What I Feel about the Jubilee: A Message from Kew
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…
Mary Soderstrom
More Fuel for the Expanionist Movement, Another Reason to Support the Red Squares
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…
Saturday Photo: Peonies Awaiting Ravishment by Rain
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…
Jean Charest Doesn’t Car Much about Montrea, It Seems
Just had an interesting conversation with a local muncipal politician (opposition party, natch) about the way the provincial government walked out of talks with student groups over the tuition hike…
Scapgoating 101: Ticks and Students
The New York Times today has an innteresting story by Gail Collins about the multibillion dollar loss at JP Morgan: blame it on ticks. It seems that the person in…
Everything That Goes around Comes around, So Maybe We’ll Get a Speed Bump on Our Street
More than 30 years ago when our kids were little, a couple of other mothers on the street passed a petition to get a speed bump or two in order…
The Walkable City Still Has Legs
Last weekend friends from San Francisco were in town and we spent hours walking around Montreal. It’s always a pleasure to have out of town guests because you do and…
Jack, Alexis and Rack of Lamb
Tuesday my uncle Jack’s life will be commemorated at a funeral service in Walla Walla, WA where he was born. He was 83 when he died last week, leaving three…
Saturday Photo: New Grown Everywhere
Evergreens are just that: trees which don’t lose their leaves in the fall, but keep them (or the needles which are a manifestation of leaves) all year round. This is…
Friends from the Bay Area Arriving, and the Weather’s Great
So unless things change drastically I’m taking the day off.
Pot Protests Spread in Montreal (No, Not That Kind)
Saturday May 19, there weren’t many poople out pounding on pots and pans in Montreal to protest emergency legislation limiting public demonstrations and many other things as the long student…
Let’s Not Go the Way the US Dept: Debt and Students and Massive Demonstrations
The New York Times lead editorial today is extremely pertinent as regional cyberspace swirls with analysis and pictures from yesterday’s huge (and probably illegal) demonstration in Montreal. “Full Disclosure for…
Lots of Political Action Today: Demonstration and Discussion
It’s raining but a big crowd is expected this afternoon for a demonstration to protest tuition fee hikes, and the provincial government’s draconian law on demonstrations, return to classes, and…
Robert Nelson, and the Journée des Patriotes
The Quebec flag is up in front of our place on this Journée des Patriotes. One of the little known things about the Rebellions of 1837-38 (the nearest thing Canada…
Satuday Photo: Zen and the Art of Spring Gardening
Actually I think the stone statute isn’t Japanese but is a kind of inukshuk, those Inuit signs of greeting. But the minalist balance of this spring garden is quite lovely,…
Death of the Confidence Fairy Bis: NDP Hearing on the Budget
If it wasn’t enough that Europeans are registering their disatisfaction with the idea of cutting budgets as a way to economic recovery by voting out parties preach austerity, a headline…
Making Music Together: Young Musicans against the Free Hike
Last night was the second concert of the Orchestre de la solidarité sociale, bringing together music students from nearly all of Montreal’s music faculties. Some of them have been on…
Sexing the Kiwi (With Apologies to New Zealanders)
Several years ago I bought two kiwi plants, a male and a female. One grew, the other didn’t, but I didn’t know which one survived. So the following year I…