Friday’s global student protest brought me so much joy. And also sadness, because I often feel so cynical about our ability to stop climate change. And also hope, because I…
Impudent Strumpet wondered if Allan and I were now locally famous. Well, apparently we are. Things I heard at the library: “I want to do a story on you.” The…
I’m supposed to be writing about the Jackie Robinson biography, which I finished weeks ago, but so far I haven’t been motivated to do so. I finished another Wallander mystery…
Canadians, contact the Senate. Urge them to work together to pass Private Member’s Bill C-262, “An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United…
Some years ago, after reading about overfishing and the horrendous state of our oceans, I vowed to stop eating tuna. Certain species of tuna are on the brink of extinction,…
We’ve had so many gloriously cold and sunny days! I don’t know if that’s unusual for January and February or if I was oversold on the rain, but I love…
At the Port Hardy Library, we’ve been hosting visits from the local First Nations school, from the the Gwa’sala-Nakwaxda’xw Nations. (That is pronounced GWA-sala Nak-wah-da.) The children have been absolutely…
Pyrex! I bought these! I love them! For the longest time, I’ve had a very large collection of plastic food storage containers. Allan and I have always brought most of…
Thank you, Nanaimo! With all the personal blathering I’ve been doing, I forgot to write about something very important! There was a by-election here in BC: a seat in Nanaimo…
When I was growing up, my grandparents and other older relatives used an expression, “Use it in good health,” or a variant, “Wear it in good health”. This was said…
Add this to the list of things I said I’d never do, along with colour my hair and move to the west coast while my mother is alive. My hair,…
Here are some photos of our town and the area surrounding it. Our lovely little rental house is an endangered species, a ranch, all on one floor. Excellent for my…
We were warned about this! We were half-expecting it. Our car didn’t pass the inspection for BC auto insurance. Supposedly this is what happens when you bring a car from…
Let me set the scene. The year is 1946. The United States is deeply segregated. The birth of the civil rights movement that would begin as African-American soldiers returned home…
A new biography of Frederick Douglass has gotten glowing reviews, and as Douglass is one of my great heroes — one of the greatest Americans — I definitely want to…
Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street is a history and ethnography of Occupy Wall Street, and the Occupy movement. Author, sociologist, and longtime…
This week I drove down to Port McNeill — about 30 minutes away, and the home of one of my libraries — and took the ferry to Malcolm Island, to…
Things continue to fall into place here, a little at a time. I’m enjoying our quiet weekends. Allan is off every Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; I work Saturdays until 5:00,…
Harry Leslie Smith, who sometimes called himself “the world’s oldest rebel,” died in late November 2018. I was unable to acknowledge his passing on wmtc at the time. Smith, a…
During the Ontario provincial election, after a hack from the Toronto Sun drew attention to an unpopular view that I had expressed some years earlier, I was the object of…
