Historical Cycles, Pirates and the Shipping Community
The ongoing piracy crisis off the Somali coast has been impacting the B.C. shipping business causing disruption to its routes and a sharp rise in costs. “Effectively, the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest and most profitable marine routes, is off limits to us,” said Samuel Tang, vice-president, chartering and operations for Fairmont Shipping (Canada) Ltd. to the Vancouver Sun.
Bring Back the Tall Ships
Consider this a brief plea for a nautical bailout – a eulogy of sorts to the loss of sailing ships from around the globe berthing at Victoria this summer.Hopefully someone with a few piece of eight to rub together will be convinced that supporting Tall Ships is important, not just to ship nerds like me, but also to the broader community.
What’s in a Ship?
Strangely, the economic crisis brought, mostly out of fear, a whole new respect and acknowledgment of shipping’s importance. In the months following Lehman Brothers’ stunning collapse, shipping languished at unprecedented levels.
Welcome to the habitable community
Dear Planets, This morning I arrived at work groggy. Sometimes that happens here on this planet when we Earthlings don’t get out caffeinated fix in the morning. As I propped open this morning’s newspaper, I saw a small blurb about your discovery….
Snow Day vs. Groundhog Day
It looks like Toronto is set for winter to end early. As this is being posted the worst snowstorm for a couple years has started and is expected to continue through to tomorrow bringing about a foot of snow. Any unfortunate groundhog that is dragged from hibernation tomorrow morning won’t be seeing a shadow or likely anything else between the heavy snowfall and wind.
Urban Densification and the Death of the House Party
On many an occasion, friends in Vancouver have crammed upwards of 30 people into their 692 square foot apartments. And a few times since moving to Vancity in 2008, I’ve seen many of those same 30 people party in a fairly spacious household setting, where – throughout the course of the evening – components of the party will actually take on identities all their own: the kitchen might turn into a cauldron of political debate, a guitar-playing sing-along might erupt in the livingroom, a game of croquet might take place on the lawn, and people might check out wedding photos on the computer in the den.
Who’s better at fighting crime – Superman or Visa?
In the US, the crime rate is down. Significantly. While crime had once soared sharply in the late 1960s and early 1970s (does anyone remember the days of the “crack epidemic”), it has since declined steeply since 1993. The marked…
A Critique of the Metro Vancouver Sustainable Region Initiative
My first assignment for a course I’m taking at UBC – it’s called Building Sustainable Communities and is taught by the awesome Sarah Northcott – is to critique the Metro Vancouver Sustainable Regional Initiative (SRI) in about 500 words. I…
Surfing – Yachting for the Masses
There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Rat, Wind in the Willows I’m the first to admit that my yachting days a still a ways off, so in the…
The History of Work Series Concludes
So there it is. This concludes The History of Work Series on the The Potentiality. Godfrey and I have researched, analyzed, evaluated, and delivered results on, first, the nature of work as it relates to community and, second, the best and…