Appropriation of Voice: Back to That Old Question
There are now 10 stories more or less written for the short story collection I’ve been working on for the last year, and for which I got that nice CALQ…
Mary Soderstrom
US Plan for Medicare Is Constitutional-!
It was good to learn that the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold Obamacare this morning. That’s basically good news, even though the plan has great problems. Chief among…
More from the Copyright Wars: Who Owns a Video?
Everyone seems to think that he or she can use just anything that’s out there for private use. A case in point is a video made during a demonstration during…
Catch up Time: Holes in the Streets, Severe Storms and Trying to Make up for Past Mistakes
The photo (from the CBC) shows the latest in a series of holes that have developed in Montreal streets over the past few weeks. One opened up on Sherbrooke St.…
Despite the Forecast, It was a Great Day
No post to day because I spent most of it running around preparing for NPD Outremont’s barbecue. Great fun, good crowd (we went through 200 paper plates, which gives an…
Saturday Photo: Fleur de lys for Quebec’s Fête Nationale
June 24 is the feast day of St. John the Baptiste. It also has the same relation to a solstice that Christmas does. In other words, Christians appropriated pagan holidays…
Great Strawberries This Year from Quebec Farms: Will Data Be the Next Hot Crop?
South-eastern Quebec punches above its weight when it come to market-gardening. This year, given an early spring, crops are already coming in ebundantly. Quebec strawberries–always very tasty–are better than I…
Shame! Shame! As They Say in Hansard: Harper’s Canada Heads in the Wrong Direction at Rio and Elsewhere
The criticism of Canada’s position on environmental issues has been growing at the international confernce on the environment Rio+20. Le Devoir’s story this morning is just one of many that…
Beach Boys, Laurie and LIfe
The Beach Boys are on tour–in Toronto Tuesday and Montreal last night with many, many more dates to come. I caught a rather sappy interview with them on Jian Gomeshi…
More from the Mommy Wars: Diane Johnson Reviews Books about Motherhood
The review of four books on motherhood in the latest New York Review of Books by Diane Johnson, are worth reading even if you aren’t a mother, and never expect…
Further to Bee Balm: Swarming Bees in New York City
There has been such bad news about bees for the last several years that this morning’s New York Time story about swarming bees has to be rated as good news.…
Leger Marketing-Le Devoir Gives Tom Mulcair Big Lead over Rivals
Today’s big news is a new poll by a major polling firm here which shows Tom Mulcair and the NDP consolidating their position in the hearts (and voting intentions) of…
Canada Is the Best Country to Be a Woman? Well, Sure a Lot Better than the US
For some time I’ve been meaning to write about what difficult choices young women and their families must make in the US. We’ve had had visitors recently who’ve told us…
Saturday Photo: Balm for Bees, and the Eyes
This was taken a few days ago, when the bee balm was just beginning to bloom. Now a wide swath of the little front garden is full of yellow flowers…
Community Garden Continues
Lovely early summer/late spring weather this week, which makes being outside a real delight. Among the places I’ve walked recently is the little community garden near the railroad tracks in…
My On-Going Adventures with Portuguese
The morning show I listen to has a segment most days between 5:30-5:45 from cities around the world in which a popular song of the moment is played for a…
Chamber Music: An Idea Whose Time Has Come…Again
Le Devoir has a story today about bringing music to private gatherings. A young musician named Brigitte Saint-Aubin has begun a web site Show de Salon with the aim of…
New Report on What We Need: Green Invest, Not Oil Sands
Very interesting report out of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives today. This is the kind of cage-rattling that the Harper government wants to stop. According to their press release:…
Desire Lines: Walking through the World, One Step at a Time
I’ve been working on the short story collection for which I’ve had a grant this year, called Desire Lines: A Geography of Love. I think I’ve got a suite of…
Save Monday June 25th for a Big Party on Mount Royal
Quebec’s biggest celebration is coming up two weeks from now, the Fête natonale. The official day is June 24, but since that’s a Sunday this year, Monday also is a…