This one is for the family...here is Autumn's first beam routine "in competition"! Her home gym, Stampede City Gymnastics Club, held their annual Calgary Classic Gymnastics Open in May, 2008. Young pre-competitive gymnasts from 5 gym clubs took part in a demo-tournament all afternoon, showcasing their evolving skills on all four women's apparatus. Keep in mind, this was Autumn's first time performing these routines outside her home gym, and there were hundreds of people in attendance! Great job Autumn, we are so proud of you!

Those who know me well know this - I am a reader. I admit to having a kind of ADD-style of reading, whereby I read widely on a subject, all the while reading widely on a variety of other subjects. This makes for a large, somewhat eclectic, book collection...arguably the best kind. It also means I am constantly besotted with a particular book, author, or topic, which I in turn am trying to foist on friends and acquaintances, or inject into everyday conversations. If you have suffered through this, I apologize retroactively! Readers will recognize the symptoms, and will relate, commiserate and join in. Non-readers will wonder what all the excitement is about, and where can they rent the movie version?

Since reading is so important to who I am as a person, I imagine I will be sharing recent reads on these pages. I will try and recommend more than I review...who the hell needs another literary review smugly announcing why you should read this or that book? I know I enjoy getting book recommendations from friends, and I dig getting a glimpse of their literary enthusiasms...it is a little like opening the lid on someone's brain, seeing how they think and internalize what is important to them. So, here's a bit of what has been stimulating my recent brain activity, for what it is worth.

James Howard Kuntsler's most recent piece of non-fiction, The Long Emergency, is a must-read. It challenges mainstream and widely held ideas on peak oil, suburbia, technology and progress, the West's car culture, the addiction to fossil fuels, geopolitics, environmentalism...you name it. He goes sacred cow tipping, big time; it is both bracingly refreshing and bloody scary. It also serves as a wake-up call - neither the market nor the government will effect the societal, economic and political transformations required to "save our asses." He stipulates a long series of reality checks are coming (some are happening as we read), and self and societal delusion, made myopic by a deeply ingrained and widespread sense of entitlement, will give way under the "trauma of the Long Emergency."

Read this book...share it with people...leave a copy on the bus, in the airport...better yet, in the mall.

Check out his website and blog as well...he is an important voice in our time. http://www.kunstler.com/

The Right Candidate for the Left

Holy Shit...the Democrats have made the right move - in public, in front of everyone. Even Mr. Obama echoed the self-doubt intrinsic to the Democratic Party of the post-Clinton years; speaking in St. Paul, Minnesota last night he addressed this issue, telling his crowd of supporters, "You chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears, but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations." Without meaning to sound smug or facetious...it's about fucking time.

The Democrats, now that they have confirmed the People's candidate, have just finished the bike leg of this triathlon to the White House; the marathon that is the presidential campaign is a few months off. They will convene in August to demonstrate how ready they are to tackle the Republican presidential machine, show a united front (to themselves, mainly) and unveil the most anticipated Democratic ticket in many decades. Talk will now gravitate towards vice-presidential nomination strategies, Obama's safety and security, the historical context of Obama's candidacy, and endless round table discussions on Race in America.

I find hope in the challenge Mr. Obama's candidacy presents. I believe a Clinton coronation, assumed by so many, would have revealed an America disingenuous with itself and it's desire for meaningful change.

I look forward to watching Mr. Obama lead a renewed Democratic Party to the White House. I look forward to seeing how colour-blind the US has become. I am excited to see what will happen when the most powerful nation on the planet - a country increasingly defined by it's contradiction - elects a man of mixed race as it's leader.

I am uncertain what this project will end up being about. All endeavours in life end up being reflections of what efforts are made, how much honesty and sincerity have been applied. I want to reconnect with my love of writing, and see this as an oportunity - gratuitously self-aggrandizing though it may seem - to do so in an organized and hopefully entertaining way. We shall see!