Category Archives: Main Page

FTRW 2007 – Day 6 – "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

As a bit of a follow-up to yesterday's FTRW post about an attempt to ban “Fahrenheit 451” in Texas last fall, here's an earlier essay by Ray Bradbury, on various attempts to censor his work over the years.  In other news, my appearance on the “Book Chick” radio show a couple nights ago talking about […]

FTRW 2007 – Day 5 – Irony As Big As Texas

Last fall, a parent in Texas demanded the removal of the book,  Fahrenheit 451 from his 15-year old daughter's school library. (The subject matter of that book being so famous that its title has become shorthand for “censorship”.)   And because you couldn't make this stuff up, the challenge happened the week after the American Library […]

FTRW 2007 – Day 4 – Can you Say "Scrotum" on the Radio?

For anybody who misses the sound of my voice pontificating away on all manner of stuff, I'll be on local community radio with the “Book Chick” tomorrow at 6pm Sask time (5pm Alberta time, 7pm Ontario time) talking about Freedom to Read Week and some of the related issues.  You can listen live at: www.cjtr.caI'm […]

The Impossible Quiz

If you like riddles, puzzles, jokes and brain teasers, this is the most addictive and/or infuriating quiz I've ever seen.  How bad is it?  Through repeated trial and error, I got to question 15 before giving up completely (there are 110 questions).  Then, when I had the answers, I still couldn't finish it!  I'll post […]

FTRW 2007 – Day 3 – The Biggest Collection of Banned Books In The World Is Owned By…

Guess who?  I'd have guessed the FBI.  Or the Library of Congress.  Or a private collector with an interest in the area – someone like Larry Flynt.  But nope, the biggest collection of banned books is owned by the Catholic Church.  Their List of Forbidden Books is an index of books that the Church has […]

“I’m sure that when sidewalks came in vogue, some people had a question about whether it’s worthwhile for cities to invest in sidewalks." – Sask to Offer Free WiFi in Its Four Largest Cities

A pretty major announcement today from the Sask Government that by May, they will begin providing free wireless in the downtowns of our four largest cities – Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert – as well as at some of our post-secondary institutions (which is probably a bit redundant since the Universities probably already […]

The Oscars – A Hypothetical Guide

I briefly thought about liveblogging the Oscars last night but realised that I'd just make the same snarky jokes that everyone else did.  So instead, I thought I'd post hypothetical instructions on how you might view some of these films without leaving the comfort of your own home.1. Hypothetically, download and install Azuerus, a bittorrent […]

FTRW 2007 – Day 2 – What Freedom to Read Week Is *Not*

From my time on the Calgary Freedom to Read Week committee and having planned a student reading at FIMS, I’ve heard quite a few misconceptions about what “Freedom To Read” is about:  Here’s what Freedom to Read is not:1. Freedom to Read is not limited to reading.  Freedom to Read means you have the right […]

FTRW 2007 – Day 1 – Happy Freedom to Read Week! (A Challenge)

It's Freedom to Read Week and to celebrate, I'm going to do a week's worth of posts on the topic.  I know a lot of librarians, writers and others will be talking about this topic so I'm going to try to come up with some unique angles for my posts where possible.  But with that […]

This is the next century, Where the Universal's free…

Just what the world needs (and what I need too) – another blog!I've set up a blog called The Universal, mainly as a place to link-dump stories and web sites related to the topic of online broadcasting which is a personal interest of mine (remind me to do a post about my summers selling door […]