An expedition of sorts this morning: Elin and Jeanne accompanied us to the Jean Talon market to buy a Christmas treet and to a fish store to get salt herring for sil. Tomorrow Lukas is coming by to help set up the tree in the afternoon. With any luck the
Continue readingAuthor: Mary Soderstrom
Recreating Eden: What Happens When The Right Unites: The Cons Get Away with Murder
This morning La Presse has this excellent drawing by Chapleau, with an even more telling caption: “C-10, Kyoto, Long Gun Registry, I do what I want because I’m MAJORITY” A lesson for us all: unite the left.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Book Discussion Week: A Classic of African Independence at the Atwater Library
This is book discussion week: tonight Chinua Achebe’s This Fall Apart is on the agenda at the Atwater Library. Here’s a scene from a television series made in Nigeria to whet you interest.The book is obviously required reading in many secondary schools: YouTube is full of “movie trailers” about the
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Harper Government Pulls out of Kyoto: Time to Get Serious about Who Should be the Leader of the Opposition
This morning there is only one question for anyone in the NDP: Who will be the best leader to unite the left and leftish, not just in the party but across the country? We need a very strong opposition in Ottawa led someone who has weight both in Quebec and
Continue readingRecreating Eden: We’ve Got Rhythm (We English Speakers, That Is)
Just an addenda to the previous post about Handel’s Messiah: Listening to the great performance on Sunday and to the way the continuo led the way, I was stuck by the way a strong rhythmic beat is so appropriate to English lyrics. Unlike French or Italian (and perhaps other Romance
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The Messiah by the Violon du Roy, LePage and Nézet-Séguin at the Met: What Happens When You Put Resources into Culture
An absolutely terrific afternoon yesterday when we heard Handel’s Messiah presented by the Violons du Roy. I have never heard a better performance, with particularly marvelous singing by tenor James Gilchrist and the choir, La Chapelle de Québec. The critics agree : Christophe Huss, Le Devoir’s picky reviewer, called it
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: Snow and Rock in the Noontime Light
Brilliant sunshine today, and a little snow. It’s not enough for a white Christmas, but maybe it’s a good sign.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: The Future of Canada’s Health Care System: Don’t Forget NDP Outremont’s Forum on Saturday.
Don’t forget:Three panelists of note will participate in a forum on the future of our health care system, organized by the Outremont NDP Riding Association. Mathieu Vick, parliamentary assistant to Anne Minh Thu Quach, NDP MP for Salaberry-Beauharnois and deputy critic for Health will be the moderator. The panelists: Michèle
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Fox News Attacks the Muppets for Being Dirty, Brainwashing Liberals: Will Attacks On Jesus Be Next?
I really thought this was a send-up when I first saw it: Fox News folks complaining that The Muppets are brainwashing children with an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist message. But it appears it was the real thing. Come on, aren’t these guys supposed to be Christian? And what did Christ preach? Certainly
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Demon on Harper’s Back Versus NDP Attack
Stephen Harper’s Conservatives haven’t given much shrift to the international conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa. Nice to see that this negative presence has been matched by demonstrations on the ground, as witness the parody of our prime minister who appeared in media around the globe over the
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Inequality and Its Perverse Effects from The Help to Rising Birth Rates among Educated Women
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is in the news this morning because of the report it has just published Divided We Stand: Wby Inequality Keeps Rising. The report’s analysis ranks countries by economic inequality, showing that in Canada it has increased markedly in recent years, although things are
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: A Cat’s Eye View of the World
It’s chilly today, although there’s no snow on the ground. The sun at the moment is flooding into our house, and lighting up this cat’s window as well. Actually, now that the leaves are off the trees many house plants go through a new growth spurt. And cats, who like
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Message from One Canadian Steve to Another: Violence Is Actually Decreasing
The New York Times on Tuesday had an interesting interview with Montreal-born psychologist Steven Pinker, whose new book The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that violence has become less and less present in human life over history. He says the “idea for the book took root in his mind…when
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Saturday Photo: The End of Something, the Begiinning of Something Else
A few leaves left floating in a fountain before the winter snow comes. Got the boots and winter coats out, even wore them earlier this week. But the snow disappeared, not before Jeanne got to walk in it–not even crying when one boot came off and she traipsed along in
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Who’s Profiting from Those Day Care Centres–Families or Entrepreneurs
Jeanne and her parents are looking for good child care these days. She’s 15 months old, and until now they’ve been able to work their schedules so that one of them is free, with a healthy amount of baby sitting by grandparents. But waiting lists are long for the usually-excellent
Continue readingRecreating Eden: A Year after the Fire: Things Are the Same But Different.
As I write this, it is 1:31 p.m., a year exactlyl after the moment when the first call went in on the fire which put us out of our house for eight months. We’ve been back since August 1, but the last work onlly was completed three weeks ago. Needless
Continue readingRecreating Eden: You Are What You Read Department: Time Makes It Easy for Americans
An interesting comparison between the front pages of this week’s Time, for the US, Europe, Asia and South Pacific. The Americans get the cover story “Why Anxiety Is Good for You” while the other ones get a photo of a protester in Egypt.
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Flash Mob Monday: Too Busy for a Real Post
It’s one of the days when I keep running around. Here’s music and dance to go with that frenzy: Ravel’s “Bolero” in Copenhagen, “This Time for Africa” in Rome, and “”
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Holland in Montreal: A Woofnerf in St. Henri
Elin spent three years at The Hague, living just off a canal on a street that ended with -laan: neither she nor I can remember the complete name but the -laan referred to the canal. Then she moved to St. Henri, just off the Lachine canal, and I used to
Continue readingRecreating Eden: Turkeys and Chickens and Pork Roast: the Best Ever
Since it’s Thanksgiving south of the border, and other holidays are coming up, here’s a recipe that I found a couple of years ago on Global Gourmet and adapted a bit. Turkeys had become to be considered real turkeys around here: the overbreeding of the poor stupid bird has led
Continue reading