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Junk TV in a Hotel Room

I was in Toronto last week for a conference on HIV, pregnancy and mothering. It was an excellent conference, very interesting, with a good mix of researchers, HIV+ mothers, and frontline workers. There were even a few babies, and a toddler who took his mom’s cell phone, placed it on the floor, made sure she [...]

Seamy Underbelly, Part II

Visiting the Downtown Eastside (DTES) has churned up some contradictions for me, and resolving those contradictions requires re-thinking some questions I thought I already knew the answers to:

1) To what extent do people choose to live in the DTES, and to what extent are they stuck there?

2) Does the DTES community strengthen its residents or [...]

Larry O'Brien's Book Lunch

This was a present from GC. He took advantage of the special offer on Larry’s publisher’s website:

SHIPPING FEE WAVED (sic) FOR THOSE WISHING TO PICK UP AT THE OTTAWA LUNCH (sic).

My visit to the seamy underbelly

At the harbour, outside my hotel

So…I went to Vancouver for a whirlwind business trip. I arrived Wednesday afternoon and left Friday morning. I was working most of the time, but I did have two more-or-less free evenings, so I did what I could to cram Vancouver in.

I hadn’t been there in 30-odd years, and [...]

I agree, somewhat, with Tom Flanagan

I have what I know will be a very unpopular opinion about a highly volatile subject. I should probably keep it to myself, but I feel compelled to share it.

It’s about Tom Flanagan’s remarks about child pornography. The remarks for which he was roundly lambasted, fired as a CBC commentator, denounced by the Prime Minister’s [...]

We know how to have fun

GC got a sliver in his foot from the hardwood floor. He said it felt like a long, skinny sliver. There wasn’t much to see, but he was limping and wincing. Later, when we were getting ready for bed, we saw that his foot was swollen.

I insisted we go to the hospital because he’s [...]

The skeleton wore socks

The neighbours finally moved their mountain of garbage to the curb, and then the garbage truck came and took it all away, which is fabulous. But now we think they’ve flown the coop because everything appears to be gone – the garbage, the car that wouldn’t start, the people themselves – and they’ve left their [...]

Oboe's New Girlfriend

Oboe used to have a girlfriend. Her name was Oboe’s Girlfriend. We got her in a bundle of used bird toys from someone on Kijiji. She didn’t look all that special to me, but Oboe fell head-over-heels in love with her. She was lovely and soft and she had a sweet little bell-like voice, and [...]

Bed bugs give me the creeps

I’m leaving for Toronto later today to attend a conference. I’ll be staying in a no-frills hotel down the street from the fancy hotel where the conference is being held. Normally I’d be worried about forgetting to pack my medication or my shoes or something, but this time I’m worried about bed bugs, since Toronto [...]

What's news?

We went to an Apocalypse party on Friday night, where I got into an interesting discussion with my friend Andrew about Darwin the Ikea Monkey. Andrew has tried to completely ignore Darwin. He has seen the headlines, but has refused to click on them. He managed to know nothing beyond the fact that something called [...]