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 [...]

Suburban Green

Canadian home educating blogger Billi-Jean, who writes at My Bountiful Life… announced a new project for Earth Day yesterday (our own earth is white and frozen, so there wasn’t much celebrating in our little corner yesterday):
Suburban Green Is People
In her first post, Billi-Jean writes,
So here we are, a family of four, in the suburbs in [...]

The real Canadian two-tier system

And it ain’t health care.
Air Canada, which charges for each pillow and sandwich and is just a wee bit shy of requiring passengers to load their own luggage on the plane, is now offering “On My Way”, a new “travel assistance service”, which seems to be what most airlines, including West Jet, have traditionally offered [...]

Conditional love, or, Going, going, gone

Maybe I missed the memo, but when oh when did “had went” and “would have went” become so popular? Perhaps when teachers quit writing verb conjugations on the blackboard?
I realize I live in the boonies in the back of beyond, and I know the local school system, erm, needs work (there’s a reason we [...]

Sunday catch-up

English celebrity Katie Price (apparently also known as Jordan when she’s modeling for Page 3 of The Sun and Playboy; Wikipedia seems more than adequate here if you haven’t heard of her either) is in the middle of a book brouhaha in the UK. In 2006, Random House UK handed over a £300,000 advance [...]

A breath of fresh Spring air

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in India last Friday.
Some of the very few words that filtered through my consciousness while in bed that day:
If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights [...]

Gah

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
Winston Churchill
Albertans re-elect historic 11th straight Tory government
(Why I’m disappointed but not surprised)

Yo walks in beauty, like the night

The current issue of New Scientist reports on new American Speech.
To which I can only add, sure, why the hell not?
may i feel said yo
by E.E. Cummings
may i feel said yo
(i’ll squeal said yo
just once said yo)
it’s fun said yo
(may i touch said yo
how much said yo
a lot said yo)
why not said yo
(let’s go said [...]

On the eleventh day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
eleven ladies dancing.
And a few of their friends,

You might know them as Rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) “Dancing Ladies”, because they look like little swaying dancers in brightly-colored ballgowns. Especially if you are in the garden early in the morning before that first cup of coffee and without your glasses.
The [...]

Poetry Friday: Poems for late December

An old favorite, and something new, at least to the blog.
I Heard a Bird Singby Oliver Herford (1863-1935)
I heard a bird singIn the dark of DecemberA magical thingAnd sweet to remember:
“We are nearer to SpringThan we were in September,”I heard a bird singIn the dark of December.
Time, You Old Gypsy Man by Ralph Hodgson [...]

Not too contemporary, I hope

My father sent me this article from last weekend’s Telegraph, from which this excerpt:
Paddington Bear is to face his most terrifying adventure yet; a police interrogation over his immigration status.
A new Paddington novel, released to mark the 50th anniversary of his debut, is to be published next June.
Famously, the young bear was a stowaway on [...]

Joyful influences: More thoughts on poetry and literature for children

this time from Willa at everywakinghour in this post (I’m still catching up on my blog reading as you can tell). Some of the highlights, but go read the entire piece:
Children aren’t born knowing what we consider “accessible” to them. They find it out based on their experience of what’s around them, what we [...]

Poetry Friday: A magical thing and sweet to remember

I Heard a Bird Singby Oliver Herford (1863-1935)
I heard a bird singIn the dark of DecemberA magical thingAnd sweet to remember:
“We are nearer to SpringThan we were in September,”I heard a bird singIn the dark of December.

Unplanned blog holiday

Last Wednesday thanks to small and very remorseful child who shall remain nameless, my laptop developed water on the brain….
Can get online and fetch email but keyboard is kaput so can only cut and paste like ransom note. veryveryvery tedious. Can’t be fixed, need new computer, but that means a trip to big city [...]

Changing with the times,

or, this is when I start to think about home schooling them through university.
Either that or inventing some small canteen, maybe with a nice college logo, that would be more hygienic to carry off to the washroom (that’s the bathroom for you Yanks).