is wrapping up her first year of a teaching degree. Handsome Son is in third year of a ...
• Time to turn up skepticism meter
  The election is on, and so are the attack ads. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is (a) a Harvard professor snob who only came home to become ...
• The day BD got kicked off the bunny hill
  I was going to write about the looming federal election — and how some commentators seem to consider it progress that the Liberals have joined ...
• My attention span’s fine, it’s…um
  What is the name of that woman who sang that song? It’s right on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot get it. My laptop beckons. When the Internet ...
• Convict father of murder? I couldn’t do it
  The Saturday debate was taped on Fridays, so we got together on Thursdays to pick topics, take sides and run through our arguments. The subject ...
• Residents deserve explanation for concert mess
  Two dates stick out in the $1.3 million concert-that-wasn’t in Summerside last summer — Oct. 28, 2010 and Jan. 24, 2011. And what was said on ...
• Dire moment when you shoot the messenger
  It was 1987 and Frank McKenna's election juggernaut was warming up for a 58-0 win a few months later. I tagged along to do a ...
• Lowering goals won't help us regain our fitness
  So, when the going gets tough, you - do less. That seems to be the response from those trying to get us off our couches and away from the ...