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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
Morning is a good time for reflecting on things, and for years I have used a morning walk for doing just that. But Friday I took my camera along to…
Been thinking about the importance of optimism in the various fights we have in front of us. Feeling somewhat inundated by bad news worldwide, I decided I’d trying singing some…
Want to make a real estate investment? Don’t build standard suburbs but invest in walkable, bikeable neighborhoods. This should not be news to anyone, but Christopher Leindorfer once again points…
Among the most lovely gardens in the world are the Royal Gardens at Kew in London. To rsearch it for my book Recreating Eden: A Natural History of Botanical Gardens…
The NewYork Times editorializes about the scary future awaiting today’s college graduates. Five classes have left the ivy-covered whatever since the beginning of the Great Recession, and their jobless rate–8.5…
g Along with inundated b streets and flooded tunnels this week, heavy intense rain had its way with peonies which are just now coming into bloom. Their top-heavy flowers can’t…
