What is more energy effective, renovating a nuclear reactor or insulating houses?A new study by the Quebec group Ecohabitation says that refurbishing Hydro Québec's one reactor to prepare it for…
The Long List for the Scotia Bank Giller prize has been announced, and I'm pleased to see several friends featured. Genni Gunn, with whom I worked several years on the…
We've traded at Zoubris since it opened. The stationery store on Park Avenue was where I sent faxes to my mother in her last days before her death in 1999,…
As usual Paul Krugman's column in The New York Times is right on the money and particularly appropriate this Labour Day. As usual what he has to say has implications…
Never hurts to remember what led to this holiday of the end of summer. A classic version by Pete Seeger.
As I make my rounds again in Outremont, I'm pleased to see that gardeners have done fun things again this year. To the left is the 2011 version of the…
And further to tropical wars, here's the wonderful Pete Seeger singing the Cuban song Guantanamera. Originally it was about a woman from Guantánamo, but Cuban patriot José Martí used it…
The story's apparently been around for a while, but I just came across it today when Le Devoir ran a front page item about how the UN may soon be…
A writer friend just asked me if I were going to the ceremony for journalist and novelist Gil Courtemanche who died two days before Jack Layton did and whose farewell…
The Guardian has an interesting piece by Ewan Morrison on the end of publishing, and the rise of "free." Worth reading if you're a "content creator" or a reader.
Sunday evening in the middle of Irene, a young man knocked on the door and asked if he could climb in our backyard to take down some of the pears…
We've not been readers of The Gazette on a regular basis for years (long story, having in part to do with a class action I'm involved in against it) but…
This is probably the most eloquent pair of pictures before and after the fire. The small photos are what the staircase looked like the day afterwards, and the large one,…
Paul Krugman as usual has some interesting things to say today. This time he asks why Ben Bernanke, head of the US Federal Reserve, doesn't do what Ben Bernanke, economist,…
With apologies to our American friends who apprently can't access Ari Farce material for copyright reasons.
Little Jeanne is coming over to play today, the day before her first birthday. Got to wash the kitchen floor because her way of getting around is scooting on her…
Little Jeanne is coming over to play today, the day before her first birthday. Got to watch the kitchen floor because her way of getting around is scooting on her…
One of the brief uncomfortable moments at Monday night's vigil at the foot of Mount Royal in memory of Jack Layton was the interminable version of "This Land Is Your…
Last winter in the depth of our despair the Quebec Writers' Federation asked me if I'd like to be one of two writers to present a favourite novel that has…
Just a note--I got more hits on my blog yesterday than I ever had, all with search terms like "Jack Layton House." (Most went to a posting from shortly after…
