View From The South Shore By Kerry Watsonkerry.r.watson1@gmail.com Day Tripping on the South Shore   At this time of year when the north shore is more congested than ever, you may feel as if the noise, commercialism and traffic are everywhere. But just an hour south of Lake Chapala you will find peace, serenity and […]

The Awesome Tree Of Life By Vern and Lori Geiger   Why are trees important? Trees are the lungs of life; we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen so if it wasn’t for trees we wouldn’t be able to breathe. Without trees we humans

Letter To The Editor   Dear Editor: While many Americans do admire Harry Truman, the number who regard him as one of America’s “wisest, most effective leaders” may be fewer than Dr. Lorin Swinehart implies in his article in January’s El Ojo.  Certainly many would not be persuaded by the assessment of Truman by arch-conservative and

Profiling Tepehua Part Two By Moonyeen King   Indigence: a level of poverty in which real hardship and deprivation are suffered, and comforts of life are wholly lacking.  Webster. This describes the Tepehua Indigenous. Living in lean-to’s, where a family of five to seven live, sleep and love.  One of the senses poverty cannot break

The Ghosts Among Us By Fred Mittag Black Elk (1863-1950)   Thomas Morgan, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs, wrote a review after the massacre at a South Dakota creek called Wounded Knee: “It is hard to overestimate the magnitude of the calamity which happened to the Sioux people by the sudden disappearance of the

The Children’s Wall By Carol A. Curtis   Sometimes the stars align and it’s a beautiful thing to behold, especially when things don’t start out that way. A simple request from our gardener set us off on an adventure that ended in friendship, community spirit, and gained confidence. Our gardener asked if it would be

Apologies By Neil McKinnon   In a previous piece, I said that a uniquely Canadian characteristic is the tendency to preface every action and sentence with an apology, and that there is no circumstance where it is not appropriate for a Canadian to apologise. I used examples: If someone bumps me in a crowd, I

Front Row Center By Michael Warren Too Soon For DaisiesBy W. Dinner & W. MorumDirected by Sally Jo Bartlett   I have tried to discover something about these two playwrights Dinner and Morum. Between them, they are responsible for 48 plays written between 1943 and 1988 – this play Too Soon for Daisies falls in

YIKES! By Jim Evansevansjames@prodigy.net.mx   One warm rainy summers eve last year, I was treated to my first visit from a Mexican scorpion. Now I am a pretty big guy, but I broke the record for short distance withdrawal. I observed the 3+ inch long critter climbing up the side of my brand new queen

Insight Straight The Greatest Short Story Ever Written By Jim Tuck   With due respect to Poe, Maupassant, O. Henry and other masters of the art, my nominee for outstanding short story writer of all time is Somerset Maugham. For one thing, Maugham had the advantage of longevity, living longer than Poe and Maupassant put