Years ago a song by TR Ritchie stopped me in my tracks. The words of “Whitebark” can still bring me to tears. I’ve weathered storms I cannot count To make this world my home In a place where small and twisted things Can split the hardest stone When I photographed these trees around Oakland,...
My friend Judith and I were walking in the glorious light of late-afternoon sun today. Our route took us past a bed of tulips that seemed to grow from tight buds to open flowers in two days. Among the masses of red tulips, the occasional errant yellow stood out. The same was true among...
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...
In spite of her extraordinary heroism, Irena Sendlerova might have quietly slipped into the anonymity of history had a Kansas teacher not kept a clipping from the U.S. News and World Report. In the 1994 article Richard Z. Chesnoff wrote about “The Other Schindlers”, people who risked their lives to save Jews from the...
In the kitchen of the Kamloops, British Columbia, United Church, PIT (People in Transition) Stop volunteers cook for 150 to 180 people. They chop vegetables, stir soups, scrub pots, and serve food and friendly conversation for the homeless, low income, transient or working poor individuals and families who come through the doors. For many...
Frithjof Petscheleit told me to check out Glenda Watson Hyatt’s Web site, and I’m glad he did. This smart, gutsy woman will give anyone worrying about having the right stuff a kick in the patoot. With her oxygen supply cut off at birth, Hyatt started her life with an extra mountain to climb: cerebral...
Today I learned of yet another study concluding people become happier as they age. The study’s authors, psychologist Derek M. Isaacowitz of Northeastern University and the late Fredda Blanchard-Fields of Georgia Institute struggled to find real evidence and came up short. I’m not surprised. Happiness is a pretty slippery concept. So is trying to...
Calgary-based Catherine Oshanek knows bullying firsthand. The talented photographer has a special focus on the world of fashion. Her online galleries, which also feature wedding and maternity/newborn photographs, show that whenever people are in front of her camera, she knows how to capture something special about them. Her life didn’t always feel so successful....
There are many things I still don’t understand so when someone pulls back the curtain and sheds light, I’m grateful. Recently two people gave the curtain a tug—Bella English and Kathleen Winter. Each was writing about an area of human sexuality that is still something of a mystery to me. Bella English wrote about...
While most of us sit around with our friends and discuss what’s wrong with the world, Marnita Schroedl sets the table, opens the door, and changes it. Marnita’s Table brings together people who make the policies and people who are affected by them. They sit around the table together, eat good food, get to...
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