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Entries from January 2016

Documenting Vancouver as it changes

November 28th, 2008 · 5 Comments

In keeping with my recent post about slow blogs, my former Vancouver Sun colleague Lee Bacchus is coincidentally launching a blog — Splinter in Your Eye — which is a minimalist “slow” blog (, composed almost entirely of images that focus on Vancouver in transition. Photos are by Lee, illustrations by Bernie Lyon. A great […]

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What good will a city inquiry into the leak do?

November 27th, 2008 · 10 Comments

I called up my various friends and acquaintances who work in investigative reporting across the land, as well as checking with some local media lawyers on this issue. I’ve posted the good bits from what I found on my CTV blog here.

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Here’s to the new council and new classroom management

November 27th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Sorry for the short absence there, folks. Just a lot to do between covering the last council meeting and finishing off the teaching year at Langara and and and. I have to say, it was nice to hear people talk about what their time on council had meant to them (and B.C. Lee got the […]

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Aurora Bistro shuts down

November 24th, 2008 · 15 Comments

Aaaaack! Okay, call me a hopeless bourgeois (as my friend Kim does whenever I admit to doing something like going to the art gallery), but it’s devastating news that Aurora Bistro has closed down on Main Street. It was my idea of the perfect restaurant — amazing, local, meticulously prepared food, along with a small […]

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Slow-blogging: A Vancouver invention that I aspire to adopt

November 24th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Hey, I got two whole weekend days to do almost nothing, after the frantic election season where, as some of you have noticed, I was INESCAPABLE on all media platforms. Is there a thought I had in the past four weeks that you didn’t hear? I doubt it. So I really appreciated this story in […]

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Where is Gregor?

November 24th, 2008 · 37 Comments

I’m hearing a lot of grumbling from media types about Gregor Robertson’s sudden invisibility. His handlers say that he’s in deep transition mode and unavailable. Critics point out that Barack Obama is in deep transition mode but manages to make a public appearance every day. This could become a sore point as the weeks go […]

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A tribute to Mayor Sam Sullivan in the works

November 21st, 2008 · 5 Comments

I know it’s hard for some people to accept, but our outgoing mayor does have some friends out there, so presumably they’ll all be showing up for this shindig to honour him. They could actually turn this into a money-maker, since I’m sure there’s more than one person who’d be willing to pay top dollar […]

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Everyone at Vancouver city hall waiting with bated breath

November 20th, 2008 · 5 Comments

So little time, so many questions to answer for the incoming Vision team. As you can imagine, people inside and outside city hall are in a tizzy of wondering what that Vision team is going to do on any number of fronts. I couldn’t possibly go into all the permutations but here’s a brief rundown […]

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The debate over South Asian candidates continues

November 18th, 2008 · 9 Comments

In case other readers haven’t spotted it, there’s a fascinating and thoughtful (well, mostly) discussion going on in the comments section under my post from Sunday about Kashmir Dhaliwal’s defeat. To understand the complexities of race, party and civic politics in Vancouver, go read the back and forth

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What are COPE’s plans?

November 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments

City staff hadn’t even finished counting the votes when I heard people wondering whether the Coalition of Progressive Electors, that longstanding traditional left party that Vision split away from, was now going to become the official opposition at city hall. That’s because Vision has enough councillors to carry any vote at city hall, so COPE […]

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