I mostly read magazines in bed and I have an on-again off-again relationship with The Nation. However, I spent a couple nights mulling over this disturbing story about what the mortgage crisis is doing to the black middle class. Meanwhile, the papers here have been running congratulatory editorials because the conservatives finally got it together …
Continue reading “Surprise: Predatory Lending Hits the Poorest Hardest”
Sometimes it takes world news to learn about something cool on your own campus: A group of profs and students in the School of Architecture, along with a couple NGOs, took a 1000 square foot piece of concrete (there are lots of awful concrete plazas around) and <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7482670.stm” target=”_blank”>turned it into a container garden …
As I’ve been squirreled away at home writing a bunch of holidays have been going on: St. Jean Baptiste, which has become a nationalist holiday for Quebec, and July 1st and 4, the nationalist holidays for Canada and the U.S. Quebec City also had its 400th anniversary. A couple years back I noted the slight …
For some time now, a digest called “IN THE NEWS” appears in my mailbox each morning with news items of interest to people working at McGill (plus, naturally, all the “expert citings” since the university keeps track of that sort of thing). In today’s digest, two apparently unrelated stories appeared. –A <a href=”http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-stuff4-2008jul04,0,983101.story” target=”_blank>profile</a> …
Wednesday afternoon the TA union officially called off their strike and authorized the bargaining committee to sign the contract. They did not accept the administration’s back to work protocol, but the protocol isn’t necessary for a return to work. <a href=”http://www.agsem-aeedem.ca/” target=”_blank”>Full details here.</a> Although I got a long letter from the provost last night, …
The Conservative government cleverly tabled Bill C-61 shortly after a massive and public apology to First Nations people over the horrific school system that attempted to forcibly assimilate generations of First Nations people. The press focused on the First Nations apology, as it should have. Canada’s history on matters of race is not pretty, and …
Americans who filed federal taxes got a $600 rebate this year. <a href=”http://www.slate.com/id/2192361/” target=”_blank”>As this article in Slate explains</a>, it is a spectacularly stupid idea; as most tax rebates are, it’s basically a form of bribery-by-borrowing. We filed in the U.S. but did not pay any taxes (Americans living abroad are required to file even …
