To Everything There Is A Season: Looking Up from the Economic Mess to See the Geese Flying

The world is in flux, and not just economically. Yesterday afternoon I heard a skein of Canada geese honking their way across the sky, and at noon the farm program on the CBC was full of complaints about geese scouring fields as they begin their migration. One of panelists, a dairy farmer, told of having to out six or seven times a day to shoo them away. Last week travelling by train from Ottawa to Toronto we saw a couple of hundred of them rise from a lake or marsh in the distance, fly seemingly randomly at first and then slowly form the familiar Vs as they gained altitude.

Seems a little early for the migration to me. I usually hear the flocks flying over a little later in October, but perhaps this year is different in some way. Certainly the trees are turning glorious colours earlier than I’ve noted in the past. Last year it was a dry during the summer, but began to rain in September and it seemed the leaves stayed on the branches quite a long time as if to draw all the strength they could from the growing season. This summer was lush and wet, and already many trees are turning fabulous shades of red and gold. Perhaps the good conditions allowed them to store up lots of sugar which now they can display as if at their leisure since the temperatures have so far stayed quite warm. (Is there a lesson about saving to draw from this? Maybe.)

Whatever, on this mild, overcast morning several of the trees in the cemetery were already glowing with colour as if lit from the interior. This annual spectacle is one of the pleasures of living in this climate, and a reminder that there are forces in action that continue no matter what our current, pressing worries are.

And if you’d like to know more about the science behind this (because most things have a explanation) check out the National Geographic’s 2004 article “Why Do Fall Leaves Change Color?”

The Legacy of the Depression, or 80 Years after 1929 Nearly Everyone Has Forgotten

Maybe there’s an 80 year rule in history: for 80 years memories of a war, a prolonged disaster, a political cul-de-sac remain vivid enough to affect the decisions people make collectively. That might explain the re-Balkanization of the Balkans in the 1990s since 80 years after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo the region erupted into the bloody conflict which saw the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia. What had led to the events which touched off the First World War had faded from common memory.

And now we have the finance mess in the US. Next year it will be 80 years after the Great Crash of 1929, and the people who remember are growing fewer. Lee and I were born long after it, but the Great Depression which followed marked our parents significantly. How they reacted was quite different—his parents were extremely frugal while mine spent whatever came their way—but the long shadow of those years of penury were part of our family history.

Maybe that is why the possible consequences of the Wall Street meltdown seem to weigh so lightly on some Congressmen and –women. Certainly the 67 per cent of the Republicans who voted against the bail-out package are either blinded by ideology or are so removed from the economic stresses of ordinary life that they just don’t get what is happening.

The Democrats who opposed seem to base their opposition on righteous concern over the idea of rewarding the people who got us into the mess. That I can understand—applaud even—yet somehow a way out of this mess must be found.

Or else, as Bing Crosby sang in 1932:

They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob.
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear,
I was always there, right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead --
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it's done --
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun,
brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done --
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum.
Half a million boots went slogging through hell,
And I was the kid with the drum.

Say, don't you remember they called me Al,
It was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal --
Say, buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, ah, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum.
Half a million boots went slogging through hell,
And I was the kid with the drum.

Say, don't you remember they called me Al,
It was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal --
Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime? by E. Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney

Margaret Atwood on Culture and the Canadian Economy

The trouble with being away is that you miss things. Not only did the whole world’s financial system nearly go up in smoke last week when I was gallivanting around, Margaret Atwood had some terrific things to say about the value of culture and the way Canadians have been led astray by the conservatives.

Her first foray was an op-ed piece in The Globe and Mail, entitled "Mr. Harper is wrong: There's more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at galas whining about their grants”. You’re not likely to find it through the usual sources because, it seems, Ms. Atwood is a rare person who can write for the Globe and not be required to sign over electronic rights. Nevertheless the piece was pirated, and is of such value that I’m going include a link to it even though I hate electronic rights grabs.

She also spoke at length with Sinclair Stewart in Saturday’s Globe. Part of this is promotion for the Massey lectures she will give in November and part is a general reflection on where we are economically, given these difficult times. Stewart asked her: "Are we better off in Canada, or should we be worrying as well?"

She replied: "We shouldn't have spent our surplus...We should have put a lot more into new technology. The typical Canadian story is some genius invents a new thing, can't get any money for it, and takes it to the States.”

Then on Sunday she was in The New York Times, this time touting the book that is being published from the Massey Lectures, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. Because the Sunday Magazine audience is different from the business page on, the interview took a different tack:
So what led you to take up the subject of debt? Long ago, I was a graduate student in Victorian literature. When you think of the 19th-century novel, you think romance — you think Heathcliff, Cathy, Madame Bovary, etc. But the underpinning structure of those novels is money, and Madame Bovary could have cheerfully gone on committing adultery for a long time if she hadn’t overspent.

Are you saying we should view her as a pioneer of deficit spending? You can examine the whole 19th century from the point of view of who would have maxed out their credit cards. Emma Bovary would have maxed hers out. No question. Mr. Scrooge would not have. He would have snipped his up.

And Stephen Harper? What do you bet he doesn't even have a credit card?

Saturday Photo: Books of Memory

Anik See's book Saudade (Coach House Press) was also launched at the three events I was part of this week. She's a charming, tough young woman who has written a very interesting book which is part travel journal, part memoir. Over the last 15 years she's bicycled all over the world, and her observations and sensibility combine to make most interesting reading.

Now based in Amsterdam, she had some great stories to complement my own ideas about how cities should be organized. Amsterdam, she says, was not the city full of bicycles that it is today, but the result of conscious choices made a couple of decades ago. The city was being choked by cars, but instead of building more roads, the decision was made to favour the bike. The result--after years of bike-riding education for kids, adults and drivers--is a place where rush hour is quiet except for the whoosh of bikes passing with the occasional bike bell ringing.

Gives us hope for here, I think.

Toronto, Ottawa and The Walkable City

To get to Toronto Island you take a ferry from downtown, the way you can take a ferry to get toNorth Vancouver from downtown Vancouver.

After walking through downtown Ottawa this afternoon, I began to wonder if ferries might make transport easier between Ottawa and Gatineau. Lines of buses and masses of cars waited to cross the bridges, and the people I spoke to said there is much discussion about the need for a new bridge. Could ferries from strategic points be an easier answer?

On the Road with The Walkable City

We're off to Ottawa this morning (and not Paris, as the picture might lead you to believe.) Would like to think that the visit might help change the government might, that's not very likely. Anik See and I will be reading and talking and all that tonight beginning at 7 pm. at Nicolas Hoare Books, 419 Sussex Drive.

Do you think we should go over and knock on the door at 24 Sussex? But then Steve will be on the road, too, won't he?

The US Financial Crisis: Hey, Wait a Minute, You’re Going to Give the Guys Who Got Us into This Mess Complete Control?

"Cash for Trash" is the title of Paul Krugman’s most recent column, and Naomi Klein is calling for resistance to the latest attempt to use a crisis in the interests of Disaster Capitalism.

There are few who doubt that massive efforts are needed to right the listing financial ship, but what is being proposed goes far further that. “If the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place,” Krugman writes.

“It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same,” Klein says, adding “The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.”

Let’s hope so. It may not be time to go to the barricades, but it sure is time to write, e-mail and protest.

Carless Day, Bixis and the Walkable City

"So, did you walk here?" the interviewer asked me when we started out talking about The Walkable City at Radio Canada International. I had to laugh because actually I took the bus and Metro, although I could add that I planned on walking home.

The interview and the errands I ran on the way back account for this rather late post. But this is a day when partisans of muscle-powered transit should be pleased. Not only has the city of Montreal just unveiled the first rental bikes--the Bixis--that will be available at selected places around town, but it's Carless Day downtown. The former intiative is far more serious than the latter: a similar program in Paris has proved extremely successful, and there's no reason why Bixis should be very popular here. I was astounded by the flotilla of cyclists this morning: obviously people of all ages are cycling now. The latter is more public relations exercise than serious attempt to make Montreal a place where you don't need a car, but perhaps even this kind of hoopla is necessary.

Whatever, I'll pass along the link when the RCI program airs. In the meantime, it's another gorgeous day for walking.

Saturday Photo: Le petit dejeuner, Rue Mouffetard, and Sunday on the Seine

The first copies of The Walkable City: From Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond arrived from the printer on Thursday, to my great delight. Since a good portion of the book talks about Paris, and in particular the Fifth and Thirteenth districts, it seems only fitting to include a couple of pictures today. The first was taken on a Saturday morning last May when Mouffetard was filling up with shoppers and locals enjoying a nice spring day. The second was taken the next day, Sunday, when the high speed roadway along the Seine is turned over to non-motorized traffic.



If there ever was a walkable city Paris is it! What great memories we have of it, too--just the thing to pull out and enjoy when times are tough.

Memory as a Weapon against Despair

This morning presents the kind of fall weather that makes the heat and sog of summer worth living through. Clear sky, green grass, an abundance of late season flowers, brisk temperatures and the first leaves turning red and yellow. It looks like a day to take one’s eyes off of the woes of the world.

And they are many. I see, looking over my last posts, that I’ve been concentrating on them but I think it’s time to look at something else. That is: the way that moments from the past can carry us through difficult hours.

How many happy times will any one person with average luck have in a life time? I have no idea, but I do know that if you can store them up and bring them out when times are rough, you will often find the courage to face life. Not to do so is to lay the ground work for despair, and when despair settles in it can paralyze.

And memories--frequently of fleeting events, periods of time that would be measured in seconds on the clock--last longer than one would ever imagine. As Everett Sloane said in Citizen Kane: "A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since, that I haven't thought of that girl."

So today I am going to try to store up the feeling of this lovely morning. I’ll add it to other moments worth remembering, among them an afternoon in Golden Gate Park when Lee and I were newly in love, the star-filled night sky in Tanzania, many dinners with our children and their conjoints, and a call from my niece saying she thought something I wrote would have pleased her mother/my sister.

There are many others: as I sit here trying to decide which ones to mention—what about the night that Thomas Mulcair won for the NPD in Outremont, proving what I’d been saying about the win-ability of the riding for 20 years had been right?--I realize that they add up to fuel to keep me going for the long run--and in the long run.

Hey, Look What's Happening in Quebec! Even the Montreal Gazeette Sees How the NDP Is Capturing Unhappy Voters from Other Parties

The Gazette grudgingly admits today that the NDP is doing well in Quebec, and that Jack Layton has become the chou-chou of urban Francophone voters. Glad the newspaper is finally realizing what is going on.

After a number of weeks telephoning for NDP candidates, it looks to me that the vote here is very volatile. People are fed up with the Liberals and the Bloc and are willing to vote for an alternative, and the NDP is the most credible one. The support that Thomas Mulcair had when he won a by election in Outremont a year ago continues to be strong. Anne Lagacé Dowson's campaign in Westmount-Ville Marie is going great guns too, despite the fact that some people who were working in her aborted by election campaign were from outside the riding, and now want to work in their home ridings too.

George W. Bush, the Socialist? The AIG Bail-Out Day Two

Further to the "socialization" of AIG: Le Devoir has a great cartoon today. Under the headline "George W. Bush, the Socialist," Garnotte has put a drawing of Dubya in a Mao suit talking on the telephone to the Chinese president. "Can you give me some tips on how to run a big state-owned company," he's saying.

AIG Bail-Out: Disaster Capitalism or a Chance to Force Insurance Companies to Support Universal Health Insurance in the US?

Just checked Naomi Klein’s web site to see if she has made any comment about the bail-out of insurance giant AIG, and it seems so far she hasn’t. The rescue plan would seem to be a brilliant example of the “disaster capitalism” that she has been talking and writing about for the last few years. There was no way that the US government could let AIG go bankrupt, since it was so deeply involved in he US economy. But the implications for the future are profound.

This is socialism for the rich. Supposedly the US can’t afford universal Medicare (and the right wing here is constantly saying the we can’t in Canada either) but it can afford to rescue companies that made very bad decisions.

Okay, so far. I understand that (and even have a stake in seeing that AIG stays solvent, having some money invested in AIG Canada.) But will there be a quid pro quo? That is, will the US government step in with stronger measures to regulate the financial industries? So far McCain makes clear it wouldn’t under his administration, and Obama has said much interesting either.

The US insurance industry is probably the biggest roadblock to universal Medicare in that country. But what if a new Obama administration said to AIG: we got you out of a mess, now you have to help get the country of the current health care insurance crisis. You come onside, and lobby your corner, and let’s come up with a plan that insures everybody, has simple administration (single-payer would be best) and that you will lobby for enthusiastically.

That would be using a crisis for a good cause, the reverse of “disaster capitalism.” Are you listening, Mr. Obama?

Yann Martel's Modest Proposal So We All Can Know Our Leader Better: An Official Prime Ministers' Reading List

Ayn Rand’s Anthem is the 38th book that Yann Martel has sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his one-man campaign to provide a little interesting and helpful reading. The project began when Harper appeared harried during a Canada Council for the Arts event in which Martel participated: the Man Booker Prize winner thought a short, thought-provoking book sent every two weeks would give the PM a little “stillness” for reflection just before he went to sleep.

Martel’s choice before Anthem was Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, so it probably should be no surprise that Martel has expanded this fortnight’s offering into a suggestion that Canada set up a Prime Ministers’ Reading List.

“(W)e expect a Prime Minister to have a fair knowledge of the history and geography of Canada, to know something about economics and public administration, about current events and foreign affairs, the financial assets of a Prime Minister are accountable to us, so why shouldn’t his or her imaginative assets also be accountable?” Martel writes.

“If you haven’t read, now or earlier, any of the books I have suggested, or books like them…then what is your mind made of? What materials went into the building of the dreams you have for our country?...These are not questions one is usually entitled to ask, but once someone has power over me, then, yes, I do have the right to probe your imagination, because your dreams may become my nightmares.”

Of course, setting up the list, administering it and checking to see that the PM actually does the reading would raise a whole lot of problems, but Martel—as Swift did in his comic and shocking treatise on how to solve the problems of poverty in Ireland—answers objections to his proposal.

He admits that Harper might feel like shouting “I have no time for this nonsense, ” But, Martel continues, "as I said to you in my very first letter, there is a space next to every bed where a book can be lying in wait. And I ask you again: what is your mind made of?"

It is highly unlikely that Martel will get an answer: he got one response to his generous gifts. A short letter of acknowledgement was sent by one of the PM’s assistants. But since then there has been silence.

For a man who is so smart, Harper certainly doesn’t know anything about politeness—nor does he appreciate the wisdom and pleasure that literature can bring all of us, it seems more and more certain. But I’ll lay you odds that he’s read Anthem already. As Martel notes: "Rand appeals mostly to two disparate groups of readers: adolescents in the throes of carving out their individuality, and right-wing American capitalists bent on making and keeping too much money.” I’m sure Harper was the former and its clear he’s the lackey of the latter.

"Yikes!" Says Krugman: Disaster Capitalism and The Walkable City

One of the things that I found hard to do as we worked down to the wire on The Walkable City a couple of weeks ago was hedge my bets in discussions about what is going to happen next on the world stage.

A large part of the book talks about how the guaranteed mortgage system set up in Canada and the US after World War II and the desire of ordinary folks all over the world to own a place they can call their own affects the way our cities are structured. That is easy to see, and we’re going to have to live with what we’ve got for a long time.

But what wasn't clear and still isn’t clear is the impact of the continuing fall-out from very bad decisions made to open up the financial system during the last 15 years or so. Paul Krugman in The New York Times today ends his column about the collapse of Lehmann and the faltering of Merrill Lynch with “yikes!” I can think of several other epithets.

The Texas gulf coast is currently surveying the damage of Hurricane Ike which reminds me of Naomi Klein’s eloquent warning about “disaster capitalism” in The Shock Doctrine. In times like these when so much seems to be foundering, the doctrine right—what Krugman calls “movement conservatives”—are ready with quick answers that we may accept, because we have no others handy. Now is the time to think a bit, not act rashly. Among other things, this means not being taken in by the bling surrounding Sarah Pallin, or the carefully selected actions of Stephen Harper which are aimed at wooing just enough swing voters to give him a majority.

And it means not being able to be categorical in providing a formula for the future our cities. I think The Walkable City as it stands now—just about ready to come off the presses—provides enough substance to help us make the decisions we must make, and offers good suggestions for what we must do.

Saturday Photo: The Walkable City Starts Its Journey

The first copies of my new book The Walkable City: Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond are supposed to be ready on Monday, and things are shaping up for a mini-tour the week of September 22.

Along with Annik See, whose travel memoir Saudade is being published this fall by Coach House Press, I'll be giving short presentations in three books stores. We'll also have time to answer questions about the books.

The first, Tuesday September 23, is my own walkable bailiwick. It'll begin at 7:30 p.m. at Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore, 251 Bernard Street West in the Mile End district of Montrea. (80 and 160 bus.)

The second, Wednesday September 24, is in downtown Ottawa, a stone's throw from Parliament (would be great if those guys read the book and took it to heart.) It'll be at 7 p.m. at Nicolas Hoare Books, 419 Sussex Drive. (Actually it's some distance from 24 Sussex, the Prime Minister's residence,however.)

The third will be in Toronto at 7 p.m. Thursday, September 25, at
TYPE Books, 883 Queen Street West, in the middle of another walkable neighborhood.

Would love to see you there!

Ways to Get Rid of Harper: Voting NDP Straight Up, or in a Vote Swap?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing an NDP welcome for Jack Layton spill out of the Westmount-Ville Marie election office and take over Sherbrooke street. The election tour bus—painted with big NDP graphics and driven by a smartly dressed female driver—attracted quite a bit of attention, and the crowd on the sidewalk straining to get a glimpse of Layton, Anne Lagacé Dawson, Thomas Mulcair and other NDP candidates was clearly upbeat. This election is an important one, and I think people in Quebec and elsewhere are looking around for some way to put the country back on track. As I’ve said before, unhappy Liberals should vote NDP because that is where principled positions and solid leadership is.

An attempt to start a “swap vote” campaign is also an interesting development. Having voted for losing candidates in many, many elections for reasons of principle, I’m quite comfortable usually with voting my heart and not strategically. But in this important election, the Anti-Harper Vote Swap Facebook group bears watching. This morning it has 675 members, and aims to match up voters who want to stop the Harper Conservatives. Under it a Liberal living in a riding where the NDP has a good chance to win would agree to vote NDP in exchange for a NDPer voting Liberal in a riding where the Liberal is in a tight, but winnable, race against a Conservative. Check the group out.

Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook: The Key to All Her Work, or a Just Too-Long Read

So far I’ve done two of the four book discussions about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Network I’m scheduled to lead this fall, and two things seem clear: she has never stopped mining her life for her art, and she goes overboard on the projects she particularly holds dear.

At around 600 pages (depending on the edition) The Golden Notebook is considered by many critics to be her masterwork. It’s a feminist milestone to some, an eloquent description of the grand malaise that settled on the Left in the 1950s, and/or an account of a woman coming apart in a world in disarray.

It also is hard to get into, confusing at times, and obsessed with detail. Among my bookies, only about a third had persevered to the end, although many of them had read other books by Lessing with pleasure. As they talked about them, it became clear that she reworked many of the incidents and reflections found in The Golden Notebook in other works, producing stories that are much more accessible—and I would say interesting.

Of course one of the obsessions of Anna in The Golden Notebook is the way a writer can tell the truth. As the book begins, Anna is completely dissatisfied with her early novel about Africa, and the notebooks she keeps are an attempt to get closer to The Truth, whatever that is.

Hmm, that may be a thing to discuss the next time The Golden Notebook is on the program. Certainly I’m going to tell the two groups who have discussions scheduled (in October and November) that members might like to read something else by her if they find The Golden Notebooks tough going. They're likely to find many of the same concerns, characters and events, but recounted differently.

After all, as I keep telling myself, it's not the story that matters, it's how you tell the story.

Safe-guarding Single Payer, Universal Health Care: Quebec Chips Away While Canadians Say Health Care Is Their Number One Election Issue

There have been a flurry of stories about the future of the planned super hospital in Montreal which is supposed to combine major parts of the Université de Montréal’s teaching hospitals (the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, or CHUM.) In the works for 15 years, the new hospital's site in downtown Montreal was picked a good four or five years ago, but the project is advancing very slowly. Several doctors’ groups have begun again to argue about whether the site chosen is a good one. The latest news reported in La Presse and Le Devoir is that the public hospital will be surrounded by private clinics which will "compete" with the public facility or 'complement" it, take your pick.

Presumably the private clinics will be part of the universal health care system we have here. That is, the doctors and staff will bill Quebec Medicare for most services, as is often currently the case for services like radiology. Doing this is considered not a breach in regulations governing the health care system. But these doctors affiliated with these clinics often propose treatments not covered by the health plan—“advanced” lenses after cataract surgery are frequently pushed—which of course means more money for them. Almost certainly this would happen in the CHUM case, but what is even more troubling is that several former government members, including the last minister of health Philippe Couillard, have a financial stake in the new clinics.

The current provincial government should crack down this, but is highly unlikely to do so. Increased privatisation of the health system appears to have been on its agenda all along, even though a report calling for more clinics was whisked away last winter as soon as it was presented. The tactic seems to have been: we won’t talk about it now, and then we’ll go ahead and do it.

Shame, shame! as the official record of House of Commons’ debates would say. An Angus Reid poll on the weekend said that health care is the number one preoccupation of Canadians at large as they go into a federal election. It is time to come out strongly in defense of our generally excellent, single-payer, universal health care system—and then, once decent folk are elected federally and provincially, to act to strengthen it.

No Power, No Posts: How Dependent We Are on Electricity

Power outage this morning, so no work until now! I actually was forced to write with a pen since I've got stuff due today. What a strange feeling! I have a cramp in my shoulder from holding my arm at an angle that I'm not used to.

Then of course, the Hydro Quebec guy came by to read the meter. I think he was chastized by several of the neighbors who weren't pleased by the lengthy interruption in service. Poor guy, it wasn't his fault. But the temptation is always to shoot the messenger, or the equivalent.

Our relative paralysis in the absence of electricity is not something to take lightly, however. In Quebec nearly all our power comes from hydro-electricity, which in some respects protects us from the problems of petroleum-generated electricity. Has the increasing cost of petroleum shown up in the cost of electricity from oil-fired plants? A file to be followed, for sure.

Books to Think about::My Book Discussion Season opens This Week

The fall season of book discussion groups starts today for me. One of my pleasures of the past few years has been being invited to lead book discussions in various libraries. This evening I meet a group in the Montreal suburb of Pierrefonds to talk about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, and tomorrow I lead a causerie littéraire on her Carnet d’or. The book is much longer than I remembered, and I re-reading it these past couple of weeks, I found myself leaving the English version downstairs and the French version upstairs, switching back and forth depending upon where I settled down to read. That meant I could compare the original and the translation, and still make headway in a book that is challenging if you take it seriously.

Tomorrow afternoon the group consists of some elderly ladies living in the Résidence Outremont who have been reading from a group of biographies of queens that the Outremont library put at their disposition. I’ve dipped into most of the choices, and found them very interesting. Since this is the first time, I’ve animated this kind of discussion I found myself trying to figure out how to get the ladies talking as I walked along this morning. Should be an interesting experience.

On Wednesday, it’s the Atwater Library’s turn, and the book will be the amazing Impac Dublin prize winner De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage, while on Thursday it’s out to another suburb, Kirkland, to chat about Muriel Barbery’s L’élégance du hérisson.

All are good books, dealing with a wide variety of human concerns. As such, they provide a very rich background to the current political ferment here and the US. That, of course, is one of the reasons to read fiction: the stories resonate in our lives, allow us to reflect on what is happening and—sometimes—to find a way, at least temporarily, out of the impasses we find ourselves in.

Saturday Photo: Hommage to Holland, the Home of Cyclists

The first time I saw a dignified person of certain age pumping along during rush hour on a bicycle was when we visited The Hague in 2000 where Elin was studying. The streets were full of people on bikes of all ages, shapes and sizes, including men in military uniforms and dowagers with shopping baskets full of good things to eat. How amazing, I thought. Well, I said to myself, maybe those old folks had been riding continually since they were kids, so they never had a chance to get out of shape.

That would never happen in North America, though, I added to myself.

It would be overstating it to say that the middle-aged in Montreal have taken to bikes in large numbers, but without a doubt bike riding has increased exponentially in the last three years, even among aging Baby Boomers.

So the photo on the left with its quiet street and bicycle racks has turned out to be a taste of future, although canals in Montreal are limited to the Lachine Canal (photo on the right. ) But, come to think of it, that's even become favourite bike path for thousands...

Unhappy Liberals Could Go—Should Go—NDP, Which Has Been the Real Opposition for 18 Months

Stephen Harper is calling on Governor General Michaële Jean Sunday morning to call for the dissolution of Parliament, and so the writs will be dropped. That is a very quaint way of saying that and we’ll be having a general election October 14.*

Two sets of polls show the Conservatives close to getting a majority, and running neck and neck with the separatist Bloc Québécois in Quebec. The Liberals (more centrist than left wing) usually win big here and often do so in Ontario, but are clearly in trouble.

After several weeks of phoning for Anne Lagacé Dowson, the NDP candidate in one of the four by elections that will be rolled into the general election, it seems to me that unhappy Liberals are indeed looking for candidates other than Liberal ones to vote for. Westmount-Ville Marie is considered a safe Liberal riding, but I happened upon many people who say they’re fed up. Some of them told me they are voting Conservative, and some of them are clearly at a loss. One woman said that she and her husband are going on a cruise to avoid the whole question.

While some Liberals are clearly fiscal conservatives in the Canadian context (and note that both liberal and conservative have quite different meanings—much more to the left—than in the US) others really believe in center left principles. The NDP could pick up their support all over the country. With a well run campaign and a little luck Jack Layton and a team of good candidates will be the spoiler in this election.

As for me, well, I was going to get out the vote this weekend and on the expected by election day of September 8. But I’ll take a couple of days to catch up on other work and then do what I can do to help win this election for the NDP--and the country.

*Just in case you were wondering where the term comes from, dropping the writs goes back to the Magna Carta and which has been grafted onto the Canadian scene. According to the Mapleleaf Web, “In 1215, the Magna Carta stated that the King no longer had the right to summon his own advisors to sit in what is now called the House of Commons. Instead, he had to issue what today are called writs of election, and to summon to the House only those people who, according to the returned writs, won the most votes in elections held in each district… (Canadian) federal and provincial elections today are still organized around the “dropping” and return of separate writs of election for each district.”

Radio Canada Celebrates the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's 75th Anniversary

To give the devil his due, I should report that Radio Canada is pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra: live broadcast of a concert on Espace Musique, television and the net plus a program giving highlights of the orchestra's history. Check it out at 8 p.m. EDT here.

No Smog in Montreal This Summer: Because of Rain or Transport Changes?

The Montréal region recorded no smog alerts during this past summer, compared to about a dozen the year before, Radio Canada reported this morning. All that rain and wind, said the spokesman for Environnement Canada. Pollutants didn’t have a chance to collect, stagnate and turn into the nasty pall that is so unhealthy, he said.

As I walked along this morning, watching the flotilla of bicycles going to work and school, I wondered if changes in transportation habits might also have something to do with it. Montréal’s public transit agency (the Société de transport de Montréal or STM) just reported an increase in ridership of 4 per cent between January and June, while friends who hadn’t been in Montreal for a couple of years this summer were bowled away the number of bikes on the streets.

All to the good, I say. Of course, it smelled at mid day yesterday of ozone and hydrocarbons the way remember from my Southern California childhood. But it didn’t last, and even though a heat haze covers the city this morning, we’re told it’s not smog. And the offer made by the public transport agency for the communities just north of Montreal island (the Société de transports de Laval, or STL) has run out: it promised a reduction in bus fares from $2.50 to $1 every day there was a smog alert between June 2 and September 2. A nice offer, but one it seems it didn’t have to honour.

As Radio Two Shoots Itself in the Foot, Serious Music Continues to Be Played Elsewhere

Some real music in the air! Just as the CBC’s Radio Two was starting its dumbed-down programming Elin dropped by between rehearsals for supper the other night. Today she will the recording a program of Henry Purcell’s music for a disc Les Voix Humaines will release in honour of the 250th anniversary of his birth in 1659, and she was headed to Suzy Napper’s to work on that music. Just before she’d had a long lesson with Margaret Little, who is directing her work on a doctorate in performance at the Université de Montréal.

Now, we’re always glad to see her but this time she had a real treat to show us: two viola da gambas that she’ll play in the two programs in addition to the French-inspired instrument she usually plays. She’ll give the first of four recitals required by the doctorate program next week, and for that she’ll use a reproduction of a 17th century Italian instrument that she has on loan. The music featured will be that of Orazio Bassani, a gambist/composer/improviser of 16th century Ferrari. Elin is particularly interested in the way gambists (and other instrumentalists) of the time used improvisation, much like jazz musicians do today. She says it seems only fitting to use an Italian style instrument to play the music.

For the Purcell recording, though, she gets to play the real thing. She had with her a tenor viol made in the 17th century in England—a instrument with a glorious sound and a work of art in its own right. Les Voix Humaines have been able to borrow three period instruments from the University of Toronto for the Purcell which is shaping up to a marvelous musical event. More details about it later.

But for those who might make it to Montreal next week, Elin’s recital of Italian music will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday September 11 in Salle Serge-Garant, B-484 of the Faculté de Musique of the Université de Montréal, 200 Vincent-d'Indy (up the hill from the Edouard-Montpetit Metro station.)

It is particularly a pleasure to have such good music in prospect when Radio Two after 3 p.m. has become such a waste land.

Stepping Out in the Walkable City: A New and Improved Cover

Yesterday morning I found this in my in-box: a revised cover for The Walkable City: From Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond. If you follow this link to the Véhicule Press website you'll see the old one, but this is much punchier. Amazing what a little tweaking can do!

The book will be launched here in Montreal September 23, in Ottawa, September 24, and in Toronto, September 25--but more about that later. What is really interesting is a number of new figures on increases in the use of public transportation in Canada. Le Devoir reports this morning that a Strategic Studies report shows that more than 80 per cent of Canadians are thinking of switching to public transportation, while figures released last week by the Société de transports de Montréal (STM) say that ridership increased by 4 per cent between January and June this year.

Making our cities more walkable and increasing public transport is going to be absolutely essential in the future.

Three Looks at How Hate Harms Everyone: Movies from Montreal's World Film Festival

A slow start this holiday morning. The fact that we didn’t get home until after midnight from seeing the last of the films at the World Film Festival doesn’t help much. The festival continues today, but we decided after four that we’d had our quotient for the moment

Three are worth mentioning: The Tour from Serbia, Nobody to Watch over Me from Japan and Todos Estamos Invitados from Spain. I thought the first was the best: it is a comedy (?) that takes place in December 1993 when a theatre troupe from Belgrade finds itself on the front in that fratricidal war. The second is concerned with what happens to the family of a presumed child killer in Japan—a media circus, an innocent younger sister hounded, a cop who feel guilty about not protecting another child. The last takes place in the Basque country where a professor who denounces terrorism is threatened by ETA stalwarts.

All are worth seeing for the window they offer on their respective societies. One theme recurs however: how group and societal pressure can stir up hatred among and toward people who initially at first have clean hands. This is something I’ve always been concerned about (as have many, many people) and to which I find myself returning as I try to make sense of the world, as well as decide what project to take on next.

Saturday Photo: Walking to Work in the Walkable City

Thursday 'round midnight Simon Dardick at Véhicule Press sent off the final files to the printer for my new book The Walkable City: From Haussmann's Boulevards to Jane Jacobs' Streets and Beyond.

The days before had been pretty crazy as we sent corrections back and forth. One of the things that we debated to the last was the picture for the frontispiece. Simon said he wanted something that reflected the spirit of the book, which looks at Paris, New York, Toronto and several other places to discover how cities are walkable or not and what that means for the future of the planet.

The photo on the right is what he decided was the best, and the more I think about it, the better I like it. I took it a week ago on a lovely morning when Montreal and Montrealers were beginning to come back from summer vacation. The young couple were headed downtown from Mile End, walking hand and hand in the future. A good image for a book that hopes to have some small impact on how we live in and develop our cities.

Snap! The Sound of Radio Two Being Turned Off All over the Country

Snap! That will be the sound of radios turning off all over Canada on Tuesday when Radio Two hits new lows with its new programming. The Globe and Mail had an interview yesterday with the dude who will be host in the going home slot on Tuesday. It sounds like nothing I want--or ever wanted even when I was much younger--to hear at that time of day.

Today we'll all get a chance to hear Jorgen Gothe's last show. I'll listen with considerable sadness. It's hard to think that when he started he took the service in a new direction with a wacky mix of the best of classical music, jazz and eclectic Canadian stuff. He did it with a certain buffoonery, to be sure, but he never underestimated the intelligence of his listeners. The new guy told the Globe that his play list will reflect what is likely to be on the CD racks of the 30- and 40-somethings. In other words, the show will offer this group their same-old same-old without giving them or other sorts of listeners music that expands horizons.

What a bloody shame!

Wine, Local Fruit, and Mangos: Carbon Footprint News

Shipping a bottle of wine from Bordeaux to New York results in l.8 kilograms of CO2 emissions, while shipping the same size bottle from Napa, California, produces 2.6 kilograms, according to a The Globe and Mail story last week. It had a nifty little map showing a “green line” snaking from the eastern edge of the Texas-Mexico border through the states of the Old Confederacy to Chicago: on one side the American wine trucked from California was “greener” while on the other, the French wine, shipped by sea, was.

The story went on to detail how winemakers are experimenting with lighter bottles in order to cut down on shipping costs and carbon emissions. Fine initiatives, I’m sure, and fuel for Lee’s infatuation with French and Italian wines. It also is welcome news for me. Mangos are something I’ve discovered in recent years, but I’ve been feeling guilty about eating them. They must be harvested when nearly ripe which I thought meant they had to be air freighted long distances. But Mangos from Mexico can be trucked here, while it seems that the thicker skinned varieties can be shipped by sea.

Even those, of course, have a bigger carbon footprint than Quebec strawberries and Ontario peaches, and there is no reason not to enjoy them now when they are so good. The pears in the back yard—I picked another lot this morning, and ended up putting a lot of windfall in the trash because the compost heap can’t handle what I have—are even more ecologically sound. But I guess I can permit myself a mango now and then when there is little local fruit.

As for Quebec wines--well, so far they aren't as good as ones from the Niagara peninsula (where the peaches come from) but the Orpailleur white is nice and refreshing.

Forrest Gump, the Holy Fool and the 2008 Presidential Race

The movie Forrest Gump was an immense success when it was released in 1994. At the time I thought that success was very troubling. The hero is a latter-day Holy Fool, a stupid but good man whose choices are always right. The message was: a sub-ordinary person is a whole lot better than anyone else.

Now, I believe in democracy and the equality of citizens and I have great respect for the wisdom of ordinary folk. But the idea that being extraordinary some how is suspect is an anathema to me, and a great danger to society. At the time that Forrest Gump came out, Bill Clinton was playing the Good Old Boy which we now know was all smoke and mirrors. What was good about the man was his extraordinary qualities--his intelligence, his understanding of what the country and the world needed, and his skill in convincing others that a civil society was not only possible but essential.

At the moment two extraordinary men are confronting each other in the race for the White House. John McCain, the son of an admiral who grew up in the sheltered and privileged atmosphere of the officer class, was a war hero. No one should pretend that there is anything ordinary about him, particularly not after he let it be known he doesn't know how many houses he has.

Barack Obama, whom McCain recently tried to humble by claiming he was a "celebrity," is even more extraordinary. The very fact that he is a person of colour sets him apart, and his success should make him a model for others who come from humble backgrounds. The idea that this record should disqualify him from the presidency is appalling and plays to the worst, know-nothing strain of American politics. It is almost as if McCain's campaign managers were intending a sub-text: Obama is "uppity" with all that connotates. But what the US needs now--what the world needs now--is a man of quality, and Barack Obama is the one.

When it comes to good instincts, no one could fault Forrest Gump, to be sure. And I don't think you can do that to Obama either. Perhaps I should be encouraged by the interesting resemblance between Tom Hanks as Gump and the younger Obama: if there's anything in an honest, principled face, they both have it.

An Audio Book for the Campaign Trail and Superb Short Stories: What Stephen Harper Has to Read

Yann Martel’s latest gifts to Prime Minister Stephen Harper are particularly appropriate, it seems to me. The two books he’s sent so far in August—Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor and Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas—are not only good reads, Martel has packed a political message with each.

The Thomas work was sent first, and Martel—who’s been sending a book every two weeks for more than a year in order to provide some good bedtime reading for the PM—apologizes for it being a little late. He’d ordered an audio book version because he thought that Harper would enjoy that more, since it seems he’ll soon be on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, though, it took longer than anticipated to arrive so Martel’s self-imposed two week rhythm was delayed. But the work is worth waiting for, Martel writes in the accompanying letter:

“The lyricism of the language rests solidly on Dylan Thomas’s gut knowledge that life is good, however bad it may be at times. It is said that Dylan Thomas wrote Under Milk Wood in reaction to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I doubt that’s factually true. It sounds too conveniently perfect. But opposing a radiant symphonic poem against the darkness of a mass killing of civilians does hark to a spiritual truth: that beauty can be a road back to goodness.”

Words to remember when considering foreign policy, certainly.

The second August book is a used paperback book, still sturdy, although held together by tape along the spine. “if you take good care of this book, in a few years, because it is a first paperback printing, it will go up in value,” Martel writes. “That undiminishing richness is of course due to a paperback’s inner wealth, all those little black markings. They inhabit a book the way a soul inhabits a body. Books, like people, can’t be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them.”

And that leads him to a very polite protest about the recent cuts in arts funding which Harper’s government brought down this summer, particularly the $4.7 million PromArt program which helped Canadian artists and writers take their work abroad. “(T)o cut an international arts promotion program is to vow our country to cultural anonymity. It means foreigners will have no impressions of Canada, and so no affection. The PromArt program is a vital part of our foreign policy…The value-added worth of this modest program is akin to, well, to the value-added worth of a paperback.”

Martel’s received no response from the PM, which is not a surprise. Only his first offering got a form letter thank you from the PM’s office. What a shame! œ

Breast Cancer: Fear Campaigns Can Be Counter-productive

The Gazette story on Saturday was “heart warming.” It chronicled the struggle of a 40 year old woman against breast cancer. The message was: she was brave, and a fighter but the disease her killed so we should all go out and raise money for cancer research.

The story was a lead up to a fundraising march last Saturday, which apparently came up with $6 million. The march went by our house, and I had distinctly mixed emotions about it. First of all, while marchers are fine on a residential street, it is no place for honking support vehicles. The organizers showed a disregard for the neighborhoods they sent their walkers through which I find very annoying.

More seriously, however, are objections to the whole approach the cancer lobby uses. They insist: one in nine Canadian women will get breast cancer, and breast cancer kills. That is frightening and unfortunately dissuades many women from getting mammograms.

But the truth is that cancer survival rates are rising and early diagnosis leads to almost complete recovery. I know: just two years ago I was completing five weeks of radiation following excision of suspect tissue, a ductal carcinoma in situ. When I campaigned among my friends and acquaintances for all women over 50 to get mammograms regularly I was appalled at the magical thinking many expressed. What I don’t know won’t hurt me, was the attitude of far too many otherwise intelligent women. They were in effect paralyzed by fear of cancer.

More research into breast cancer is necessary, but campaigns which emphasize the importance of mammograms and the curability of breast cancer are more pressing. They don't have the bling of ladies marching along together decked out in pink, but they'll save more lives.

And please don’t honk your horn in front of my house. I've already paid my dues.

Saturday Photo: A Little Peace from Chartres

It's been a very busy week and I have need for a little peace. So here's picture that I took at Chartres this spring.

Mizpah!

Banning Plastic Bottles and the Chinese Solution: Cleaner Water to Drink and Cleaner Oceans in the End

When I was in Shanghai in 2005 one of the things that most impressed me was the way everyone walked or biked round with a steel vacuum bottle filled with boiling hot water. In my hotel room there was a much larger one, filled in the morning and in which the water remained scalding for 24 hours, and a smaller one which I finally figured you were supposed to pour water that you wanted to cool off. The principle was simple: in a place where water supplies are not completely secure, making sure the water people drink is hot enough to kill microbes is basic public health.

I traveled to India that year too, but there carrying one's own boiling water supply was rare. Instead anyone with the money bought bottled water when away from a source they knew secure. I remember two beautiful, blonde Swedish girls who were working hard at learning Malayalam in Kerala State but who resorted to shouts of "Aquafina" when buying water through open train windows.

London, Ontario has just banned the sale of bottled water on public premises, Toronto is talking about doing the same, and this morning's Le Devoir has a story about how only 44 per cent of Quebec's billion plastic bottles will be recycled this year. The cordillera of "disposable" water containers is a tremendous problem, indeed.

Putting aside the question of why North Americans need to have a bottle of water with them constantly--Adrienne asks if we weren't weaned properly--it is clear there's a great need to switch to other ways to carry around our water. Reusable plastic containers have been around for a long time: we've got some we still use which we bought in the 1970s when we were camping a lot. The Chinese option of containers to carry boiling water makes a lot of sense where the quality of water is uneven.

But as I write that I ask myself: what's it like in China now? Have Pepsico (Acquafina's parent company) and other beverage manufacturers worked a sea change there too?

A sea change. Unfortunately as we know billions and billions of plastic bottles and bags end up in the oceans every year, and they are not biodegraded, but will continue to float around for centuries. That's the kind of sea change we've wrought over the last three decades which will have terrible consequences for other forms of life on this planet.

The Home Stretch: Taking the Final Pictures for The Walkable City

Late post today: Simon Dardick at Véhicule sent me the proofs for The Walkable City last night along with some suggestions for a couple of photos that would complement the text. So I set out this morning to catch Montrealers walking to work, as in the photo to the right. What a pleasure to walk down Park Avenue, enjoying the sun and the scenery! Much better than being stuck in a car.

Of course, it's a bit hard to get back to work after Adrienne and John's departure. They joined us in Paris two years ago, and many of the walks we took then show up in The Walkable City as it stands now. Needless to say while they were Montreal we did a lot of walking too. Great fun!

Ugly Women to Beauty Disadvantaged Ones: Is This Progress or Human Nature?

Australian--and other--women are up in arms because the mayor of a small Outback town has invited "beauty disadvantaged women" to come to his town to find happiness because men there far outnumber women.

"May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are (such) women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa," John Molony was quoted in the Townsville Bulletin as saying.

Makes me think of the old song from the 1960s by Jimmy Soul:

"If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
So for my personal point of view
Get an ugly girl to marry you,"

At the time the song didn't stir as much controversy, but the message was quite clear. Don't know if the outcry is progress, although I suspect there is still some truth to it, alas!

Sad Day in Quebec Health Care: Former Minister Joins Private Health Investment Fund

Former Quebec Health Ministe Philippe Couillard has just announced he will join a private investment fund where he will advise on where to invest in health care. He resigned a couple of months ago, and at the time it was said a major reason was to provide money for the further education of his young family.

Couillard, a brilliant surgeon who left the active practice of medecine to enter politics specially so he could improve public health care, was, in the main, a defender of universal, free public health care. That political life doesn't make you any money if you're honest is a well known fact. How sad, though, that he seems poised to take part in the further privatization of the health system. And how ironic that the education system is already such a two tiered affair that man with aspirations for his kids feels he can't put them in public school or send them to a Canadian university.

Fermenting Pears, Not Poire William, Unfortunately.

Short post today because our friends John and Adrienne from San Francisco are visiting. But last night as we were sitting outside, enjoying the best evening of the summer, the down side of a bumper crop of pears became apparent. The breeze gently wafted the smell of fermenting pears from the compost heap. Would much rather the windfall or squirrel-nibbled pears turn into Poire William than compost-liquor!

Now we're off to play with our friends.

Saturday Photo: More Pears Than the Squirrels Can Eat

For whatever reason--lots of rain, good pollination, sheer luck--the pear crop on our two center-city pear trees this year is stupendous. Usually the squirrels get all, but there are too many for them even. Unfortunately the quality isn't all that great, but I've made pear chutney and last night we put them in a big fruit salad where they went well with the other fruits.


And just to show how much things can change in a few months: here's the backyard with the pear trees in January.

The First and the Last: An Art Show and Doris Lessing's Novels

One of the things we did last weekend was take in a fascinating exhibition of engravings done by artists associated with Atelier Circulaire. Called La première et la dernière, it features early and recent work by about 35 artists. Some of the pairs show a great difference in theme or technique but other demonstrate a continued interest in ideas that have evolved over time.

I've thought of the contrasts that the exhibit presented a lot these last few days as I try to make headway in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. It is the first book scheduled for two of the book groups I lead (September 8 in English at the Pierrefonds Library and September 9 in French at the Bibliothèque Robert-Bourassa in Outremont) Although I read it years ago, I have found re-reading it quite a new experience. Not only had I forgotten much of it, I have been struck by how much it resembles Lessing’s most recent novel, The Sweetest Dream,(published in 2001) which I read last winter. Fifty years ago she was concerned about the same things—the fate of Africa, the betrayal of idealism in the Communist Party, the difficulty faced by women trying to raise children on their own, in particular. Much of the more recent book I found annoying, and I’m afraid I’m losing patience with the characters in the older book. I’m just about to declare that her best work was the stories from her youth in Africa, The Grass Is Singing (1949) and the Martha Quest books (1952-59.) What a dismal thought that would be!

But it may also say something about early success. For a writer or composer to be wildly acclaimed in his or her 30s (and Lessing was just 30 when The Grass Is Singing became a best seller) usually means being cut off from ordinary life, and a narrowing rather than a widening of experience. The quasi-science fiction that Lessing wrote in the 1970s and 1980s can be seen as an attempt to escape that constraint. Her last novel--as well as her memoirs--show that first and last she has the same preoccuptions, however.

Telling It Like It Is: A Call for Truth in the US Presidential Campaign--and a Little Unity among the Democrats

An interesting pair of columns in The New York Times on Wednesday: Maureen Dowd on how Hillary and Bill Clinton are getting ready to sabotage the Democratic convention and Barack Obama’s campaign, and Thomas Friedman on how John McCain has now voted eight times, in effect, against alternate energy tax credits. Add the cover story about a book which is aimed squarely at taking down Obama (whose name I won’t mention so as not to give it any more promotion than necessary,) and the political situation in the US looks worse and worse.

We are now slightly less than three months before the US presidential election, and the world is threatening to veer even more crazily out of control. Supposedly this is the time when men and women come together to celebrate healthy competition through sport, but what are we getting? The US and the Russians sparring now in a way that sends chills down my spine, child of the Cold War that I am.

Barack Obama must be elected with a large majority in the House and the Senate, for the sake of the world, not to mention the health of Americans. If Bill Clinton were a real statesman and Hillary Clinton, the kind of role model every mother hopes for her daughters, they would swallow their pride and rally round Obama enthusiastically. Obama’s team must not let McCain and company get away with the kind of smear tactics they have already begun. His camp must parry and thrust like the best fencers now strutting their stuff in Beijing. And the American people should show the same disgust at McCain’s chicanery that they seem to feel for the tweaking of the Olympic opening ceremony.

Friedman was talking about the need for straight talk and clear action on renewable energy in his column, but what he says is equally applicable to the campaign in general:

“That is what this election should be focusing on. Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid — so bloody stupid — that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they’ll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power — when you didn’t.”

Are the Conservatives Afraid of Culture? Cuts to International Promotional Programs Cause Outcry

When we were in Paris in May, the Métro was full of big ads for Les Grands ballets canadiens who were scheduled to perform between July 19 and August 9 as part of Les étés de la danse festival there. It would seem the visit was a grand success with the company from Montreal playing to sold out crowds and laudatory articles in France and elsewhere.

The tour was sponsored in part by the Canadian Federal government through its programs to promote Canadian culture abroad—programs which have just been cut. Cancelled were both the $4.7 million PromArt program which helped writers, artists, musicians and other members of Canada’s cultural industry, and the $9 million Trade Routes, which partially financed trips by publishers, agents and others involved in cultural promotion.

The out cry from the arts community has been vocal. As a press release from the Writers’ Union of Canada says: “these cuts are not simply fiscal in nature, as the Foreign Affairs department would have us believe, since studies have shown that every dollar invested in Canadian culture brings $10 into the Canadian economy; taxes alone replenish DFAIT's original investment... (The programs are) an investment that realizes huge returns to federal and provincial coffers.”

Quebec’s Minister of Culture and Communications Christine St-Pierre returned early from her vacation, shocked by the cuts. She told Le Devoir that she would requests a meeting with the federal minister invovled, Joséee Verner, and will contact the culture ministes of other provinces. “Our artists are our best ambassadors,” she said.

The Writers’ Union is encouraging its members and arts’ supporters to protest by writing letters. Here are the addresses of the federal officials concerned.

Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada Harper.S@parl.gc.ca

The Honourable David Emerson, Minister of Foreign Affairs: Emerson.D@parl.gc.ca

The Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages Verner.J@parl.gc.ca

Hon. James Flaherty, Minster of Finance Flaherty.J@parl.gc.ca

Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Obhrai.D@parl.gc.ca

Kevin Sorenson, Chair, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Development Sorenson.K@parl.gc.ca

Bob Ray, Foreign Affairs Critic, Liberal Party Rae.B@parl.gc.ca

Francine Lalonde, Foreign Affairs Critic, Bloc Quebecois Lalonde.F@parl.gc.ca

Alexa McDonough, Foreign Affairs Critic, NDP McDonough.A@parl.gc.ca

Layton and Lagacé-Dowson Call for $591 Million over Four Years for Public Transport in Montreal

The by-election campaign in Westmount Ville Marie is heating up, with NDP leader Jack Layton calling for the federal government to invest $591 million over the next four years in public transport in the Montreal region. The equivalent of almost 1400 new buses or 267 new subway cars, the investment, Layton argued, would go further toward solving problems of green house gas emissions and petroleum dependence than the recent carbon tax plan announced by Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. .

The transit investment is great good sense, and the kind of thing that Anne Lagacé Dowson , the NDP candidate in Westmount Ville Marie, is championing vigorously as she campaigns. I’ve begun telephone for her—a pleasure, she is the sort of principled intelligent person we need as members of parliament—and I was delighted at the response. One woman, whom I know slightly, told me that she usually votes Liberal but will make the switch this time.

Terrific! It is time to send an unequivocal message that things he got to change, and that the Liberals, who may think that Westmount Ville Marie is a safe riding, have got to be more aggressive on environmental and other issues.

If not, the government should fall, the sooner the better.

Fun and Games in Montreal: Festivals and walks along the Lachine Canal

Great weekend: our friend Betty Lou from Berkeley was visiting which was a great excuse to do some site seeing. We took in the festival of Nossa Senhora do monte, at the Portgueuse church, Santa Cruz Saturday night. Then on Sunday we walked the Lachine canal. Great weekend! No time or energy for more than a short post, however

Saturday Photo: Two Faces of China, Shanghai View

The media are full of images from Beijing and the rest of China right now, so it's time for me to trot out two pictures I took in Shanghai when I was there working on Green City. The peaceful piper is a sculpture in Jing'an Park just off West Nanjng Road in the center of the city. Early in the morning it was full of people exercising, and during the day many others used it for resting, reading and other sorts of recreation. This appreciation of what nature is available was both touching and encouraging.

But not far away was another feature of China today: constructions sites where traiditonal low rise housing was being razed to make way for sky scrapers. Who knows that this massive rebuilding of Chinese cities is going to do to the peple?

Warning from Krugman: Republican Message Is "Real Men Don't Think Things Through"

Take time from the Olympic hype to read Paul Krugman today:

To give you a taste:

"...the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”'

Playing Memory Games as the Olympics Begin: China Isn't the First Host Country with a Spotty Record

Things to remember as the Olympics begin in Beijing and the Western world protests human rights violations:

Hundreds of people—mostly student protesters—were killed in Mexico City shortly before the 1968 games began. The city had been scene to massive anti-government demonstrations and the regime in power wanted to show a less-troubled face to the world.

The week before the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Mayor Jean Drapeau ordered the demolition of a big open air art show, Corridart: Dans la rue Sherbrooke. The 5.5 kilometer display of cutting edge Canadian art apparently offended the mayor’s sensibilities.

China is the most populous country in the world, with enormous economic potential. There is little doubt that it has a long history of despotic governments of one sort or another. But come on, who has clean hands? The fact that China is becoming the number one economic rival of the US and the EU should not be forgotten when listening to the rhetoric surrounding China's (quite real, and not to be condoned) human rights violations.

Don't forget Tibet , but who was raising a ruckus about Spain's attitude toward the Basque country during the Barcelona games--or about the uneasy relation between Spain and Catalonia itself?

And just for the record, during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the British equestrian team brought gas masks for their horses because of the Los Angeles smog.

Permeable Pavement and Proliferating Plants: Fighting Floods, City Heat and Mitigating Climate Change All at Once

Much talk here these days about soil absorption, drainage and run off from pavement. The rain keeps falling, and flooding continues in many areas. Part of this is due to unusually high rainfall this summer, following a winter of heavy snow which means that the soil is saturated. But part of the problem comes from increased building and paving over of areas which formerly slowly absorbed rainwater.

Just last week the city of Montreal announced plans to encourage the greening of asphalted areas in order to cut down on creating heat islands in the city. This same sort of effort can reduce excessive run-off, it seems. Trees and shrubs not only soak up rain water, their leaves slow the speed with which rain reaches the soil, decreasing the chance of flash flooding. Similarly green roofs can use and/or retain rainwater, reducing run off.

My mother always said that building a house on a swamp didn’t make the swamp any less a swamp, and I agree that people and developers who knowingly build in floodable and landslide-prone areas don’t deserve much sympathy. Similarly, we should recognize that what we’ve been doing to the planet will have effects on the climate and weather patterns. Straightening this out will take society-wide, world-embracing action. But there are also many smaller things that we ought to do to counter act what we’ve done.

Replacing asphalt paving with interlocked bricks is one since water can seep between the blocks to be absorbed slowly. (Click here for more information.) More planting everywhere is also surely on the agenda. Maintaining trees and other greener is not a frill but something that all citizens and governments should do. It all is just another example of the need to think globally and act locally.

Bel Canto and The Soloist: Good Novels about Music and Its Power--and a Ray of Hope for Writers Everywhere

I’m trying to get started on another work of fiction, now The Violets of Usambara is safely published. It’s likely to include some musicians as characters and so I’ve been combining work and pleasure this summer by reading novels where music is a major element. Two of the best so far are Mark Salzman’s The Soloist and Anne Patchett’s Bel Canto

The latter I particularly liked, because it evokes just how music can move people with an adventure story which gives a most interesting look at an unnamed South American country that bears a startling resemblance to Peru.

Bel Canto was a resounding critical and popular success, but Patchett makes clear that finding an audience for her work was not something that she did overnight. In a fascinating article in The Atlantic, she writes about selling her books through appearances in books stores, sometimes when the only people listening to her read were the store’s employees.

I know what she means: there have been many times when, as Canadian writer Merilyn Simonds puts it, I knew the middle name of everyone at the reading. How encouraging it is to read about Patchett”s long--but ultimately successful--struggle to connect with readers.

Climate Change Report Delayed, While the Rain Continues to Fall

Late afternoon Thursday, July 24, and the Canadian government releases a troubling report on what climate change will do to the health of Canadians. There is some coverage on Friday—The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail have stories, so do the television networks—but there are no questions about it in the House of Commons, of course, because the Parliament is not sitting. Nor, is there much comment or action from environmental groups or editorial writers. It is, after, all the middle of the summer, during the construction holiday in Quebec, and running up to the week before a long weekend in the rest of Canada when many people take time off.

Sataurday, August 2 torrential rains fall all across Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Elin and Emmanuel's street on the east end of Montreal island is flooded when 33 mm (more than two inches) fall in ten minutes--it's only the second time in 27 years that there's been a problem, says their landlord. Inondations sweep across Gaspé, New Brunswick, and up to the North Shore of the St. Lawrence.

This morning Le Devoir reports that climate change and health experts charge that the report was ready last spring, and say that it was deliberately withheld until the summer doldrums to avoid comment. This is nothing new with the current Conservative government: holding off until the worst possible moment to release news it doesn’t want out has become the way it operates. The tactic is a corollary to the way it has spent much of the summer trotting its MPs around the country to rural fairs and urban festivals in order to make announcements of every little bit of money that has been allotted—no matter that frequently the announcement was already made months before.

It would be nice to think Stephen Harper and his gang won’t get away with it, that people will connect the dots and see just how disastrous this government is. That would be the silver lining to the rain clouds which have covered this part of the world so much this summer, and which several meterologist attribute to changes in weather patterns.

The Walkable City: Corrections to Do As the Pub Date Approaches

Got the editorial corrections for The Walkable City: From Haussmann’s Boulevards to Jane Jacobs’ Streets and Beyond on the weekend. Rather nice to see that the editor hasn’t proposed any major changes—at least so far. I’m into the fourth chapter, however, and even though Simon Dardick, the publisher, has said both he and the editor like the book a lot, it’s possible that I may find some contentious suggestions ahead. You never know…

We’re shooting for a mid-September publication date which means that things have got to proceed quickly. So today is going to be devoted to working on the manuscript. Don’t even think I’ll have time to pick the pears which should be ripe momentarily. The squirrels are munching them off the trees but the five I picked yesterday still were not quite at the point they should be picked.

But it’s time to get to work on something intellectual!

Saturday Photo: Flowers and Music Make a Perfect Match

Not far from St. Lawrence Boulevard, the street along which immigrants settled for half a century, I came across this flowering piano. It sits next to Montréal Piano, where Louis Lovsin and his family have been tuning and restoring pianos since 1969. (See its website for great archival photos and more of its history.)

The Lovsins also obviously have a good sense of humour, as this original flower arrangement attests. The sapling growing underneath the keyboard also shows just how determined to grow plants are. (See yesterday's post for more on the force through which the green fuse drives the flower.)

Cormac McCarthy's The Road II: What Is Missing Is the Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

In this summer of luxuriant growth, I find myself thinking again of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It is not clear in the story how long has passed since the grand cataclysm which has swept away civilization and normal life. We are told that it occurred before the boy at the center of the story was born, and he is clearly 8 or 9 as he and his father trudge across a moonlike landscape, past smoldering forest fires to the lifeless sea. The sole rays of hope in the story are the tender way his father guards him, and the family which welcomes him at the end.

McCarthy apparently lives in the America Southwest now, and I suspect that dry landscape has strongly influenced his vision of what would lie beyond the end of the world. Nothing grows in The Road except for a few mushrooms, and evil in the heart of the cataclysm’s survivors. Despite rain and snow, the man and the boy encounter no signs of new greenery, no sprigs of grass, not even a blasted, genetically damaged lichen. Yet if anything is clear from a study of disaster sites around the world, it is that life will continue, although it may not be life as we know it or desire it.

Plants are thriving this summer here, pushing up through cracks in pavement, taking root on roofs that haven’t been regularly maintained, growing tall in any unused lot. Given enough water and a period of warmth, plants of some kind or another are unstoppable.. The fields and forests around Chernobyl bear witness to this force that through the green fuse drives the flower, as Dylan Thomas put it. So does the volcanic landscape of Mt. St. Helens in Oregon. Within five years the scree and ash had been colonized by the first plant invaders on the mountain sides scorched by a great eruption in 1980.

In the dry Southwest reconstruction of landscape after disaster takes longer, but it still takes place. McCarthy makes no nod toward that fact. Instead his story is a black and white version of what may happen in the hearts of men. The “happy” ending is contrived, tacked on the way the rescue scene at the end of The Lord of the Flies is. If McCarthy had intended to leave us with a glimmer of hope, he would have done better to show us the power of green growth.