I find it hard to believe it’s been so long since I last visited this blog. Harder still, to read my last post and its hope for…well, hope. It’s effort to stay positive in the midst of heartbreak. It’s call to hold the so-called winners of the Scottish independence referendum to their promises. I’m amazed,…
I have two choices, looking at how the Scottish referendum went: to look at the 55% of the voters who rejected the uncertainty of independence for the certainty of more Westminster policies. Policies which have given Scotland food banks; closed shipyards, quarries and paper-mills; illegal wars; austerity and bankers’ bonuses as an answer to financial…
There was a moment in 1977 when I was forced to decide whether or not I was going to allow fear to control my choices, and by extension, my life. I was 18 years old, poor, and living on my own while going to college. I wanted my college education very badly. I wanted the…
If my grandfather hadn’t gotten out of the family business of mining coal…he wouldn’t have joined the Merchant Marines, ending up in Detroit where he met and married my grandmother, and they wouldn’t have had my father who had health issues requiring a warm and dry climate which made them move to southern California where…
Rocking the boat, Causing waves, Upsetting the status quo, Confronting authority, Being a troublemaker, Making mountains out of molehills – Though I would argue I’ve never made a mountain, Only recognized it in its infant molehill form and called it what it one day would be. No, I’ve never liked it, Never wanted the fight,…
I moved to Amsterdam in December 2000, after a year of travelling back and forth between there and various parts of the U.S., the land of my birth. I went for a very clear reason: to be with the man I loved. In fact, all the big moves I’ve made in my life have been…
For the past few weeks, I’ve been in Edinburgh, Scotland, visiting the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It’s the largest arts festival in the world, begun in 1947 by performers who hadn’t been invited to participate in the (then) new Edinburgh International Festival. Since then, it’s inspired a multitude of Fringe Festivals around the world, including the…
Notes From Scotland I arrived in Scotland this month for an open-ended visit, checking into business opportunities, looking for creative inspiration, and taking the chance to stretch my legs in the hills. I’ll be posting along the way… Most of the past weeks have been a bit of a happy jumble, but as my regular…
During the upcoming week, 27 July to 4 August, Amsterdam will celebrate Gay Pride. We do this as increasingly disturbing news comes out of Russia about Putin’s crackdown on gay rights there. And yet, there’ll be dancing in the streets of Amsterdam. Should we be dancing? Yes, absolutely. Why? Because, unlike our friends in Russia,…
Here’s why I’m not going to get my panties all in a bunch over this most recent ‘scandal’ about the US government (or so many other governments who are keeping their heads down til the uproar dies away) spying on its citizens: because I already did. In 2001. At the time when almost every one…
Donna DuCarme 