Three old Major League umpires were teaching their trainees how to call strikes.
“I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em,” the first umpire said.
“I calls ‘em as they are,” said the second.
“Gentleman,” the third one said: “They ain’t nuthin’ till I call ‘em.”
In the pandemic’s early days, when 80% of Ontario’s COVID deaths were from people in long-term care homes, the province called the military for help. They replied by sending members of the army into seven long-term care homes.
Thin on the Ground Read More »
The weather this year in BC has been so extreme that it’s sprouted four new forbidding phrases: heat dome, weather bomb, bomb cyclone, and atmospheric river.
They may not be new to meteorologists, but they are to most of us. So, aside from fleeing for our lives, are we going to have to learn a whole new lexicon of fear when it comes to sticking our noses out the door?
But I digress. Here is this week’s Omnium-Gatherum.
BC Is Raining Words Read More »
We went to the Toronto Symphony last week and heard their first live performance at Roy Thomson Hall in 20 months.
I got an e-mail at 2:30 that afternoon advising me to turn up early because everyone had to show their vaccine certificates as well as their tickets. Then at 4:30 the Symphony sent me another e-mail, and at 5:30 a voicemail. So we turned up at 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. concert and breezed right through.
But the concert was 15 minutes late in starting, and I heard later that the night before it started at 8:25.
The Arts Are Opening Up. We Should Too. Read More »
Cancel culture is the opposite of multi-culture. And as the world’s most multi-cultural country, this should worry Canadians more than most. As Michelle Goldberg noted last week, there’s “an aggressive new censoriousness.” True, she was referring to America where some school boards aren’t satisfied to ban certain books. They insist these books be burned. It
The Banned Played On Read More »
I view our vaccination certificates the way I do my computer password. It’s the key to an infinitely magical kingdom. With one I can get on my e-mail; with the other I can have dinner out with friends. Since convenience has always trumped values when it comes to privacy, health and welfare, I still don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t get their vaccine with its dizzying array of social benefits. It’s too bad only 97.5% of Torontonians agree.
But I digress…Here’s this weekend’s Omnium-Gatherum.
Passport, Password, Pass By Read More »
I knew he was old and saw he was growing frail as he slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor of his studio which had been his second home for over half a century.
Not that studio exactly. Four years ago, David Blackwood and his wife Anita had sold their three-storey house and moved into a single-storey cottage.
When Early Bloomers Work Late Read More »
Last week I fell across a funny Australian news site, The Shovel, whose top story was headlined, “Man announces he will quit drinking by 2050.”
I got it, as do you. This lovely piece of satire was about climate change. Greg Taylor would be able to continue to drink for the foreseeable future before reducing consumption in 2048 when he turned 101. He’d also be able to bring forward drinking credits earned from the days over the past 40 years he has drunk nothing.
Global Warming, Meet Global Drinking Read More »
A single cold night in one tiny place on earth tells us why it’s not called weather change, but climate change. And as we’re all learning to our shame and sorrow, the arc of our climate is long, but it bends towards warming. But there is hope the fires of hell may be postponed at least until we leave the earth. And on that note…..
It Snowed Here Last Night Read More »
Last weekend, I was hiking with a dozen friends near Lion’s Den on Fogo Island. It was the most desolate part of this desolate island, at one of the four corners of the earth, off the north coast of Newfoundland and warmed by the presence of the Fogo Island Inn.
We were being guided by a local host who raised her voice to puncture the sound of the wind and the waves crashing ashore below. She told a complicated tale of a woman who came alone from Ireland in the late 1700s, settled near Lion’s Den, married a fisherman and had kids. Then, for some reason, she fled and re-settled in Patagonia in the very south of Argentina, where she lived until the age of 102.
The Least I Can Do Read More »
Five years ago, a dozen Bay Street Boys were seated around the table at a breakfast at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. They’d come to hear why they should send their ‘top performers’ not to some lavish resort in Vegas or Arizona, but to a tiny inn off the north coast of Newfoundland founded by the woman who was speaking to them, Zita Cobb.
Life is short. Death is long. Take that vacation. Read More »
What a strange country we survive in. There’s a hotel in Tofino, BC, the Wickaninnish Inn, that markets “storm-watching” as a reason to check in. It’s a huge success, packing in guests in the worst weather possible precisely in order to see the worst weather possible. Meanwhile on the Atlantic coast at this time of year, Newfoundland’s Fogo Island Inn sniffs its nose and says: “There’s a reason their ocean’s called pacific.”
Wherever you are this weekend, and under whatever weather, here are some things to keep your mind warm and dry.
