In 1997, Gary Kasparov, the reigning world chess champion who many think is the greatest player in the 1,500-year history of the game, lost to a computer. By 2017 when he spoke at a RamsayTalk in Toronto, he was the Head of the Human Rights Foundation, a prophet of where artificial intelligence will take us, […]
The Plague-Ground – Do you not be happy with me as the writer of the words of you? Read More »
If Zoom Fatigue is what happens when you spend too much time with other people (often strangers) on the screen, what do you call spending even a little time with real friends you haven’t seen in months? Oddly tiring. But in a strange, not-until-COVID kind of way. I found this out last week when Jean
The Plague-Ground – Do you suffer from Friend Fatigue? Read More »
Every four years around now, we hear this from left-leaning Americans who believe they live in a fascist state. Their Presidents are nearly always Republicans, and generally, no one actually does leave after the vote is counted on November 3rd. Because pulling up all your roots is hard for even the most determined, and besides,
The Plague-Ground – “If Trump Wins, I’m Moving to Canada” Read More »
September marks six months into the pandemic for all of us who locked down our lives in March. Happy Half-Birthday. Not everything has changed, as some breathless prophets foretold. But since staying alive is the biggest thing I don’t want to change, I’ve gained a new respect for the idea of “peace, order and good
The Plague-Ground – These are a few of my favourite things Read More »
You’d think political conventions were created in order to analyse what those conventions mean. Of the eight opinion pieces on the home page of this morning’s New York Times, six are about Trump and the Republican Convention. As for Fox News and CNN, conventions are high points on their annual income statements. I didn’t catch either
The Plague-Ground – I Scream. You Scream. Read More »
There are certain life-changing events you can get a heads-up on: graduation, marriage, kids, divorce, bankruptcy, and very often, even death. But others just sneak up on you, and ……pow! Not only is your life different from that minute forward, your view of life is changed forever. This happened to me last night when I
The Plague-Ground – I am a Marxist Liberal Activist Read More »
Last week I visited my two half-brothers. Both have dementia and live in long-term care, one in the Sunnybrook Veterans’ Wing in Toronto (he served in Korea), and the other in a retirement home north of Kingston. One is 89 and the other 86. One is fairly coherent, the other has a hard time with
The Plague-Ground – Old Age Read More »
In America, this decision spills over from the deeply personal to the openly political. In Canada, our choice is disconnected from how we voted in the last election. Thank Heavens.
Still, virtually every family of Canada’s 5.5 million elementary and secondary school students is gnawing over how and when to send their kids back to school — as are Canada’s 15,500 schools over how and when to take them and teach them without turning their classroom into a COVID petri dish.
These are all urgent questions because they’re life-and-death ones.
The Plague-Ground – A different question about going back to school. Read More »
The battle is joined. The Democratic and Republican tickets are now complete. On November 3rd, Americans will go to the polls and…no, hold on, odds are that only slightly more than half of eligible Americans will vote for their new President. But remember, Donald Trump won just 46.1% of the popular vote in 2016 (compared
The Plague-Ground – How to shrink Trump’s base Read More »
This past week, two Canadian writers penned breathtaking pieces that insist you stop, read, think, set them aside, then read again in a couple of days, as I did, because they are, if not life-changing, then at least soul-searching. The subject of both articles is the belief that America’s time has passed. But their lessons
The Plague-Ground – Two voices, not in the wilderness, crying. Read More »
Actually, Immersive Van Gogh is the only show in Toronto, and is one of the handful of live events in the entire world – beyond one-night stands at hollowed-out or plant-filled concert halls. How it survived when virtually every other arts event on earth was postponed is a story of immigration, true grit, great taste and
The Plague-Ground – The best show in town. In any town. Read More »
If you’re in Canada, you could join the 37 million of us near the back of the line. An article this week in the McGill Medical Journal tells a troubling tale: “75 million syringes but nothing to put in them: what is Canada’s plan for a COVID-19 vaccine?” Over 100 labs around the world are
The Plague-Ground – Where will you be when the vaccine arrives? Read More »
