Famine Rememberances

Last week­end Toronto ded­ic­ated a starkly breath­tak­ing park/memorial to the Irish Fam­ine immig­rants of 1847. Ire­land Park was opened by Mary McAleese, Pres­id­ent of Ire­land and fea­tures a rather strik­ing memorial wall made up of glass bricks com­mem­or­at­ing those who died dur­ing the exodus and also those who died try­ing to help them. The aim …

Baskerville: Silent Revolution

I atten­ded a very inform­at­ive and thought pro­vok­ing present­a­tion by Peter Bask­erville at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph today. He pos­tu­lates that the shift in wealth from men to women dur­ing the period 1860 — 1930 was of sim­ilar mag­nitude to that of the land grab by European set­tlers from nat­ive Cana­dians. His present­a­tion was based …

Guelph Memory

A great online his­tor­ical tour of the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph cam­pus is now avail­able. It doesn’t fea­ture whizz­bang flash effects or imple­ment AJAX func­tion­al­ity. Instead, it deliv­ers a smooth and effect­ive tour in a simple and com­pel­ling fash­ion with simple html. It’s pleas­ingly lo-tech, well executed and a great example of match­ing tech­no­logy to needs.

Me As the Pseudo Environmentalist

On the flight down(?) to Montréal the other day, it was a sharp and clear early morn­ing so I kept the cam­era with me in the cabin in hope of catch­ing a few neat snaps from above. There were about 10–15 of the 300 or so I shot that were worth actu­ally keep­ing. Those of …

Sovereignty Observed

Accord­ing to a Wash­ing­ton Post head­line, “Cana­dian mil­it­ary rein­forces Arc­tic claim.” Appar­ently this is of more interest to the US than to Cana­dians. Although the CBC did men­tion the trek in the wider con­text of beefed up pres­ence as man­dated by the Tor­ies on, the foray of the 24 mem­ber team did not make it …

Recruitment Contrast

Ok. Who’s really tap­ping the reason why we fight? Eng­lish Rus­sia, a per­en­nial source of high qual­ity com­ment­ary, pos­ted a Ukrain­ian Army recruit­ment ad. As I watched I was struck by the latest Cana­dian Armed Forces ad designed to pre­sum­ably accom­plish the same end. With a long dry period between recruit­ing ads, they’ve been showing …

The Other Side: The Secret Mulroney Tapes on the CBC

Ok. The con­stant CBC warn­ings that this pro­gramme con­tains coarse lan­guage is cer­tainly the hint that the CBC has yet to warm to Brian Mul­roney. A rather tepid present­a­tion. The chal­lenge to the film maker was to take the taped con­ver­sa­tions and find a way to make them visu­ally com­pel­ling. Although a good col­lec­tion of …

On the Weather: How Canadian (eh?)

This wet­ness can well drive one insane. I guess it should come as no small sur­prise that weather has a *huge* effect on one’s mood. This incess­ant rain and cold which seems have gone on for a week now just has that affect on one’s pro­ductiv­ity. I would com­pare it to Kubrick’s Shin­ing, but then …