Mark Holmgren's Blog
One Saturday afternoon, I ventured into the Asian Supermarket. I don't know what I expected, but when i walked through the automatic doors I thought to myself, it’s like Safeway. And so it was and so it wasn't. There were cuts of meat (many of them the innards of body parts I never considered to … Continue reading This is my Duck Gizzard Story. What’s yours?
You might know that I am a singer-songwriter/musician, though not nearly as active as I once was when young and spry. Did you know my band, Mark Holmgren and Early Warning, toured the world in the 1990s? Yep. Only thing is my band mates forgot to tell me about it. That's what happens when you … Continue reading Make Some Music!
Everyone is talking about the "new normal" of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. We know we are facing overwhelming situations and conditions. Millions of Canadians are out of work. People are living isolated from one another (well, at least for the most part). Schools are shut down. All of them! Thousands upon thousands of small … Continue reading The New Normal Report
I am a bit of a techno-nerd despite my graying beard and there is much about technology that has changed so many lives for the better, but this post is not about those technologies. I am getting leery of being a digital archetype whose privacy is non-existent. My identity, choices, experiences, rants, goofy pictures, cynicism, … Continue reading A Techno-Nerd Rant
The recent reports of community resistance to a Capital Region Housing proposed development in Keheewin are yet one more example of the NIMBY-YIMBY quagmire we cannot seem to prevent. I read Councillor Walters' remarks in the Journal, which I found to be balanced and, to be transparent, they resonated with me, but there are a … Continue reading Access to Affordable Housing is a (Complex) Human Right
The challenges we face with respect to building more affordable housing are complex to state the obvious, and resolving them calls for an integrated set of strategies that go far beyond the actual building of more housing. Here are some of the challenges we need to address: AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM People cannot … Continue reading Affordable Housing is an Economic Problem
Change happens when rules are broken; when an upstart group of people rebel against broken systems and rote habits and try something radically different or brand spanking new; and when people have the courage, if not the audacity, to throw away our failures and seek a better way to frame and reshape, if not reinvent, … Continue reading Time to Break Some Rules
