It’s unfair to say Doug Ford doesn’t like Margaret Atwood. Ten years ago he said he wouldn’t even recognize her on the street. But he was busy cutting funds to libraries when he said it. So maybe he was distracted. Then again, anyone can see she’s tiny and he’s not. It is fair to say […]
Getting things fantastically wrong is a specialty of mine. Years ago I was at a big luncheon in the Royal York hotel and spotted a friend from years back across the crowd of many hundreds. Her face hadn’t changed, but as I drew closer, I could see she’d cut her hair down to her scalp.
Would you all please just go away? Read More »
We all have three lives, a friend once told me. Our public life, our private life, and our secret life. How many times is some Citizen of the Year revealed to be a sadistic fantasist, with us tut-tutting “You just never can tell?” This may have been true for thousands of years. But not any
The pandemic not only sent us all home, it threw us onto our screens. Here we dutifully started watching videos – not just by streaming movies and TV series, but by watching vastly more videos than we ever did before. Now that we can be outside on weekends, this likely won’t change. We’ll just watch
Streaming or Screaming? Read More »
Technology didn’t miss a beat during the pandemic. Before COVID, computer voices sounded fake and HAL-like. Now, you can hardly tell if you’re talking to a person or an AI impersonator. The same boldface-progress holds for facial recognition, electric cars, anti-Semitism, online shopping and loneliness. We know loneliness (like race, gender, income and access to
Hell is other robots Read More »
Years ago we were walking through the Doge’s Palace in Venice and stumbled into the Map Room where, as far back as the 16th century, the Serenissimo Principe could view the vast reach of his Venetian empire. I got close to one of the two huge globes set into ancient rollers, and saw the crude
“You can’t use an old map to explore a new world.” Read More »
It’s her weekend and are we planting our gardens without fear they’ll freeze overnight? Are we opening our cottages, swatting the blackflies, gassing up at Tim Horton’s? Well, we are more than last year when we were all locked up with no place to go. But compared to 2019 and every other year we’ve been
Queen Victoria is not amused Read More »
Just as a Smith & Wesson beats four aces, so too does a 10,000-a-day vaccination site beat even these last few days of sunshine to lift our mood and signal that finally, oh my gawd, sumer is icumen in. But the oddest evidence that the end could be near is Tuesday’s Globe and Mail editorial
Canada has more fresh water than any country and more lakes than the rest of the world combined. So is it too much to ask that our least advantaged citizens, the elderly in long-term care homes, don’t die en masse of thirst, and that our Indigenous people don’t have to boil their water to keep
Odds are, you’ve had at least one shot, and if you’re American or British, both. But if you’re like me, you’re still suffering from vaccine-envy. Why can they barbeque, worship and travel and we can’t? And do we have to lose two summers when they’re only losing one? Don’t they know how short and gorgeous
Saturday soul-searching –and soul-selling. Read More »
Donald Trump repeatedly called it “the failing New York Times.” It sort of was until Trump took office. Then it went on a tear, fuelled by an endless supply of Trump-induced stories, and today, the Times’ stock price, circulation and reputation are close to all-time highs. In fact, the fastest-growing international market for nytimes.com is ….Toronto.
Newspapers, not oldspapers Read More »
I went to boarding school back in the 60s when most of the ‘masters’ had degrees from Oxford or Cambridge and spoke with upper-class British accents. I was 12 and in my ‘formative years’. One lesson that’s stuck with me for over half a century is what a sucker I am for that accent. So
Old toffs. Old tricks. Read More »
