Waving or Drowning?

(Red)emption - Last Chance!

This is it, friends.

Last Day of 2006 = Last Day of (Red)emption!

Some of you have told me how you can't believe you've put it off until now. Don't miss your chance,,, it's only $10. Already contributed? Do it again in someone's honour. Heck, do it in honour of James Brown! So come on and

Get up offa that thing,
and dance 'till you feel better,
Get up offa that thing,
and dance 'till you, sing it now!
Get up offa that thing,
and dance 'till you feel better,
Get up offa that thing,
and try to release that pressure!
Get up offa that thing,
and shake 'till you feel better,
Get up offa that thing,
and shake it, say it now!
Get up offa that thing,
and shake 'till you feel better,
Get up offa that thing,
and try to release that pressure!
Get up off!
Ha!
Good God!
So good!

Ha!
Everybody ready?! 

Come Back, Gerry

On a day when the wires are buzzing about the execution of Saddam Hussein, Sue and I watched Larry King's interview with Gerald Ford from December 1999.

Seems like he was a good, honest person. Dear God, send another.

(I don't have much to say about Hussein. Matt has posted the Vatican's reaction, David has some thoughts that resonate, and Gotham Chopra makes a lot of sense too. I'll say it again: Come back, Gerry.)

A-Traveling We Will Go

Part of the reason I feel the way I do about 2007 is because of the trips planned. Right now there are 3 trips on the books for the first six months of the year, and there is a theme. Two of them are to Africa, and one is about Africa.

If you've spent more than 17 seconds on the blog you'll know that our (Red)emption project closes at midnight on December 31. Robert and I have been talking for a while about how we actually get the money to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Robert's in Toronto, the Foundation's in Toronto, and I'm in Vancouver, so obviously the task was going to fall to Robert. Then, we started thinking about how great it would be to actually get in to see Stephen. Our friends at the Foundation have been very helpful. However, they told us Stephen is not in the office regularly, and they could probably only give us a couple of days notice, so again, it looked like it was going to be up to Robert alone. Then we lucked out. They were able to give us a date with a couple of weeks notice, so I'm going to burn some points, hop a flight to Toronto in the early part of next month, and be there with Robert for a quick meeting with Stephen Lewis! I'm very excited about that.

In March comes the first trip to Africa, and for a first-timer I couldn't be in better hands. I'll be going with David for two weeks as he shoots for Visiting Orphans and Kibo. David's contact is also hoping to connect us with his friends at Invisible Children, which would be incredible. Right now the itinerary looks like Ethiopia, Uganda and hopefully Rwanda. I cannot tell you how pumped I am about this.

Then in May it'll be three weeks in Kenya. I'm part of a group initiated by Cove Community Church, who are establishing a long term relationship with the village of Seje, located about 25 km from the town of Siaya. This concept is very exciting. While its the church that is establishing this relationship, they want to involve the whole local area in it, and are thinking over different ways to do that.

I'm trying to hold all this loosely... but I am very, very excited.

We're #1... and #2

Battered B.C. tops weather stories for 2006
ALAN BLACK
Canadian Press

TORONTO — The drenching rain, destructive wind and deep snow that pummelled British Columbia in November and December took the first and second spots on Environment Canada's list of the top weather stories of 2006.

Nine destructive storms battered Canada's West Coast since the beginning of November, three times the norm for the autumn period, the agency says in its annual report on the country's weather.

Stormy weather is not uncommon in B.C. at the end of the year, but the “ferocity and frequency of the storms this year is unprecedented,” said Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips, the report's author.

November blew in with fury as the West Coast was hit hard and often by drenching rain, howling winds and high tides that even prompted a rare tsunami warning.

The month ended in bitter cold and deep snow, again leaving thousands of people without electricity. Forty centimetres of snow gave the province its second deepest November snowfall in B.C. in 66 years of weather-keeping, while the month's rainfall broke or tied several rainfall records.

Then, just as storm-weary B.C. residents were recovering from November's wrath, three ferocious wind storms in mid-December caused more damage, toppling more than one thousand trees in Vancouver's picturesque Stanley Park.

Read the rest here.

Books - 2006

The main purpose of this post is to enter my reading list for 2006 into the archives so I can reset my typelist over on the right sidebar for 2007. These are books I finished reading in 2006, and at the end of this post I also draw up a short list of some of the reading I want to do in 2007.

You can check out the list below the fold.

(Red)emption - Week 10

In the midst of the hustle and bustle, the dinners, the cleaning up, the airing of the grievances, and the pondering of the resolutions, we'd like to give you our 10th weekly (Red)emption update.

First, the numbers:

Number of donors:
552

Countries Represented:

1. Canada
2. United States
3. South Africa
4. England
5. Scotland
6. Sweden
7. Australia
8. Wales
9. Chile
10. Italy

Number of Blogs linking to (Red)emption (that we're aware of):
94

We're just 3 days away from the end of the (Red)emption project. We'll have plenty to say when it's all over, but for now we hope you're enjoying the holidays with friends and family. Thanks so much for your support and encouragement, and for spreading the word. Don't stop now! And if you haven't participated yet... please don't miss out.

Remember... we are the people we've been waiting for.

Christmas in Flak Jackets

Rick Mercer, one of my favorite Canadians, spent Christmas in Afghanistan.

Check it out here.

I Have A Feeling...

It's just a feeling I have. Anyone else have any thoughts/feelings/intuitions/predictions for the next year?

Max & Me...

...just hanging out at Linwood House, post Christmas dinner.

Looking Ahead to 2007

"Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. ... Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of our generation."
- Robert F. Kennedy