The Canadian government has fallen, thanks to a successful non-confidence vote on Monday evening in Parliament. Meanwhile, a major climate conference is taking place in Montréal, and here in Barcelona (where I am at the moment) a major Euro-Mediterranean summit was taking place Sunday and Monday (it’s over now). There was higher security, some streets closed, and I got in trouble with a security guard at an outdoor mall for taking a bunch of pictures of a caballitos (merry-go-round). I don’t know if he thought I was a corporate spy or if he was worried about security. In either case, I say: “What kind of a world are we living in?”

I just finished listening to Jonathan Kozol speak on the Writers Voice (sic — shouldn’t there be an apostrophe before that ’s’?) podcast. I’m not even American, but his words still outraged me. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know how our school situation in Canada compares to the nonsense going on in the U.S. — I assume better, but certainly some of those issues he discusses about the “corporatization of culture” are true north of the border, too. He was discussing his latest book The Shame of the Nation: the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. The podcast is a good listen, if you can spare 35 minutes. And it will make you want to create and observe beautiful things — not because it is productive to do so, or because it helps stimulate the economy — but for the sheer sake and pleasure of doing it. At least, that’s the effect it had on me…

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