Tag: Canada

Marmite

Marmite kept my father alive.

Updates with CFIA statement saying Marmite not banned When I was a little kid my father insisted—yes insisted—that I eat my Marmite. This morning I woke up to the news that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has apparently banned Marmite, a yeast extract spread, in this country, along with some other British “comfort foods.” (After […]

Browsing the State Department’s old style analog paper Wiki

 Back in the  1980s when I first embarked on historical investigations,  the US State Department had its own analog, paper-based Wiki that covered almost every diplomatic dispatch going back centuries, millions of three by five inch index cards. And  each told a story. It was amazing to go through those old cards to find what […]

Remembrance Day, Kitimat, BC, Nov. 11, 2010

Snow began falling in Kitimat, BC, for the first time this winter, at about 9 in the morning Pacific Time. and by the time the residents gathered 90 minutes later for the Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph, it was still snowing.  In Kitimat, children lay the wreathes for those who cannot attend, which is […]

The silver lining in the Canadian prorogues, and a black eye for UK democracy

Here in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has twice prorogued parliament to avoid  political challenges, first the threat of a coalition of the three opposition parties and second a rather unsuccessful attempt to avoid nasty questions about the treatment of Afghan detainees. When Harper porogued  parliament, all the government bills on the order paper died […]