Category: Health & Security
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The Best Place on Earth
The more I travel across this country – and abroad for that matter – the more I am dumbfounded by the human ability to choose just one place to call home. There are a hundred magical villages, towns, cities and regions that strike a frisson of excitement in my gut, triggering the feeling that “I… Read more
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Walking the Walk
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a fresh, community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 treatise, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail that now seem like common sense to… Read more
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Now I’m a Licensed Prospector, Too
Some things in life are surprisingly simple. For a fee of $25.50, presentation of photo i.d., and the completion of a form that required little more than my name, address, telephone number and birthdate, I became a licensed prospector in the province of Ontario. I am now permitted to stake mineral claims anywhere in the… Read more
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Leaving Children Home Alone? It’s Complicated.
It makes for a perfect sit-com setup. Eight-year-old Kevin is accidentally left Home Alone when his family heads off on Christmas vacation without him. Funny in the movies, not so funny in reality. As a mother of four, I can attest that life gets a whole lot easier when at least one child reaches that… Read more
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Weeding Out Unwanted Neighbours
I am self-delusional enough to believe that, for the most part as a neighbour, I mind my own business. I have several great, mindful neighbours, which is good fortune in itself, and am glad to keep an eye out for their health and well-being as they do for mine. But there are a couple of… Read more
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Shelter from the Storm
Fear. Mental illness. Apocalyptic visions. It’s so hard to tell the difference between them these days. In Take Shelter, Curtis, a young husband and father from the midwest, obsesses about building out his underground storm shelter. Times are tough, jobs are in short supply, and families teeter on the edge of survival. Not a great… Read more
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El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I… Read more
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Living in the Shelter of Robots
It’s kind of like a mirror we hold up to ourselves. Whatever robots turn out to be, will largely be a function of us and the decisions we make. – Mark Rowlands, D.Phil. Professor of Philosophy, University of Miami from Honda’s Living With Robots Part of the fascination of robots is just that. It’s just… Read more
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Spying On Your Neighbours
There are all kinds of miraculous way, via the internet, to find out about our neighbours without ever having to actually speak to them in person. We can be envious and vindictive about their choices in housing, work, children, political contributions, and land values from the shadowy corner of TechnologyLand. Read more
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All in the Family
The Bay Citizen reported in today’s The New York Times that multigenerational housing is a real estate growth niche around the San Francisco area, aimed at the needs of a growing immigrant population http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/us/22cncmultigenerational.html?pagewanted=2. However, it is a form of housing that is more likely to be adopted by North Americans in general as the challenges… Read more