Tags: Travel

TRUE NORTH STRONG AND EXPENSIVE.

Yachting, polo, squash and fencing are what I call upper class sports. You need a lot of money, or go to prep school with it, in order to play or want to even watch.

But two sports that used to be proudly middle class are in danger of being played and watched mainly by rich people. It’s worse that hockey and skiing are the very sports Canadians love and excel at – and are at the heart of being Canadian.

But the news last week that the cost for a family of four to go to a Toronto Maple Leafs game will be $1,000 this season sparked protests from thousands of fans who resent the20%+ jump in season ticket prices in a city that’s already the most expensive in the world to watch pro hockey. The Leafs are a unique subset of what economists call a Giffen Good, a product or service whose demand increases as its price rises. Because the Leaf’s home ice attendance averages 99.8%, with occasional rises to 105%, and has for decades now, they are not just immune to the laws of supply and demand, but to the idea that a better product will draw a bigger audience.

Read on…

TRAVEL IS COSTLY, RISKY, TIRING, CROWDED AND GROWING FASTER THAN EVER.

Which begs the question: why do we travel anyway?

Because we’re curious, of course, about places and things, but most of all, about people. Boy, do people ever want to know about other people. I once ran into an Arctic Sámi in Sweden who looked like a member of the Oxford Rowing Team. And then there was the food guide who gave us a Marxist tour of Mexico City…But I digress.

It seems we can’t get enough of other people, and the more exotic and oddly-behaved, the better. Or rather, we couldn’t until recently when, like Sartre disclaiming that “hell is other people,” our curiosity about them has turned into a rash.

Americans? Feh.

Airport security people? Don’t get me started.

Musty cathedrals? Never liked them anyway.

Read on…

HOW TO USE AI.

If you read about AI and turn the page, thinking it’s not for you, or you’re too old to learn now, or technology and you never got along, or you use AI to do research or write papers, and stop there, you need to keep going. You must.

Because last week I used AI to plan a trip to Japan next year.

What I got back will not only change how Jean and I travel, but change how most everyone will travel. And travel itself, which is one of the world’s largest economic sectors, is a teensy thimbleful of what AI is already changing.

Read on…

A HUNDRED WORDS FROM YOUR LIFE.

In 2024 the New York Times launched a reader contest, inviting their teenage readers to tell a true story about a meaningful life experience in just 100 words.

The Times’ inbox was swamped. So they ran the contest again last year, and this month, after over 25,000 entries, they published the 20 winning stories.

Read on…

Treason isn’t what it used to be

No matter which parliamentarians, if any, are exposed for sleeping with the enemy, the penalty for doing that has changed drastically.

It used to be death.

Indeed, Canada’s National Defence Act prescribed the death penalty for treason until 1999, although no military executions had been carried out since 1946. In the US, the last American convicted of treason and hanged in 1862 was William Bruce Mumford for tearing down a United States flag during the Civil War. And in Britain, the last person executed for treason was William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw-Haw. He was hanged in 1946 for his Nazi propaganda broadcasts in World War II.

But today, just as the meaning of treason has changed, so too has the punishment for it.

Spies and collaborators used to betray their countries for money, ideology or resentment.

Read on…

The Prime Minister’s Next Career

He will likely retire when the Liberals are defeated in the next federal election, an outcome most every poll points to, which should be in  October 2025. Or he’ll leave before that if the Liberals coalition with the NDP falls apart. Or, on the vanishingly small chance he leads the Liberals to victory in 2025, he could stay on until 2029. He took office in 2015 so he would then be the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Canadian history, four years longer than his father Pierre.

Whether he leaves this year at age 52, or in 2029 at 57, Justin will still have time for One More Big Job before he retires to the world of board membership, consulting, teaching and honorary degrees.

Read on…

The Plague-Ground – Yanqui Stay Home

This week, the European Union will ban Americans from traveling there. Why? Because America is the worst country on earth in stopping COVID-19 – and

The Plague-Ground – Dying online

Last month, The New York Times reported on the rise of abortions by telemedicine. A doctor assesses the woman online. Then, if she is ‘approved’,

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