The Gospel of Malcom: Sowing Seeds of Change without Seeming to
It took me a while to figure out where Malcolm Gladwell’s new book David and Goliath fits into the brilliant populizer’s world view. The book documents through the stories of…
Mary Soderstrom
Saturday Photo: Magnificent Resistance
Grass growing in paving at the Oscar Neimeyer Museum in Curitiba, with display of jacaranda petals. Let 2014 be a year in which our resistance to what’s wrong be just…
Cold and Heat: Burning Hydrocarbons
It’s cold all over the country right now, weather that usually comes in February here, but which has been with us for more or less two weeks. I’m not one…
The Sun in 2014!
The sun is shining on the snow on this New Year’s morning 2014. Best wishes to you all. If you missed this, here’s the blog with our holiday news.
Signing off for the Holiday: See You in the New Year
Barring the unforeseen, I expect to be too busy having fun to doing any posting. So here’s a link to our Christmas blog in the meantime.
Saturday Photo: Celebrating in Cuzco
This was taken in a Cuzco grocery store, which a month ago was already decked out for Christmas. Love the idea of locals dancing to Andean harps while it’s summer…
Music that Goes Beyond the Season
Okay, this seems to be an ad for a supermarket chain, wrapped in a tribute to Nelson Mandela, but it really is lovely.
Educating Kids in Science, Math and Reading–and Making Sure They Get a Good Start from the Beginning
The New York Times analyzes why American school kids performed in such a mediocre fashion on the recnet OECD school success rankings. Three regions are singled out for comment: Shanghai…
Christmas Songs from Brazil…
As I try to get back to work, how about this for the run up to Christmas
Not Politics, Just Pastry Today
Or maybe just food. I spent the morning making making 10 dozen spritz butter cookies and cutting up 30 salt herring to put in marinade for pickled herring. Yesterday it…
Saturday Photo: Looking Back in Brasília…
There will be more photos and comments from my South American trip, but here’s something to start things off: two images that made me laugh. The first is the big…
Requiem for the Postie
The Canada Post announcement that it will be doing away with home mail delivery over the next five years is just another example of the mess the Conservatives have led…
Get Desire Lines in Time for Christmas!
There are just three days left to enter the Goodreads Giveaway of two copies of Desire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography. Goodreads will tell me Monday morning who won…
Sometimes the Right Things Get Done: The Positive Benefits of Protecting the Ozone Layer
Global warming would be a lot worse than it is, were it not for a protocol agreed to in 1989 that cut back the cloroflurocarbons that attack the earth’s ozone…
Merry Christmas: Analyses to Chill Your Holiday Spirit from Krugman and the Toronto Star
Paul Krugman can be counted on for setting things straight, and in his column today he talks about the holiday present that the US is preparing to give the long…
Saturday Photo: Cuzco Rooftops
The 254 photos I took on my trip have been whittled down to 85, I’ve transcribed 49 pages of notes, and there’s a Power Point made to show unsuspecting friends…
When Nelson Mandela Visited Montreal: When Canada Made a Difference (Are You Listening Stephen Harper?)
In June 1990, only a few months after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, he came to Canada to thank Canadians for their support in the fight against apartheid. This…
Working through the Trip
Today I started working through the photos and began transcribing the pages and pages of notes that I took on my trip (No laptop when I travel: it’s just one…
Signing Off for a While!
Lee’s holding down the fort, the freezer is full of suppers, tomorrow I’ll water the plants, and then I’m off. I’ll be back in about two weeks with pictures of…