Buying Winter Boots Today: The Drama of Someone Who Hates to Shop
Have I mentioned recently how I hate to shop? Probably not, because I avoid thinking about it as much as I can. (Food, garden and book shopping, being the exceptions.)…
Mary Soderstrom
Harper and Old Age Security: Lessons from Mulroney and Chrétien Majorities When Public Opinion Was Heard
It’s always a bit indelicate for somebody of my age to start complaining about changes in the old age security system since I’m hardly a disinterested party. But Stephen Harper’s…
Saturday Photo: Sledding in a Winter When the Snow Doesn’t Cooperate
The picture was actually taken toward the end of last winter, when a sunny Saturday attracted many to the slopes of Mount Royal, just up from Park Avenue. This year…
Love Prevails: Photographs of a Heroic Couple Who Fought Anti-Miscegenation Laws in the US
If discussed Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes with six book clubs now, and one thing that cmes up every time is the astonishment tht marriage between people of African…
When Documentary Becomes Art: Uprooted, a Video about Suburbs
Artist Isabelle Hayeur says: “I’ve been exploring landscape issues ever since I started working with video. Through the moving image I am investigating environmental, urban planning and social concerns that…
Average is Officially Over, Says Friedman, But How Can We Get People to Think
Thomas Friedman in today‘s New York Times points out that the unemployment rates in the US correlated inversely with education: Americans with “less than a high school degree, 13.8 percent;…
Mitt Romney Pays $6.2 Million on $45 Million: This is Obscene
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs: them’s radical words, of course. But I always thought they were just, right, and what we need to…
The Downside of Hydroelectricity: Methane from All Those Rotting Trees
Le Devoir has an interesting story this morning about the way that the methane escaping from those big dams behind hydroelectric plants in Quebec have not been figured into the…
Saturday Photo: A Couple of Pictures from the Portuguese
We’re eating Portoguese this evening, and my thoughts are wandering back to Lisbon. It’s been three years since I visited that lovely city, but the images remain fresh. Here are…
Griffintown Redevelopment Back on the Agenda: Public Consultation Tonight
Just before we were all interrupted in our getting and spending by the financial crisis of 2008, plans were rolling ahead to redevelop one of the oldest neighborhoods in Montreal,…
Why Write Novels at All: A Very Good Question
As I burrow deeper in River Music, I begin to wonder if it’s worth anything at all. That’s why coming across Garth Risk Hallberg’s essay/review in the Sunday New York…
Umberto Eco’s Strange New Book: The Prague Cemetery
There are no library book discussions in January–it is January, after all, and there is no telling what weather will befall us in this climate–so in addition to reading Christmas…
You’ve Come a Long Way Baby Dept.: Who’s Catering to Men?
What is appropriate dress is as much a matter of fashion and wanting to please as it is of following strictures laid down by authority. Interesting question for my female…
Pink Ribbon Nonsense–Or Is It Even More Sinister?
As someone who has gone through a breast cancer scare (excision of suspect tissue and radiotherapy, and, thank you for your concern, five years later all seems well) I have…
Saturday Photo: No Holly, But Some Ivy
It’s January 14 and the end of year holidays are over for everyone (although Russian Orthodox Epiphany will be next week and the Asiatic New Year is just around the…
Public Debt Explained in a Few Minutes, and If You Don’t Have Tax Enforcers Taxes Don’t Get Paid
An interesting explanation of public debt from Le Monde with English subtitles. The context is European but the principles apply on this side of the Atlantic too And here’s the…
Hommage to a Woman Whose Research and Advocacy Has Saved Immense Numbers of Premature Babies: Mary Ellen Avery
Everyone whose life has been touched over the last 40 years by a premature baby who survived owes a debt to a woman whose death was reported this morning in…
A Laugh from Musicians, That Might Work for Writers Too
Deep in rewriting my novel about a pianist, I’m seeing music everywhere. The latest is this multiple choice chart that might give you some advice. I particularly like the sequence…