Big Brother and Studying: What’s Wrong with Education I
CourseSmart is a new tool for university professors which allows them to track a students reading in e-texts. Apparently it’s a coming thing, but it seems to me to be…
Mary Soderstrom
Suburbs: Inequality in the American Dream
The neighborhood I live in was built a century ago as a “garden suburb” on a street care line with housing for a mixture of incomes. Our block is made-up…
Saturday Photo: Snow Drops and A Hymn to Spring
The snowdrops are in bloom, which does the heart good. I planted a dozen or so bulbs 10 or 12 years ago and they have slowly spread. Haven’t got a…
Trio of Shame III: If I Don’t Know about It, It Doesn’t Exist
I kept the way the Harper government is systematically undercutting any independent effort to find out what is happening in the environement to the last item of this trio. Last…
Trio of Shame II: New Citizenship Guide Has More Monarchy, Less History
This isn’t entirely a new story, because it seems that the official Canadian Citizenship Guide was published last fall, but I’d not heard much about it until Le Devoir‘s Marie…
Trio of Shame I: Clark Says Canada is Losing Its Influence Abroad
It’s always interesting when a former Prime Minister comments on what is going on at the moment, but it’s especially so when the ex-PM criticizes his political descendants. While Joe…
First Siting: Another Sign of Spring!
Well, actually the bikes aren’t there yet (the photo was taken just before they were warehoused for the winter), but over the weekend, Bixi workers began putting out stands for…
North Korea Sabre Rattling: Flash from the Past…and the Future?
Over the Easter weekend my head has been elsewhere, so it is only this morning that I caught up on the back-and-forth going on in the two Koreas. Will the…
Saturday Photo Reprise: Easter Eggs with Natural Dyes
Jeanne and I dyed Easter eggs this year with dyes made from beets, red cabbage, spinach, tumeric and blueberries. The best however were the ones coloured by being wrapped in…
Great Old Dog: My Cousin Cathy’s Clifford!
We just had a great four weeks babysitting (catsitting?) Chatouille, our neighbor’s Maine coon cat. She’s gone home now, and I’me feeling a little nostalgic. Having an animal in the…
Krugman Says the Message about How the Deficit is a Crock Has Gotten Out, But Not Here Apparently
The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has been talking for several years about how the fear-mongering about the deficit is nonsense. Today he writes that maybe this message is getting through:…
Love, Restos and History: How Dinner Led to the Supreme Court
In a time when most of the young people I know are marrying for immigration, insurance or other very practical reasons, it is a pleasure to read a story of…
Three Score Years and Ten: Life Expectancy through the Ages
It’s no secret that we’re all getting older, and there are days when I feel truly ancient. Bu, as they say, 60 is the new 40, and overal life expectancy…
A Year Ago Thomas Mulcair Became NDP Leader
The picture was taken a year ago when we all were waiting for the results of the balloting during the NDP leadership convention. Our man Tom Mulcair has done a…
Most Energy in Canada Comes from Hydroelectricity, So Why Are We Soiling our Nest with the Tar Sands?
Much chit-chat this morning on Radio Can about an interactive map which gives the location of renewable energy producers in Quebec. Rather interesting, although it’s clear that most installations are…
Saturday Photo Reprise: Flowers of Winter, Reflected Snow
Took this picture a couple of years ago after a heavy snow fall. The flowers were blooming in a restaurant window on the Plateau. The snow-bound cars reflected in glass…
Second Day of Spring and Bach’s Birthday: Music to Lift the Spirit
This playful improvisation on Bach is a suggestion of the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal.
The Strange World of Energy Production: Chinese Solar Panel Manufacturer Declares Bankruptcy
There is a difference between the long run and the short run: we all know that and as John Maynard Keynes said, in the long run we are all dead.…
Ten Years Ago: Iraq War Begins
One of the good things about being Canadian was the country’s principled approach to foreign policy. No better example is there than the way Canada stayed out of Iraq. Here’s…
More Cuts, This Time in Day Care Centre Budgets
What is really depressing about the $37.9 million the PQ government just cut from the 2013 budget of provincially-financed day care centres, is that it’s the PQ government doing the…