Calling someone an old soul says they’re wise before their time.
It has nothing to do with age. A child can be an old soul. But if there’s One Big Thing that happened this year, it’s how the idea of being ‘old’ is changing and how quickly we should move to catch up to it.
Read on…
You know how those models look back at you from the pages of luxe publications: pouty, pale, thin and rich? Not a good look these days.
I’ve always wondered why, among all the categories of ‘stuff’ for sale in the world that luxury goods is the only one where the people enjoying the products are not enjoying the products. Everywhere else, from beer to travel, cars to lottery tickets, the connection between smiling people promising you’ll be smiling too, is swift and sure.
You’d think a $10,000 watch, a Louis Vuitton suitcase or a Dior suit would make you happy. Or happier, at least. But no.
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For less than $100 you can save someone — a family member, a university student, a wayward stranger — from becoming an antisemite.
That is, someone who’s hostile or prejudiced against Jews because they’re Jews, in the way that racists are hostile to Black people. No reason, really. They’re Black, is all.
This is actually a big public health issue. Antisemites spread a disease that is more infectious and deadly than COVID ever was. While COVID has killed 7 million people, antisemitism killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, plus millions more from antisemitism’s earliest days in the 5th century.
When I speak of antisemites, I don’t mean someone who doesn’t like particular policies of the Israeli government or its leaders (I think Bibi Netanyahu is a dreadful Prime Minister), or someone who doesn’t like a particular Jew because, for example, she’s a jerk and drinks too much.
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I know some couples who are household names in business and public service. They check all the boxes: virtuous without being virtue-signallers, hard-working without being owned by it, all while being powerful and household words.
Three of these couples in particular have kids who are in trouble: with substance abuse; mental disorders; or what I’ll call ‘chronic purposelessness.’
The parents are frantic, searching for the treatment or cure that will restore calm in their family and security in their kids.
One of them perches very high in a giant company. He oversees the people who oversee the people who run the company’s group benefits program. That is to say, the insurance company that manages many thousands of medical claims each year, including a rising number of mental health claims.
Read on…
Just as Hamas hides within the general population of Gaza, so do Canada’s antisemites walk among us. And since October 7th both these groups have come out from under cover to show their lethal true colours.
I’m not talking about protesters here. Plenty of people of every belief think Israel is practising a form of apartheid against Palestinians, and that its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants no Arabs, none, in Israel where 1.5 million live now.
Nor am I talking about “soft” antisemites who may still say quietly to a friend: “I got Jewed out of that deal.”
No, I’m talking about people who don’t just dislike Jews, but who hate them. In fact, they want Jews wiped from the face of the earth simply because they’re Jews.
This venomous hatred is both ancient and volcanic. It is also changing fast.
Read on…
Saying you recommend rather than like something makes people 32 per cent more likely to take your suggestion. Using the word whom in online dating profiles makes men 31% more likely to get a date. Adding more prepositions to a cover letter makes you 24% more likely to get the job. And saying is not rather than isn’t when describing a product makes people pay $3 more to get it.
Those words are from Jonah Berger whose new book is a revelation that could spark a revolution. Magic Words: What to say to get your way is not about AI, or at least not just that. It’s about our reaching an inflection point in understanding the science of language. Says Berger: “Technological advances in machine learning, computational linguistics and natural language processing, combined with the digitization of everything from cover letters to conversation, have revolutionised our ability to analyze language.”
It’s clear where this is going, the same place cancer medicine already is. You and I can have exactly the same tumor, but you’ll get a different treatment than me, based on your DNA, your genes, age and gender. Today, you and I get different marketing pitches based on where we live, what we earn and where we spend. But tomorrow, marketers will know if you’re a “who” person or a “whom” person, an “isn’t” woman, or an “is not” man. Think of it as linguistic chemo, and…
Run for your lives!
Or should that be… run for your life?
Meanwhile…
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