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“A tiger doesn’t proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.”

Wole Soyinka‌ said this to remind us that “all hat and no cattle” is the true plague of our age. So I was surprised to see that “hating August” is an excellent reason to make bad choices or delay putting them off until the one we’ve just begun.

And speaking of the Fall, the death this week of Mikhail Gorbachev recalls how quickly after the fall of the Soviet Union he became a capitalist.

Here’s to the start of Fall….

1. Too many books to read? You can pretend to have read even more, a compulsory social skill in this skimming age. As the skit goes: “I’m writing a book.” “Neither am I.”

Speaking of books, the Toronto Festival of Authors runs from Sept. 22 to Oct. 2 with 200 events and writers like Alexander McCall Smith, Anne Michaels, Ben Macintyre, and Margaret Atwood.

2. Back from the dead. Of all the de-extincting initiatives, the one with the best chance of success  is for the Tasmanian Tiger which was hunted into extinction in the 1920s. The same people, led by Harvard’s George Church,  are planning to bring back the woolly mammoth too.

3. This woman could be Alberta’s next Premier. And if Danielle Smith’s ideas for rule-by-law become law, she could be the first Prime Minister of Alberta. Help.

4. Fat is good – if you’re a bear. And if you’re the fattest bear in Alaska, you can have an entire week named after you. Meanwhile, down in Manhattan, skinny skyscrapers are popping up all over.

5. Remember the launch of Disney+?  Netflix does. It was 2019, and Disney was nowhere in online streaming while Netflix was devouring the world. Then Disney launched Disney + and look what happened in three years….it seems old brands can learn new tricks.

6. Was life all that different in 1922? Yes, it was.

7. The human subway map. Here are 8 systems in our bodies (digestive, respiratory, etc.) that keep life moving, shown as different subway lines. A cool infographic.

8. Sanna and Lisa. Really, more Canadian media should view the firing of CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme and the reaction to Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin dancing and drinking as a single story. Because their lessons illustrate some unspoken ways to distinguish between women and men. One, it’s okay for men to have gray hair and be famous TV newscasters, but not for women. And two, it’s okay for male political leaders to dance and hold a drink in their hands, but not women – and especially young attractive women. God forbid they are gay, which is definitely not okay.

9. Planting more than a flag on the moon.  The Artemis Project will establish a lunar colony there before eventually exploring Mars. Hopefully it will be launched  today. One of its most promising experiments is the first commercial greenhouse in space. Yum.

10. Amp up your musical education. This site will generate an album a day from the famous project  “100l Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.” And a note to end the summer on, Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton & Rod Stewart  sing All You Need is Love, from the Gardens of Buckingham Palace.

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