Who thinks about what jail is like? People likely to go to jail, of course. But if you're a career-oriented, hard-working family man like Mark Stobbe, you never imagine yourself in jail. That's something you see on television. It's make-believe and as far removed from your reality as the actors in prop jumpsuits and tin handcuffs. That's what Stobbe thought, right until the day the police arrested him and charged him with killing his wife. Instantly, the pretend had become the real. He found himself in jail. It would take years, literally, before he was brought to trial. And it turned out the Crown didn't have the slightest, smallest shred of evidence against him. Their whole case was a bluff. A flight of fancy. Pure imagination. A case so beyond flimsy it would shame real lawyers and real judges if they were capable of shame. If there was one good thing about the whole experience (as if there can be anything good about b...
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.