Category Archives: AI - Blog 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013 — Not Christmas in Toronto
As we hunker down to our mugs of hot chocolate, or perhaps a stiff belt of tongue-rasping Canadian Rye, wrapped in blankets or huddling by the fire (some of us still don’t have electricity as of this writing), listening to the wind howl outside, I think the best Christmas gift I can share with my fellow Torontonians is a few pictures to remind us what it was like, oh, six months and an eternity ago. A different city. A different time. A different way of life. Not even Rob Ford could spoil it.…. Merry Christmas to one and all.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013 — Christmas in Toronto
Monday, December 9, 2013 — Mackenzie Cataloguing Beethoven
Sunday, December 8, 2013 — Someone I Can Vote For Without Puking.
I’m not one who is known to give my endorsement to any particular politician. The assortment that we have in the traditional parties of Canada is, to say the least, uninspiring. They range from outright traitors to the country, in the case of our Prime Minister and his minions, to the largely ineffectual nitwits in opposition. The Liberal Party, by choosing the meritless Justin Trudeau to lead them, has demonstrated it’s bankruptcy. The NDP, the old “spoiler” party that has effectively been the agent keeping the Tories in power, is beneath contempt.
But this is a critical era for democracy in Canada. No Canadian government I can think of has mounted such a sustained and determined attack on our freedom and our democracy as has the present Conservative regime of Stephen Harper. It is far more dangerous than the crude venal corruption of the same party under Brian Mulroney. It is now driven by an utterly ruthless ideology. Harper is determine to wipe out every vestige of democracy in the country and to turn it into a satrapy of the empire of global gangsterdom. Read more »
Monday, December 4, 2013 — The Space Five
Canada has been upgrading its currency in response to advances in counterfeiting technology. The old five dollar “blue jay” which served for a quarter century, is now getting hard to find. The 2001 “kids playing hockey” five was not technically advanced enough to deal with today’s counterfeitors, though it’s literary quotation from an old Roch Carrier story was charming: “Les hivers de mon enfance étaient des saisons longues, longues. Nous vivions en trois lieux: l’école, l’église et la patinoire; mais la vraie vie était sur la patinoire / The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places—the school, the church and the skating rink—but our real life was on the skating rink.” Attempts to introduce a five dollar coin to save money fell flat when the public was polled.
This November, the new polymer “space five” was released. It features an astronaut, the “space arm” and a view of the earth. They are just now becoming common, and I’m very pleased with them. Astronaut Chris Hadfield was given a pre-release one to carry into space (see below):
Sunday, November 3, 2013 — “I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.” — Walt Whitman
I don’t put much of my private social life into this site, but in this case “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I have been friends with Filip Marek for a quarter of a century. Despite our living on different continents, we have managed to see each other fairly often — most recently in Spain. We first came to know each other through Filip’s involvement in the Czech Revolution, and the friendship was subsequently built up from a series of shared adventures (in places as disparate as Crete and the shores of the Arctic Ocean) and shared intellectual interests. We make a rather Cervantean team. I am a little man, while Filip is a tall, muscular giant. This picture, recently taken* in the sort of place Filip can often be found, is so evocative that I could not resist putting it up here.
*Filip has just informed me that it was taken two days ago, in Switzerland
Saturday, October 5, 2013 — California Dreaming.…. It’s Back
For several generations, the State of California has been the barometer of social trends in the United States. It was the state Americans moved to because they were young, gay, creative, or just because they were sick and tired of working in coal mines or being screamed at by bible-thumping assholes. If you have been sinking into acute depression thinking of the antics of the Republicommies and their Tea Party zombies, and other signs of senility in American culture, then this should refresh your faith in the American people: Bill Maher- California is leading