tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278529462012-02-16T10:31:09.593-05:00A blog about books, ideas, Canada (or lack thereof) and more. We've got more RPMs than a Latin American history DVD.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.comBlogger1271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-40022570029235333332009-07-24T02:43:00.002-04:002009-07-24T02:46:25.548-04:00

I know I've been absent for a long time, yadda yadda yadda. This is just too cool not to share.A user-created Google map of the storm that ripped through Edmonton last weekend. With different icons for downed-trees, the CN Tower damage, and even flipped semis (!). I've had people mention that our neighbourhood was hit worse than others (and we did lose a tree). This map definitely shows a lot of

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-16890248339208786232009-02-28T04:56:00.003-05:002009-02-28T05:04:30.969-05:00

So, I'm back into the podcasting game, this time with an amazing co-host and a brand new show. It's called Money Undressed and you can find it here, where there'll be a link to the iTunes feed and info about how to tune in on Trent Radio here in Peterborough very soon.I'm really excited about this show. As someone who actively resisted learning about economics until recently (and is, admittedly,

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-90272137248974432682009-02-17T03:09:00.004-05:002009-02-17T03:44:10.798-05:00

Hi guys, thanks for continuing to stop by. I'm not back yet, but here's the official state of the union from Chris these days.So I live with these two amazing friends of mine, Kate and Thalia. Kate used to be my editor at Arthur, and we have a lot of conversations about journalism and about the state of the world etc. A couple weeks ago we went to go see Frost/Nixon. It was fantastic,

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-29002400770500602902008-12-01T22:27:00.003-05:002008-12-01T22:38:35.052-05:00

Hi guys,I know it's been an absurdly long time since I've last written a post. I wish I had more time to devote to this thing - I have so much I want to say about the impending ascendency of a coalition government in Canada, about how incredible Obama's election was and what his presidency might hold in store down south, about the amazing books I read this year (oh, how I want to tell you about

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-50568821009039025322008-09-11T16:44:00.006-04:002008-09-11T16:50:35.239-04:00

Cowing to immense pressure from this blog, of course, Harper and Layton have relented and decided they would probably be sort of okay with going to the debate if Elizabeth May is there too as long as, you know, everybody knows they're not happy about it.Victory! Further bulletins as warrant. Sample future bulletin: Casserole tonight! Saucy!

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-39671350052617733042008-09-10T14:57:00.004-04:002008-09-10T15:33:16.777-04:00

What a strange thing to be envious of Americans for the drama and excitement of the presidential race down there this fall. Whether people will be voting on the basis of ideas, aspirations and values or just on pure personality politics is up for debate, but at least there's something feisty going on in the US. Up here there's such a dearth of inspiring, visionary candidates for the election on

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-64492832078998734332008-08-20T01:02:00.003-04:002008-08-20T03:22:59.488-04:00

Reason enough to watch the games? Tip of the hat to thesecretfee.So, after having gone through all the trouble to reason out whether to watch the opening ceremonies for this year's Olympics or not, I slept through them, and woke up just in time to see the end of the athletes' march. And then I missed the repeats. Twice. It just wasn't meant to be.I blame it on the time difference... I'm back in

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-85035538580468989132008-08-09T01:13:00.004-04:002008-08-09T01:22:58.314-04:00

So my favourite thing in the news this week?John McCain, trying his damndest to make Obama look unready for leadership, has put out an ad comparing the latter's fame to Paris Hilton's inexplicable celebrity status of her own. You'd expect the best response to come from the really rather eloquent, thoughtful Mr Obama. But you'd be wrong.Perhaps the best thing Paris Hilton has ever done in her

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-86355365190309989892008-08-07T14:11:00.007-04:002008-08-07T14:30:28.281-04:00

A different Emerson altogether, but the similarity in nose profile is striking, isn't it?Does anyone else find it grossly embarassing a) that our new Foreign-Affairs-Minister-by-default-because-no-one-else-elected-was-available-and-another-cabinet-appointment-might-make-for-bad-optics David Emerson is tripping all over himself this week to make sure Beijing is absolutely clear that Harper means

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-17101337827241995332008-07-28T12:24:00.003-04:002008-07-28T12:32:13.507-04:00

The search continues for a tidy housing situation for September. Serendipitously, I have found the mother lode of all collections of passive-aggressive notes from roommates, co-workers, and other human beings sharing a common space who use the glorious art of the written word to express what they are too damn angry to say in person.You may enjoy this gem from our friends at

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-21885336717220345002008-07-26T23:39:00.009-04:002008-07-27T04:49:23.762-04:00

Human rights at the 08 Games... not so much.Yeesh. Apologies for the delay. The hurricane of classes and exams has abated. Without further ado: "Beijing Arrests Fat Chinese Children Ahead of Olympics"BEIJING - As part of its urban beautification program ahead of the upcoming Olympic Games, the Chinese government has rounded up all the fat children in the city and deported them to a detention

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-41600642519649942742008-07-16T00:48:00.006-04:002008-07-16T00:52:53.995-04:00

Zig when you zagTomorrow: Since so many people have asked and I want to explain my take on the whole thing, my rundown on the Beijing Olympics. You're all on pins and needles with anticipation. I know.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-85388640387774046272008-07-11T23:41:00.006-04:002008-07-15T22:08:15.105-04:00

I'm a proud big brother today.My dear friend Aurélie, whom I think I may rightly consider a sister at heart, is from Québec - Québec, the city with the Plains of Abraham and the world's best poutine (Chez Ashton, anybody?), that is. If I recall, my entire experience of the Plains of Abraham, the place where one of the most important battles in Canadian history happened, was watching a few kids

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-19108281922855223142008-07-10T23:05:00.007-04:002008-07-11T00:11:09.559-04:00

'Stringent mitigation will cost the world no more than 3 percent of global GDP in 2030.' - Nobel Prize-winning environmentalist R K Pachauri (link to BBC interview)I just received my semi-annual newsletter from CO2RE, Edmonton's lacklustre (but well-intentioned) attempt to push ways to reduce individual carbon dioxide emissions. They're offering a furnace retrofit rebate of 500 bucks, and up to

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-67382630395123158762008-07-04T01:51:00.003-04:002008-07-04T01:56:18.065-04:00

Have you ever heard of Sankofa? It's a concept that stretches across many cultures in west Africa, about the idea of going back to get what you have lost. It's usually symbolised by a bird turning back to its own tail, sometimes with an egg in its mouth.Sometimes a thought can be better expressed in poetry than in prose. Tell me what you think of this poem about Sankofa by my fellow blogger Fenix

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-86063209830000072482008-06-23T23:02:00.003-04:002008-06-24T00:38:25.611-04:00

All right, I'm about to get all NPR on you. On Friday I was riding my bike home from work, and I almost literally ran into strawberry season. I was riding by the Peterborough Artspace, and I saw this sort of epic sculpture made out of plump, poised red berries, and I noticed a sign out front that implied, 'Come in - something is new and there might be a handful of fruit in it for you.' I

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-7750743855168140122008-06-17T20:22:00.003-04:002008-06-17T20:24:53.057-04:00

I'm happy.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-70307884487583651232008-05-30T16:29:00.004-04:002008-05-30T16:34:15.871-04:00

Admit it. You've been wondering what this sub-prime mortgage crisis thing is really all about. I have too - in fact, I've been looking for a new place myself, and was kind of wondering... how does this affect me? Fortunately, Ira Glass and the rest of the crew at This American Life have summed it up in less than an hour: it's all about a giant pool of money.You can listen to the program here.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1516367541455864312008-05-26T21:53:00.002-04:002008-05-26T21:56:23.908-04:00

I was biking to school today and caught a mouthful of insect. There's pollen everywhere. I haven't breathed normally in a month. Oh my god, spring is so erotic.B Tristan Denyer

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-79125514275587784152008-05-25T22:21:00.008-04:002008-05-25T23:42:13.921-04:00

Fractal origamiYou know when you get a word that just sort of sticks in your head and you can't figure out where it came from or what it means? I had this the other day with the word 'tesseract.' I could not figure out why it had wormed its way into my brain or what it meant, but my friend Adam and I speculated that it probably had something to do with tessellation, the kind of repeating of part

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-86340272794191484102008-05-23T23:58:00.005-04:002008-05-24T01:15:43.103-04:00

Stuart Mclean, that wonderful wordsmith who hosts the Vinyl Café on CBC, had a story once about, as he so eloquently put it, 'the people you meet when you're small and without much gravity of your own.' People who, by the force of their personality or their actions, change who you want to be and your understanding of yourself. George Takei, mysteriously, was one of those people for me.I'd imagine

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-70291468808525088352008-05-16T01:00:00.004-04:002008-05-16T01:17:47.627-04:00

Relief efforts in Sichuan after this week's earthquakeTo all of you who wrote in asking how everyone back in Sichuan is, thank you for your kind words. I've gotten a hold of or heard news from most of the people I know back there, and so far everyone is okay. Chengdu, the city I was living in, escaped relatively unscathed from the earthquake. It looks like the government is working extremely

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-47001634728945085762008-05-16T00:39:00.002-04:002008-05-16T00:58:31.589-04:00

Just taking a look at how the episodes of the podcast are being downloaded, I noticed most people are just downloading the mp3 directly from the blog here. This might be because I haven't dropped a link yet to the iTunes subcription.So, if you were looking for it, that link is here.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-4641325739449387112008-05-12T18:03:00.006-04:002008-05-12T19:02:59.068-04:00

I was pulling a granola bar out of my backpack or something equally meaningless this morning in class when I heard somebody say the word 'Chengdu.' And then the word '7.8.' And, having long since claimed ownership of all issues Sichuanese for myself, I asked what they were talking about. If you haven't heard about the earthquake yet, that's how I heard the news. The price I pay for sleeping

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1919720229382561482008-05-12T04:04:00.004-04:002008-05-12T04:38:07.770-04:00

Where on earth has he been, the masses cry. Calm down, my adoring fans. Your letters have filled my new mailbox (I moved across the street last week) to bursting, and I simply haven't the time to write back individually. I've been working on episode 2 of the podcast, you see. It's quite a cracker. This episode features a riveting discussion about Paulo Freire and mixed martial arts. What's that

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-90112686089412668292008-04-27T18:04:00.005-04:002008-04-27T18:30:50.867-04:00

Mohawk protesters staging blockade north of Deseronto, Ontario on April 20th.Here's a thing: I've noticed, and maybe you've noticed too, that almost every time Tibet is talked about in the Western media, the word "peaceful" is thrown in there. A peaceful people. A peaceful kingdom. (In Chinese news, well, you'd hear about the "peaceful liberation" of the Beijing government's invasion in the 1950'

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-27008048388276827012008-04-21T13:15:00.004-04:002008-04-21T13:40:20.076-04:00

So, apropos of nothing, a story.This weekend, I went to a big Bengali New Year to-do in Toronto. Big event, lots of samosas, harmoniums everywhere, kids running around waiting to get back to their ipods in the car. And I'd really been looking forward to it. I went to the concert two years ago, and last summer my friend Muniq, whose parents perform in it every year, brought me back a panjabi she'd

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-90096039282180663672008-04-20T12:44:00.006-04:002008-04-20T14:01:35.464-04:00

The lytic phase, the lytic phase!I took a bio class in university for the first time this semester. I like biology.1. I get to play with expensive chemicals2. I get to figure out how things work, but I'm not always right and often there are many things which remain a mystery3. I am passing the course by a wide margin, giving me a smug sense of self-satisfaction thinking of the registrar's office

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-6480471547968643332008-04-18T13:24:00.002-04:002008-04-18T13:39:23.823-04:00

Bell admitted this week to "data shaping" not only of data sent over its own networks, but also the data going over the networks that buy bandwidth from them to sell to their own customers. What does that mean for you? It means the battle is escalating on the Canadian front between supporters of net neutrality and internet service providers who want to be able to (and have already started to)

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-13793980626423946642008-04-12T01:05:00.004-04:002008-04-12T01:39:18.405-04:00

I guess all of us who tune into CBC have something to gripe about these days. For some it's that the delicate (but definitely gelling) Muslim Canadiana lite humour of Little Mosque on the Prairie is getting picked up again. For me, it's the untimely demise of the uncomfortably funny jPod, which really did meet a premature end. If you haven't watched it, the episodes are free to watch in Canada

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-45642027556019951672008-04-06T01:38:00.003-04:002008-04-06T01:57:49.999-04:00

Some of you know one of my favourite books is Cradle to Cradle. Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart, the authors, have a brilliant way of explaining what I see as the design approach to the way of seeing the world that Daniel Quinn presents in the Ishmael books. That is to say, it's all about asking if our decisions are contributing the to health of the (societal & biological) community we

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-23092131554083059372008-04-03T22:07:00.003-04:002008-04-03T22:25:53.052-04:00

Back in Edmonton, this year's Day of Silence* went by yesterday, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the Delwin Vriend case. The Supreme Court's ruling in his case came 7 years after he'd been fired from his position as a chemistry teacher at King's College for being gay.It forced the Alberta provincial government to amend our human rights legislation to protect citizens from workplace

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-26030293259667872082008-03-29T04:54:00.016-04:002008-04-05T20:46:47.577-04:00

Alright guys, here it is. The first episode of The Point's podcast, The Subject Tonight, at this lovely url for your listening pleasure.This episode is essentially a conversation between myself and my friend and housemate Meaghan about a book very near and dear to my heart, One Hundred Years of Solitude. She had a lot of interesting things to say about it, and I hope you enjoy listening to what

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-49098351806646902022008-03-19T00:57:00.004-04:002008-03-19T01:39:34.221-04:00

Although Maya Arulpragasam might take the cake for Sri Lanka's hottest star in North America these days, today marks the passing of a great man who lived in the capital city of Colombo for most of the latter half of his 90 years, a man who I respected immensely and whose ideas hum through all of my curiosity about science, about space, and about past and future both. Arthur C Clarke, the author

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-45059614231201520642008-03-05T21:55:00.015-05:002008-03-07T21:13:16.144-05:00

So. There's this thing going around. That I heard about over on Ugandan Insomniac. Apparently a bunch if people are doing an Africa Reading Challenge this year to read at least 6 books about or by authors from the continent. Since I've got about 4 on my list this year already, I figured what the hell? The suggestion, from siphoning off a few thoughts where it all began, is to read books a

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-27237980093609903492008-03-03T00:36:00.003-05:002008-03-03T00:45:40.295-05:00

Feedback on the podcast idea has been pretty positive, so I'm working on it this week and will have a first show up to download soon. Haha - up, to down... anyway. At least one reader has mentioned wanting to be able to listen to it without iTunes, so I'm trying to figure out how to upload it as an mp3 and playing around with mixing it and all. It's kind of fun, actually!Also, for those of yous

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-80641908232845034732008-03-01T00:41:00.004-05:002008-03-01T15:18:16.651-05:00

Two Acholi children in Gulu, northern Uganda (Samantha Casolari) We watched a movie about international coffee trade in my human geography class yesterday. It was filmed in about 1989, and besides the distracting continual visual references to stock traders in the World Trade Center, the only thing really notable about the movie was its feeling of gloom. Like so many documentaries of this stripe

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-30736726564660763962008-02-28T09:46:00.003-05:002008-03-01T16:40:39.988-05:00

Oh my god. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Dear internet: today I finally understand why you were invented.I don't know if you guys read Ain't It Cool News at all, but they're a pretty great site for news on upcoming movies and for the past few weeks they've run a few stories about the very exciting adaptation coming up of... wait for it:Where the Wild Things Are.This was my favourite kids book.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-4184534697177169322008-02-23T00:33:00.007-05:002008-03-01T16:19:45.805-05:00

What on earth has been happening in Alberta since I left?A mediocre showing of candidates in Edmonton-Strathcona I am disappointed, but not surprised, about. It's nice to know Raj has a feisty successor in NDP candidate Rachel Notley, who actually seems to have thought carefully about what she would do in the legislature beyond thumbing through her party's platform. But the Liberal and

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-83695702803802508852008-02-22T16:10:00.007-05:002008-02-22T17:32:10.516-05:00

I'M A BIG FAN OF THE WORD 'BRACKISH.' SOMETHING about it rings with this lovely connotation of water that's a little too messy, a little too churned-up to be really one thing or the other. Alexander Wilson's 1991 tome The Culture of Nature is a book that has done much to muddy my own understandings of the borders between the "natural" world and the human one.I had the good fortune of spending my

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-33615018591944328592008-02-14T16:16:00.010-05:002008-02-14T16:42:44.070-05:00

'You probably don't even know my middle name.'I've been thinking about starting a podcast. What do you guys think?It would probably be about a half hour or so thing every week (certainly an improvement over the rather sparse smattering of postings I've been making lately on the blog). There would probably be a bit of me talking about something I've been reading lately and perhaps a conversation

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-77300807219932218522008-02-06T13:43:00.001-05:002008-02-06T14:05:26.824-05:00

In the interest of keeping in mind that no story can ever be told as if it were the only one, here's a very different take on September 11th by Suheir Hammad, sent to me by my good friend Maria. It's decent to hear from someone who felt very differently about all those bodies that fell with all that steel and glass, dig.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-8816351373628162452008-02-06T09:52:00.000-05:002008-02-06T13:49:48.954-05:00

Sorry to have been incommunicado for a while. I've just started school out at Trent U in a little city halfway between Toronto and Kingston called Peterborough. If you've never heard of it, or have only heard someone's parents talking about how they met at a party there, it's okay.Although I shred leaflets from Jack Layton with equal relish as those from Dion or my own Conservative MP, Rahim

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-72322704115925345102007-12-26T14:14:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:49:15.949-05:00

"Not all possibilities are open to us. The world is finite - our hopes spill over its brim." Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-28205160895980054342007-12-22T23:30:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:07:42.933-05:00

A free idea today, to whoever'll take it and run with it (or maybe you've already gotten started on it). Every year up here in the sort of (but not permanently) frozen north, we complain until our faces turn blue about potholes. It's an absurd way to talk about city budget priorities, but it's true; frost heaves pull apart the road every single year, and every single year we spend an awful lot of

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-31023532663585087882007-12-21T04:57:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:11:04.165-05:00

Groooooss. Algae picture courtesy of the Lake Doctors Inc, apparently.It seems like an appropriate moment to bring you the first edition of the B.S. Files on this blog. As an Albertan who was reluctantly-so for many years and has lived in a few different parts of our home on Native land (did I say that?), I try to have a generous heart when thinking about the things my fellow Canadians say and do

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-38643395251447011692007-12-14T01:27:00.000-05:002007-12-14T02:40:19.951-05:00

I'm going to talk about two very different books today, which I read in short succession and which left me standing in very different places afterward.I don't know how I feel about Haruki Murakami. On the one hand, I love his style (or, I guess, how I've received his style as effortlessly translated mostly by Jay Rubin). He's sort of incessantly readable - frustratingly so. Because I can read a

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-10527140777932657942007-11-28T04:50:00.000-05:002007-11-28T05:14:10.775-05:00

This week, for our first time ever, Edmonton hosts the most awesome thing: the Exposure Queer Arts Festival.It was awesome.It is awesome.It continues to be awesome til Saturday. Check it out!

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-22275128819990272402007-10-26T04:05:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:44:09.362-05:00

Hee hee. I saw a magician last week.If you`ve never had a chance to sit and be enchanted by Final Fantasy, I`d say it`s time you begun. Owen Pallett`s Polaris Prize-winning one-man act can only be described as pure and simple wizardry. The man is capable of spinning the most elaborate, heartbreaking, absurd, funny music out of thin air, right before your very eyes. He stands there with a violin,

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-89681645035382113212007-10-07T06:28:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:19:45.834-05:00

So I'm pretty excited. As you probably know, I'm a bit of an informed cynic about politics in general; enough faith in the systems to know what will be useful when we abandon them for something a lot better, but probably a political junkie the way other people like to watch famous people going to jail. Or train wrecks. Or something. Someone once told me Americans are benevolently uninformed about

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-25795023901724855412007-10-03T03:48:00.002-04:002008-05-30T16:37:21.345-04:00

For those of you still dropping by on this little blog about books and freedoms looking for more information about Ross Moroz's death last week, hello. I would add that I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but perhaps no other circumstances would have brought us together.The funeral was apt. His sister spoke very eloquently about what kind of man he was, and wanted us to be. A few

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-73581759819583044492007-10-01T00:51:00.001-04:002008-05-30T16:35:55.462-04:00

For those of you who ever met Ross Moroz, it is with difficulty and a good deal of sadness that I would like to let those of you who haven't heard know that he died suddenly and inconceivably last Wednesday. If you haven't heard about him before, you've probably read me writing obliquely about him in this blog before. For the year or so I've been doing freelance work for Vue, he's been my editor,

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-35524806943206822562007-09-11T04:53:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:43:00.554-05:00

Last year, I wrote about Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize-winning social activist and her self-titled memoirs. This month, she faced a spectacular defeat in her foray into the Guatemalan presidential polls. There's some hubbub that her sixth-place standing, at somewhere between 2 and 3% of the vote, reflects her inability to sway male voters and those among other indigenous

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-22642171470371026202007-09-05T02:01:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:12:39.787-05:00

I have something of a conundrum, dear reader. I started this blog as a way to introduce books I liked to some of my friends who didn't read the news very much. Since I started writing it last May, it's changed quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to this particular rule of the universe. But the amount I was reading last year has dropped off quite a bit since then, and I've been

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-41399834868932131152007-08-28T11:43:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:11:04.167-05:00

A view crossing the Yangtze River in Sichuan Province, ChinaThe New York Times published a brilliant series of written, audio and video pieces this weekend on the costs of the outrageous pace of China's economic growth. It is poignant to see in bold headlines in an American paper the kinds of problems that surround you every day in China but are still minor heresies to complain loudly about.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-55491984518873865572007-08-25T19:09:00.000-04:002007-08-25T19:37:27.791-04:00

In case you haven't heard, this Tuesday marked the retirement of one of the best blogs around: The Prairie Wrangler. Olaf, its genuinely witty writer, is retiring from the wide wide world of blogging to pursue the nebulous world of "development in Africa." If you've never had a chance to read The Prairie Wrangler, start wandering through the archives now. Olaf has an amazing talent for taking

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-43317619204924990962007-08-22T13:48:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:41:17.699-05:00

Check out this article from ultra-cool Tokyo design mag PingMag on their top-10 ad tricks on the Tokyo subway. My favourite? The escalator handrail with scannable codes for your cellphone to tell you all about the shop, restaurant or "place of interest" they describe.An ad for a loan company disguised as a handrail disguised as a tie (Photo by Maris Mezulis)

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-57720951826953739992007-08-20T18:48:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:44:09.365-05:00

.One thing you can do right now - ten seconds - to stand in solidarity with someone who needs it:Pegah Emambakhsh (thankful for taking that basic Persian class when I try to pronounce that name), an Iranian national, came to the UK in 2005 requesting political asylum on the basis of persecution back home for what the Islamic Republic of Iran sees as the crime of her homosexuality. She risks

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-67379506505892022432007-08-20T14:15:00.000-04:002007-08-20T14:19:05.356-04:00

Definitely at cross-purpose to (half-hearted) efforts to eat locally...If anyone has a recipe for this Hakka dish with papaya and red beans stashed away in a cupboard or jewelry box somewhere, could you let me know? Much appreciated.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-21235405537175970412007-08-15T16:45:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:15:49.031-05:00

You should probably know that one of my greatest pleasures in life is listening to Mando-pop superstar Wang Leehom (AKA Leehom, AKA 王力宏, etc etc). In fact, as you're reading this, it would not be unreasonable to imagine me writing this post and shimmying in small movements back and forth to the infectious wonder that is Xin Zhong De Ri Yue, his second-last album. Yes, that was me you recognised

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-42666367361185067562007-08-10T01:02:00.001-04:002007-08-10T02:30:36.741-04:00

I'd like to offer a long-overdue unexplaination for my extended absence: I have spent the semester studying away and over in China. In case that wasn't clear from the picture on the last post of the great big PLA tank being greeted by throngs of Hong Kongers at the 1997 handover to the People's Republic. When we left off, I wasn't sure it'd be a good idea to keep up a blog writing about the

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-57683990945629272702007-08-03T10:22:00.001-04:002007-08-03T10:34:07.216-04:00

I'm back! Like a proud legion of patriots rightfully retaking the motherland, I've re-invaded The Point and am looking straight into the glaring red dawn of a new era. I wanted to compel you to click the little RSS button on the left to keep up on... the loop..., but it's disappeared for the moment and I'm crap with HTML, so do come back over the next few days, when I may or may not be posting on

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-48337095858412914642007-02-28T04:01:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:12:39.789-05:00

I had all these plans to write about how Penelope Cruz Explains Everything, complete with pictures and lively literary discussion... even some stuff about lightbulbs. Sadly, I'm gone.See you soon.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-66157966009353532322007-02-21T13:19:00.000-05:002007-02-21T14:07:29.833-05:00

Canadianvic in Halifax, Nova Scotia writesI love you. and I love your blog, it's amazing. it's what I show people when I try to explain that a fame-like high school actually can be deep. How long are you leaving for and will you send me a postcard? P133 forever!!!I generally take the fact that I don't get any hate mail to be a positive sign, but this is kind of overly perky. Where's the critical

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-40723416880879175112007-02-20T03:33:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:40:39.991-05:00

I want so badly to write eloquently about Carol Off's most recent book, Bitter Chocolate, but I just don't feel right doing it. Co-host of As It Happens on CBC Radio 1, she's one of the finest journalists in Canada today, and Bitter Chocolate is a surprisingly engrossing history of cocoa and the particular forms that exploitation in the cocoa trade have taken through the centuries. I haven't

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-2326827038664883002007-02-15T19:29:00.000-05:002007-02-15T21:31:03.173-05:00

Friends, thank you.It has been a pleasure having this long conversation with you, and next week I will be taking a long leave of absence. I have some more things up my sleeve before I go, but without further ado, the winner of the Where You Live photo contest. The challenge was to come up with the best photograph of why the place you live is great. And what amazing places they are. The winning

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-64880914324259667502007-02-15T01:52:00.000-05:002007-02-15T03:11:43.285-05:00

I CAME TO A REALISATION/NON-REALISATION THE OTHER DAY about the music I listen to. For some reason, I am powerfully attracted to artists who are fascinated by the stories of where they come from. Lhasa, Tagaq, Amal Murkus... these women sing in languages I don't even know how to conjugate verbs in, but I can't stop listening.I thought about that this evening at dinner with my grandma. Yes, I took

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-30330804830860546592007-02-11T20:45:00.000-05:002007-02-15T20:57:53.987-05:00

Five hours left and no pictures in yet. You're going to make me invent another imaginary friend, aren't you? His name is Jaime, he reallllly likes books, and he's an excellent photographer...Beat Jaime! Send in a picture of why you love the place you live, and win a copy of any one of the books I've reviewed/picked apart on this blog. Winning is easy!UPDATE: Alright, since I have a strict policy

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-87132119004644367022007-02-09T02:59:00.001-05:002007-02-09T02:59:41.124-05:00

When we finally burst forward... maybe we'll sing it out like Kinnie.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-70474521615301897802007-02-08T02:10:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:18:00.341-05:00

Some notes from Avi Lewis speaking at Grant Mac:We are living in Milton Friedman's world.The field of international development is in crisis, or if it doesn't think it is, it should.The official line in China is that 'the explosive growth has left so many people behind that the stability of the country is at stake if it's not addressed.' (And if you don't believe this one, just imagine the entire

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-48473292545757503022007-02-07T09:57:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:38:51.203-05:00

UPDATE (13 February 2007) If you are not from Alberta, please read these articles from the Calgary Sun and the Edmonton Journal. I have been told this post may have been a little too dark for the average reader.Interim RCMP Commissioner Bev Busson defended a BC officer charged with torture at a press conference this morning.Busson said the allegations against Const. Saxon Peters are serious, but

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-73422717497676067392007-02-06T00:45:00.000-05:002007-02-06T01:28:34.129-05:00

Call me a nerd (no really, do it, it feels good), but I am a sucker for self-confident, sexy singers who know exactly who they are and where they come from. Which is why I'm wondering, how did I not know until Friday how amazing Kinnie Starr was? (That would be her at right)I went down to see the International Week wrap-up concert, The Power of Silence they called it, and it was really incredible

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-13444107899646412912007-01-30T03:03:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:11:04.172-05:00

Our present lunacies compound themselves.Even as the World Glacier monitoring service reports that the speed of global glacier melt is accelerating, even as Canada's major political parties seemed to finally have woken up to the clear and present dangers of anthropogenic climate change, they have fallen smack into the same crass political gesturing as always.Olaf at The Prairie Blogger never

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-87196641223741875902007-01-29T00:51:00.000-05:002007-02-12T01:52:59.331-05:00

I am officially announcing the first-ever photo contest here on The Point. In less than a month I will be taking a hiatus for a while, so this is my little way of saying thank you for reading.The rules are: send in a picture that shows why the place you live is great. I will be selecting on the basis of charm, bravado, hilarity, and/or (for good measure) poignancy. This does not mean you have to

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-40246486476509583732007-01-28T02:13:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:04:58.969-05:00

While doing some soul-searching about this business of journalism tonight, I came across two interesting things - interesting not so much in themselves, though they're both worth considering, but in their confluence. First, some background.The BBC has been heavily covering the World Economic Forum in Davos and all of the gilted handshakes going around there since it started earlier this month.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-16675671383097040672007-01-26T02:14:00.001-05:002007-01-26T15:06:35.183-05:00

Someone on YouTube has written that Patrick Wolf is a 'unique guy who wears both a belt and suspenders,' and another has described him as 'a ginger bloke sitting at a piano.' He also plays the theramin and the harpsicord. I like to think of him (along with Owen Pallett) as one of the leaders of a brilliant new genre: Wastrel. And so for you I present the video for his newest single, 'Bluebells,'

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-56033935308548115202007-01-25T15:16:00.001-05:002007-01-26T02:16:56.388-05:00

Festival Internacional de Poesía de MedellínHere is a really cool example of how poetry can be an integral, positive part of a local culture: The International Poetry Festival of Medellín started as a protest against the political violence and hatred prevailing in Colombia and especially in Medellín. In the early 1990s, Medellín was ruled by fear, political terror and fighting between criminal

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-89295231689778856332007-01-25T00:46:00.000-05:002007-01-26T02:24:30.617-05:00

'The fact is that poetry is not the books in a library... Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book. ' -Jorge Luis BorgesWhen was the last time you read a bunch of Lord Byron sonnets for fun? Tell me honestly. When was the last time you actually sat down with Shakespeare outside of a classroom or a Hallmark store?There is something wrong (okay, a number of

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-30104539767593833462007-01-21T22:20:00.000-05:002007-01-21T22:43:42.021-05:00

On the topic of sexy poetry, a sample of cantos of the non-sensical by educated educator emerson, a fantastic series of poems she's written as multiple riffs on a salacious idea:And control will be lost entirelyHands will caressAnd lips will greet each other ravenouslyA personal exploration of our personal paradoxes laid asideIn a silence we’ve been looking forward to for a long timeA secret we’

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-11317826948936843232007-01-21T01:41:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:10:38.736-05:00

Quand je suis dans tes bras...Romanticism is a form of cowardice. I realised this this week when I caught the first hour of the delicious, slightly dangerous, erotic but still ever-so-slightly-self-absorbed Blood Ink night down at Teddy's on Jasper. If you haven't read anything from this unnerving and fascinating poetry collective, I highly recommend it. Last Monday they had a jam-packed evening

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-32916068600685586592007-01-11T02:37:00.000-05:002007-01-11T10:37:45.901-05:00

.I'm off to Toronto for the weekend. Will we galavant?

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-30263910915530012942007-01-10T01:36:00.000-05:002007-01-10T02:26:09.669-05:00

I just picked up the stellar (but almost star-like in weight) WorldChanging book, a print offshoot of the brilliant Worldchanging.org website and pretty much a compendium of some of the ideas that excite me most about the world we are wandering into these days. I hadn't planned on picking it up, actually, but Audrey's tempted me with their cursed 30% Off 30 Books propaganda and I couldn't

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-27892364577189485622007-01-07T02:20:00.000-05:002008-03-01T15:58:17.853-05:00

Imminent handshake courtey of AFPBan Ki-moon moved into his new office this week. Chosun Ilbo reports that he unexpectedly had lunch in the staff cafeteria on his first day. This is meant to imply that he is a man of the people. Still no word on Stephen Lewis' replacement as Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, but luckily kind-hearted Novartis is doing its best to remind us what our real

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-30771341351767748812007-01-03T03:10:00.001-05:002007-01-03T03:12:52.658-05:00

I hate using Google Video because it seems way too complicated, not as fun, it pauses more often for no reason, and I don't understand why it still exists since they now own YouTube anyway. But I am exploiting their generously offered service to post for your enjoyment a clip of the most brilliant finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-zeitgeist guy I've found on the internet: Seth Godin. Read his blog,

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-84517981542763346972006-12-29T14:05:00.000-05:002007-01-01T20:11:27.669-05:00

Björk in snow (bjork.com/Erez Sabag)Three things to watch in 2007:Björk's new album - I am waiting with great anticipation for her new record. Her last stand-alone album, Medúlla, successfully caught everyone listening by surprise, to say the least. I appreciate that she doesn't sing for the sake of reaching as many people as possible. Some people want to listen to her experimenting with making

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-11676346492262189602006-12-22T16:56:00.000-05:002006-12-24T14:57:58.800-05:00

I have a confession to make. It's time for me to officially come out... Harry, you're not staring longingly enough. ... as a huge Harry Potter nerd. My primary source for news in all things Potter is, of course, Mugglenet, and they have an excellent cheater's guide on how to mess around on the J K Rowling site to get at the best Christmas present ever: the title of Book 7. It's possible, but not

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-91876315401258556092006-12-19T23:32:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:05:41.289-05:00

JUNE AND CENTAVO, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, I APOLOGISE. It was just too timely to wait. You know how I love confluence and coincidence? Our embarrassingly perfect book club recently picked Walsh, the 1978 play about Sitting Bull and Superintendent Walsh by Sharon Pollock, as our yuletide reading. It's a precipitous tumble down a cliff side full of genocidal brambles, cruelty and pride in the l870s

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-31865442744269359252006-12-16T19:55:00.000-05:002007-12-21T06:19:48.267-05:00

I don't know whether you've heard of this magazine called Ode? My friend Dianne directed me toward it a while ago when we went to go see Carol Off speaking at the U of A. We were trying to figure out what we knew about the cocao trade in the Ivory Coast (Ms Off's topic of the evening) and child slavery and the conversation started getting darker and darker. With marine life in the oceans now on

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-12576906287923773172006-12-14T02:34:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:04:03.743-05:00

Photo credit: Sarah Lemmon In case you've been wondering about the Downtown East redevelopment project the city's been talking up this year, so was I. If you are interested, I would kindly direct you to this week's issue of Vue Weekly or, for my French Polynesian and Latvian readers, you can check out my article here.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-57739979699759744182006-12-10T19:28:00.000-05:002006-12-29T15:43:47.237-05:00

M.I.A., Sri Lankan-born UK hip hop artistLately I've been really into two things that have more in common than I thought. One of them apparently originates in Brazil, but it seems like an idea with a somewhat universal ring to it. The other has confirmed, for most of my friends, that I am indeed as crazy as I look, but hear me out. I have a hypothesis that hip hop and theatre of the oppressed are

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-26479131472628111372006-12-02T01:54:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:47:45.434-05:00

I try so hard not to fall for TV testimonials of how wonderful this or that organisation is, but I've been home a little under the weather these past few days and tonight I was glad of what we had with us on television.Since today (it's still December 1st, by a hair) was World Aids Day, TLC was running a special about Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek and a visit they were doing with YouthAIDS to

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-57485867406752799202006-11-30T00:35:00.000-05:002006-12-22T17:16:51.242-05:00

I considered wading into the trenches of the almost-heated debate over Québecois being granted nation status by the government, which seems like pure populism to me, but Colby Cosh did it much more coherently much faster.I say almost-heated because the consciousness of this debate here in Alberta seems to be about near that of... Acadian nationalism? It's hard to find a parallel that makes sense.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-36219583460770642006-11-26T10:40:00.000-05:002006-12-29T23:38:23.800-05:00

OUT OF THE HUNDREDS OF COMMENTS AND EMAILS WE'VE BEEN RECEIVING every day here at The Point, I have decided to select a special few to answer here. It's the first in our 'Mailbag' series, so keep those letters coming in to . Janet Gallant from Sherwood Park, Alberta writesHey Chris,What the hell does queremos paz mean anyway?Love your show, and bring back Alice Sebold! The Lovely Bones was the

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-15939272740407270112006-11-25T00:28:00.000-05:002006-11-26T21:04:12.401-05:00

I hesitate to use today's book to make a point, given my newness to the man it is centred on and my feeling that I can't use it to talk about everything I want to say, but it is a good starting point for a hard discussion I think we should have. Chester Brown's Louis Riel, a loose biography told in comic strips, should certainly spark a few levels of debate. At the moment, I am experiencing

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-32521172938990783252006-11-13T01:05:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:50:33.383-05:00

The face of microcredit today, quite rightly, seems to be Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and a man who certainly puts his money where his mouth is. It's pretty incredible that microcredit is getting attention in the mainstream media at all these days, and I think that is a testament to the strength of this idea and its ability to empower people living in poverty.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1162967890397433892006-11-08T01:28:00.000-05:002008-03-01T16:08:37.438-05:00

I wonder where I'm going to end up in the next ten years. I made a list the other night of all of the half-way things I've been or aspired to be in the past year or so. They have included: a poll clerk, a tutor, a youth educator actor sort of person, an amateur journo, a poet, a support worker, a dreamer of places and ideas, and a recluse. Among other things.One thing I have dreamed deeply about

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1162965823339953942006-11-08T01:03:00.000-05:002006-12-15T00:30:49.642-05:00

Now this is how you get people to use condoms. Cheers to Pronto, a brilliant new South African brand.

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1161469638425488802006-10-21T17:47:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:17:26.813-05:00

An earnest kid.If you live in Edmonton, you'll know that one of the iconic Edmontonian images is the Listen bird. I don't know how it started, I think it was an ad for Listen Records on 124th Street, but everywhere you go in the city people have tagged birds of all shapes and sizes, simply saying, 'Listen.' It's taken on a life of its own, and when I see them in the spring it makes me take pause

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1161393208583358852006-10-20T21:01:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:39:38.858-05:00

Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde celebrated its 35th anniversary yesterday. If you haven't heard of it before, it's a Canadian NGO that works with partner organisations overseas to set up international youth volunteer exchanges -- and if that doesn't make sense, an example would be the exchange I was sent on 2 years ago to BC and China for a total of 6 months to learn about... many

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27852946.post-1161232374266476842006-10-19T00:17:00.000-04:002008-03-01T16:17:26.935-05:00

Hey, remember when I was talking about the Gulu Walk, that really cool thing these guys in Toronto started that I went down and did last year without really knowing what it was? It's happening again. I've had someone wander by the site looking for information on it, so I talked to Lillian Du and Jamil Jivraj, the Edmonton organisers, and here's the rundown.We're meeting at 10.30 at McIntyre Park

Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07991481093496426980noreply@blogger.com0