Every once in a while, SRBP has featured a list of suggested books either for summer enjoyment or as in April 2006, for anyone interested in reading about Newfoundland and Labrador.
A recent email reminded your humble e-scribbler that it was time to update the recommended list of books on Newfoundland and Labrador. There are more than five and even more than 10 books you should read.
To get us started, here are some suggestions from a faithful support of the Bond Papers, historian Jerry Bannister. We'll feature some other lists as the summer wears on.
Showing posts with label Newfoundland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newfoundland. Show all posts
05 July 2016
18 November 2013
Remembering… or not #nlpoli
The news release that announced a provincial commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the First World War includes right at the start a picture of two couples, one older, and a small child.
The photograph is curious.
Look closely at it.
04 July 2012
Beaumont Hamel and the Newfoundland nation #nlpoli
Mark Humphries is an historian at Memorial University. He spoke with CBC’s Chris O’Neill-Yates on July 1 about the impact of Beaumont Hamel on Newfoundland and Labrador.
Humphries does an interesting job of putting the 700 dead and wounded on that day into a larger context. He likened it to 161,000 Canadian males between 19 and 45 years of age dying in 20 minutes today.
Then in response to a question from Chris, Humphries turned it into a unifying event for the country.
Humphries does an interesting job of putting the 700 dead and wounded on that day into a larger context. He likened it to 161,000 Canadian males between 19 and 45 years of age dying in 20 minutes today.
Then in response to a question from Chris, Humphries turned it into a unifying event for the country.
24 May 2011
A tourist in her own land
Lisa Moore writes fiction for a living.
For some inexplicable reason, someone thinks this qualifies her to write some special appreciations of the world as it actually is, offered up as anything but fiction.
Like her 2005 documentary that compared Iceland and Newfoundland in Hard Rock and Water. She based the piece on the simple – and simply preposterous – construction “Iceland = independent = prosperous/Newfoundland = not independent = not prosperous”.
The whole idea was ludicrous well before events within three years of her documentary proved Moore’s thesis spectacularly wrong. But that did not stop her from scaring up a few bucks to make the thing. Nor did it stop the Duckworth Street cognoscenti from flocking to see it and talk about its deep insights at the pubs and coffee shops they usually habituate.
For some inexplicable reason, someone thinks this qualifies her to write some special appreciations of the world as it actually is, offered up as anything but fiction.
Like her 2005 documentary that compared Iceland and Newfoundland in Hard Rock and Water. She based the piece on the simple – and simply preposterous – construction “Iceland = independent = prosperous/Newfoundland = not independent = not prosperous”.
The whole idea was ludicrous well before events within three years of her documentary proved Moore’s thesis spectacularly wrong. But that did not stop her from scaring up a few bucks to make the thing. Nor did it stop the Duckworth Street cognoscenti from flocking to see it and talk about its deep insights at the pubs and coffee shops they usually habituate.
02 August 2008
The best and the worst
From the Star Phoenix (Saskatoon), a perspective on the province and its politics:
It did not present a very becoming picture of the premier, certainly not of one who until recently at least, commanded the support of 70 per cent of the province's population.
The premier's less attractive side recently re-emerged when his government intervened in the selection process for the new president of Memorial University.
-srbp-
11 April 2007
QC or NL? Another one
In all important aspects of national politics, guile, compromise and a subtle kind of blackmail decided their course and determined their alliances. They appeared to discount all political or social ideologies, save nationalism. For the mass of the people the words Tory and Grit, Conservative and Liberal, referred neither to political ideologies nor to administrative techniques. They were regarded only as meaningless labels, affixed to alternatives whicb permitted the auctioneering of one's support; they had no more meaning than bleu or rouge, which eventually replaced them in popular speech. [They] on the whole never voted for political or economic ideologies, but only for the man or group which stood for their ethnic rights...
In such a mental climate, sound democratic politics could hardly be expected to prevail, even in strictly provincial or local affairs where racial issues were not involved....
Pierre Eliot Trudeau, "Some obstacles to democracy in Quebec",
in Federalism and the French Canadians, Toronto: Macmillan, 1968, p. 107.
in Federalism and the French Canadians, Toronto: Macmillan, 1968, p. 107.
Consider that description of Quebec politics not so very long ago in comparison to this and this.
The entire premise of the famous letters to the federal leaders through two successive federal elections was to determine which of the federal parties was prepared to promise the best deal for this province in exchange for local votes.
Leave aside for a moment that Danny Williams characterization of Stephen Harper's letter in 2006 was not consistent with the letter itself. Just consider that the entire premise of letter - just as with the Premier's comment's on the FPI income trust - was based on the "auctioneering of one's support."
In such a climate, sound democratic politics can hardly be expected to prevail.
Indeed.
The entire premise of the famous letters to the federal leaders through two successive federal elections was to determine which of the federal parties was prepared to promise the best deal for this province in exchange for local votes.
Leave aside for a moment that Danny Williams characterization of Stephen Harper's letter in 2006 was not consistent with the letter itself. Just consider that the entire premise of letter - just as with the Premier's comment's on the FPI income trust - was based on the "auctioneering of one's support."
In such a climate, sound democratic politics can hardly be expected to prevail.
Indeed.
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