What made us feel good this week

Our columnists look back on news that has delighted them in recent days.

Saving corals from carnage

I learned about the threat to corals about ten years ago from reading the book The 6^e Extinction: How Man Destroys Life by Elizabeth Kolbert. Ocean acidification is decimating them at such a rate that they could disappear within this century, she explained. Fortunately, some are fighting to save them from the carnage. For example, a floating nursery was reported this week in the Mediterranean, off the island of Cyprus, “aimed at restoring the population affected by global warming and overtourism.” If this pilot project is deemed successful, “the goal is to try to replicate these coral nurseries in other parts of the Mediterranean.”

Alexandre Sirois, The Press

Read the article “Cyprus: the first floating coral nursery soon to be installed in the Mediterranean”

Music of aunts

They are charming, inspiring and above all catchy, these Aunties! Originally from Chad and invited on stage at the Nuits d’Afrique International Festival on Saturday, these nine singers joyfully make their feminist demands heard in chorus to the sound of the calabash. If the rhythms make you want to jump for joy, the lyrics tell the dark reality of Chadian women: “I honored you in the eyes of all / Instead of considering me as your wife / You humiliate me in front of everyone”. As colleague Alexandre Vigneault reminds us, according to the United Nations Development Program, 20% of Chadian women say they are victims of physical violence, and more than one in three girls are married before the age of 15.

Judith Lachapelle, The Press

Read the article “Activist aunts”

A new novel by Donna Leon

I am a huge fan of Inspector Brunetti, a character who could not be more picturesque imagined by Donna Leon. The American is currently releasing her 33^e novel (A Refiner’s Fire). The plot still takes place in Venice, even though the author now lives in Switzerland, discouraged by the hordes of tourists who have invaded the city where she will have lived for 30 years. In an interview with Financial Times Last week, she swears that Brunetti will die with her. No question of a sequel written by another author, a trend in the publishing world. All the more reason to dive into this new investigation, and to enjoy the descriptions of Italian dishes concocted by the brilliant Paola.

Nathalie Collard, The Press

And you, what is your track record?

Here’s something to liven up many a car ride and evening around the campfire: the “top 50 Quebec artists in order of cultural importance”, published in the latest issue of the micromag d’Urbania. With a mocking and lapidary pen, journalist Benoît Lelièvre enjoys classifying artists according to five criteria – talent, “Quebec-ness”, longevity, generational transcendence, personal appreciation. Which gives rise to hours of bickering about the merit of including this or that artist (Kaïn and Okoumé? Really? And the Vilain Pingouin, them?). And as the author rightly writes: “If you’re not happy, make a top 50.”

Judith Lachapelle, The Press

Read the article published in Urbania