Oil Sounds Mean "Game over" for Climate
Oil sands exploitation means the end of hope for controlling climate change, according to James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In op-ed piece in today’s…
Mary Soderstrom
Cold Today: Gonna Take a Nap
After passing the winter without getting sick, I seem to have been wacked with something. So no post today.
Speak Red! A Dramatic Reading of a Quebec Classic Poem Transformed for the Current Crisis
“Speak White” by Quebec poet Michèle Lalonde was written and first performed in 1968 during the great rising wave of Quebec nationalism. It refers to an epithet many Francophones heard…
Pele’s Hair and Pele’s Tears: The Hawaiian Goddess and Lava
I’m back to working on the short story collection. The current story is one that has quite a bit about volcanos, and as I speak, a small bottle of ash…
Saturday Photo: Because Purple Flowers Are Lovely
This isn’t a new photo. It’s one I took when I was in Portugal about this time of year. The jacaranda trees were in bloom: absolutely spectacular! I’m waiting impatiently…
Magnoiias in Bloom: The April Showers Bring May Flowers
Despite the very early warm weather we had in late March and again in the middle of April, flowers and leaves are bursting out this first week in May, much…
Jane’s Walks Coming up This Weekend: Learning about Neighborhoods One Step at a Time
The series of walks given all over the world in honour of urbanist Jane Jacobs are coming up this weekend. In past years I’ve given a couple: last year it…
Taco Bell, Cal-Mex and Tortillas: My Love Affair with Food Inspired by Mexico
Great story in The New York Times today about Mexican-inspired food: “How the Taco Gained in Translation.” Makes me hungry just to read it. Makes me also reflect on how…
The Musical Swings Are Back!
If you’re in Montreal, be sure and check out this marvelous installation in the Quartier des spéctacles, right across the street from Place des Arts. The viceo was made last…
Okay, Get out There and Move: Walk Dance, the New Way to Exercise
Well, I’ve always walked a lot. Maybe I should try this.
Recreating Eden 2012-04-30 11:44:00
Nearly four times as many people have been arrested in the student protests against Quebec’s tuition hike than were arrested during the October Crisis: 1,201 between April 7 and 27,…
Education, Unemployment, and Minds: Views by Krugman and from Quebec
This morning Paul Krugman writes about what terrible things economic bad times are doing to young people around the world, and the high cost of education. His major concern in…
Saturday Photo: The Grass in Greener
I must get out and take more spring pictures. The weather was hot and dry, but the last week we’ve had rain and cool temperatures, which last night dropped below…
Two Attacks on Austerity: Krugman and Page on the Death of the Confidence Fairy
Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate for economics, has been trying to convince policy makers everywhere that austerity is bad for economies. In his column in The New York Times today he…
Half Full or Half Empty? Two Readings of the Same Data on Organic Agiruculture
This morning, underneath a banner story in Le Devoir about continuing conflict between student groups and the Quebec government over tuition fee hikes, I was encouraged to read a report…
Just in Case You’re Feeling Down: A Chorus of 1000 Sings Beethoven’s Ode to Joy
A friend sent me this link, and I’m charmed by the idea of so many people on one side of the word singing a work written by someone from a…
Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts Dept.: Conservatives Cut Stats Can More than Elsewhere
Okay, the Harperites are going to close prisons because their crime-fighting measures (which are just taking effect) have made the country safer, or so they say. Nowhere do they mention…
A Couple of Hundred Thousand Out in Montreal on a Miserable Day: the Quebec Spring?
Having spent more time than I care to say marching in demonstrations that most frequently brought together only small groups, I’ve been very impressed by the crowds that have been…
Saturday Photo: Sun on Monet’s Pond
Several times over the last decade we’ve been in the middle of preparing to go to France for a while. I’d love to be doing that right now, but there…