Two years ago, four adult children from four different families we know well, killed themselves. This was in addition to the two who died from accidental drug overdoses. Naturally, I believed that the suicide rate must be rising. I was wrong. In the Year 2000, 11.7 Canadians in every 100,000 of us committed suicide. In
The Plague-Ground – Death Has Less Dominion Read More »
In Britain, the average person is seen by 70 CCTV cameras every day. As Boris Johnson said when he was the Mayor of London: “When you walk down the streets of London, you are a movie star. You are being filmed by more cameras than you can possibly imagine.” As with much of what Mr.
The Plague-Ground – I See You. I Know You. Read More »
This summer, Dr. Joe MacInnis would rise before dawn, slide into his kayak on Lake Simcoe and paddle out to greet the morning. For Dr. Joe, it’s exhilarating to watch the sun slowly emerge from a body of water and be grateful for another day as a sentient being, a thinking animal on this singular
The Plague-Ground – LOOKING FOR A DIFFERENT COURSE? TRY GRIEF 101. Read More »
Next February, Jane Fraser will become the CEO of Citigroup, making her the first female CEO of a giant Wall Street bank. This is great, long overdue and awkward news. Because it begs the question of how far women have advanced in terms of real corporate power, especially here in Canada. Frankly, they’ve clawed their
The Plague-Ground – There’s No Power Like CEO Power Read More »
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 »
