Dispatch #2 from Tampa, Florida I went to Walmart today. No surprises there. Walmart is neck-and-neck with McDonalds as the poster conglomerates for globalization. So I can expect to walk into a Walmart here in Tampa, as I would in Toronto or anywhere else, and feel I...
Dispatch #1 from Tampa, Florida Nobody walks in the States – nobody. My walking three blocks to the local grocery store today was treated with wonder and amazement. I am in the north of Tampa, the older section, not far from the University of Florida, but really...
… number 1 A fter years of swallowing metal in Stalingrad during WWII, it seems the Russians never forgot what non-stop bombing can do to a city and a people. They dusted off that lesson during both wars in Chechnya. But this time, they dropped the bombs… with...
… flying high over a campfire I love history and have long suspected that others would too if presented well. That was confirmed magically several years ago in a provincial park beside Lake Winnipeg. I organized an annual camping trip for inner city boys and had...
… number 2 From the air Haiti looks like a piece of scrunched-up brown paper thrown into a gloriously blue sea. On the ground the eye candy of contrasting colours turns rotten. Haiti is grim and the senses revolt. The brown colour is eroding hills, top soil...
… number 3 I have friends in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I lost my heart to the country and the delightful people who live there. Their joy, inventiveness and tenacity in the face of great poverty, regular disasters and the pending horrors of an environmental armageddon...
