I found this little nugget funny ... Q: How do you know China has free speech? A: No one says otherwise.

In one way, the National Hockey League returns to normal this season, with divisions organized by geography rather than the all-Canadian division fans saw last year when Covid-19 dictated emergency policy revisions.

Are you ready for this week’s joke? Question: What’s the problem with unemployment jokes? Answer: None of them work.

It’s been said that the first rule of a passive aggressive club is: “You know what, never mind. It’s fine.” Which seems to also apply to the federal government’s new immigration rules.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers may have missed an entire season due to coronavirus, but they apparently haven’t missed a beat when it comes to winning.

The Blue Jays, sputtering along like an also-ran for most of the Major League Baseball season, caught fire in late August/early September and got themselves smack dab into the midst of the wildcard race in the American League.

There’s a lovely little lake at the bottom of a hill that leads to a campsite somewhere in the Cypress Hills. (I resist sharing the name because I selfishly want to keep it a secret.)

Couples who have numerous offspring say they wish people wouldn’t think they were clever when saying, “Don’t you know what causes that?”

A man became frightened when he realized his talking parrot had escaped.

Eight years ago, my younger sister and I caravanned across the country, dipping into the states, stopping over in Chicago, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, then heading back North again.

There have been some great stories emanating this year from Major League Baseball — from Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented versatility to Vladimir Guerrero’s gaudy hitting statistics to the mound brilliance of Walker Buehler and the trading of big-name stars such as Max Scherzer and Kris Bryant.

It’s hot and there’s no rain in sight, and yet my dedicated writing students sit and write all day, and listen to me say, over and over, “we need to choose our words carefully.

The caption under the photo of a dog peaking into his master’s bedroom said, “I’ve been barking for the past 20 minutes and you keep telling me to shut up. Anyway ... your car is gone.”

No one is even sure what to call it — the ‘British Open’ is apparently offensive to those living in the UK; the ‘Open Championship’ seems pretentious, as if it’s the only Open of consequence in the world; and the plain ‘Open’ offends many Americans, who rightly say, ‘hey, we have…

Who never minds being interrupted in the middle of a sentence? The answer to the joke is “a convict”.

It’s hard to think about much else right now other than the dry conditions that so many of us are faced with. Across much of the Prairie Provinces and the Northern Great Plains, farmers and ranchers are dealing with drought, water shortages, and pests.

I’m doing research for a novel set in the 1800s. And one reality that hits home for me, time and again, is how much people needed each other to survive, despite it being the days from which we derived the stereotypical image of The Westerner as the lone cowboy riding off into the sunset, going it alone.

This week’s joke: The manager called in his employee and handed him his pink slip, saying, “It’s my way or the highway. Here’s your fast pass to the freeway.”

Last week’s column exposed the first half (seven through 12) of the Dazzling Dozen — the 12 most compelling people in sports (from a Canadian’s perspective) — and now it’s time to list the top six.

Not everybody in sports is a star. For every Babe Ruth, there were a dozen guys like Joe Schlobotnik. For every Gordie Howe, there was a locker room full of Pat Falloons. Sports stars come and go.