Developing a Culture of Peace in Calgary and Alberta-an article presented at the Third Annual Alberta Peace Education Conference October 2005. It can be used for consideration in initiating other Provincial and Community Culture of Peace Programs.
Wanted: A Straw to Stir the Drink. âThe straw that stirs the drinkâ is an old newspaper colloquialism, derived from politics, applied to very successful columnists. It means a commentator with a large following, one whom even the opposition reads. (Itâs heard in baseball circles, too.
The notion is of dried grain stalks strewn on a floor as carpeting or bedding. As a type of what is trifling or unimportant, attested from late 13c. Meaning hollow tube through which a drink is sucked is recorded from 1851. To draw straws as a means of deciding something is recorded from 1832. The last straw is from the proverb of the camel. Straw poll is from 1932; earlier straw vote (1866). Straw hat first attested mid-15c. To clutch (or grasp or catch) at straws (1748) is what a drowning man proverbially would do.