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Just about one year ago today - July 8, 2013, to be exact - our area was hit with a massive flood that swamped homes, cars, highways, trains, and . . . our basement . The basement had been Allan's office. The office in which he was working to meet a publishing deadline. Stressful? You could say that. It could have been much worse. We got an insurance settlement, and we moved - not without some hassles , but we did it, moving in to our current rental home in September. Now, one year later, we mentioned to our current landlord that it's time to renew our lease. He said he'd come over for a visual inspection. That's his right, as he has only been on the property once since we moved in, when the dryer broke. (Interestingly, he questioned whether we had caused the breakdown through carelessness.) He also said there would be a "nominal" increase in rent. We made a date, and he and his wife came to do a walk-through. Everything was fine, of course. A pot-light fixtu

One of our regular Readers' Den customers approached me with her usual long list of movies. She researches movies online, prints out lists, and comes to the desk to see what we have in our collection. Anything we have, we place on hold for her. She's a great customer, in terms of library use. She has an intellectual disability, and sometimes helping her can be a bit of a challenge.  This customer talks very fast, and a little too loudly. While you're searching for one item, she's rattling off the next few, so after placing each hold, you must ask her to repeat the next title. Because she's reading from a list, the effect is a constant stream of chatter, from which you must pick out the movie titles. After we had exhausted her movie list, she asked, "Is there a way I can do this myself, put on holds, from home?" I know she uses a computer to research movies, and I know she checks her library account online to see which holds are available. I told her, yes,

Dark Age Ahead , by the late Jane Jacobs, contains some important insights about the state of North American society. For me, however, the book is more notable for what it doesn’t contain. Picking up where Jared Diamond left off in Guns, Germs, and Steel (which Jacobs references several times in her introduction) and Collapse , Jacobs identifies five pillars of society that she believes are in decay: community and family, higher education, the effective practice of science and science-based technology, taxes and governmental powers directly in touch with needs and possibilities, and self-policing by the learned professions. To readers who are puzzled by her choices for the list itself, Jacobs writes: It may seem surprising that I do not single out such failings as racism, profligate environmental destruction, crime, voters' distrust of politicians and thus low turnouts for elections, and the enlarging gulf between rich and poor along with the attrition of the middle class. Why not

I'm reading  Dark Age Ahead , Jane Jacobs' 2004 strong caution to North American society. I'll blog about the book in general at a later date, but wanted to share some thoughts that keep coming up as I'm reading. This is the first time I'm reading Jacobs since living in a suburb, the kind of area Jacobs reviled, rather than living in a dense urban environment, the kind she revered. And now, when I read Jacobs' shorthand descriptions of suburbs, I wonder if she truly understood them. Two of the charges levelled against suburbs - and if you've read Jacobs or anyone influenced by her, you've encountered these repeatedly - are (1) no one knows their neighbours, and (2) you have to drive everywhere. The former refers to the absence of shared community spaces. Jacobs often wrote that we must encounter each other face-to-face in order to build tolerance and a sense of community. The latter criticism is often expressed as, "You have to drive [x] distance ju

Two obituary posts in a row, and I didn't even mention Tony Gwynn. My favourite cartoonist, Charles Barsotti, has died from cancer at the age of 80. My favourite Barsotti character is, of course, The Pup. The Pup often saw his therapist. And sometimes lawyers were involved. But Barsotti had a political side, too. This cartoon has pride of place on my desk, next to Mankoff's "...assuming the FBI is making copies ." Here's another great political cartoon. I'm so pleased that I emailed with Charles Barsotti some years back, after ordering some goodies from his website . If you love someone's work, please let her or him know. You might imagine that successful artists or writers know how much we enjoy their work, but in my experience, people are so pleased to hear from fans. Charles Barsotti's obituary in the New York Times  and Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker , on Barsotti .

Ruby Dee was a towering figure in the American theatre. She was a great actor, a poet, playwright, and screenwriter, and a steadfast voice for equality. Along with the actor Ossie Davis, her husband of nearly 60 years, Dee never stopped campaigning for full civil rights for all people. Dee and Davis' marriage was something to marvel at and to emulate, a partnership, as the New York Times obit puts it, that was "romantic, familial, professional, artistic and political". Dee grew up in Harlem, performed in many Broadway plays, and was a quintessential New Yorker. On Friday, the marquee lights on Broadway theatres were darkened for one minute in her honour.

I have been alive and kicking on this planet for 53 years today. I'm pretty damn happy about it. I'm celebrating my birthday by taking the day from work, reviewing my talk for this weekend's Marxism conference , getting caught up on some personal business, having a play date with Allan (also ditching work) and the pups, then tonight, having dinner at Kaji , my go-to place for birthday celebrations in recent years. Then I can celebrate all weekend by engaging in discussion, education, and solidarity: Resisting a System in Crisis: Marxism 2014 . This year I'm stewarding a room, and I was invited to participate on a panel for the first time: "Rebuilding our unions: a rank and file strategy". I'm very honoured to be speaking with two big-time labour activists!

Need it even be said? The rightward shift of the NDP is a colossal disappointment for me. I'm part of the NDP's natural constituency. The NDP has historically been a social democrat party, a party of the working class, a party not tied to corporate interests. The existence of the NDP, a credible, viable party on the left, is part of what made Canada such an appealing choice for me. Despite the right-leaning leadership of the NDP at both the provincial and federal levels, I still have hope for Canada. Every NDP voter I speak to, and everything I read, tells me that my disappointment is shared and echoed throughout the land. There is still hope that the NDP will reconstitute itself as a party on the left. But not if we dutifully vote for them no matter what platform they put forth. When 34 prominent NDP supporters wrote to Andrea Horwath to express their disappointment , we got a glimpse of the NDP's future. They collapse at the polls, Horwath is turfed, and party is re-forme

Ruth Graham, writing in Slate, says, " You should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children. " How sad. If anyone should feel embarrassed, it's Graham. She apparently writes this commentary without realizing how narrow-minded, outdated, and ignorant it makes her appear. Then again, what can we expect from a person who describes a love scene by saying a young man "deflowers" his girlfriend? Perhaps Graham hasn't noticed, but in the 21st Century, women are not passive objects; their first sexual experience is not imagined as a loss of innocence and delicacy. Hazel, the hero of The Fault in our Stars , is not "deflowered". She chooses to have sex. Graham mentions that it was "once unseemly" for adults to read young-adult lit. When was that, I wonder? I'm at least 10 years older than Graham, who places herself in the 30 to 44-year-old demographic. I've read young-adult fiction all my life, and I don't

I've mentioned Beretta Farms in many different posts over the years, but I've never specifically blogged about them. With grilling season underway, it's time to give Beretta a shout-out. When I learned about the horrors of factory farming, first from reading Michael Pollan , and later through other sources, I knew I needed to change my eating habits. I needed to translate my knowledge into action, but I was at a loss for what to do. In the 1990s, I had eaten a vegetarian (almost vegan) diet for more than two years, but it didn't work for me, and I gave it up. I certainly don't eat meat with every meal, but I learned that I do need animal protein for optimal function. But once the curtain had been lifted on the horrors of factory farming, I could no longer stand the thought of contributing to the industrial food chain, especially as it relates to animal abuse. The first step was releasing myself from all-or-nothing thinking about food. We're not going to buy onl

I'm sure many of you have read The Book Thief , Markus Zusak's youth novel about a German girl and her (non-biological) family during World War II. If you haven't yet read it, I recommend it. I had little interest in reading this book. I picked it up for professional reasons: it has been one of the most popular youth novels since its publication in 2005, and I intended to skim it, to get the gist. This book didn't care what I had in mind. The opening was so intriguing that I kept reading, and before long I was completely engrossed. In our culture, there aren't many books or movies that contemplate World War II from a German point of view. By giving us the German people during the Nazi era - their suffering, and both their defiance and their complicity - Zusak humanizes war and suffering in a way that Holocaust stories - with humans on one side, and monsters on the other - cannot. As the beautifully drawn characters develop and the situations build - as the reader id

Here are some visuals for this post . This year's crop, we hope: eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, basil, and thyme. As you can see, it's a fraction of the backyard we used to have, and kind of bare. But it does the job! We're putting a canopy over the patio. "Wither thou goest...". Diego is pledged to Tala. Wherever Tala is, the big boy is right beside her.   This goes all the way back to when she was first rehabbing from her spine injury. Three years ago: And today. More here on Flickr.

A long time ago, I watched a PBS show about dogs. At the end, there was a short segment about the domestic canines' suffering from human maltreatment or neglect. That segment included a short piece on the trade in dog meat for human consumption. In one image, faraway and a bit blurred, I saw something I will never forget. The sickening image - living dogs had been stuffed into a cage like building blocks or pairs of socks - is burned into my brain. Today I received email from HSI Canada that recalled that hideous image. In China, some people are preparing for the notorious Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Thousands of street dogs will be rounded up, and dogs will be stolen from homes. The animals will be held under the most horrific conditions, then beaten to death while other dogs watch. Don't talk to me about cultural differences. That's how people once justified slavery. That's how people once justified (and in some communities, still do) men's supposed right to beat the

Three years ago, we planted our first-ever garden , really a tiny garden-ette, growing two tomato plants and some daisies. (I had forgotten about the flowers til I saw that older post.) I really enjoyed growing the vegetables, and was surprised and pleased to learn that it wasn't very time-consuming, at least not on this level. The following year we again planted tomatoes, but substituted herbs for the flowers. Much more fun! I was so taken with snipping fresh herbs from my garden that I cooked more often. Last year's garden was a bust, thanks to the flood and our subsequent move. This year, in our new place, we cleared a little patch and took a baby-step forward: four tomato plants, one eggplant plant (your highness, your highness), one zucchini plant, basil, and thyme. I'm hoping for grilled veggies this summer. The very helpful person at Sheridan Nurseries recommended a natural plant-food made from chicken manure. Apparently chicken poo is rich is calcium and fruit-bear

The Brockway family, 2013 I want to tell you about an exciting venture: an opportunity to help make art more accessible for all, to help a low-income woman start her own business, and to help the family of an Iraq War resister, all at the same time. I hope you'll read about BrokenArt Mosaics and share Ashlea Brockway's crowd-funding page . Wmtc readers may remember my posts about the Brockway family. Jeremy Brockway is an Iraq War veteran with severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Denied medical leave and unable to return to combat, Jeremy and his family came to Canada. Wmtc and Joy of Sox helped raise funds for the Brockways to adopt a service dog. I've written about the Brockways several times: here , here , and here , among other posts. You already know my feelings about war resisters and people who struggle with mental illness. But in my zeal to share those stories, I may have shortchanged the real hero of the Brockway story, the head of the family, Ashlea Brockway. I

I'm working on a few actual posts, where I actually write something and you might actually read it. Until those materialize, please enjoy these fine examples of interspecies love. First, the incredible story of Mr. G. and Jellybean. Read more about it here. Bring a tissue. Next, friendship is not just for funny little grass-eaters. Big carnivores have friends, too. And finally, a beautiful German Shepherd and an adorable piglet are in love in BC. Slide show here. Many thanks to Steph and Miss Essie Ash for sharing these! (Can any code-friendly readers tell me why there is a huge space after that second embed?)