Yule Heibel's Post Studio © 2003-2014

In the holiday spirit, I thought I’d share something that has left me feeling rather puzzled and with a bit of an odd sense of discomfort. Some months ago I searched the web to find information about the origin of my surname. I always found it funny that it’s a Dutch word that means “trouble,” […]

Thus spoke Mrs. Bullock in My Man Godfrey. Godfrey, a “forgotten man,” had been brought to a fancy dress scavenger hunt as a trophy find by Mrs. Bullock’s daughter Irene, even as her sister Cornelia brought a rival “forgotten man” who was demanding to be paid, in bucks. Godfrey becomes the Bullocks’ butler, then leaves […]

I am so happy as I sit here and listen to Shuggie Otis for the 2nd or 3rd time in a row. I don’t quite know why his music makes me feel so good, but it does. It brings back to me all the best aspects of the 70s (if you can imagine that!), of […]

Read this article in today’s Globe & Mail (Toronto) to learn why “in cancelling his [scheduled for May 5 to Ottawa] visit, Mr. Bush is not just dissing Canada. He’s also implicitly negating the importance of his own economy. He’s once again telling the world — as he did by imposing tariffs on European steel, […]

If you read only one more thing today, make it this article by Michael Moore (click on title to link).

I came across an article the other day in AlterNet, A Dolphin Disses War, about Atlantic bottlenose dolphins trained to clear mines from the waters off Umm Qasr and other areas. The article’s voice is that of Flipper O’Reilly, also known as K-Dog, who spills the beans on the dirty tricks he and his fellow […]

My local paper reports today that scientists with the B.C.Cancer Agency have cracked the SARS genetic code. Dick Thompson of the World Health Organization called it “an extraordinary step” since doctors will be able to diagnose people more quickly and researchers will need the code to develop a vaccine. The Vancouver team, working at the […]

There is an awful symmetry between cultural iconoclasts and destroyers of nature. Briony Penn asserts that wilderness is the basis of evolution, that it provides a blueprint for the species, and that the loss of wilderness threatens our physical survival. But large-scale loss of human historical artifacts threatens the survival of cultural memory. At points, […]

I got to hear Betty Krawczyk at a local tree sit at the University of Victoria today, and she made my day. She is an amazing, gifted woman with an intellect that matches her boundless vitality. The British Columbia government plans to pass a law (working forest initiative) that will allow private logging operations to […]