More on Gardening in the City, This Time Commercially
Le Devoir this weekend had several stories about the movement toward urban gardening. Chief among them was one about Lufa Farms, which has built a commercial rooftop greenhouse. This is…
Mary Soderstrom
Detroit Is a Victimi of Sprawl Too: Krugman
The recent brouhaha about Detroit’s financial problems and its filing for bankruptcy protection have sparked many comments. Paul Krugman in The New York Times, as usual, has some trnechant things…
Saturday Photo: Gardening Where You Might Not Expect It
I’ve been delighted to follow the increasing number of people who seem to be finding corners of the city to garden in. These two photos were taken in les Champs…
Street Food: What’s the Big Deal?
Montreal has its first street food trucks this summer at various sites around the city There’s been a lot of comment, most of it favourable, about the 27 trucks that…
Brilliant Idea: Car Shares
The sun was shining the other morning on the little troop of four Communauto cars parked not far from our house. Our car is approaching 12 years and even with…
Lest We Forget Department: Today’s the Anniversary of the First A-Bom Test
It wasn’t that long ago, the Cold War is over, but, boy, have things not changed all that much. J. Robert Oppenheimer reflects on the whole project. “Now I have…
Tools in Understanding the Past: Another Instance of mtDNA Analysis and Dogs
As I’ve said, I’m working on a new non-fiction book, and the research is taking me in all directions. It’ll be called Road through Time. A lot of the book…
What to Do When You’re Tired of Cleaning House…
Watch videos of tiny houses? This one’s quite delightful.
Saruday Photo: The Bees Are Back!
For the last several years there has been a beehive in the wild space belonging to the city of Montreal that has come to be known as Les Champs des…
The Queen: Why It Took Us So Long to Become Canadian..
Because you have to swear allegiance to the Queen in order to become Canadian, we dragged our feet for 17 years. In the end we decided that it was okay…
Gorgeous Day, Just LIke Our Ancient Ancestors Found It
The weather today is just about perfect here: high 26 C with low humidity and a little breeze. Makes you want to just enjoy things. As it happens, I’ve been…
At the End of the Rainbow, a Movement to Divest?
Lovely picture on the front page of Le Devoir today: a little girl walking along the railway track in Lac Mégantic with a rainbow in the background. The symbolism is…
CARPING Department: When Is It Not Rude or Harassment?
Something happened this morning that I’m feeling a little ambivalent about. Went for my usual walk, wearing running shoes, old Bermudas, yesterday’s dirty tee shirts, and the baseball cap from…
Two More Books on Kindle, for Those of You Interested
This just in: two more of my books are now available on Kindle. This time they are Green City: People, Nature and Urban Places and The Walkable City: From Haussmann’s…
When a Drink on a Terrace-Bar Leads to Tragedy: Lac Mégantic
It’s been a long time since I’ve been down to Lac Mégantic. What I remember is a nice little towan that seemed to have survived the great changes that have…
What’s in a Name Department: The Canadian Association of Retired Persons
Now I know why I find myself getting so critical about somethings–like the state of the world. The acronym for a senior citizens’ watch dog group in Canada is CARP…
Saturday Photo: Next in the Rotation…
Day lillies are what bloom next in my garden. Don’t have many of them, particularly since one of my neighbors convinced me that they’d do better if I divided them.…
Geting the Hell out of There: When the Wild Fire Roars
There have been power outages twice in two days because emergency systms have been tripped on the high tension electric power transmission lines coming south from James Bay. The culprit…
Bah humbug! Fireworks Make Too Much Noise…
The Fourth of July holiday has got me thinking about the way we celebrate. I remember the joy surrounding fire works displays in my childhood. There was only one, on…
How to Change the Debate: Lessons from the Snowden Affair
Edward Snowden is apparently still hanging out in the transit lounges of the Mocow airport, but his story spins on. European leaders are waving their fists at the idea that…