Traumatic stress on Besserer Street
Back in the late 1980s all the phones had cords. Long ones. Because you wanted to be able to walk around the entire raw concrete floored, fluourescent-lit, low-ceilinged light industrial…
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Seven
Around this time in 2006 Irene and I were settling in to a room at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, tired, bewildered, but crazy, heart-bursting in love with…
Patrick Brazeau tells Theresa Spence to pack it in
So Senator Patrick Brazeau issued some form of statement – Theresa Spence wouldn’t meet him in person – telling her to end her hunger strike and respect the process. Why…
Merry Christmas, Idle No More
So Mallory’s opened her ration of one pre-Christmas present. We’re stuffed from our nascent traditional Christmas Eve meal of cheese fondue and a few clicks north of here Theresa Spence…
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources contemplates extending cottage leases in Algonquin Park
This is what I told the MNR via their online consultation system about their pondering extending leases on cottages within the boundaries of Algonquin provincial park. In short: They’ve had…
Holiday Baking
Mallory and Irene were doing some holiday baking this morning. Two of these are gifts. One she made for herself. Guess which.
Cast off
Mallory had her cast off at CHEO this morning. Her arm feels a bit tentative and as anyone who's ever had a cast remembers, the skin on her arm was…
Take patent discussions, health care out of Canada-Europe free trade talks
Here's a letter I wrote to my beloved prime minister via the Canadian Health Coalition's campaign against patent protection and health care's inclusion in Canada-Europe free trade talks. Please take…
Bill C-377: and here I was thinking the Tories hated red tape
Imagine a law that said every corporation that got a tax subsidy, a grant, a low interest loan or some other fiscal incentive had to publicly disclose every expenditure of…
Social impact bonds: totally whack
Human resources minister Diane Finley announced this new thing this week - social impact bonds wherein the federal government contracts with a charity or NGO to provide some sort of…
Pink cast
Mallory and I went to CHEO today for a follow-up x-ray and examination of Mallory’s arm. And lo and behold she scored this stunning number. So Mallory has two weeks…
The turkeys
I was at the farm for the last time this past weekend, with my sister, clearing out the furniture used for staging, emptying the fridge, clearing out 45 years of…
Buckle fracture
Last Tuesday Mallory fell off a play structure at school when another kid slammed into her. She came home complaining of arm pain and when it was clear that it…
Museum of Civilization rebranding. Nope. Don’t like this one bit
Now it’s to be called the Canadian Museum of History. And the Harper government dangled $24 million in front of the museum management to make the change and they went…
CUPW settles with Canada Post outside of arbitration
The Toronto Star is reporting that CUPW has tossed aside all the business about Tory hack arbitrators and reached a settlement with Canada Post. Face to face. I’m not surprised.…
The history of the world through little squares of paper
My dad collected stamps for a large part of his life – from boyhood until some time in the late 1980s. And it seems he inherited his father’s stamp collection.…
Temagami: Turner Lake Loop
Another year, another canoe trip. This year Martin and I went to Temagami, starting on Anima Nipissing Lake and looping down to Red Squirrel, across Ferguson Bay, up Whitefish Bay,…
And the farm is sold
Quite a pleasant surprise, really. I was expecting it to take a lot longer, but we were able to ride the new listing wave of interest all the way to…
For sale: 1870s farm house near Alton, Ontario
It’s official. We’re selling the farm. It’s a beautiful four bedroom home on 38 acres of rural property in Caledon, Ontario. The front lot is full of forty year old…
Temagami, here we come
The canoe is on the car roof. The car is packed full of stuff. Tomorrow at 5am it’s up and out of here for four days. This year Martin and…