“Girlism” makes about as much sense as “funism”

July 17, 2003

For more background, see Burning Bird and Halley’s Comment. Halley doesn’t have a comment box, Shelley (Burning Bird) Powers’s box is overflowing. My thoughts here: Do we really need another “ism,” robed in the language of marketing, and peddling a conventional adherence to conformity, flogged our way? A queen of lethal “girlism,” the Patsy Stone […]

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Medical benefits of DIY

July 17, 2003

Who can say if this does middle-aged guys any good, but their sons might be interested.

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Carol Shields

July 17, 2003

Carol Shields died on Wednesday night in Victoria after a five-year battle against breast cancer. “She took up writing largely out of frustration as a reader, saying she couldn’t find enough interesting books about women’s lives.” About her latest book, Unless, Constance Rooke said in the Ottawa Citizen‘s obituary that “‘It’s a book that has […]

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Save-a-stamp time

July 16, 2003

When we lived in Vancouver in the early 80s, we used to joke that Canada was the Italy of the north because you never knew what or who was going to be on strike next: anything could go at almost any time. When we moved to the US, we were amazed to have mail delivery […]

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Canadian Kraft, a triple medley

July 16, 2003

Check out this alarming but funny article by David Olive of The Toronto Star, Kraft cooks up a plan to avoid obesity lawsuits. Aside from real information, there’s trivia, too: did you know that company founder J.L. Kraft was the “second-oldest of 11 children in a Mennonite farm family, was the Henry Ford of food, […]

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Lap topless

July 16, 2003

I’m still laptopless, it’s in the shop, the guy who fixes Apples is on vacation, and that’s how it will stay until at least next week. Meanwhile: I hate desktops, chairs, and the fact that you’re obliged to sit up straight or suffer the consequences (torqued shoulders, eg.). As the dinner guests in Plato’s Symposium […]

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Big yellow taxi siren song

July 14, 2003

Some recent developments in the arrest of Betty Krawczyk, Jen Bradley, and the Women in the Woods action in the Upper Walbran Forest on Vancouver Island: Stephen Bradley reports on Betty & Jen’s July 8 victory: Justice Pitfield “reworded the injunction and also the undertaking in such a way as to instruct [the authorities] to […]

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Electric karma

July 14, 2003

Chris Locke asks everyone of good will (and without smarmy new age monetary aspirations) to send a prayer Ann Craig’s way. Give it a try. Had a longer post yesterday, but lost it on a borrowed machine, the iBook is still kaput. It was trivial, though: all about unearthing LPs after we found the pre-amp […]

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Teletubby go bye-bye, etc.

July 12, 2003

My softly glowing teletubby pal, aka iBook, had seizures and died yesterday, and this is seriously going to impair my blogging. Since I have gotten used to doing it while doing other things, it’s going to be a big change to now do it staying put at a desktop machine. Hey-ho. Meanwhile, I’m hoping for […]

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Live longer as a non-smoker….

July 10, 2003

…but be appalled by inflation. The federal government is going to start shipping marijuana directly to physicians who prescribe it to their patients, my local paper reports today. Some provincial health authorities are quite upset about this, because they fear it will wreak havoc with break-ins and thefts in MD’s offices. BC Medical Association head […]

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