test blog #10

Last night in Toronto: And everywhere: And onward:

One of the oldest and most well-respected bloggers has brought his online journal to a close. Since January of 2003 - 18 months before I began wmtc - I have been reading The Diary of Samuel Pepys online. Tomorrow night at about 9:00 UK time, the Diary will end. (The final entry is here .) Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps") wrote a daily diary from January 1, 1660 to May 30, 1669. In it, he recorded a life both public and private - everything from the political machinations of the King and Parliament, to his theatre attendance and what books he was reading, to his new gadgets, clothes, and other luxury purchases, to - famously - his sexual exploits and related marital woes. The Diary provides a rare, first-person view into the life of 17th Century London, including major events such as wars, the plague and the Great Fire of London. It's both a personal view of history, and a historical view of the person - truly a window into another world. It's also a fascinating les...

Bluegrass legend Doc Watson is dead at age 89. He was simply a great musician, with a great gusto for life. I saw him perform at several festivals in my younger days. Bluegrass is meant to be heard live, and when you saw Doc Watson play, you felt like you could listen to bluegrass all day long. New York Times obituary here.

I blogged about Dave Eggers' What Is the What , while I was still reading it. It turned out to be an extraordinary book, both in the ordeals the Sudanese refugees have survived and in the telling of the story. Proceeds from the sale of What Is the What support the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation . Ishmael Beah, who narrates his own story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier , lived through a similar ordeal in a different country, Sierra Leone, with one crucial difference. Deng was never a soldier. Through a series of fortunate coincidences, or fate if that is your belief, he never held a gun and was never forced to kill. Beah's story begins similarly to Deng's, in that he is violently torn from home and family, and everything he has ever known and loved is destroyed. Then it gets worse. From Beah we learn how ordinary children are turned into killing machines, and what it does to them. First everything they have and have ever known is taken from them. Their paren...

Why should Quebecers have all the fun? If you're in the Toronto area, you can join a Manif Casserole tomorrow, May 30. People are gathering at Dufferin Grove Park, 875 Dufferin Street, around 8:00. Bring something to bang on and something to bang with (i.e. a pot and a wooden spoon). There's a Facebook event here , but it's more important just to be there.

We've just returned from the Marxism 2012 conference, a weekend of inspiration, education, and revolution. I plan to transcribe all the talks that either I or Allan attended, either from notes or from audio files. And unlike last year, unless some crisis intervenes, I will make it a priority. To come: The global fight against austerity: from the ballot box to the street Nikos Loudos (Greece), Judith Orr (UK), Andria Babbington, Monique Moisan (Quebec), Carolyn Egan Egypt and the Arab World: the year of revolution Member of Egypt’s Revolutionary Socialists (by Skype), Yusur Al-Bahrani, Sid Lacombe The 2012 Quebec student strike Xavier Lafrance, Monique Moisan, Sibel Epi Ataoğul Building rank & file resistance in labour Carolyn Egan, Sung-Lim Kang, Jonathon Hodge, Jeff Ince, Pam Johnson 1965: Canada’s rank & file rebellion Pam Johnson 'From each according to their ability': socialists & the disability movement Melissa Graham, Michele MacAulay, Patricia Reilly Too ...

In case you have not yet seen this beautiful video, and even if you have: enjoy. Merci, Quebec! Merci, merci, merci!

Books, bookstores, and New York City! Plus hip hop girls. This video has it all. Thanks to Stephanie.

Our 2011-12 Movie Season was a strange one, as we're gravitating towards watching more series and fewer films. I also didn't have a good source for quality movies on DVD for a while. But we did see several good movies and even better series. A special shout-out to our friends M@ and S, who turned us onto the two best shows of the season, and two of the best things we've seen in ages: Justified and Sherlock. I was completely stumped for this year's rating system. I've done Canadian musicians and comedians , my beverage of choice , famous people who died during the past year, and where I'd like to be . Now I am officially Out Of Ideas! This year's awards are brought to you by... vegetables! A ranking of vegetables according to my preference. Hey, I said I was out of ideas. Potatoes are the greatest. I've never met a potato I didn't like: baked, mashed, shoestring fries, chunky fries from a chip truck . The kugel and latkes of my youth! Sadly, potato...

Click here to help the Brockway family adopt Buddha! Every donation makes a difference. Every dollar will move them closer to their goal. * * * * A US veteran commits suicide once every 80 minutes. In the US, for every soldier killed on the battlefield this year, about 25 veterans will die by their own hands . Nicholas Kristof writes: An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year - more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began. Military suicides are on the rise in Canada , too. The Harper Government, so keen to send Canadians to war, is less enthusiastic about caring for them once they're home. The Department of National Defence is cutting jobs of professionals involved in suicide prevention and monitoring PTSD . After exposure to war, PTSD is all but inevitable. Indeed, it ...

On the 100th day of student protests, 250,000 people take to the streets! Supporters bang on pots and pans from their windows! Solidarity rallies in New York and Paris! Montreal, we are with you!

From Coop média de Montréal: 1. The issue is debt, not tuition. 2. Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent. 3. The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aim. 4. This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon. 5. Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and fascist tactics to be used against the students. 6. Excessive state violence has been used against the students. 7. The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students. 8. Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students. 9. The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students. 10. The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power. Extended thoughts on each of these points can be found here .

I haven't blogged much about the enormous, sustained and absolutely brilliant student strikes and demonstrations in Quebec. I've just been watching them from afar with admiration and deep respect. Now that the Quebec government has adopted the draconian Bill 78, the stakes are raised even higher. The students and unions of Quebec are doing the heavy lifting for all of us, fighting not only for the right to affordable education, but for basic rights of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. From Jessica Squires at Socialist Worker: Upon adoption of Bill 78 on Friday, May 18, 2012, Quebec is now, in terms of democratic rights, in its worst situation since the War Measures Act of 1970. The Charest government is seeking to ban student strikes altogether—a tactic used by the Quebec student movement on a regular basis, and tacitly accepted, by administrators and government, since 1968. The law is a direct attack on student unions, their right to organize, collect fees, and demon...

Five years have passed since Stockwell Day, then Minister of Public Safety, announced that the Harper Government would not intervene to help save the life of Ronald Allen Smith. Smith is a Canadian citizen on death row in the US state of Montana. The Harper Government later backpedaled, saying it would intervene - but did not. Earlier this month, a representative from the Canadian Consulate General in Denver was supposed to appear at Smith's clemency hearing. She did not. Instead, the Harper Government submitted a statement that was so bland and unemphatic that they might as well have said, "We don't care. Do what you want." Current news reports claim that the Harper Government recommended clemency for Smith, but that is not really true. They technically supported clemency because a the Federal Court of Canada forced them to. But they did not go to bat to save Smith's life. Now the Montana Parole Board has recommended that Smith be denied clemency  and executed...

Jean Craighead George, author of some classics of children's literature, died a few days ago. In one of those eerie coincidences that seem to happen so often, I was just talking about George. At the library, I noticed that one of my favourite childhood books, My Side of the Mountain , was written by author of Julie of the Wolves , a book I loved when I was slightly older. I wondered if I knew that as a child, or if my love of My Side of the Mountain pre-dated my interest in authors. (That seems unlikely, as I worshipped Laura Ingalls Wilder, and knew the names E. B. White and John Steinbeck as a very young reader.) George wrote more than 100 books, and I'm sure I read several of them. But My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves remain in my heart to this day. Thank you, Jean! I'm glad you lived a full life. This excerpt from the New York Times obituary captures some of what made George's writing so meaningful. “My Side of the Mountain” tells the story of Sam...

Combing through some old files, I found this lovely bit: a comment from "GarySTJ", a former troll who was obsessed with me for a time. I used to delete his comments, then paste them into posts so wmtc readers could have fun kicking him around. After being banned from wmtc, he started appearing at other blogs where I commented, hijacking the thread with insults directed at me. One blogger noted (a paraphrase), "I don't know L-girl or GarySTJ, but L-girl has an internet presence, has written a blog for several years, and is commenting on this post. GarySTJ has an anonymous profile, has never commented here before, and is posting personal attacks on another commenter. End of discussion." After that, GarySTJ must have gone into rehab, and we never heard from him again. This old email really brought me back. From: GarySTJ [noreply-comment@blogger.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:45 PM To: movetocanada@gmail.com Subject: [we move to canada] 7/19/2006 12:45:10 PM...

The 2011 federal election results for Etobicoke Centre have been thrown out . Yes! We're still waiting to hear the details. and Unions and students are standing united against Charest's attempts to punish them and shut them down. Quebec students are fighting for all of us. If only the students of Ontario learn from them and rise up in similar fashion.

On Saturday, May 26, Brigette DePape, the former parliamentary page who disrupted the 2011 Throne Speech, will speak on a panel discussing how we can make her two-word protest a reality. The panel also includes: • Tasha Peters, an Ottawa-based organizer, activist, and member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. With others in her community, she facilitates popular education on direct action and anti-oppression. • Ben Powless, a Mohawk citizen from Six Nations in Ontario who works with the Indigenous Environmental Network and Defenders of the Land, and is a founder of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. • Hadayt Nazami, a human rights and immigration lawyer who has defended George Galloway, the Canadian Arab Federation, and Ahmad El Matti and Muayyed Nureddin, two Canadian citizens deported to torture. • Michelle Robidoux, founding member of the War Resisters Support Campaign, a long-time pro-choice activist and organizer in Toronto. WHEN: Saturday, May 26, 7:00 p.m. WHERE: Ryerso...

Avaaz has a new petition out, which they're calling "a new plan to save the planet". I'm more than a tad skeptical about Avaaz petitions, but it only takes a click, it can't hurt, and it's worthwhile if only to see the vast numbers of people who agree. And who knows, I might be totally wrong on this. Perhaps these petitions are vital to the larger picture of creating change. It’s crazy, but right now, our governments give nearly $1 trillion a year of our taxpayer money to Big Oil and coal to destroy our planet. Key leaders, including President Obama who is hosting the G8, have already agreed to stop these polluter payments. Now, if we demand they act on their word and divert this huge sum into renewable energy, experts say we could actually save our planet! . . . . The only reason we shovel cash into the coffers of Big Oil is their lobbyists have a stranglehold on our governments. But if we demand that our leaders green our tax-money, we’ll increase total glo...

All eyes will be on Chicago this weekend, as thousands of protesters from all over North American converge on the the NATO summit. The symbolism could not be more trenchant, as Chicago was the scene of protests and rebellion against an earlier US war, and famously out-of-control police violence. Iraq Veterans Against the War , Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War , and other veterans' and peace groups will march under the banner of Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda , co-sponsored by a long list of peace and social justice organizations, including ADAPT , a radical disability-rights organization (people I love), Michael Moore, the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), Military Families Speak Out , and Occupy Chicago , among others. At the end of the march, veterans will ceremoniously return their NATO service medals to denounce the disastrous 11-year war in Afghanistan. In Toronto, US war resisters and their supporters will hold a solidarity de...

This letter was hand-delivered to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, from the Canadian Council of Churches . The Council is the largest ecumenical body in Canada, representing 23 churches, comprising 85% of the Christians in Canada. 15 May 2012 The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Citizenship and Immigration Canada Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1 Re: International Conscientious Objectors Day Dear Minister Kenney, Today is International Conscientious Objectors Day. On this occasion and on behalf of the Commission on Justice and Peace of the Canadian Council of Churches, I am writing to you to express our support for the American conscientious objectors to the war in Iraq (commonly called the “war resisters”) who have sought refuge in Canada. Several member churches of the Canadian Council of Churches have provided care and support for the war resisters since January 2004 when the first US war resisters came to Canada. More than eigh...

Last night in Toronto, supporters of US war resisters in Canada honoured International Day for Conscientious Objection with a group letter-writing session. This letter was written by Nicole Marie Burton, the partner of war resister Jules Tindungan. It affected me deeply, and I asked Nicole for permission to share it with you. Tuesday, May 15, 2012 To the Right Honourable Minister Jason Kenney, I join many others in writing you today, a day that is known as the International Day of Conscientious Objection. I write you as a Canadian citizen, a worker and taxpayer, and a voter. I write to you further as the partner of a U.S. Iraq War Resister--an Afghanistan veteran who, upon returning home was offered a simple choice amid difficult circumstances: "volunteer" to go to Iraq--go back to a combat zone within months of a 15-month tour of duty--or be stop-lossed* and sent on the second deployment anyway. As fortunate citizens of a relatively peaceful society, many of us go through o...

Celebrate International Day for Conscientious Objection by calling on the government to rescind Operational Bulletin 202 Today, May 15, is the International Day for Conscientious Objection. Please join us in calling for the elimination of Immigration Minister Kenney's Operational Bulletin 202. OB202 directs immigration officers to refer the cases of all U.S. war resisters to their superior officers, and it has stopped the progress of war resisters' cases, even when the courts have ruled in their favour. *** Email Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and your own Member of Parliament. Click on this link to do this in one step! Your email will also be sent to the relevant Opposition leaders and critics. You may edit and personalize the letter if you wish. *** Download the OB202 petition - sign it - and fax it to Minister Kenney's office at 613.957.2688. Download the petition here. *** Tweet @kenneyjason: repeal #OB202 support #WarResisters on #COday #cdnpoli *** If you'r...

Conventional wisdom has it that healthy foods cost more than junk food, that buying and preparing nutritious food is more expensive than eating processed food. How many people bemoan the supposed fact that low-income people cannot afford to eat healthfully: "When carrots are less expensive than chips, then everyone will have access to a healthy diet." There's only one problem with that. It's wrong. Carrots are less expensive than chips. Brown rice and lentils is way cheaper than McDonald's. I'm not talking about the difference between organic and conventionally grown produce, just the difference between processed foods or fast-food and buying basic ingredients and cooking them yourself. It's almost always cheaper to shop, cook, and eat at home than it is to buy processed food. So why don't more people do it? In September of last year, Mark Bittman asked, "Is junk food really cheaper?" The “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has b...