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 […]
Into Every Weekend a Little Rain Must Fall. Read More »
“People who read my memoir tend to stay up all night.
Who knew it was a page-turner?”
Love or Die Trying Read More »
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.
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.
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.”
…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.
It was 20 years ago today…… Read More »
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.
Five Royal Scandals Read More »
“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.
The Good, the Baad, and the Lucky Read More »
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,
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
Back when I was a drug addict, quality control didn’t exist because the manufacturers and sales force were drug dealers. You could die because what you smoked, snorted up your nose, or injected into your arm was laced with some deadly poison or, if you were lucky, just a lot of talcum powder. Today, it’s
Manufacturing Addiction Read More »
I say make hay while the sun shines. Not in the same way weekends revved you and saved you in the past. But in a new way. In other words, this weekend, do something you’ve never done before. I’m not talking about climbing Mt. Everest here. Just some way others spend their weekends that you
The Last Weekend of the Summer Read More »
