My command of Dutch is pretty rudimentary, but I get the drift of this site and think it’s absolutely fabulous. The Repair Café is where you take those small appliances, old chairs, ripped trousers or anything else that needs repair and get them fixed by volunteers. Imagine! Usually we end up throwing something away...
He’s in my cohort, but Don Tapscott has a mind that floats freely, not tethered by age, time or space. He looks at the generation that has Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World and likes what he sees. While some worry about the impact of technology, Tapscott sees its...
I grew up in a farming area, where the labour of Mexican migrants was essential and taken for granted. It never occurred to me to wonder why so many skilled farmers had to leave their own country in order to make a living. It was many years before I understood the long history of...
It isn’t often we use “bank” and “heart” in the same sentence, but Le Crédit Municipal de Paris is a bit unusual. For one thing, it was started by a philanthropist as a “Mont-de-piété” or bank for the poor. For another, it has survived nearly four centuries on low-interest loans and turned 375...
Ken Grenda is an unusual man. In an era when corporate greed and huge CEO salaries have become a global norm, he believes the gap between bosses and workers is unfair. He told radio station 3AW, “I get totally dismayed when you see some of the salaries the CEOs get paid.” After three generations...
How many “best days” is it possible to have in one journey, one life, one journey through life? A day in 2008, on a Maori tour in Kaikoura, New Zealand, was one of them. One of my interests is indigenous cultures. First Nations friends have been patient and generous teachers, and I want to...
I’m writing from the Hilton near the Los Angeles airport. I should be just about touching down in Sydney now, wrestling my suitcase through customs, hopping a bus to the domestic terminal, and waiting for the plane to Melbourne. Instead, I’m still in Los Angeles. I’ve had a relaxing night in the kind of...
His adventure did not last nearly as long as Willow’s, the cat found after five years, but George would have quite a story to tell. George’s journey began September 23rd, in Fort McMurray, Alberta. His owner, Vanessa Summerfield, needed to find a pet-friendly apartment so she sent her feline friend to hang out with her family...
I tucked the link for The Most Unusual Restaurants in the World into my hope file because a quick scan made me smile. Creativity, quirkiness and a social conscience are sprinkled throughout these offbeat eateries. A lot of them offer a place for people with addictions, mental illnesses, prison records or other challenges to...
Just as the women did in the Greek play by Aristophanes, the women of Dado village in southern Philippines put an end to war by withholding sex. In both cases, one in 411 BC, the other in 2011, one woman took the lead. Lysistrata forced the peace in Greece. Hasna Kandatu set the rules...
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