wmtctesttesttest

We were warned about this! We were half-expecting it. Our car didn't pass the inspection for BC auto insurance. Supposedly this is what happens when you bring a car from another province. We drive an old (2006) Kia Spectra, which we bought two years ago when our even older (2005) Chevy Optra was hit by a careless driver and our insurance carrier dumped it. Considering its age and its 155,000 kilometres, the Kia has been very solid. Before we drove west, we brought it in for a full check-up and got everything it needed, plus new snow tires. It drove across the continent without a hiccup. Given that, it's a wee bit hard to believe that the car suddenly needs another $3,000 in repairs. But you can't get car insurance without the inspection, so the inspectors have you over a barrel. (If you enjoy word and phrase origins, over a barrel has an interesting story.) It would be ridiculous to put another $3,000 into this car. It's more than we paid for it in the first place! All...

Let me set the scene. The year is 1946. The United States is deeply segregated. The birth of the civil rights movement that would begin as African-American soldiers returned home to Jim Crow, after fighting for democracy abroad, is still a good 10 years away. Newlyweds Jackie and Rachel Robinson leave their hometown of Pasadena, California, for Florida, where Jackie will become the first African-American to play organized, professional sports in the United States. When Rachel sees "whites only" signs for the first time in the airport bathroom, she takes a deep breath and walks in anyway, feeling scared, but proud and defiant. Neither Rachel nor Jackie had ever seen the heart of the Jim Crow South. They had no idea what awaited them. Despite her airport bravada, Rachel and her husband weren't allowed to board their plane. They were "bumped" from their scheduled flight, and the flight after that, and the one after that. They were also not allowed to purchase food ...

A new biography of Frederick Douglass has gotten glowing reviews, and as Douglass is one of my great heroes -- one of the greatest Americans -- I definitely want to read it. This made me realize how many biographies I've been putting on The List and not reading. The one that's been on The List, unread, longest is Arnold Rampersad's biography of Jackie Robinson . Rampersad was the first biographer to have full access to Robinson's letters and other papers, as well as Rachel Robinson's approval and cooperation. It came out in 1998, and I'm reading it now. Others on The List: Peter Ackroyd's Dickens  (1990) -- at more than 1,000 pages, this one is intimidating Orwell: A Life , Bernard Crick (1992) Helen Keller: A Life , Dorothy Hermann (1998) Galileo, Watcher of the Skies , David Wootton (2013) Ali: A Life , Jonathan Eig (2017) Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder , Caroline Fraser (2017) So I'm thinking, for my own reading, maybe thi...

Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street is a history and ethnography of Occupy Wall Street, and the Occupy movement. Author, sociologist, and longtime leftist activist Todd Gitlin has written an account of how a social movement was born, grew, and died. After reading it, I felt utter despair at our ability to create a more democratic political system, and a more just economic system. I'm pretty sure that's not what Gitlin was going for! It's easy to forget how present the Occupy movement became -- how quickly it spread, the attention it drew, how it forced a change in the terms of the debate. Hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 1,000 cities around the globe took part in Occupy demonstrations. The expression "the 99%" entered a common vocabulary. Occupy focused public and media attention on income inequality in a way I had not seen in my lifetime. Together with the Fight for 15, Occupy made labour and economic issues truly...

This week I drove down to Port McNeill -- about 30 minutes away, and the home of one of my libraries -- and took the ferry to Malcolm Island, to visit another of my libraries, in the town of Sointula. I traveled with a co-worker who does programming and support work in our zone's libraries and communities. She's a great person and an awesome library worker, and we're doing all my first site visits together. We stepped off the ferry and into  Coho Joe , a local haunt. No sooner did we walk through the door than C was greeted warmly by name. She introduced me to two women, one a local artist, and both heavy library users -- one of whom we would see later that day. Coho Joe is my kind of place. An adorable menu, great food, and amazing coffee. The library! The small library, walking distance from the ferry, is incredibly well-loved by its community -- voracious readers whose tastes run a full gamut from esoteric nonfiction to paperback westerns. Twice a month a local textile a...

Things continue to fall into place here, a little at a time. I'm enjoying our quiet weekends. Allan is off every Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; I work Saturdays until 5:00, then I'm off Sunday and Monday. This is more time off together than we've had in a long time, and having two consecutive days off every week -- without the added work from union responsibilities -- is so nice. Every weekend we get out to explore some local beauty. We'll walk on the paved walk path along the bay, or poke along seaweed, shells, and rocks at low tide, or drive 10 minutes to a sandy beach where Diego can run on the sand. We always see birds. My many birding friends may enjoy this: I picked up one of these pocket guides to local birds, and I put it -- along with binoculars -- in the glove box in the car. I'd like to expand the range of birds I can identify... without making it a whole big project. (My ongoing quest against all-or-nothing thinking continues.) I purchased the field gui...

Harry Leslie Smith, who sometimes called himself "the world's oldest rebel," died in late November 2018. I was unable to acknowledge his passing on wmtc at the time. Smith, a writer and an activist, was a steadfast critic of neoliberal policies, especially the austerity agenda. He spoke out constantly and consistently for a more generous, more just, and more inclusive society -- in short, for the preservation of social democracy. His obituary in The Guardian quotes him: I am one of the last few remaining voices left from a generation of men and women who built a better society for our children and grandchildren out of the horrors of the second world war, as well as the hunger of the Great Depression. Sadly, that world my generation helped build on a foundation of decency and fair play is being swept away by neoliberalism and the greed of the 1%, which has brought discord around the globe. Today, the western world stands at its most dangerous juncture since the 1930s. Sm...