tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-131851572011-04-21T10:59:14.664-07:00Typhoons and zephyrs on the horizonAeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comBlogger861100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1151897649640854532006-07-03T00:01:00.000-07:002006-07-03T00:47:48.300-07:00

I began Windy Weather in May of last year as an experiment. I wanted to see what it was like to run a website, and I also hoped the blog might attract visitors interested in various social, political, and philosophical ideas. With regard to the first objective, the experiment has been a success. I’ve enjoyed learning how to put together, or at least modify, a web page, and I think the result

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1151860870937948712006-07-02T10:13:00.001-07:002006-07-02T11:39:24.646-07:00

During the last federal election campaign, fellow blogger James Bow invited his readers to forecast the results. As it turned out, I came fourth in the contest, and, as a prize, James generously sent me a copy of his just-published novel for young people, The Unwritten Girl. The story is a clever fantasy about a girl who must enter the Land of Fiction in order to rescue her brother from mental

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1151557689354501522006-06-28T22:08:00.000-07:002006-06-28T22:58:17.153-07:00

The news has been building for some time now that the Spanish parliament may be about to recognize that great apes should be accorded certain basic legal protections. That is, not only humans, but the other great apes too. This news has been met with controversy and ridicule, as well as approval. Are the wacko Socialists and Greens of Spain about to give chimpanzees the right to drive motor

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1150680374940486142006-06-18T18:15:00.000-07:002006-06-18T18:33:17.680-07:00

Paul McCartney is 64.Veronica Lodge, who was born the same year as Paul, is still 16.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1150521937310766592006-06-16T22:25:00.000-07:002006-06-16T22:53:07.986-07:00

James Howard Kunstler has been in town, to attend a conference on urban planning and to talk about the coming Long Emergency, as he calls it. Kunstler is a witty and engaging public speaker, who can make his audience roar with laughter as he describes (and illustrates with slides) the ugliness of North American urban sprawl and the hideousness of much modern architecture. If we didn’t laugh, we

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1150297885654525062006-06-14T08:11:00.000-07:002006-06-14T08:53:04.390-07:00

And speaking of the CBC: Last night I watched a wonderful documentary on Newsworld’s The Passionate Eye about Diego Maradona, the Argentine footballer – followed by good old George Stroumboulopoulos interviewing Al Gore on The Hour. How fortunate we are to have the public network(s), which is not under quite the same pressure as other radio and television outlets to dumb down its content in

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1149615842826879412006-06-06T10:37:00.000-07:002006-06-07T08:55:37.633-07:00

According to the lawyer for one of the accused, those suspected of planning terrorist attacks in Ontario are charged with targeting the CBC. So let's be very clear, folks: Either you're on the side of the CBC or you're on the side of the terrorists.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1149545284463970522006-06-05T14:58:00.000-07:002006-06-05T15:08:04.496-07:00

Mogadishu — An Islamic militia with alleged links to al-Qaeda seized Somalia's capital Monday after weeks of fighting with U.S.-backed secular warlords, raising fears that the nation could fall under the sway of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.Read more.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1148965996020049032006-05-29T22:04:00.000-07:002006-06-07T08:58:48.673-07:00

Records, they say, are made to be broken. Arguably, however, some records are made not to be broken. It seems unlikely that anyone will ever break Wayne Gretzky's NHL single-season goal record of 92, or his career record of 894. If someone comes along who does, the sky won't fall. But when, in 1961, Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season record of 60 home runs, it was as if he had

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1148619203704409332006-05-25T20:55:00.000-07:002006-06-07T08:56:24.200-07:00

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Tony Blair. Indeed, the Euston Manifesto, which has the left wing of the blogosphere mildly abuzz, could have been written by the British Prime Minister. The Manifesto is presented to us as a bold reassertion of progressive political values, intended to reinvigorate an enervated left that has lost its way. What we get instead is a laundry list of

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1147936299684837092006-05-17T23:21:00.000-07:002006-05-18T07:02:15.213-07:00

In a famous exchange at Oxford in 1860, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce is said to have sarcastically asked Thomas Huxley, who became known as "Darwin's Bulldog", whether he claimed descent from an ape on his grandfather's or his grandmother's side. There was no clear winner of the debate at the time, though the Darwinists have subsequently carried the day in the scientific world and among most

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1147414709088251162006-05-11T23:18:00.000-07:002006-05-14T17:20:06.606-07:00

Jim Martel, a hunter from Idaho, has shot a “grizlar” in Nunavut. A grizlar is a cross between a grizzly and a polar bear. This is how men like Mr. Martel imagine that they prove their manhood: by killing animals for sport.The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, author of Meditations on Hunting, argued that sport hunting is a spiritual activity, a kind of religious rite, that reconnects

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1146813159945422072006-05-05T00:12:00.000-07:002006-05-05T00:36:41.146-07:00

Karl Marx was born 188 years ago today. Most people have only a vague and inaccurate notion of what his ideas were. Here’s my handy little one-page introduction.Marx in a NutshellAccording to Karl Marx (1818-1883), the key factor in determining the structure and development of any society is the way it interacts with nature in order to sustain itself – that is, its mode of production. The mode

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1146443107539113302006-04-30T17:16:00.000-07:002006-05-05T18:59:57.220-07:00

A shameless plug for Guillemots, an excellent band that includes a good friend of mine. The BBC says, "To those already in love with Guillemots, the record label bidding war and breathless music business buzz have come as no surprise. It all makes sense considering their eccentric invention and top-drawer songwriting that covers everything from joyous anthems to haunting heartbreakers." Michael

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1145937085203527212006-04-24T20:49:00.000-07:002006-04-24T21:36:26.320-07:00

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1145210931324093862006-04-16T09:49:00.000-07:002006-04-16T11:13:17.753-07:00

You live in Oklahoma or Kansas or Indiana. A tornado has just destroyed the trailer park you lived in, and you're wondering what message God is trying to send you. So you've typed "windy weather" into your search engine at the public library, and here you are. Go away. The title of this blog is metaphorical, not meteorological.You live in Ulan Bator or Kuala Lumpur or Glasgow. You're looking

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1144907315201255542006-04-12T22:10:00.000-07:002006-04-12T22:48:35.216-07:00

Well, the people's representatives have had their "take note debate" on the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan. Bill Graham, Liberal interim leader, said his party didn't consider it a debate but rather "an opportunity for the Canadian public to better understand this mission." Apparently parliamentary debates are not supposed to enlighten the public. Graham also said the Liberals, who

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1144545272499708812006-04-08T17:53:00.000-07:002006-04-11T16:37:42.030-07:00

Is the Bush administration preparing to attack Iran with nuclear weapons? According to this piece by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Washington is making plans for air strikes against Iran, and the nuclear option is on the table. The idea would be to use "tactical" nuclear weapons to destroy underground facilities that Iran may be using in its own nuclear programme. Iran claims that it is

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1143519922810596262006-03-27T20:25:00.000-08:002006-03-29T23:21:43.050-08:00

Here’s some good news. Within a generation or so, people could be eating people in fancy restaurants. More exactly, they could be eating “cultured” human flesh, meat grown from human cells. This would give a whole new meaning to “eating Chinese”, “eating Greek” – or “baby food”. This is no joke. It will happen. Research on developing cultured meat is well under way, and the economic and

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1143256441994998072006-03-24T18:34:00.000-08:002006-03-24T19:38:23.740-08:00

A right-wing blogger, Ben Domenech, just hired by The Washington Post, has now been forced to resign after being outed as a serial plagiarist. It's always particularly satisfying to hear of plagiarists getting their comeuppance. Domenech's attempt to defend himself ends with this wonderfully lame sneer: "To my enemies: I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me,

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1142837613882333702006-03-20T00:01:00.000-08:002006-03-21T16:28:55.800-08:00

It’s the third anniversary of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq. (No, CNN, not the “three-year anniversary”.) The word quagmire seems appropriate: “a soft boggy or marshy area that gives way underfoot; a hazardous or awkward situation”. More specifically, the invasion forces in Iraq cannot win the war, which has become a constant military and economic drain on them, and withdrawal is

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1142368043096854242006-03-14T12:22:00.000-08:002006-03-30T00:23:48.533-08:00

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1141367272840762392006-03-02T22:10:00.000-08:002006-03-30T18:32:22.306-08:00

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1141185843183094742006-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:002006-03-02T21:46:04.683-08:00

Dubya's support at home has hit a new low. His leadership is now endorsed by only about one-third of Americans. More than that, most U.S. troops in Iraq want out.It is clear that if it were up to the troops, the US would be out of Iraq by the end of the year. In a poll of troops in Iraqi bases, conducted by Zogby International, 72% said the US should withdraw in 2006; more than a third of

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1140828117323997472006-02-24T16:41:00.000-08:002006-03-01T10:05:01.726-08:00

A just, omnipotent God would not allow someone who was in serious violation of the Eligibility Code of the Olympic Charter, which requires that participants “respect the spirit of fair play and non-violence, and behave accordingly”, to be rewarded with an Olympic gold medal.At least one player on Canada’s men’s hockey team was in serious violation of the Eligibility Code of the Olympic

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1140155905579628812006-02-16T21:58:00.000-08:002006-02-27T22:07:41.510-08:00

What might have been the consequences for Canada if Stephen Harper and the Conservatives had won a majority in the 2006 federal election? What if the South had won the American Civil War? How would history have been different if the Axis powers had won the Second World War? What would the world be like today if the Black Death had wiped out almost everyone in Europe in the fourteenth century?

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1139784208606142712006-02-12T14:39:00.000-08:002006-02-12T16:06:17.656-08:00

Cheney bags a terrorist.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1139593806538874832006-02-10T09:24:00.000-08:002006-02-10T14:22:15.476-08:00

While most Conservative MPs hypocritically attempt to rationalize Harper's appointment of David Emerson and Michael Fortier to the cabinet -- or else maintain an embarrassed silence -- there is at least one caucus member with integrity. Garth Turner, MP for the Ontario riding of Halton, has spoken out against the undemocratic moves. And he's prepared to pay the price.Speaking of offices, after

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1139382411202453202006-02-07T22:52:00.000-08:002006-02-07T23:06:51.213-08:00

A landmark agreement has been reached concerning the Great Bear Rainforest.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1139252078246991792006-02-06T10:41:00.000-08:002006-02-08T19:15:12.433-08:00

January 23, 2006, Vancouver Kingsway riding:David Emerson, Liberal - 20,064Ian Waddell, New Democrat - 15, 570Kanman Wong, Conservative - 8,699February 6, 2006: On his first day in office, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appoints David Emerson, now a de facto member of the Conservative Party, to his cabinet. Harper says there will not be a by-election in Vancouver Kingsway to

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1138688367201852502006-01-30T22:19:00.000-08:002006-01-31T00:35:42.996-08:00

Fed up with Liberal Party scandals and with the bickering of a minority Parliament, Canadians awoke on January 24 to find they had voted 172 Conservatives into office – enough to give Prime Minister Stephen Harper a comfortable majority and a solid mandate. Change was not long in coming. After the House repealed same-sex marriage and substituted civil unions, and after the Senate bowed before

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1138238381535166532006-01-25T16:58:00.000-08:002006-01-25T17:59:59.940-08:00

Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, was born January 25, 1759. I'm proud to say that my grandfather, as a founding member of the Vancouver Burns Fellowship and as Hon. Secretary of the Burns Statue Fund, was instrumental in having the statue of Burns erected in Stanley Park. The unveiling took place on Saturday, August 25th, 1928, and was attended by Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1138132240218918762006-01-24T11:50:00.000-08:002006-01-25T10:54:16.576-08:00

Conservatives - 124 seats (36.3% of votes)Liberals - 103 (30.2%)New Democrats - 29 (17.5%)Bloc Québécois - 51 (10.5%)Greens - 0 (4.5%)Independent - 1There were few surprises. The Conservatives got fewer seats than most expected, and the Liberals held on to somewhat more. But all in all, the pollsters and pundits got it right. Even

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1137747711631891622006-01-20T00:29:00.000-08:002006-01-20T19:54:18.376-08:00

The election campaign is entering its last weekend, and all indications are that we're headed for a minority Conservative government, with each of the three Opposition parties holding a balance of power. In claiming the other day that the Tories had dramatically widened their lead, and now claiming that their lead has dramatically shrunk, The Globe and Mail and CTV are guilty of irresponsible

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1137361870918345882006-01-15T13:51:00.000-08:002006-01-15T23:38:52.706-08:00

I’ve just finished reading A Return to Modesty, by Wendy Shalit. The book, which was published in 1999, when Shalit was 23 years old, is subtitled “Discovering the Lost Virtue”. Shalit is concerned much less with modesty in the sense of being humble, than with sexual modesty. Contradicting what seems to have become conventional wisdom, she argues that the prevalent promiscuous, anything-goes

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1136933106104780822006-01-10T14:45:00.000-08:002006-01-10T19:12:40.326-08:00

Spring has come early for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. The political ice, which seemed to be frozen solid throughout the first half of the election campaign, has cracked and is melting. Suddenly, a slew of polls give the Tories a significant lead over the Liberals. The income-trust fuss may have been the last straw, with many more people deciding that the Liberals really do need to be

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1136698436675402472006-01-07T21:33:00.000-08:002006-01-08T10:17:14.916-08:00

“Poll Points to Tory Victory” says the headline in the The Vancouver Sun, referring to the latest Ipsos Reid figures. The Sun reports that the Conservatives now have the support of 35% of eligible voters, compared to 31% who back the Liberals. “How Harper Fashioned His Lead” is the The Globe and Mail’s headline. The paper tells us that, according to Strategic Counsel, the Conservatives have a

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1136066650530270942005-12-31T14:04:00.000-08:002005-12-31T14:16:47.000-08:00

It’s been quite a year. Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Communist countries signed the Warsaw Pact. A vaccine against polio has been introduced. “Disneyland” opened in California. James Dean died in a car crash. We had riots in Montreal after the suspension of Maurice Richard. And the Brooklyn Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the World Series. Now, as we

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1135842109526311622005-12-28T23:41:00.000-08:002005-12-28T23:56:24.010-08:00

There’s a good chance that ten or fifteen years from now, Quebec will be an independent state. So let’s look ahead and see what the political situation will be in northern North America.The first and most important thing to note is that, contrary to what some might expect, all Quebeckers – at least all who so desire, and that will be just about everyone – will be dual citizens of Quebec and

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1135236445749787092005-12-21T23:27:00.000-08:002005-12-22T00:14:38.423-08:00

Iraqi voters have given George W. Bush an early Christmas present: a big lump of coal. While the President has been trumpeting the good news about budding Iraqi democracy, election returns indicate that the winners are Islamic fundamentalist parties with ties to Iran. That’s the trouble with democracy: you can’t always control the outcome. The neocons would have been better sticking with their

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1134713697883734702005-12-15T22:14:00.000-08:002006-02-07T15:54:15.630-08:00

The political debates promise to be enough to put anyone to sleep. Thankfully, we have the outrage of the day to entertain us: Ed Schreyer’s decision to run for Parliament. Does the man have no shame? But on to more serious matters. I heard a CNN announcer mention the “five-week anniversary” of a recent event. This particularly egregious error seems to be getting more common, with “

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1134495225276114882005-12-13T09:33:00.000-08:002005-12-13T12:46:05.743-08:00

Good news: in the foreseeable future there will be no more hunting of bears and wolves in the Great Bear Rainforest. The Raincoast Conservation Society has bought up the rights for trophy hunting for an area of some 20,000 square kilometres on the coast of British Columbia. The Society spent $1.35 million to buy out Bella Coola Guide Outfitters, which had the exclusive rights to trophy hunting

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1134025962292684982005-12-07T23:12:00.000-08:002005-12-07T23:33:28.036-08:00

President Bush has announced his plan for winning the war in Iraq. It’s called “Vietnamization”. Of course, he didn’t call it that, but that's name the policy went under during an earlier U.S. war. With the U.S. public getting increasingly restive about his Iraq quagmire, Bush says the training of Iraqi government forces will be stepped up in order to allow U.S. forces to begin withdrawing

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1133638106110238942005-12-03T11:28:00.000-08:002005-12-03T11:41:09.696-08:00

Future Liberal Senator Basil Hargrove stabbed Jack Layton in the back on Friday, when he embraced Paul Martin and threw the support of the Canadian Auto Workers union behind the Liberals. The fact that Hargrove said the CAW would support the NDP candidate in any riding where he/she has a better chance than the Liberal of winning the seat does little to lessen the harmful impact of his message.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1133245862402855652005-11-28T22:31:00.000-08:002005-11-28T22:47:43.183-08:00

Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. If they know what’s good for them, Jack Layton and Stephen Harper will be saying nice things about each other during the election campaign. Neither can afford to let the Liberals do what they did last time: scare potential NDP supporters into voting Liberal. I think that strategy probably cost the NDP some ten seats, and may have cost the Tories a

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1128836990651008782005-10-09T00:10:00.000-07:002005-10-10T19:50:31.773-07:00

Hitler’s Mein Kampf has become something of a bestseller recently in Turkey, a disturbing fact noted by Doug Saunders in Saturday’s Globe and Mail. Fascism is generally considered a phenomenon of the extreme right, yet conservatives nowadays often claim it is really a left-wing ideology, invariably pointing out that Nazism is short for Nationalsozialismus (National Socialism). This is

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1128703726229201292005-10-07T10:14:00.000-07:002005-10-07T11:54:28.360-07:00

The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, has issued its first arrest warrants. The five sought are leading members of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group reported to have killed thousands of civilians and to have abducted tens of thousands of children, forcing them to become soldiers or sex slaves. The Lord's Resistance Army is led by Joseph Kony, a religious fanatic

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1128103665502672422005-09-30T11:45:00.000-07:002005-09-30T11:45:13.966-07:00

William Morris – Pre-Raphaelite poet, writer of fantasy novels, leading member of the Arts and Crafts movement, designer of wallpapers, fabrics, and typefaces, founder of the Kelmscott Press, and political radical – was aggrieved by the fact that the beautiful goods he and his firm produced could be afforded only by the well-to-do. It was Morris’s belief that art, as the expression of creative

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1127700621657086652005-09-25T19:28:00.000-07:002005-09-28T00:03:04.030-07:00

Russell Smith, the Toronto novelist and short-story writer, excels at humorously skewering the pretensions of the young and hip, the artsy and the academic, particularly those living in Toronto. I recommend him to you. It seems a tad ironic, then, that Smith is one of Toronto’s premier dandies. This guy is serious about clothes. When I first encountered him in The Globe and Mail, writing about

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1127362877039376082005-09-21T21:21:00.000-07:002005-09-21T21:36:45.333-07:00

The evidence is mounting that civilization is about to suffer a major heart attack. In June I mentioned peak oil, the idea that world oil production is reaching its all-time maximum and is about to decline, with potentially serious economic and social consequences. Well, I wasn’t alarmist enough. As Matt Savinar explains at length (and with many useful links), if you think that peak oil just

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1126745353157485722005-09-14T18:28:00.000-07:002005-09-14T18:40:59.023-07:00

Windy weather. Fat, glossy chestnuts are smashing on the pavement and kitesurfers are on the strait. And thinking of chestnut trees, and those surfers living very much in the moment, reminds me of another passage (not the famous one with the chestnut tree) that I particularly like in Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea. It's about the problem of trying to reconcile the endless possibilities of the

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1126591404842012852005-09-12T23:06:00.000-07:002005-09-14T15:03:34.276-07:00

Gantogoo BayarkhuuSept. 14: Meanwhile, in China the People's Daily, organ of the Communist Party, reminds us that it's "The 6oth anniversary of the victory in the Anti-Fascist War". All hail the proletarian struggle! But what ever happened to Mao suits?

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1126495488277978642005-09-11T19:30:00.000-07:002005-09-14T15:50:01.826-07:00

September 11 is not only the anniversary of the attacks against New York and Washington. It is the anniversary of the 1973 military coup against the democratically elected socialist government of Chile. The overthrow of President Salvador Allende brought to power the barbaric military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The Nixon-Kissinger administration was openly hostile to Allende and worked to

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1126136080745454612005-09-07T16:49:00.000-07:002005-09-07T17:03:42.706-07:00

"Well, Promo Girl has got to go. So does that smug, superior jerk who does The Voice." I frequently disagree with Margaret Wente's political analyses, but her column on the CBC lockout in The Globe and Mail on September 1 was right on the money. Yes, I too cannot stand the excruciatingly irritating and omnipresent Promo Girl. (The Voice is insufferable, but at least you knew when he was coming on

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1125983214898338322005-09-05T22:55:00.000-07:002005-09-06T09:13:13.306-07:00

CNN has shown the arrival of Cuban doctors and relief workers in Miami, on their way to Louisiana. The first contingent of 200 doctors are headed for Baton Rouge, which will be their base of operations for New Orleans and for Biloxi, Mississippi. Up to 1300 more Cuban doctors are expected to arrive in the next several days. In Havana, President Fidel Castro said he welcomed President Bush's

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1125889971238795852005-09-04T21:00:00.000-07:002005-09-04T22:11:16.376-07:00

Commenting on New Orleans' rapid descent into barbarism, one caller to a Vancouver radio station yesterday claimed that Canadians would behave better in a catastrophe. Would we? We tend think of Canada as a more civilized society, the "kinder, gentler nation" that Bush Sr. wanted, a society where we look out for each other. Our national character trait is terminal niceness. We are the nation

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1125601702881165872005-09-01T12:28:00.000-07:002005-09-06T09:15:51.023-07:00

The reports from Louisiana and Mississippi are not pretty. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead; bodies floating in the streets; a breakdown of law and order, with looters and gunfire common in places, vehicles being hijacked; and authorities calling for the complete evacuation of New Orleans. Fuel prices, already high by recent standards, rocket upward until the government steps in. This is one

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1125258827111900872005-08-28T13:39:00.000-07:002006-06-19T08:52:21.130-07:00

Richard Dawkins, the prominent defender of Darwinism, has a striking thought experiment. Imagine, he says, that you are standing in east Africa, on the shore of the Indian Ocean, facing north. In your left hand you hold the right hand of your mother, who is standing beside you. She, in turn, is holding the hand of her mother, to her left, and her mother in turn (we have to do some hanky panky

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1125120883940339542005-08-26T23:04:00.000-07:002005-08-26T23:04:26.900-07:00

A number of blogs recently let loose on the latest controversial campaign from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In words and pictures, PETA draws parallels between the treatment of of non-human animals and oppressed human beings. The focus on black Africans has elicited outrage, just as PETA's earlier "Holocaust on Your Plate" drew strong condemnation. Critics have been

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1124575801186906632005-08-20T15:45:00.000-07:002005-09-28T22:25:01.183-07:00

This will not come as news to most people. But it's interesting to see who's just woken up to the fact: the very people who negotiated the Free Trade Agreement on behalf of the Mulroney government. After the latest softwood-lumber fiasco, with the US thumbing its nose at the ruling of NAFTA's Extraordinary Challenge Committee, which, like every other tribunal of NAFTA and the WTO, has ruled in

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1124414162975361162005-08-18T21:25:00.000-07:002005-08-18T21:42:19.880-07:00

I'm no expert on climate change, so I'm not going to argue to what extent humans may be responsible for global warming. What intrigues me is the way that this issue, and other environmental issues, have become a political football. In particular, many on the right are convinced that environmentalism is an evil left-wing conspiracy to deprive them of their lives, liberties, and property, and, as

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1124323665111822562005-08-17T16:52:00.000-07:002005-08-28T23:35:39.866-07:00

Michaëlle Jean, the Governor General designate, has issued the following statement:I am deeply touched and wish to thank all those who have so warmly greeted the news of my recent nomination to the office of Governor General of Canada. Others have questioned my attachment to Canada and that of my husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond. I want to tell you unequivocally that both he and I are proud to be

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1123863693260543552005-08-12T09:01:00.000-07:002005-09-06T16:57:30.956-07:00

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, has been camping outside George Bush's Texas ranch, demanding to see the President. She wants US troops out of Iraq now. Her protest has stirred up a hornets' nest of invective from the political right. (Dawg's Blawg has a post worth reading on the Sheehan matter.) Perhaps the right is afraid that a tipping point is being reached in US

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1123280710394625282005-08-06T00:01:00.000-07:002005-08-10T00:05:13.130-07:00

Today is the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It was followed three days later by a similar terrorist attack on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in these attacks, either immediately or over time through the effects of radiation. Although both cities had installations of military value, the fact that the bombings were intended to

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1122701296478763892005-07-30T00:01:00.000-07:002005-08-12T11:05:05.256-07:00

Illustration by C. Lee Healy fromPhilip K. Dick and the Umbrella of LightJapanese scientists have produced an "android". Repliee Q1 is a robot with the outward form of a woman, that flutters its eyelids and appears to breathe. In science fiction the word "android" typically used to refer to artificially created human-like beings composed of organic material, who might well be indistinguishable

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1122585810478843362005-07-28T14:05:00.000-07:002005-07-28T14:23:30.483-07:00

In what could prove to be a milestone on the road to peace in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republican Army has announced an end to its armed struggle to unite Ireland, and proclaimed its intention to work for its goal by peaceful means. The BBC has extensive coverage, including videos. In April, Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Féin, the party generally described as the political wing of the IRA,

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1122166263875271562005-07-24T09:27:00.000-07:002005-07-24T09:30:57.696-07:00

On Friday, when police in London shot dead a suspected suicide bomber on an Underground train, my reaction was, "Good, they got one." I have no sympathy for people who try to blow up other people on subways or buses. Yesterday police announced there had been a tragic error. The dead man, they said, had no connection to terrorism. He was an electrician from Brazil, who apparently was in the wrong

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1121888347015078732005-07-20T13:36:00.000-07:002005-07-22T15:35:11.326-07:00

The Observer/Guardian has a feature piece on the background of the London bombers. (Thanks to Anna Kelly for the tip.) What emerges is a stew of radical Islamic teachings, Pakistani connections, and a degree of alienation among young Britons in the immigrant community, exacerbated by Britain's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Liberal democracies, whose life blood is tolerance and diversity,

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1121754584993716962005-07-19T01:02:00.000-07:002005-07-20T23:10:00.646-07:00

Karl Marx is the greatest philosopher, according to a poll conducted by the BBC. Some 34,000 listeners cast votes after hearing advocates for the various candidates, with Marx pulling in almost 28% of votes, more than twice as many as runner-up David Hume. Rounding out the top ten were Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Immanuel Kant, St. Thomas Aquinas, Socrates, Aristotle, and

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1121715671096310252005-07-18T13:25:00.000-07:002005-07-18T19:55:16.646-07:00

Bob Dylan was in town last night. It's been 40 years since the singer went electric and had many of his folk-music fans howling at this betrayal of purity. (Martin Scorsese has just released his 3-1/2 hour documentary, No Direction Home, covering Dylan in the key years from 1961 to 1966; it's scheduled to be shown on PBS September 26 and 27.) The outrage seems quaint now, given Dylan's

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1121445354415741562005-07-15T12:10:00.000-07:002005-07-15T15:55:07.530-07:00

Frank R. Paul's 1927 illustrationSteven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is the usual technically proficient Hollywood schlock. Undoubtedly, a British director, working with British actors, would have made a more interesting film. Still, apart from the failed-father-redeems-himself hook, and being set in the wrong country and century, the movie is reasonably faithful in many of its details to H. G.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1120860005961959632005-07-08T16:57:00.000-07:002005-07-12T00:23:01.783-07:00

The bombings in London have again demonstrated how difficult it is to stop fanatics from killing large numbers of civilians. Properly speaking, "terrorism" refers to politically-motivated (physical) attacks against non-combatant targets, typically undertaken with the intent of spreading fear among the general population of which the victims are members. "Non-combatant" is the key here. Attacking

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1120621934287156532005-07-05T20:40:00.000-07:002005-07-16T11:10:36.190-07:00

I am repeatedly struck by the "Canada sucks" attitude of so many right-wing bloggers and commentators in this country. Eugene Plawiuk has a post on the topic, and here's an example. Even the Barrie Live 8 concert drew its share of scorn from the right: Canadian music sucks too, along with universal health care and Canadian institutions and values generally. Most Canadians are allegedly ignorant

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1120179123289423252005-07-01T00:01:00.001-07:002005-06-30T20:49:05.393-07:00

Raise a glass to the memory of Sir John A. and sayNo to Deep Integration.

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1120061580093674122005-06-29T09:01:00.000-07:002005-06-30T09:33:28.283-07:00

With the passage of Bill C-38 in the House of Commons last night, Canada is about to become one of only four countries to recognize same-sex marriage. (The Netherlands and Belgium already do so, while the Spanish parliament is set to give the go-ahead on June 30.) The Prime Minister and Jack Layton have argued that same-sex marriage is a human right guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1119582865203602262005-06-23T20:07:00.000-07:002005-06-24T08:12:05.790-07:00

CBC's The Nature of Things tonight ran Part One of Whale Mission, a two-part documentary on whales and whaling. Much attention focused on a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and the attempt by whaling nations to expand the allowable killing of whales. The delegate from Japan was a particularly slick and disingenuous man, who defended that country's continued whaling as

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1119366568657528822005-06-21T07:36:00.000-07:002005-06-26T10:11:09.943-07:00

"Christ!" he said out loud. "No one shall say we didn't hold out for fifteen minutes!"He made his way to the parapet and stood there firing. This was revenge on a big scale. Each one of his shots avenged some ancient scruple. One for Lola whom I dared not rob; one for Marcelle whom I ought to have left in the lurch; one for Odette whom I didn't want to kiss. This for the books I never dared

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1119137575012015472005-06-18T16:03:00.000-07:002005-06-18T23:35:18.410-07:00

Don't take those drugs imported from Canada. Thanks to a tip from a Canadian friend in Michigan, I now know why the Runaway Bride ran away. She was trying to get to Neverland to warn Michael Jackson not to use unsafe drugs from Canada. ("Michael, they'll turn your skin pasty white. They'll make your nose go pointy. They'll make you weird.") Unfortunately, she never got there, but, thank goodness,

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117475934555321362005-06-15T10:23:00.000-07:002005-06-26T13:31:08.723-07:00

So you're not impressed by the ancient Mayan prediction that the world as we know it will end in 2012? You don't give much credence to those astrological forecasts of a global meltdown beginning in 2009? Well, how about considering the implications of peak oil. The idea, which has become a hot topic recently, is quite simple. Industrial civilization runs on oil. There's only a limited amount of

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1118600724622519912005-06-12T11:21:00.000-07:002005-06-26T00:36:24.006-07:00

Belinda Stronach is right: Canada needs a healthy conservative party. She is also right in believing that the present Conservative Party is not what Canada needs. In a 2003 speech, Stephen Harper laid out his historical analysis of the conservative movement and made his argument for the direction to be taken. He distinguished between economic conservatism (essentially classical economic

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1118178540088947912005-06-07T14:05:00.000-07:002005-06-17T21:06:44.153-07:00

The twenty-fourth of MayIs the Queen's birthday;If we don't get a holiday,We'll all run away.A couple of weeks ago, as is only fitting, we all celebrated the Queen’s birthday. Queen Victoria’s birthday, that is. How happy and glorious to live in a Dominion that still reveres the memory of Victoria Regina by commemorating the day of her birth with a holiday for its citizens. And in the city

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117725878330164782005-06-02T08:23:00.000-07:002006-04-06T20:37:36.846-07:00

Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule, has wondered whether life on this planet might have been deliberately seeded by advanced space aliens. A science-fiction scenario like this is plausible, even if unlikely. But how might we go about testing such a theory in the absence of any direct evidence, such as an ancient alien base on the far side of the moon,

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117584282362404992005-05-31T17:04:00.000-07:002005-06-02T10:23:02.363-07:00

The prestigious Nuffield Council on Bioethics has just issued their lengthy (downloadable) report, The Ethics of Research involving Animals. The report shows considerable familiarity with the philosophical debate of recent years concerning the moral status of animals, and is indicative of the way that the issue of the treatment of animals is becoming increasingly public.A couple of years ago

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117431027790050932005-05-29T22:13:00.000-07:002005-05-31T17:43:10.216-07:00

Eight months before the invasion of Iraq, British PM Tony Blair and top members of his government met to review information from Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI-6, who had just returned from Washington. The so-called Downing Street Memo, secret until it was leaked during the recent UK election campaign, provides damning evidence that President Bush had already made up his mind to invade Iraq by

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117353611203163432005-05-29T00:18:00.000-07:002005-05-31T17:43:43.620-07:00

A funny thing happened on the way to Gordon Campbell's second majority government in British Columbia. Not only did the NDP get 41% of the vote--a higher percentage than it got when it formed a majority government in 1996--but the combined NDP and Green vote topped 50%. That's an impressive total for what are generally considered to be the third and fourth parties in English Canada. Together with

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13185157.post-1117331455130546742005-05-28T18:09:00.000-07:002005-05-31T17:44:12.583-07:00

The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson, who often writes good sense, misses the point in his column today on electoral reform. He notes, probably correctly, that most of the 57% of voters who favoured STV in British Columbia's referendum were voting for change rather than from any great love or understanding of STV. He then goes on to suggest that the movement for electoral reform that is sweeping

Aeolushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772583359516799143noreply@blogger.com