Chicken Soup for the Soul? Chicken Soup for the Rest of Us? Chicken Soup for Dummies?

February 26, 2004

Doing a bit of googling for local feng shui practioners (no, it’s none of your business why I was googling them!), I came across this observation here: Entropy isn’t what it used to be It made me feel as though I had again missed out on something, sniff. On the same page, however, my favourite […]

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“I thought about the people of St. Lawrence…”

February 24, 2004

On Dec.7, 2001 NPR’s This American Life broadcast Lanier Phillips’s story. You can go to the site and, using the “search this site” function, find lanier. You’ll get a short synopsis of the broadcast along with an audio link, which is well worth taking the time to listen to: use the fast-forward button to jump […]

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Terminate this

February 24, 2004

Having said that I’m tired of political posts, something happens that won’t allow me to shut up: Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his Sunday talk show debut as governor, said that he and other foreign-born citizens should be eligible to run for the White House…. [More….] I don’t know, I think the anti-foreign-born law is a good […]

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Human rights and human freedom

February 22, 2004

Shelley Powers has a beautiful essay that argues the case for gay marriage as civil right: For Those Who Inhabit the Empty Spaces of the Coloring Book. If you read nothing else today, read this and follow the links in Shelley’s post. I’ve written in favour of gay marriage before, glibly here and with a […]

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Et in Arcadia ego, or, I too am an absolute friend of open democracy

February 21, 2004

I just finished reading a novel that helped me understand why I’m so sick of reading political blogs, political commentary, political critique. Here’s what was for me a key nugget: “I am speaking of the deliberate curtailment of free thought in our society, Mr. Mundy, and how we may address it. I am an urchin, […]

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Spring in the air

February 20, 2004

Thick rich air heavy with crisp scents, many things blooming, the rhododendrons for example, and daffodils are out now, too, blooming ornamental fruit trees lining city streets, pink heads, and something that looked like a MediterraneanJudas tree (that is, not an Eastern Redbud), but shouldn’t it be in Italy or California and not here? Must […]

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Hey, Cath-o-lic boy, listen: Learning to Live

February 19, 2004

A while ago I pointed to Elizabeth Fischer’s music, which she made available online. Take a listen, she just updated the page by adding the complete Animal Slaves lp Dog Eat Dog (Mo-Da-Mu, 1985). Just excellent. Listen in, really, right here. I owe a couple of people some serious entries, and Fischer is one of […]

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Dialectical jawbreakers

February 13, 2004

Canadian orthodontists, at least here on Vancouver Island, appear to be an aggressive lot. They really like to recommend breaking the jaws — sometimes just the lower, sometimes the upper and lower simultaneously — to create a perfect cosmetic and orthodontic bite. I’m horrified by this because (a) it involves extreme pain, (b) it takes […]

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A wasteland or a party, desolation row or underground tuber springing into action?

February 13, 2004

Mike Golby is back after a 2-month hiatus with an amazing essay, The Turning of the Key. Don’t miss it, it’s a feast of words, images, and ideas.

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Someone left the cake out in the rain

February 12, 2004

I went to a seminar at UVic’s recently established Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (PACTAC) this afternoon to hear William Leiss speak on the Cultural Politics of Bio-Genetics. The afternoon before I had listened to an early-release report on NPR about the Korean scientists who had successfully cloned a human blastocyst, a news item […]

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