We started a new notebook at the beginning of the year — conveniently, we were running out of pages in the old book just as 2007 was running out of days. The new notebook is apparently mainly a story of whites, which seem to have both more numerous and better than the reds we’ve tastedcontinue reading
Niagara redux
We did our quasi-annual day trip to Niagara today — the first and last time ever we do this on the Labour Day weekend — QEW traffic having transformed the day trip into something approaching five hours of driving (not to mention a bad decision that had landed us right in the middle of CNEcontinue reading
Get Smart
In Milwaukee, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or something: 2002 2008 Full metamorphosis here. H/t to Calculated Risk.
Anti-doping: the comic
Courtesy of UNESCO: Since Monday 4 August, visitors can find, every week, the latest instalment of an adventure featuring Rattus Holmes and Felis Watson, detective heroes of a comic strip against doping in sport, published by UNESCO in partnership with EDGE G3 Ltd. Entitled “The Case of the Spoilsports”, this comic strip (in English, Spanishcontinue reading
The Right School — called Jackman
I hope Toronto Life didn’t pay full freight to Philip Preville, whose cover story “PS, I Love You” (not yet posted online) adorns the magazine’s September “The Right School” issue. Here’s how the story is billed: A handful of schools drive parents into a frenzy of status lust — and they’ll do anything to getcontinue reading
Lions, tigers, bears etc. of a more literal sort
My media scan today was full of odd and/or silly animal stories, and it seems a shame not to post them all somewhere…. Grizzly attack! Buddy climbed a tree and deployed bear mace and is fine. (Also, a big fan of bear mace.) “I saw this immense instant attack coming at me, and I kindcontinue reading
Punching a bear in the nose
The BBC has an excellent and balanced analysis of the Russia-Georgia conflict to date, raising many of the issues inherent in the situation. Here’s one worth some reflection, especially if you want to put odds on the next trouble spot: 8. Are borders in Europe to be sacrosanct for ever? It has been one ofcontinue reading
RX: Ikea
I’ve avoided posting anything from the Globe Facts and Arguments page until now, I think, but yesterday’s essay is just too dreary and sad to ignore. The author is a Globe copy editor who has taken a dream job — which, amazingly, given the generally subpar morale of the Globe newsroom, appears to be hercontinue reading
Strangely fascinated by fire
From Mrs. Simcoe’s diary: Saturday July 7, 1792 “I walked this evening in a wood lately set on fire by some unextinguished fires being left by some persons who had encamped there, which in dry weather often communicates to the trees. Perhaps you have no idea of the pleasure of walking in a burning wood,continue reading
Chinese ingenuity, the new Soviet incompetence?
From the GMO quarterly newsletter, a dissenting voice on the Chinese miracle: No sooner do we finish wallowing in the idea of Soviet incompetence than we start to believe that Chinese central planners can wonderfully manage a complicated economy, growing unprecedentedly fast and transforming overnight from a rural society to a capital-intensive wonder using halfcontinue reading