IanLeTourneau.ca

This is very cool. Some guy has a webcam trained 24-7 on an eagle nest. He says if people will just watch this and be awed, then maybe they won’t destroy its habitat. Read about it here. Watch the webcam here. You won’t be dissappointed.

My review of Lynn Davies’ Where Sound Pools is up now on PoetryReviews.ca.

In other poetry news, I received Ted Hughes’ Collected Poems in the mail yesterday. I started reading Moortown Diaries, a collection I hadn’t previously digested, on the recommendation of Michael Harris a couple of years ago, and it is stunning. Look at these opening lines of the first poem, “Rain”:

Rain. Floods. Frost. And after frost, rain.
Dull roof-drumming. Wraith-rain pulsing across purple-bare woods
Like light across heaved water. Sleet in it.
And the poor fields, miserable tents of thier hedges

And it just keeps getting better from there.

Announced.

Good lord, man. George Bowering has to go ruin an interesting little article on what sounds like an interesting book by saying this:

The pacing of the game — nice and slow and easy, punctuated with flashes of magic and excitement — is like poetry, he says.

I hate how people intentionally mystify poetry.

I’m currently home alone because Sherry flew to Whitehorse last night. Her grandmother took a turn for the worse and she wanted to be there. So guess who’s pillow Milo tried to steal this morning?

Born April 23, 1564. Happy 442nd!

And I didn’t even know until this morning. Maybe if this was more widely known or reported things could change. Take the Ecological Footprint Test. My score:

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 5.4

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 8.8 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3 PLANETS.

Ah, and I thought I was doing well. I know I’m doing well so it’s scary to think about others. For instance we put one garbage bag on the curb per week. But next door they put half a dozen per week at least. Im a vegetarian (which is good in this test), but maybe one of the only ones in town. What is everyone else’s footprint? What would W.’s be?

Maybe everyone should be required to take this.

Well, now that we’re back in sunny Alberta and the snow is all gone and the temperature is around 20 everyday, I read this. Looks like I’ll have to buy some sun screen. When are people going to realize and acknowledge how we’ve fucked up the planet?

Oh and in other news, A Complicated Kindness wins Canada Reads. How a bestseller that most of the reading population has already read can be the book that Canada must read is beyond me. It is a good book. Like last year, at least I don’t have to go buy this one either.

We’re visiting in Fredericton right now, so not a lot of time to update. Off to St. Andrew’s today.

This story is depressing. The new government is cutting 40% of funding for information and research into climate change. And I can’t believe this passes as spin:

“If it’s not in the taxpayers’ interest to fund programs that are not effective, then we are not going to,” said Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

Apparently the rationale is that they’re going to come up with their own plan. Well, if that’s the case, why cut so fast? why not wait for a new plan before you discard the old plan?

If only they could think beyond the next election, then people 40 years from now won’t be walking around with breathing masks and oxygen cursing them.

This government is a disaster and I hope people are realizing that now.