http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns A view of the world from Nova Scotia Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:05:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en September 5, 2010 “Archaeology is the best tool for looking ahead,” says Ronald Wright. Written history is useful, he agrees, but archaeology doesn't depend on the relatively recent invention known as writing, and the information it provides is difficult or impossible to fake. The location of Babylon or Chichen Itza ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=555 August 29, 2010 When Hamoon Ekhtiari came to Toronto from Teheran in 2001, he was just 17 and he spoke only Farsi. By January, 2009, he found himself speaking to former Prime Minister Jean Chretien at a large dinner at Power Corporation's headquarters in Montreal. Hamoon was enrolled in a master's ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=550 August 22, 2010 Clem McDonald built the service station in D'Escousse soon after the Second World War, in his father's front yard. His wife Madeleine ran a hair-dressing salon in a little trailer nearby. Bless their memories; they were lovely people. In 1952, Lauchie Poirier bought the garage for his ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=547 August 15, 2010 I'm always wary of the words like “fascism” and “dictatorship.” People on the left have a tendency to use such terms too casually, which simply erodes their power. So when I find myself deeply disquieted by the attitudes and actions of the Harper government, I'm not in ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=540 August 8, 2010 “If you are protecting the environment for the benefit of humankind, valuing the natural world in terms of nature's usefulness to humans, that is a shallow ecology,” says Satish Kumar. “If you see intrinsic value in nature, and you say that a river has intrinsic value that cannot ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=537 August 1, 2010 I read Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous when I was a boy, and I loved it. It was among the books that shaped my life by fuelling my interest in the sea, and in fishing, and in schooners. Later, after moving to a fishing community and actually meeting ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=535 Sharon Urquhart's hair-dressing salon was a modest addition built to a small bungalow in Grand Anse, Cape Breton, a wide spot in the road between Port Hawkesbury and St. Peters. The salon, someone once said, looked like a Norman Rockwell painting -- men getting their hair cut, women under ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=533 July 18, 2010 “You people,” sighed the Silicon Scout, shaking his head. “You and your web-sites. The web is like, so over.” We sit on a non-profit board of directors together, the Scout and I. He's one of the guys known to technology marketers as “early adopters.” The first guy ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=528 July 11, 2010 The meaning of the PhD degree, said Stephen Leacock (who had one), “is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted to him.” That's the Teapot Theory of ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=523 May 30, 2010 What's the true value of a barrel of oil? Around $70, say the markets. The market value of anything is the price that a willing buyer will pay and that a willing seller will accept. David Hughes shakes his head. It is a big head, with a ... http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?p=521