Inside Google Books: Books of the world, stand up and be counted! All 129,864,880 of you..

Readers in Vancouver can get it immediately from The People’s [...]]]>
Average consumer, step right up, have I got a deal for you! If you really want to buy The Miracle Tree, my (sporadically funny) novel about a young reporter who gets sent to cover a tree that might make wishes come true, it’s your lucky day.

Readers in Vancouver can get it immediately from The People’s Co-op Bookstore (908 Commercial Drive), or down the street near Venables at Robin’s Pharmacy (1391 Commercial). The People’s Co-op is a landmark, one of those venerable spots for thinkers that define the best of Vancouver. Robin’s is an upstart turning your old notion of the pharmacy on its head (picture your pharmacist in a t-shirt and jeans listening to Pavement while he gets your drugs). It’s probably wrong but I take some pride in knowing The Miracle Tree is in the Personal Growth book section of the pharmacy, even though it should be in Personal Debauchery.

It can also be ordered through any bookstore (here’s the ISBN to help them find it:9780986505508), on-line through amazon.com, or as an ebook from Smashwords.

Or you can order it directly from me for $18 + service and delivery charges.

Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about [...]]]> Marilyn Tower, owner of Abbotsford’s Tower Foods, with some of the products seized from Vancouver’s Home Grow-In Grocer by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency due to alleged inadequate labelling. Credit: Doug Shanks — From the Weekender

Home Grow-In, that cool little corner store on Columbia and 18th Ave that Spring Gillard and I podcasted about (because it sells only local goods and supports organic growers and lets you “buy” stuff with a goodwill promise to pay later) is being hassled by our ever-diligent bureaucrats. Hard to believe, I know, but not entirely surprising, is it?

I’d planned to whip myself up into an appropriate froth for a sardonic response, but Herb Barbolet did it so well already I’m going to quote his post to the BC Food Networks listserve. First a link to the story in the Westender.

–
RE: GROCER’S STOCK SEIZED

Had George Orwell read this story he might not have believed it. It is Animal Farm and 1984 rolled into one.

The Canadian government refuses public demand for labelling of genetically modified foods, closes small abattoirs (putting farmers and ranchers out of business), lets Chinese food with melamine into the country and “watches over” Maple Leaf.
But if a small neighbourhood grocery is selling quality local products without proper French on the label… woe to them, the full force of the federal government will set things right.

Hell, “the store wasn’t even the target”. It was the supplier!
Makes sense from a government that shoved HST on to the province.

And the CFIA spokesperson has the gall to say that the rules are applied evenly and “we can’t be everywhere at once”.
Who is pulling the Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors’ strings?

Herb Barbolet
–

You may or may not like Sean Penn as an actor (although admit it, he’s almost always great) or as a person (let’s not overlook the fact that you might well have gone off on a paparazzi or two if you found yourself married to Madonna), but you have to admire his singular [...]]]>

You may or may not like Sean Penn as an actor (although admit it, he’s almost always great) or as a person (let’s not overlook the fact that you might well have gone off on a paparazzi or two if you found yourself married to Madonna), but you have to admire his singular determination to make the world a better place.

He’s now running a camp for 55,000 displaced Haitians.

In a remarkable interview with Amy Goodman — in itself an powerful refutation of celebrity gossip journalism — he talks about Haiti’s future, foreign aid groups, why he turned to Venezuala’s president for aid instead of asking Obama, how much he admires the effort of the U.S. Army in Haiti, and how he came to care.

Sean Penn on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake, Recovery Efforts and Why He Decided to Manage a Tent Camp of 55,000 Displaced Haitians.

What to do when you’re retired? Here’s one man’s answer. Inspired perhaps by Voltaire.

Italian creates world’s largest maze | World news | The Guardian.

Here’s a wild idea: a crisis like Haiti can be solved by letting people grow their way  out of it.

This comes from a man who wants to be president of the country (excerpted from a talk with the Montreal Gazette):

If $1 billion of the $11 billion pledged by international donors was put toward agriculture, [...]]]>

Here’s a wild idea: a crisis like Haiti can be solved by letting people grow their way  out of it.

This comes from a man who wants to be president of the country (excerpted from a talk with the Montreal Gazette):

If $1 billion of the $11 billion pledged by international donors was put toward agriculture, the world could “watch Haiti not only feed itself, but export billions,” he said.

Can farming save Haiti?.

Why? What does it all mean? Is is nefarious? Is someone dumping turnips illegally? Are the producers trying to cut supply to drive up [...]]]>
I did not just fall off the turnip truck. But these turnips did. A whole whacking pile of them, silently reeking away at an obscure street end in Ladner outside Vancouver.

Why? What does it all mean? Is is nefarious? Is someone dumping turnips illegally? Are the producers trying to cut supply to drive up the price? And why don’t more people eat them in the first place? People, they’re turnips, they taste good. Kind of.

At last, they’re finally going to prove it. YOU’RE not the weird one…it’s that parallel universe you’ve always suspected.

The giant atom-smasher near Geneva is ready to rock.

Cern researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions and hitherto invisible particles that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a [...]]]>

At last, they’re finally going to prove it. YOU’RE not the weird one…it’s that parallel universe you’ve always suspected.

The giant atom-smasher near Geneva is ready to rock.

Cern researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions and hitherto invisible particles that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a theory that doubles the number of particle species in the universe. Other results may point to “hidden worlds” of particles and forces that we are oblivious to because they do not interact with everyday matter.

via Cern’s giant collider is back – and the hunt for fundamental new insights is on | Science | The Guardian.

A fantastic plant, and one with plenty of stories it could [...]]]> If you’ve ever visited Kamakura, the ancient capital of Japan one hour from Tokyo, you’ve probably visited Hachimangu Shrine. Which means you surely saw and admired the huge, gnarly, rope-encircled, 1,000-year-old ginkgo tree at the bottom of the steps leading up to the shrine.

A fantastic plant, and one with plenty of stories it could have told, including the part it played in hiding an assassin who leaped out to slice down the shogun. I used to be in awe of this tree, when I lived in Kamakura.

But no longer: I’ve just learned that it collapsed earlier this month, apparently due to heavy rain followed by gusty wind (remember the Stanley Park blowdown)?

Sad to hear but what a life. Long live the ginkgo.

The link is in Japanese but it includes a couple of pics.
http://mainichi.jp/select/wadai/news…40045000c.html