Yesterday was a day of travel. Coming off a fabulous Art of Hosting in Pembroke Ontario that was a deep personal exploration of source and the spirit of hosting for many who were there. Thursday evening we gathered at Alastair Haynes’ home in the east end of Ottawa for a curry dinner followed by hours of music and whiskey, all of which wrapped up at 1am. Friday morning my mate Kathy Jourdain and I left ofr the airport, she to fly to Halifax and me to set out on a milk run across the country. We left …
I was talking to my daughter tonight on the phone. I was walking out of The Forks in Winnipeg where I had just eaten a pickerel (that I learned was from Kazakhstan…W.T.F!) and my daughter requested that I get a GPS that could beep and show where I am on this epic trip. After being on the road for eight days already, with another 12 ahead of me, I don’t even know where I am sometimes. Yesterday I was wrapping up the 2009 Good Food Gathering in San Jose and I took a CalTrain up to SFO, hopped …
I’m stranded in San Fransico, sitting on standby for a flight home after narrowly missing my flight yesterday evening due to a big accident on the Golden Gate bridge. So sitting the lounge, guiltily hoping every two hours that someone has some minor misfortune or change of plans that will open up one seat on a day when every flight home is full. Found a poem by Denise Levertov at the excellent Panhala: A Gift Just when you seem to yourself nothing but a flimsy web of questions, you are given the questions of others to hold in the …
I’ve been in Portland Oregon this week working with Native community radio stations from across the United States on an exciting capacity development project. While here I’ve been enjoying the city. Portland, Seattle and Vancouver really are sister cities. We share the same climate, the same eco-systems and concerns, the same look and feel. The histories of the three cities are intertwined by the people that have lived on this coast since the cities were founded. The Columbia is the furthest south outlet of Canadian freshwater on the west coast, so in many ways, what …
I am not talking about the bailout here. I am talking about a serious rescue. Abousifian Abdelrazik is a Canadian who has found himself in a big pickle. He returned to his birthplace in Sudan in 2003 to visit is ailing mother. While there, the CSIS, our spy agency, apparently had him arrested. He was later allegedly interrogated by CSIS, the FBI and Sudanese intelligence officials about ties to Osama bin Laden. He was in and out of detention for years in Sudanese jails, where he alleges he was also tortured. In the meantime, …