Tonight is a big literary night. It’s the Quebec Writers’ Federation annual awards gala, and my good friends David Homel and Merrily Weisbord are up for prizes. Thank goodness they’re contestants in different categories –David for Midway in fiction, and Merrily for The Love Queen of Malabar in non-fiction–or I’d
Continue readingLeDaro: Mitt Romney: Flip Flop Champion
Flip flopping is not easy. It is hard on poor Romney and he should get an Oscar for his performance. “With Romney’s positions evolving on everything from abortion to gay rights, embryonic stem cell research to health care, the Republican presidential candidate has faced charges of political opportunism from Republicans
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: RIP Joe Kuchta
Leftdog and David Hutton have already posted about the passing of blogger and activist Joe Kuchta. But I’ll take a moment to pay my respects as well: nobody offered more thorough surveys of provincial and local issues than Joe, and his contribution to Saskatchewan’s political debate will be dearly and
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Keystone XL Update
As I predicted (note last paragraph through the link), the Nebraska Legislature/TransCanada deal won’t move Keystone XL anywhere near far enough to get it off the shallow water tables common in that part of the state. And it will still run across privately owned ranch-land; just not the same privately owned ranch-land as it
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Liberals, forgeddabout Ibbitson & Have Your Say in January
John Ibbitson is the latest to weigh in on the Liberal Roadmap to Renewal, with the advice that those who don’t like the proposed changes should shut up and vote Yes at the January convention: All well and good, but there are more than a few influential Liberals anxious to
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: We Do Have a Moral Licence to Resist the Dictates of Harper Regime
McQuaig: Occupy moves us into a new era – thestar.com Linda McQuaig says “Canada isn’t a dictatorship, and so protesters — like the group now ordered evicted from St. James Park — don’t have the same clear moral licence to ignore bylaws that their Egyptian counterparts had.” I’m not so
Continue readingWhy 338 constituencies? Why not 150? Or 100?
The Liberals have suggested an approach to achieving fairer regional representation in the House of Commons, and they should be listened to. Their solution is certainly better than that of Bill C-20 which will add yet another 30 seats to the House. The Liberals would achieve representation essentially as fair
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Medical update: I could do better if ‘good enough’ wasn’t still good enough
It’s been quite some time since I had the run of tests for HIV and diabetes, in part because of my fear of the results, so today’s news was quite satisfactory with clear room for improvement. My viral load, a test which measures the activity of HIV in my blood,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Reena Virk: Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder
One Brown girl. Two killers with white privilege. Seven attackers. Twenty onlookers. This is the Reena Virk case. November 14, 1997 was a day that shocked the land now known as Canada. Panic ensued in the country after Reena Virk, a 14 year old South Asian girl, was murdered by
Continue readingChallenging the Commonplace: Some Liberals still don’t get it
I’ve not blogged for several months, given the distractions of moving, settling in, and certain other challenging issues, but I cannot resist responding to the following comment by John Ibbitson, who writes about the infighting occurring within the Opposition parties: And then there are the Liberal MPs who question the
Continue readingChallenging the Commonplace: Some Liberals still don’t get it
I’ve not blogged for several months, given the distractions of moving, settling in, and certain other challenging issues, but I cannot resist responding to the following comment by John Ibbitson, who writes about the infighting occurring within the Opp…
Continue readingChallenging the Commonplace: Some Liberals still don’t get it
I’ve not blogged for several months, given the distractions of moving, settling in, and certain other challenging issues, but I cannot resist responding to the following comment by John Ibbitson, who writes about the infighting occurring within the Opposition parties: And then there are the Liberal MPs who question the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Climategate Hackers Slither Again in the Night
climategate_cartoon.jpg Steal More; Reveal Less The Climagegate hackers appear to be at it again, spraying the internet with dozens of out-of-context quotes from a new batch of stolen emails – in a transparent attempt to disrupt the climate talks starting next week in Durban, South Africa. The emails, from a source that
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Bedtime for Bozo…errr… Bonzo…errr…Rob #cdnpoli
– srbp –
Continue readingHalf an Hour: Engagement and Motivation in MOOCs
From Col – see also Beer, Clark, Jones, Indicators of Engagement, which has much of the same content Most of the research into measuring student engagement prior to the widespread adoption of online, or web based classes, has concentrated on the simple measure of attendance (Douglas & Alemanne, 2007). “Stovall
Continue readingAnother tidal wave of e-mails
I suspect that we will see another tidal wave over the next few days since the person who stole the e-mails from the CRU has now released another batch of e-mails. This time just before the climate conference at Durbanyou can speculate as to the timing of the release for
Continue readingBuckdog: Why Does Stephen Harper Exempt Suncor From Syrian Economic Sanctions???
“OTTAWA—New Democrats want to know why Ottawa’s sanctions against Syria allow Canadian energy giant Suncor to continue operating a $1.2 billion production facility in that country in partnership with a Syrian government-owned company. Hélène Laverdière, the NDP foreign affairs critic, told the Commons Monday Canadian sanctions against Syria in October
Continue readingMorton's Musings: A person who voluntarily chooses to be a member of a self-governing organization and who has been aggrieved by a decision of that organization must seek redress in the internal procedures of the organization
Hart v. Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Kingston, in Canada, 2011 ONCA 728 deals with the authority (or lack thereof) of the Courts to adjudicate issues arising in self-governing organizations: [17] As a general rule, the Superior Court of Justice has jurisdiction to adjudicate claims of wrongful dismissal and breach of
Continue readingSmall world
Quiz time: Who said “The politicizing of universities – and in particular, of students – represents participation in the political process that exceeds the bounds of logic”? Does the name Linda Katehi ring a bell? (Click on the photo for more recent adventures.) She was one of the authors of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: “Obedience is the problem”: Don’t let legal wrangling distract from Occupy’s
One consequence of efforts to evict Occupy encampments in countless cities across the continent has been the dilution of much of the mainstream debate around the movement to a focus on the extent to which it complies with the law. Organizations like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have put forth
Continue reading