culture

Editorial: Steal This Idea (34.6)

22 December, 2008 | Nicola Ross

THE FEDERAL election is kicking into high gear as this issue goes to press. It’s too early to predict which party will form the next government, but regardless of who ends up living at 24 Sussex Drive, there is an abundance of environmental lessons that our future prime minister can learn from other jurisdictions – the European Union in particular.

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Reviews

28 May, 2009 | Terry Fenge and Andrew Heintzman

Reconciliation: First Nations Treaty Making in British Columbia by Tony Penikett

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger Martin ...

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Street Food

28 May, 2009 | Mairon Giovani Bastos Lima

When I arrived from Brazil to start my studies in Canada, I felt ready to live in a new country and ready to adjust myself to a different food culture. I still believe I was right about the first feeling. But it took me only a few hours to realize how mistaken I was about the second. ...

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Heritage in the 'Burbs

27 May, 2009 | Edmund P. Fowler

Imagine walking down a street of a suburban subdivision built in 2000, somewhere on the outskirts of Calgary, Vancouver or Toronto. Only now it’s 2020. To your right is one of the single family homes that survived a physical transformation initiated in 2007, when it became clear that surviving the oil crisis required neighbourhood intensification. In his home, a retired minister sells polished and drilled semiprecious stones – amethysts, agates and tourmalines – out of a living room he has transformed into a showroom. His workshop is in the basement. ...

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Letter from Tanzania

27 May, 2009 | Greg John

With Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, I was quietly chatting with my neighbour on our front lawn. The morning peace shattered, however, when a nearby transformer exploded in a shower of sparks. The pyrotechnics that would deny my household three days of electricity sent me ducking for cover in a flurry of adrenaline-driven expletives. In cool contrast, my Tanzanian neighbour’s response hung in the air. “Matatizo,” he muttered. “Complications,” the typical Tanzanian euphemism for any problem, big or small. ...

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Lessons from the Edge

27 May, 2009 | David Orr

According to William James, ideas are rooted in our lived experience. In my case that is certainly true. A great deal of what I believe can be traced to certain experiences as described in the following excerpt from Design on the Edge (MIT Press, 2006). My views on climate change, for example, owe in part to the physical experience of the hottest and driest summer ever recorded in Arkansas. I spent the summer out of doors working on a small farm and quite literally felt the heat without relief, day after day.

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Crossing the Line

27 May, 2009 | Linda Carson

Some questions, no matter how important or challenging, are well-understood and manageable. It may take hard investigative work to respond, but we know who to call. What do we do, however, when the problem is vast? When the dividing line between one problem and another is blurred? When the scope is global or subatomic? When there are many contributing factors, some unknown, some human and some culturally dependent? ...

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Trickster Teachers

27 May, 2009 | Alison Neilson

Putting down my well-worn copy of Green Grass, Running Water, my whole being tingles from the mix of magic, reality, comedy and tragedy that spirals through Thomas King’s narratives. I start to plan my upcoming courses. Applying lessons from King, I hope to make room for many bodies, voices and perspectives. My goal is to help these students – soon-to-be teachers – learn to reflect on their assumptions so that they can make room in their classrooms too. ...

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Harry Potter and the Nature of Death

27 May, 2009 | Fraser Los

Unless you hid under a rock this summer, you were aware that the seventh and final Harry Potter book hit the bookstores. It was infectious or annoying, depending on your sentiments, watching the Potter-heads nose deep in the Deathly Hallows on every city bus and street corner. So, I decided to see what all the fuss was about, not just by picking up a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but by reading all seven of J.K. Rowling’s massively popular wizard books in rapid succession. ...

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The Buddhist and the Tomato

27 May, 2009 | Douglas Vincent

The glaring fluorescence of Atlantic Superstore lights must have blinded me. How could I buy a shiny, temptingly red – and cheap – Mexican tomato when I knew I could purchase local, organic ones at the Halifax Farmers’ Market? ...

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