It Feels Good To Be In Good Company

On June 26th -- my birthday -- comes a column by one of Canada's renaissance men: Robert Fulford. The subject of the column was none other than the Arts and Letters Daily -- a website dedicated to aggregating the best writing (journalistic and academic) out there.

Fulford, sorry, Mr. Fulford calls Arts and Letters Daily, "...both a daily reminder of the riches available in the publications of the world and a map to finding those riches."

AND, dig this, Mr. Fulford also says, "A&LD is so pleasant that it can become part of one's life in a few weeks. It can be addictive, even dangerously so. It's my home page..." You hear that folks, the Arts and Letters Daily website is Mr. Fulford's HOME PAGE.

I am proud to announce the narcissistic point of this post: The Arts and Letters Daily is also the first and only website that I have ever made into my home page! Me and Bobby are like this.

Seriously, A&LD is just that interesting and leads to so many different places and ideas, you just can't pass it up.

What am I Reading?

Just started Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis. What a great, solid bit of science fiction this is. I have, unfortunately, managed to finish reading it in all of three days. Loved, yes, LOVED this book. Wonderful and realistic characters, with lives as well thought out and actions as well motivated as any I've read recently.

I will definately be looking for more of Landis' books. And the kicker -- found this book at a used book store for $3.99! How cool is that?

So? What are you waiting for? Run. Run to your nearest used book store or library!

Our Tenth Anniversary!

To celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary Marsh and I went to the Indian Rice Factory. The last time we went to the Factory was ten years ago on our wedding night. I remember the place being a lot bigger than it is and a lot nicer....maybe I've just grown bigger and grown. Anyways, the food was wonderful and we finally discovered a spicy dish that not even Marsh could stomach...try the chicken vindaloo at your own peril....Marsh ended up ordering an extra dish of channa masala.

Later, we went to the Danforth to have dessert and slowly waddled our way home.

Thanks to my niece, Fatema Zahra, for allowing us to get away for a few hours.

Happy Birthday To Me...

Source: footy-boots.com

Get Ry Cooder to Sing My Eulogy! (1)

Zahir was conceived in southern Tanzania in the back of a peach truck as it went over a bump in the road. Nine months later, he was born in the small town of Songea to a Khoja Shia Ithnasheri family -- the last child in a line of four girls.

The Paryani’s arrived in Don-Mills, bleary-eyed and bedraggled in September 1974. The journey was only remarkable for all that was left behind: Family possessions, friends, community, the familiar rhythms of an equatorial year and knowledge of a language that was soon to be forgotten.

School proved to be harrowing with new rules and ways of doing things. Unable to cope with the mathematics of grade 5 on the first day and, probably as likely, the lack of attention he received on this first day from his teacher, led to Zahir begging his father to move him out of grade 5 and into the gentle and welcoming arms of Mrs. MacRae – a grade 4 teacher. A teacher whose influence he recounted more than 20 years later in an article.

Those early years in Canada were marked by new friendships and racism in equal measure. Friendships were made with classmates who lived close to home and were, for the most part, Indian immigrants themselves. Racism was to rear its head often in the form of taunts and bullying. To his credit, individual acts of racism in his pre-teens never resulted in a need for him to paint people from other cultures with the same brush.

What Am I Reading?

No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah: Slightly too long, sometimes analytical, then, an almost first hand blow-by-blow account of the U.S. army and governments efforts in the Sunni dominated town of Fallujah.

Furry Logic: A Guide to Life's Little Challenges. Love the illustrations in this book. How the heck did she ever convince anyone to publish this little book? Here's what one fan of Jane Seabrook wrote at Amazon.ca:

What exquisite illustrations, what reassuring words. A precious little jewel of a book to be salivated over anywhere - the bathroom, the car, a mountaintop, to remind one that life is precious and to live it to the full.

Just Because

Read This!!

Philip Cunliffe takes a different tack on the question of Darfur at Spiked Online:

It is especially convenient for Western liberals that they can label a black African state such as Sudan as ‘racist’, so that their demand for intervention can be presented as an ‘anti-racist’ stance rather than anything like old-fashioned Western colonialism in Africa.

Ultimately, liberal interventionism offers no guarantees to the wretched of the earth, in Darfur or anywhere else. The only thing it unequivocally promises to do is to strengthen the moral authority of Western political elites to dominate world politics and dictate to other countries how to run their affairs.

David Wong has written a witty and thought provoking article at pointless waste of time on why we simply don't and, more importantly, can't give a damn about more than 150 human beings at any one time.

150 is the number proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it indicates the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".

Dunbar's number represents a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a set of people can maintain a social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who each person is and how each person relates socially to every other person.(Source: Wikipedia)

AIDS in Africa

Fascinating and sad article on Spiegel Online regarding the misguided and superstitious attempts by African leaders and populace to avoid dealing with the AIDS crisis which has killed an estimated 15 million people to date. Here's an excerpt of the article:

On Thursdays -- (Gambian President Yahya) Jammeh's healing powers are only available to him on that day of the week he says -- the president frequently allows Gambian television to film him as he defeats AIDS: Patients lie flat on their backs as the president whirls around them and mumbles verses from the Koran. He slaps green sludge onto their skin, sprinkles liquid from an old Evian bottle over them and gives them a brown broth to drink. A quick banana snack completes the therapy.

me

Sit. Feast on your life.

And on, and on, and on...

Eric Reeves, who has written extensively on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, has written an article for The New Republic which describes the latest turn in the tortured history of the genocide taking place in Sudan.

Here's an excerpt:

But the Sudanese regime refused to allow the peacekeepers into the country, and the United Nations declined to intervene without Khartoum's approval.

That approval seemed to come on Tuesday (June 12, 2007), as the Khartoum regime agreed to allow a joint peacekeeping force comprising U.N. troops and African Union forces into Darfur. Noureddine Mezni, a spokesman for the African Union, called the announcement "a breakthrough moment." By now, however, there is a long history of such breakthroughs on Darfur--each of which has proved worthless.

Cedar Waxwing

Since visiting Norbert and Lesley's place we bought a birdfeeder and hung it up from one of the trees over our backyard. We have been far keener at observing the comings and goings of all kinds of wildlife in our small backyard.

This morning, I looked out the second floor window and spotted a perfect specimen of a Cedar Waxwing -- it looked amazingly like this photograph...red wingtips and yellowed tail feathers. I had to visit a bookstore and flip through 100's of species before finding out the name of the bird I had spotted. Apparently, these birds are common or expected in Southern Ontario. But I had never seen one before -- inside or outside the city. Anyways, I made a two page template of a birdwatch list for kids and adults alike to use. Hopefully, this will help us appreciate and enjoy the too short summers a little more.

Other birds we have seen so far: Various sparrows, chicadees, woodpeckers, robins....and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, no partridge...

It's a Win, Win, Win Proposal!!!!!!

I am posting this in order to share my good fortune with you, my loyal readers.

Please read on, or you will miss the most exciting opportunity! Give yourself the option of becoming wealthy!!

This is not a scam. No one will try and contact you and you will only gain what you put into this plan.

The idea is simple and works only if we all play. To begin: You must post your name in my comments section...by doing this you are agreeing to send me $5 -- yes, just $5. In return, I will then post your name on my blog, along with all the other people who will also sign up.

IF YOU BELIEVE IT, YOU CAN ACHIEVE IT!!

Example #1:

Let's say 10 people join my "Circle of Wealth," well, then I have made $50 all for simply putting up this post. That's a profit of 1000% Then, seven days from today, I post the names of the ten people who sent me their $5. These people are my first "Circle of Wealth." I will then put myself at the bottom of the list. I will then be person # 11.

I will send person one, $5, and person #2 to #10 will also send person #1, $5. This person will make $50. All for just sending me $5.

THAT'S A PROFIT OF 1000%!!!!!!!

The second round: when person #1 posts through their blog or e-mail increases the chances of this person making even more money. This will happen because person #1 will invite a few more people to our First Circle of Wealth

As the number of people grows, so does the amount of money that each subsequent person can make.

Method of Payment: PayPal is the best and safest method to send money over the internet. Once you express your interest in becoming richer, I will send you my contact information.

Don't let another opportunity pass you by....SEIZE THE DAY!!!

p.s. I also have land in Florida, drink snake oil, bathe in Noni juice and am friends with Donald Grump. And I couldn't say all this if it wasn't true!! Also, the pie chart I have used is real, if by real you mean, it is of this world...it is, however, completely unrelated to the Circle of Wealth.

Tower of Babel

Have been experimenting with Google's translation service. English to Russian, German, Spanish, Chinese and on and on.


Here's the German version of the preceding paragraph:
Haben mit übersetzungsdienst Googles experimentiert. Englisch-Russisch, deutsch, spanisch, Chinese und an und an. Ist hier die deutsche Version des vorhergehenden Punkts.

Italian:
Stanno sperimentando con servizio di traduzione del Google. Inglese-russo, tedesco, spagnolo, cinese e senza sosta. Qui è la versione tedesca del paragrafo preceding.

Arabic:
تم تجريب غوغل في داءره الترجمة. الانكليزيه الى الروسيه والالمانيه والاسبانيه والصينية ، وهلم جرا. هنا في النسخه الالمانيه من الفقره السابقة

Ah, how I love the internet!!

A Poem For You

Night Hike

We had set out boldly, backpacks
in hand, no flashlight, trusting in
the crunch of aluminum, squeak of cold,
the teardrop-shaped remnants we left behind.
Our breath in billows, as
trees take shape out of a dark horizon.
Under them I feel swallowed,
lost, and lonely. My ankles ache where
I've broken through crust.
We've come far,
but what am I doing out here?
Proving I am unafraid of shadows?
I shiver, you keep walking.
We do not speak, overwhelmed,
I suppose, by how black
the night can be. We often forget.
And yet, through the easy darkness of
the woods, through the misshapen canopy
of maples, like tiny incandescent bulbs,
come stars.

Julia Lewandoski

Me on Snakes

In a recent exchange of e-mails I have been talking to a co-worker who owns a red tail boa. I found my answer to her question: "You afraid of snakes??" interesting. I had never actually considered how I felt about snakes. Now I can die at peace with the universe.

My answer: "No!! of course not!! Me? Afraid? Nawh....

Seriously, uh, yeah. I'm not phobic but they seem so slithery and quiet -- sneaky...they can climb, bite (even if not poisonous), they can swim and squeeze through tight spots and end up in your attic for years before you discover one lying on your chest staring you in the face, just as you wake up from a strange and phallic dream.....sheesh...don't get me started.

Zahir (who will not sleep deeply tonight)

Never Trust the Critics and Pundits

Recently read a story in the LA Weekly which reports that Ray Bradbury, sci-fi author of Fahrenheit 451, denies that 451 was about censorship. Contrary to most "learned" opinionators, "Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas (Los Angeles), says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature."