The New York Times has a fascinating video this morning about a solar-powered ship visiting New York. The Turanor Planetsolar circumnavigated the globe last year, and is now following the…
Today is Quebec’s big holiday. Formerly named after French Canada’s patron saint St. Jean, Jean the Baptist, it now is more inclusive. Everyone is supposed to be welcome, although some…
What good is rain for? For making roses and peonies bloom. I’ve never had such lovely ones as this year, when the temperatures have been cool and the rain has…
This is the last day of school here: many kids have only a half day and walking around the neighborhood this morning, it was clear that the young people are…
China is doing better for its citizens than India mainly because it is providing more equal opportunity, according to Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate for economics in The New York Times…
I’m currently messing around in our deep, deep past, trying to get a fix on the roads that humans have traveled for a new non-fiction book to be called Road…
Montreal is becoming famous for its terrible traffic, along with its terrible mayors. But one of the things that is lost in shuffle this week, as Mayor Michael Applebaum was…
A little ditty thata may make you smile: The You Can’t Fight City Hall Blues
Sounds a little raunchy, doesn’t it? But the combination of bridal veil and honeysuckle makes a gorgeous late spring display.
The US Supreme Court struck down laws that forbade people of different races from marrying each other 50 years ago this month. EVen though the following commercial has had some…
Why don’t people learn to turn the sound down? Once again highly amplified music is making the news around here: a nearby elementary school got a fine for refusing to…
Just because it’s funny, and I’m looking for a way to avoid work.
The Pew Institute has just released a poll showing that a good majority of Americans don’t have a problem with what the US government has been doing with the logs…
Traveling rather far afield as I continue the ground work a new non-fiction book to be called Road through Time, I came upon this marvelous BBC series on human migration:…
The air right now is heavy with the smell of Russian olives. Not olives, but certainly a native of the Russians steppes, these hardy trees are considered a nuisance in…
An extremely important conference is being held today on the future of Mount Royal–but it may be too late. In a couple of years, four health establishments on the flanks…
I just read a really intersting travel book In Search of Geghis Khan by Tim Severin. In it, he recounts his attempt to ride with Mongolians from Ulaan Bataar west…
Pollsters have been insisting that even though fewer people can be reached by telephone today, polling still is a valid way of predicting electoral outcomes. They’ve turned to elelctronic polling…
Trees are great. Not only do they provide a feast for the eye and shade for the body, they absorb carbon dioxide. You might say they are nature’s CO2 sequestering…
While walking in Mount Royal Cemetery on Saturday I was surprised and delighted to here a cricket. Usually they come later in the season, but perhaps the very warm weather…
