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Bob Ramsay

Born in Edmonton. Educated at Princeton and Harvard. Speechwriter. Book editor. Copywriter. Communications strategist. Presentation trainer. Marathoner. Explorer of the world's distant places. Travel writer. Op-ed page writer. Fund-raiser. Board member. Speaker series host. Arts addict. And of course, relentless enthusiast.

HOW TO USE AI.

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If you read about AI and turn the page, thinking it’s not for you, or you’re too old to learn now, or technology and you never got along, or you use AI to do research or write papers, and stop there, you need to keep going. You must.

Because last week I used AI to plan a trip to Japan next year.

What I got back will not only change how Jean and I travel, but change how most everyone will travel. And travel itself, which is one of the world’s largest economic sectors, is a teensy thimbleful of what AI is already changing.

Read on…

HOW TO USE AI. Read More »

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF BOYS.

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Millions of girls were once aborted for being girls. But now, the stunning decline in having boys reflects their sharp fall in value to their families, their economies and the world.

Last week, The Economist reported on this sudden reversal of fortune.

“Globally, among babies born in 2000, a staggering 1.6 million girls were missing from the number you would expect, given the natural sex ratio at birth. This year that number is likely to be 200,000—and it is still falling.”

Read on…

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF BOYS. Read More »

YET ANOTHER EXISTENTIAL THREAT.

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When I was a kid, the big fear, aside from a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, was too many people. The world’s population in 1960 was 3 billion, with predictions it would grow exponentially, until the earth collapsed from too many people living on its surface. Billions would starve or die of thirst.

That isn’t happening. In fact, the opposite is happening: the world is facing a catastrophic decline in population.

There may be more than 8 billion people alive today, but within just two generations, it’s predicted that the population will start to decline.

Read on…

YET ANOTHER EXISTENTIAL THREAT. Read More »

UNDERTOURISM.

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This week thousands of Canary Islanders marched against the 18 million tourists who visit the tiny Spanish island chain each year.

One marcher said, “We’re not against tourism. But the current model is predatory.” The Spanish government also removed 60,000 Airbnb listings across the country and by 2028 Barcelona will ban Airbnb completely.

Oh…and Amsterdam has banned the construction of new hotels, except to replace closed ones, and Florence has banned key boxes and guides with loudspeakers. Athens has limited visits to the Acropolis to 20,000 a day.

Read on…

UNDERTOURISM. Read More »

A WALK IN THE PARK.

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Even in the 1970s if you drove 10 minutes outside any Canadian city, you would be in the bush, or on a country road. But today, such is the hold of Canada as a vast wilderness nation that for 99% of our 40 million people who don’t live in the wild, we feel its mythical tug.

Sadly the majority of the seven million people who live in the Greater Toronto Area (which is bigger than the Greater Chicago Area) will have little to no chance to ever see or experience the wilderness.

Read on…

A WALK IN THE PARK. Read More »

TRUE PATRIOT LUST.

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The opportunity for one of the most patriotism-shy nations on earth to gorge on that very thing begins the week of May 12. That’s when we learn which of Mark Carney’s Liberal MPs will be sworn in to what Cabinet posts.

The split second the Cabinet is announced, dozens of organizations who have been preparing their “Elbows Up” wish lists for federal funding will push “send” and shoot their proposals into the offices of the Ministers of Canadian Culture, of Sport, Innovation, Indigenous Relations, Foreign Affairs and more.

Read on…

TRUE PATRIOT LUST. Read More »

A MASTERCLASS GETS SOME MISTRESSES.

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Until a few years ago, the chances of seeing a woman on the podium conducting an orchestra were approximately zero.

Today, they’re popping up everywhere. Keri-Lynn Wilson, a Canadian-American, guest-conducts all over the world, Barbara Hannigan, also a Canadian, guest-conducts and singsthe world over too. And the American, Marin Alsop, is the leading woman conductor on any podium.

But a Canadian woman conducting a Canadian orchestra on more than a drive-by basis?Fuhgeddaboudit.

But that too is changing.

Read on…

A MASTERCLASS GETS SOME MISTRESSES. Read More »

WAR BY OTHER MEANS.

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Last weekend an ad appeared in The Globe and Mail announcing a campaign to raise $30 million “to bring the best scientific minds to Canada’s #1 hospital.”

The University Health Network, which runs Toronto General, Toronto Western, and Princess Margaret Hospitals, is not only Canada’s best hospital, Toronto General is ranked #3 in the world (next to the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in the US) and the #1 public hospital in the world.

So UHN is already on the podium and now sees a chance to own it.

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WAR BY OTHER MEANS. Read More »

ONCE YOU MAKE CONCESSIONS ONCE, IT’S HARD NOT TO MAKE THEM AGAIN.

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Last week, the Gairdner Foundation announced its 2025 awards to some of the world’s best biomedical scientists. The Gairdners are Canada’s top international prize, and one in four awardees goes on to win the Nobel Prize. This year, in addition to the first Gairdner in its 68 years going to a nurse practitioner, there was talk by the eight awardees and Gairdner head Dr. Janet Rossant about the threats to science by the Trump administration.

Make no mistake, those threats are existential; they threaten science’s very existence.

Read on…

ONCE YOU MAKE CONCESSIONS ONCE, IT’S HARD NOT TO MAKE THEM AGAIN. Read More »

HOW NOT TO DISINVITE SOMEONE TO YOUR PARTY.

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But what if they turn up anyway? 

This happens a lot these days as speakers are cancelled, invitations revoked, and passports seized.

Mexican conductor Enrique Bátiz died last week at the age of 82. His family posted a notice about his funeral, prohibiting 13 musicians from attending it. Why?  “Owing to circumstances known to everyone, his family and friends respectfully request that the following persons abstain from attending the funeral and the burial…”

Read on…

HOW NOT TO DISINVITE SOMEONE TO YOUR PARTY. Read More »

“TOO OFTEN WE ENJOY THE COMFORT OF OPINION WITHOUT THE DISCOMFORT OF THOUGHT.”

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John F. Kennedy said that 55 years ago and its relevance today is…well, what doesn’t it apply to?

Elections. Motivations. Medications. Vaccinations. Resignations.

Everything.

But I want you to consider JFK’s idea in terms of…Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Read on…

“TOO OFTEN WE ENJOY THE COMFORT OF OPINION WITHOUT THE DISCOMFORT OF THOUGHT.” Read More »

GOING OUT AT THE TOP OF YOUR GAME.

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Last year, the world’s authority on decision-making ended his life in a clinic in Zurich.

How Daniel Kahneman decided to do that is instructive. True, the Nobel Prize winner and author of Thinking Fast and Slow was 90, but he wasn’t actively dying. He didn’t have cancer, or heart disease or Alzheimer’s. But as he wrote in an email to his close friends: “I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief. Most people hate changing their minds, but I like to change my mind. It means I’ve learned something.”

Read on…

GOING OUT AT THE TOP OF YOUR GAME. Read More »

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