Support the CBC: Great Event at a Great Place
The Lion d’or, one of Montreal’s greatest halls, will be the scene this evening of a rally in support of the CBC. Canada has been defined by its public broadcaster…
Mary Soderstrom
Good News Story: The Cat Came Back
Holly made it home to start the new year well, even though she’d run away when her owners were visiting in their RV 200 miles away. The New York Times…
Four Years As President Leaves Its Traces
Here’s a picture of Barack Obama in 2008 and one of him in 2013. Being president may be a “bully pulpit, ” as Teddy Roosevelt said, but it also is…
Saturday Photo: Snow Swirling
This is a photo lifted from the publicity stills for the film Kamousaska. The wind feels like this today, only the pictures I took were the pits.
Roller Coaster Life–From Freezing to Deep Freeze in Hours
Okay, guys, compared to Winnipeg it’s not all that cold this morning (-23 C on the back porch or about -5 F) but tomorrow they’re actually predicting temps near the…
Monty Python and Cheese: So Very Unlike NDP Outremont’s Event January 24
Because I can’t resist it, here’s Monty Python and the famous cheese shop skit. For those of you considering going to the NPD Outremont’s wine and cheese tasting with Tom…
Musician’s Death Raises Reflection on Music Education Here and in the Former USSR
Yuli Turovsky, a Russian-born cellist, who adopted Montreal as his home, has died at 73. He was one of the generation of classical musicians who left the Soviet Union as…
A Film from the NFB that Tells the Story Behind Theresa Spence’s Hunger Strike
Where would we be with out the National Film Board? For decades it has been making excellent films about Canada and Canadians. As it happens a film released last year,…
Flowers of Winter 1
The snow has melted quite a bit these past few days, leaving banks of gray snow everywhere. This is the down side of winter weather. It makes me want to…
Saturday Photo: Snow Tracery
The temperature has risen, but before the snow is reduced to piles of grayness, here’s picture taken when our holiday snow began.
Looking toward Travel: A Taste of the Inca Trail
One of the things that is good about January is not thinking about January. We’re having a little thaw right now which means that the snow–still deep–is a little mangey.…
Wine and Cheese tasting with Tom Mulcair January 24, 2013
To celebrate the wonderful momentum of the NDP and to get ready for the battles to come, the NDP Outremont riding association invites you to an evening of wine and…
And Here’s the Trailer for the Film
Rather damning…
Cyber Spy Story: Bank Hackers and the Great Soviet Pipeline Explosion
The New York Times this morning reports that hackers, probably Iranian, have been messing with the US banking system lately. “Security researchers say that instead of exploiting individual computers, the…
Warning: Next Harper Target May Be 2016 Census
Three researchers at Quebec universities warn that the 2016 census may be the cut because of “budget reasons.” In an op-ed piece in Le Devoir they outline the problems that…
Want to Know about FDR? Read a Book
Friends–Old Lefties like us–suggested we take in “Hyde Park on the Hudson,” a film about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a distant cousin and affairs of state. It sounded like a great…
Saturday Photo: Bolo Rei a Day Early
Tomorrow is Epiphany or the Kings’ Day, when the Magi supposedly showed up with presents for the baby Jesus. We’ve never celebrated it, although many of our friends do a…
More Good Books: A Classic That Says a Lot about Today
I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fiztgerals for the first time decades ago, and was not much impressed. Too shallow, about people who really don’t matter in the…
More Good Books from Last Year: The Tiger’s Wife
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obrecht can be read as a fable, a memoir or an observation on the wars of belief and self-interest that marked the last several centuries…
Good Books I Read in 2012: The Green House (with Comments about the Icelandic Model for Banks and Books)
Everybody else has done their lists, but as usual I’m a little behind. For the next few days, I think I’ll share my faves of the year, starting with The…