Before the Fall
It was a good week for Canadians: we got our two Michaels back and we got a day to remember that we can change history and not let history change us by forgetting how badly Canada’s Indigenous citizens were treated, and still are.
Books About Big Things
Hostage books take up a tiny speck in the vast universe of books published each year.
The stories themselves may be harrowing, but their half-lives are short, as the news cycle moves on and another terror grips our gaze.
That said, Canadians seem to be punching above our weight, mainly because our hostages are mainly from the media, like Amanda Lindhout, or they’re diplomats, like Robert Fowler,
But maybe it’s also because we’re Canadians; we travel internationally much more than Americans do (63% vs. 40%), and we think our Canadian passport somehow protects us from being scooped up on the street.
Not any more.
Amusing Themselves to Death
So many people are dying of COVID in Alberta’s ICU wards that their passing is creating room for new patients. That’s the only good news coming out of what many have called its disastrous response to the pandemic, and which is actually ruinous.
In fact, doctors are now triaging COVID patients, making on-the-spot decisions as to who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t, and dies. Some of those choices will be made about children, age 5 to 11, who make up the fastest growing group of COVID patients. As one doctor said concerning these kids: “The curve is almost vertical.”
Into Every Weekend a Little Rain Must Fall.
Last weekend was so glorious. But this weekend? Our trees are spawning a rainforest. Where was all this wet in the summer? In BC? Just goes to show there are many many things out of our control, and that there’s no such thing as bad weather; there’s only bad gear. So, maybe stay in today
How Will You Die?
Likely from heart disease or cancer, which is what 52% of the world’s 8 billion people will die from, no matter their age or homeland. But most of us don’t believe that. We reliably underestimate the fact that cancer and heart disease will take one in two of us. We also chronically overestimate how many people will die via murder, auto accidents, drug and alcohol addiction, terrorism and even lightning.
Twice the Summer
Summer in southern Ontario is three months long. But in this very bad year, we’ve been blessed with the first five-month summer in many years. Remember back in May? Glorious. September so far?
Gorgeous. Time to count our blessings — and celebrate them just three weeks from now.
Terror Times Two
I was in New York on September 10, 2001 to meet travel editors. I wrote a lot. I travelled a lot. So, I thought, why don’t I do both at the same time?
A friend got me an interview with the managing editor of Condé Nast Traveler, which was like talking with God. He casually said: “A place is not an idea.” His point was travel writing shouldn’t be an endless “we went here and then we went there, and this place was lovely and that wasn’t.”
It was 20 years ago today……
…that 9/11 happened. So please spare a memory for those who died and for how our world has grown much less stable in the past two decades because of it. One good way is to watch Spike Lee’s film that captures New York’s faith and fate since September 11, 2001. Make it a communal thing: bring your family, friends, neighbours old and new.
Five Royal Scandals
My wife is the ultimate realist. But she’s always been a royalist too, which proves you can hold two opposed ideas in your head at the same time and still function.
But it’s getting worse. She used to glance sideways at the cover of Hello Canada in the supermarket check-out line. Now she subscribes to Quora Digest which gives her a morning fix of news and gossip from the Palace. She can barely keep up with all the scandals these days.
The Good, the Baad, and the Lucky
“None of our staff has been beaten, attacked, killed, as far as I know,” she said.
That’s what an Afghan woman who runs a women’s shelter said last week after the Taliban over-ran her town. By any account, women in Afghanistan, already among the most wretched of the earth, are in for an even more dreadful time.
Labour Daze
Oh well. It was a blessed summer, with an added month thrown in when May became as warm and sunny as July. But all that was so last season. Fall has landed, with duvet-nights, sooner-sunsets, anti-vaxxers pricking the body politic, and a sense that September is now the New Year for work and life. So,
Passport, please
Yesterday, I saw an Instagram post with a photo of a Viagra pill. You know that pill, the blue one with the word “Pfizer” in the middle. Above the pill were these words: “You trust us with your penis.” And below: “Trust us with the vaccine.” I mention this not just because Viagra benefits both