Amazing Grace

Has anyone seen this? It looks very heavy-handed, based on the trailer. The history is interesting, though. Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost, made the case a while ago in Mother Jones that Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish the slave trade was “the first human rights campaign,” and how, with direct-mail fundraising letters, publicity stunts,continue reading

Meep.

The Winnipeg skyline, seen from the city’s Arlington St. bridge, is shrouded in steam at sunrise yesterday as southern Manitoba awoke to a second straight day of extreme cold. Temperatures plummeted to record lows earlier this week in six communities – including -40.6C in Gimli and -41.9C in Fisher Branch – and Winnipeg endured itscontinue reading

White elephant

The Danforth Music Hall was the neighbourhood cinema in Riverdale in the heyday of these things, and I’m sure was a busy place through 1945 or so. After the rise of television, the nabes fell into a terminal decline – the Koreatown one shows porn, one of the Annex ones is a very dingy discountcontinue reading

Did I mention –

– that that gardenimport.com is one of the few plant retailers that gets e-commerce? I think I have. My credit card bill certainly shows it. They’ve waited until the first really bitterly cold winter day to launch their spring product list – dangerous, dangerous people.

Words –

– cannot express my admiration: Sloth wins 3-year battle with German scientists At long last, zoologists give up trying to bribe animal to move January 24, 2007 Associated Press JENA, Germany – To thine own sloth, be true. For three years, scientists at the University of Jena tried to persuade Mats the sloth to co-operatecontinue reading

How odd –

It’s embarrassing that I didn’t notice this before James Howard Kuntsler pointed it out, but what’s with the green foliage outside the window in the tape of Hillary Clinton declaring? It doesn’t look later than maybe mid-October. Chappaqua, NY should be in zone 6a, only half a zone warmer than us.

The grinch that stole Labour Day

“No more long weekend blitzes, no flavour-of-the-day enforcement, no more humorous stories about those who compromise public safety. Rather, every day, 24-7, OPP officers will be deployed in an all-out effort to put an end to the senseless carnage,” Fantino wrote. Full story here. The good news is that I don’t think Julian Fantino’s attemptcontinue reading