Duke University lawyer and Creative Commons director James Boyle has a thoughtful piece in the Financial Times about the Web and whether it would (or could) be created today the way it is now. He ends with a depressing thought (via Slashdot):
“Why might we not create the web today? The web became hugely popular too quickly to control. The lawyers and policymakers and copyright holders were not there at the time of its conception. What would they have said, had they been? What would a web designed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation or the Disney Corporation have looked like? It would have looked more like pay-television, or Minitel, the French computer network…. The lawyers have learnt their lesson now. The regulation of technological development proceeds apace. When the next disruptive communications technology — the next worldwide web — is thought up, the lawyers and the logic of control will be much more evident. That is not a happy thought.”
Another Christmas arrives to find Toronto largely snowless – although we got just enough to make the lights look pretty, after what was one of the warmest Novembers since the Pleistocene Era (not to be confused with the more malleable Plasticine Era). Many of the T-shirt-clad people lining the street for the annual Santa Claus parade no doubt felt sorry for poor old St. Nick, in his ermine-trimmed coat and boots (synthetic ermine, of course), but I expect that plenty of others were more than a little thankful for some global warming. Everyone into their SUVs – and whatever you do, don’t stop idling!
The various members of the Ingram family (eastern Toronto division) made it through the year with their usual aplomb, thanks to careful planning, a few lucky breaks, and the occasional 20-dollar bill slipped to a teacher along the way. We had quite the generation gap this year, with Zoe in Grade One (she’s six) and Caitlin in Grade 10 (she’s 15) – Zoe was learning that the round part of a “b” goes to the right and the round part of a “d” goes to the left, and Caitlin was learning about polynomials (whatever those are). Meaghan, meanwhile, was playing the flute and learning French and all the other joys of Grade 6.
We spent some time in sunny Florida, courtesy of Becky’s mother and father, where the girls learned to play shuffleboard, Zoe enthralled the gathered throng at the weekly sunset “drum circle” on the beach with her interpretive dance (that’s her on the right) and we saw the famed Lipizzaner stallions. Caitlin experienced the rollercoaster at Busch Gardens while on a school trip to Virginia Beach (that’s her on the right), Zoe learned to ride a two-wheeler (she didn’t hit that car, in case you’re worried) and Meaghan made some new friends at camp. Oh yes, and she also turned eleven. The girls practiced their diving and puttered around in boats, and even chipped in to do some painting at the cottage.
In between there was plenty of jumping in the pool (not our pool, alas), some beautiful sunsets, and a little golf (thanks Bob), not to mention naps for both young and old. In the fall, Meaghan and Zoe got dressed up for Hallowe’en (Caitlin’s too old for that sort of thing, of course) and so did some people who should know better. Later, there was time set aside for squeezing through caves and walking in the woods, or sitting in trees and the wearing of pretty hats. And now we are quite ready for Christmas, with all the various treats prepared, including the ginger cookies and the star-cookie Christmas trees. And the girls have decorated not just their own Christmas tree but their cousin Jessica’s too and have met Santa.
And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. used to say. Another year filled for the most part with fun and frolic (and the occasional splinter, bee sting, hacking cough, vomiting spell, heart surgery, etc. — but let’s not talk about that). If you have a lot of free time on your hands and feel like surfing through some more pictures of the Ingrams, you can find some at mathewingram.com/photos. If you want to drop us a line using that newfangled e-mail thing all the kids are talking about, Mathew is at [email protected] and you can reach Becky at [email protected]. We here at Ingram and Co. wish you and yours all the best of the season.
It’s that time of year again! The Ingrams have been busy this year — in one of the highlights of the year, Caitlin, who is in Grade 8, took part in a student walkout in support of the teachers at her school, who were on a “work to rule” campaign to get a better contract. About 400 students walked out at Joseph Howe in Scarborough, and Caitlin actually got quoted in a story about it in the local paper! “I don’t think that, as kids, we should have to be doing this,” she said. A budding trade unionist in the family 🙂
In other news, there were balloon animals, and alsolots of birthdays, of course. Zoe had fun in her Sparks group (they’re like starter Brownies, and Becky is a group leader) and fun swimming in the lake, and dressed up as a pirate for Halloween. She also got to sit on the throne during the Christmas party and looked quite regal — like she belonged there! Zoe and I also went for a walk in the woods at Thanksgiving, and it seems like we had a deep conversation, but for the life of me I can’t remember what we talked about. I assume I was sharing the made-up names of various plants just like my mother taught me 🙂
In the summer, there was jumping practice at the lake in Muskoka, and some swimming time at my family’s cottage in the Ottawa Valley, and a windy day on Rouge Beach near our house for Zoe and her friend Cynthia. There were also rainbows, and Becky and her brother Dave coordinated a reunion of what they called their “Tin Can Navy” — a group of friends who all had cottages near each other in Muskoka, and drove around in their aluminum boats delivering newspapers and generally getting up to no good 🙂
Caitlin graduated from high school and looked thoughtful about her future. She also took a trip to Nova Scotia with her cousin Christopher, and they did a tour of the province (or at least some parts of it) with their uncle Jack, who lives there. Meaghan dressed up for Halloween as a rocker and posed along with Zoe in her Dalmation outfit (she also likes to pretend she’s a dog sometimes, up to and including barking at strangers in the grocery store).
We got an impromptu flute concert from Caitlin and Meaghan in the kitchen, and Meaghan, who is in Grade 5, also wrote about the best Christmas gift she ever got, which was the time her grandmother surprised her by visiting us one Christmas when we lived in Calgary. This year, Meaghan got to explore her love of snakes at the annual Globe and Mail Christmas party, and we had an early pre-Christmas at our house in Toronto, where the three girls dressed up in their matching Christmas nightgowns.
For Christmas proper, we all got together at Becky’s family cottage in Muskoka, including all 10 grandkids (Note: I realize the photo linked to there doesn’t show all of them, but I assure you they were there). It was a bit of a tight fit, but somehow we managed it! Meaghan and Zoe even got to have a bath in the big tub together. And that’s about it for our year — hope you and yours had a great one as well. And just remember, while you are doing whatever you are doing, Zoe is planning to take over the world 🙂
Hi everyone! Merry Christmas from Becky and Mathew and Caitlin and Meaghan and Zoe Ingram. We are settling in to our new home near the Rouge river in Toronto — Scarborough to be precise. I (Mathew) am working on the Globe and Mail’s live news website, an experiment that launched last year just in time for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Living in Rouge Hill as they call it makes it easy to get in to the Globe by taking the GO train, which runs right by our house (we are down by the lake). For Becky, much of the year was taken up by a court case in Peterborough, after our friend Kris’s dad was brutally murdered last year by a mentally-ill neighbour on Halloween night.
Other than that, we spent some time in Florida at Becky’s mom and dad’s place in Bay Indies, a retirement park near Venice, south of Sarasota. We took a boat ride across to an island called Rum Bay that has a great BBQ rib restaurant on it, then walked around on the private beach where Zoe did one of her trademark poses. There was a parade and all the girls and Becky got dressed up and made friends with some neighbour kids, and then we went to an aquarium called Moat Marine up in Sarasota and spent some time with Becky’s cousin and her family at their place on Siesta Key. And we had lots of great beach time and pool time and dinner at a place out by the Venice airport (where some of the terrorists from 9/11 did their training apparently, as I found out later) and ran down the jetty at Sharky’s out near Casperson’s beach.
Back home there was a birthday party at Bob and Edie’s cottage in Muskoka and climbing on rocks in the woods and then some jumping on the trampoline at my uncle John’s place in Mississauga and another visit to the cottage in Muskoka in June and a big get-together with Becky’s family and then her cousin Libbie got married at Toronto’s hilarious fake castle Casa Loma where Zoe did her famous Zoe face. There was lots of swimming at the cottage and picnics on the deck and rafting and Meaghan helped her grampa make bread in the bread machine and there was some go-carting and mini golf and tubing and picking berries and saunas to be had and more of Zoe’s trademark posing for the camera. Meaghan had fun in Girl Guides, which Becky helped out with, and the kids got together with their cousins Scott and Curtis and Lindsay at Golden Lake and Meaghan tried the windsurfer and Zoe did some minnow catching and then ran out of gas.
