Remember The March of the Penguins, where all the male Emperor Penguins huddled together for warmth in the coldest place on earth and Morgan Freeman told us why? I’ve always taken that image as a symbol for Canadians. Thrust into a cruel alien world, we take shelter in the centre. The edges frighten us, our […]
Donald Trump is “writing” a “book.” I italicize those words because their meaning to Mr. Trump is quite different from what you and I mean. But on Friday, the 20-time “author” announced that he’s writing his memoirs. “I’m writing like crazy,” Trump said, “and when the time comes, you’ll see the book of all books.”
Writing Like Crazy Read More »
Last summer didn’t count. We couldn’t go anywhere, do anything, see anyone. Already, this summer is making up for lost time. We’re going everywhere, doing everything, seeing everyone. But save a tear, please, for the online lives we’re about to leave behind. Not abandon completely. But shrink. So take the time to connect to these
Summer is a Season Again Read More »
What’s delightful about the dreadful sexual abuse scandals consuming Canada’s military is, no matter how blind and deaf our generals are to investigating their own predations, they will never cease to surprise us. Perhaps this is part of their military training. After all, surprise is one of the most basic of all tactics, from the
I remember March 13th last year. It was a Friday, and the day most North Americans left our workplaces and hunkered down for the coming plague. A couple of weeks or at worst a month. Well, here we are 15 months later, my wife and I having fled to our cottage which is now our
Re-opening Meets Re-awakening Read More »
I want to go to America. So do you. I know we live in a beautiful land. But like everyone else on earth, crossing a border makes our destination more exotic and exciting. I also want Americans to come here. They’re so much fun to admire, decry and identify with. Besides, rubbing shoulders with them
By the Dawn’s Early Light Read More »
One thing about the Nazis is that they were excellent record-keepers. It’s because of this that six million Jewish families knew who among them had perished, who had been gassed vs. being shot, who died at Auschwitz vs. Treblinka. They didn’t find this out when World War II ended, because it took 60 years for
Death by Civilization Read More »
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 »
