Mike deAdder writes about the lot of cartoonists in a era of declining newspapers. Moneyquote: In 1967, Canada's Centennial Year and the year of my birth, Terry "Aislin" Mosher, Canada's pre-eminent editorial cartoonist began his long illustrious career after graduating from École des Beaux-arts in Quebec City. He started at The Montreal Star in 1967, then transferred to The Montreal Gazette in 1972. To this day, he still works for The Gazette. The great Roy Peterson, who retired this year, always called The Vancouver Sun his home, as did The Edmonton Journal's Malcolm Mayes, the Calgary Herald's Vance Rodewalt, and The Province's...

Rosie running -cropped -sRosie, who died yesterday at 13, was the World's Most Food-Motivated Dog. She won the title with a stunt modern science has yet to explain. sardine can 1-ssOne evening about five years ago, I returned home from a day-trip to Sydney with a notion to make a sardine sandwich for supper. I had left an unopened tin of sardines on the kitchen table before leaving for town. At least, I thought I had, but now I couldn't find it. Losing things is nothing new for Contrarian, and finding them is not his long suit. I spent a few minutes searching for the sardines, then made something else for supper. While putting Rosie to bed later that night, I spotted the sardine can stashed among the blankets at the back of her sleeping crate. She had chewed the top off, and extracted every morsel of fish and every drop of sardine oil. The can didn't even smell of sardines anymore. In horror, I rushed to inspect Rosie's mouth, expecting to find her lips and tongue shredded. Not a nick. Rosie was fit as a fiddle, and wondering when her next meal would arrive. "Golden slumber close your eyes." And sate your tummy. [More tributes after the jump.]

Contrarian readers who are near a radio or a computer between 12:20 and 1:00 p.m. today can hear the grumpy optimist himself on the Maritime Noon phone-in, where he will be discussing The Wark Principle and other matters with Mike Bradfield and Costas Halavrezos....

Canada fared poorly in Oxford University's second annual global study of broadband connection quality. Canada ranked 30th in download speeds, 31st in upload speeds, and 17th in "leadership," a measure that combined speed and access. The study drew on 24 million records from actual broadband speed tests conducted by users around the world from May through July 2009 using www.speedtest.net. For more depressing details see the news release, the pdf report, and the chart-filled appendix....