The Best Rock Shows. . .

are always surprises. Sometimes it’s the quality of the performance itself, but in this case it was the very existence of the show. Looking up the starting time for Tuesday night’s Zombi/Maserati show, I stumbled across a listing for last night’s Grates/Life and Times/ Bad Flirt show at the Main Hall. I’m a big fan …

Baby’s First Liberal Convention

Last night Carrie and I watched our first Canadian political convention and . . . is was boring and disappointing. Yes, I know we should have known better from years of American political conventions but somehow I thought it would be different here, that issues and positions would be discussed. Instead, it was a serial …

“I love it when Americans immigrate”

Permanent residency (or “landed immigrant” status as it used to be called) is a big step in any immigrant’s life in Canada, but a lot of people don’t know exactly what it means. Basically, it means that we get all the rights of citizens except for the vote. The vote comes with citizenship in about …

The “Quebec is a Nation” Controversy 101 for Americans

Ron writes in the comments that he’d like an explanation of what the hell is going on up here in federal politics. Given that I have found no more divisive issue (1) among Canadians (and that’s among anglophones and among francophones as well as across language divisions), I’m sure to get myself in trouble here. …