Who?

J. Jeffrey Bragg -- just three people, me, myself and I; usually we agree but occasionally we have three-way knock-down, drag-out arguments. Unblushingly I claim total responsibility for everything published here; nobody else need take credit or assume blame for facts, opinions, errors, omissions or outrages here, unless I state otherwise in some specific in stance or context. I'm North American culturally, though I hope not narrowly so; caucasian male born in 1945 more or less in the middle of the continent; I've been a Canadian citizen since 1975 but I consider myself a sovereign individual and citizen of the world. College grad with a B.A. for whatever that's worth; grad school dropout (decided I didn't want to emulate my professors' lifestyle and needed more independence than academia could afford). Born in Syracuse, Kansas, though my first home was actually the little town of Tribune; grew up rural in Warren County, Mississippi, a few miles from the Civil War river port city of Vicksburg. In childhood I was a little field-and-forest savage growing up quite solitary on 800 acres of pasture and hardwood forest; I was a good shot with either longbow or double-barreled shotgun and something of an amateur ornithologist. In high school (J. H. Culkin Academy in Warren County) I became a fairly accomplished semi-professional photographer. My first year of college was at University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, but I was less than happy there -- too far from home and it wasn't co-ed at the time. The next three years were at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi; somewhat embattled there (it was a Calvinist Presbyterian school and I was a high-church Episcopalian at the time) I was nevertheless happier. I left the USA in 1967 for postgraduate studies in English Literature at the University of Toronto and liked Canada well enough that I had no desire to return to the Deep South which was by then in a distressing state of social disintegration in the wake of sweeping socio-economic changes of that decade. There's a lot more to my bio, but perhaps that's best left for another occasion.

Where?

At present, the Rural Municipality of Rossburn in the Province of Manitoba, Canada. I live on a 240-acre piece of marginal farmland, about a third of it sloughs and poplar bush, rolling land in the "Parkland" region of the province a bit north of all the prairie flatness. The huge Riding Mountain National Park lies just a mile to the east. In other times, I've wandered slowly through much of Europe and the Mediterranean, lived in Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar and seen the sights in Malta, Ceuta, Iceland, Luxembourg, Germany, Corfu, and Istria. On the Canadian side of things I've at one time or another lived in Toronto, southern Ontario, eastern Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory -- the latter for fourteen years. As to the future, who knows? I might enjoy checking out South America.

When?

Mostly now. I try to live life fully in the present, which is the only time or tense in which it can truly be lived. "Yesterday is dead and gone and tomorrow's out of sight." But I'm sure I shan't be able to resist the temptation to take an occasional look through the handy pocket retrospectoscope. Glimpses into the future will probably be rare -- from where I sit it looks a little too frightening and things these days are moving too fast for easy prognostication.

What?

Anything that takes my own sweet fancy! I don't let myself be restricted by past personal history otir previous investments of time, energy, study or experience. My interests are quite particular but wide-ranging. In the past I've taken an interest in photography, art, music, playing the harpsichord, ornithology, natural history, English literature, poetry, backpacking, hunting and fishing, cookery, deep-water cruising, dog breeding, dogsledding, rare dog breed preservation, poultry keeping, agrarianism, back-to-the-land homesteading, individual sovereignty, contrarian investment theory, small stock animal husbandry and probably several other things I've forgotten to mention here. Just at the moment I'm interested in human nutrition and diet. Tomorrow... something else.

Why?

Because I do so will it. As lunatic/magus/addict/genius Aleister Crowley put it, "Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law; Love under Will." (He was a weird mixed-up dude but he did nailut one or two points rather succinctly and memorably; anyway, I should think that living in Victorian/Edwardian English society of his day would have mixed up any intelligent, independent-thinking individual.) Or to answer the "why" question in another way, because as skiffle king Lonnie Donegan wrote, "when you get my age, it helps to pass the time." I don't watch television or go out drinking with the guys, and I've read most of my favourite books many times over. One has to do something to stay interested in life, especially once the hardest lesson has been learnt, that your own life's work, passion, or mania probably is not that greatly appreciated by the world at large.

There you have it. The old-school "five W's" of traditional newspaper journalisms back when objective reporting was the ideal, before journalists became activists trying to influence events rather than report them. I doubt if today's so-called media people ever even heard of the five W's. Just another of the many ways in which Jeffrey is a dinosaur, I guess.