Water water everywhere…

When Tom and I heard the news earlier this week about the hundreds of ducks killed earlier this week when they landed on a Syncrude tailings “pond”, we both immediately thought of an article we had read late last year in albertaviews magazine; the article was “The Ponds” by the Calgary investigative journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, [...]

Off to see the wizard, if they can get their heads out of the (tar) sands

I’m writing about the duck deaths at the Syncrude tailings pit earlier this week not because I’ve dug out any news of my own, or have any noteworth comments, but because I’d like to help spread the news of this incident in particular and the tar sands in general beyond Alberta’s borders, especially to the [...]

Ducks in the coalmine

(illustration from the Environmental Defence website)
This past Monday, April 28, about 500 migrating ducks drowned after landing on a man-made tailings “pond” (officially, the Aurora Settling Basin), filled not with water but with toxic waste sludge from the Syncrude tar sands (the province of Alberta, Syncrude, and the other mining corporations prefer the tidier [...]

Clouding the glow with angels and liars

Before The Globe & Mail makes it disappear, from today’s news (I’ve added the links and italics myself):
OTTAWA — China’s ambassador has rejected Canadian criticisms of his country’s actions in Tibet as uninformed, and called assertions of rights violations “irresponsible.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government have reacted to China’s crackdown in Tibet by calling [...]

No surprise that “buffoon” is a French word

Main Entry: buf·foon
Pronunciation: \(ˌ)bə-ˈfün\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French bouffon, from Old Italian buffone
Date: 1585
* * *
Encore un roi du crazy. From today’s radio news this morning (emphasis mine, as usual):
Having France’s highest honour bestowed on him didn’t stop former Alberta premier Ralph Klein from recalling how he used to get mad at his cousins [...]

February

February has opened with a bit of warmer (again, relatively speaking) weather — though not surprisingly, the radio is burbling about more winter storm watch for tonight and tomorrow — and a new family schedule.
Tom’s helper asked for the month off, so Tom is going to be spending more time around the house and farm, [...]

I’ve made up my mind before Super Tuesday

Downloading the Declaration and Constitution

“I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.”
U.S. Congressman Craig A. Washington (D-Texas, 1989-1995)
Via GeekDad, the news that voiceover artist Debra Jean Dean has recorded her readings of the Declaration of Independence [...]

Another red herring

Yesterday I quoted this section from a New York Times article about the tragedy of the Jacks family in Washington, DC,
Mitchell L. Stevens, an associate professor of education and sociology at New York University, said school officials, who are required by law to report suspicion of child abuse, were society’s best watchdogs of how parents [...]

Red herrings, falling through the cracks, homework, and choice

Kate at I Think Therefore I Blog hits the nail on the head about The New York Times’s misguided and insufficiently researched article today about the tragic deaths in Washington, DC, of four children. Kate has also done her research, something that can’t be said for Times reporter Jane Gross. Read Kate’s post here. [...]

Oh no Canada

Canadian teenagers, from bad to worse. Much, much worse.
A Good Samaritan became a victim of crime himself as he went to save a woman from a mugging at a downtown [Edmonton] LRT station Wednesday.Jonas Servage’s duffle bag was allegedly stolen by three bystanders [ages 18, 17, and 15] as he attempted to catch the [...]

In order to form a more perfect Union

Crissy at Classical Home [she's now blogging here] is, quite rightly, still bothered that “Americans can more easily identify the Simpsons cartoon characters than the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment”*, as the BBC announced the other week.
To help remedy the current sorry state of affairs, Crissy writes,
I believe our children will learn what [...]

All the lost boys and girls

Laurie Gough’s article in yesterday’s National Post is one of the saddest and dispiriting I’ve ever read. Gough, an author who pays the bills by teaching, writes,
In recent days, the Canadian media has focused its collective gaze on Kashechewan, the tiny native community on the shores of James Bay in Ontario. Much has [...]