My mom used to say that to describe anything that spilled over the guardrails of usualness in 1960s Edmonton – like Pierre Trudeau, or exercise, or drinking gin while playing bridge.
She would die of shock if she were alive today.
Here are three examples. None of them is about the U.S. election, the Israel-Hamas conflict, or Pierre Trudeau’s son. All reveal how extreme life is in the world today, especially when it comes to freedom.
First, two North Korean table-tennis players who won the silver medal at the Paris Olympics, are being investigated by Kim Jong Un’s government — not for posing for a selfie that went viral with the gold (from China) and bronze (from South Korea) medal winners, but for smiling when they were posing for that selfie. The smiles were deemed unpatriotic.
Then last week Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders published a host of new ‘vice and virtue’ laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes. The Guardian listed some of the new laws: “Women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.”
“Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses.”
“Earlier this year, the Taliban also announced the reintroduction of the public flogging and stoning of women for adultery.”
Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader who hasn’t been seen in public in a decade, ratified the new laws. There are 14.2 million women in Afghanistan.
Stories about lack of freedom are everywhere. They’re the backbone to the news cycle and the bedrock of our nightmares. However, there are fewer stories about too much freedom and the corrosive effects that can bring. One story, of course, is social media platforms like “X” and “TikTok” which act as a marketplace for hate, drugs, pornography and “fake everything.” Those stories also fuel the news cycle and are everywhere.
But there was a story this week which illustrates a different kind of corrosive effect that comes from too much freedom of choice.
It’s headed “There are a bazillion possible Starbucks orders – and it’s killing the company.”
It’s a guest essay in The New York Times by Bill Saporito who claims the infinity of drink choices at Starbucks creates bottlenecks, whether you just walk in or order via the Starbucks app.
“[Starbucks] has now become the Boeing of coffee bars: too many choices and not enough staff, which…is almost certain to deliver disappointment as much as it does…lattes.”
For Saporito, Starbucks is a victim of an economy whose ethic is “add more stuff.” This creates “ever more complexity from supply chains to food safety to packaging to scheduling and delivery.”
Consider outfits like Pizza Huts that once sold only…pizza. “Pizzerias are now selling…chocolate chip cookies, brownies and Cinnabon mini-rolls, anything that can be baked. Because you always want a Cinnabon after you’ve consumed three slices of pepperoni pizza.”
So…not enough freedom in North Korea and Afghanistan, and too much freedom in North America. Not enough is terrible and tragic. Too much is annoying and artery-clogging.
All to say, we should thank our lucky stars we live where we do. Because when it comes to their problems vs. ours, we’re not in the 1 per cent. We’re in the 0.1 per cent
Meanwhile…
1. It’s good to know where… someone’s in charge...some dogs are in charge…some Hitchcock still lives…spoken English came from, life just floats by, rivals respect each other, where new Canadians come from, and where to camp in a thunderstorm.
2. Another royal wedding we’re not invited to. This weekend Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise is marrying a California spiritual healer, Durek Verrett. Many Norwegian royals and even more Norwegians are…bewildered.
Also, King Charles has appointed a new Master of the King’s Music who wrote an odd version of Jerusalem. Here’s Errollyn Wallen on Desert Island Discs.
3. An ounce of prevention. What is the final frontier of nutrition and preventive medicine? Medical school! The University of Toronto’s Temerty School of Medicine will hold a free public lecture on Sept. 26th on what med schools didn’t teach, with clinical insights on preventative medicine and nutrition. Hear Dr. Ayesha Sherzai, Dr. Dean Sherzai, and Dr. Michael Klaper, Register here.
Speaking of health, The Women’s Age Lab at Women’s College Hospital released its latest report on challenging the status quo for older women. It presages the work by McKinsey & Company “that women’s health is not just a scaled-down version of men’s health but is biologically distinct.”
4. People cursed with great skills. First, the curse of people who never forget. Next ‘super-recognizers’ never forget a face, why some people can’t remember faces at all, and how others make a fortune as whistleblowers. Most urgent, why we can’t spot our own typos.
5. From AI to Aye Aye, Aye, Aye! We know AI can generate newscasts. Now it can generate newscasters. It can even enable journalists under threat of their lives, like those in Venezuela provoking the Maduro dictatorship, to appear online as avatars, reducing the chances they’ll be kidnapped by security forces. As one journalist noted: “Being on camera is no longer sensible.”
6. Potty Language. The irrepressible Eli Burnstein exposes an urgent, unspoken matter. Meanwhile, yes, toilet paper rolls are getting smaller.
7. Hard things. Why the 400 metres is the hardest foot race on earth. Why camping in 120 degree heat is not a hot idea. Plus why bullshit jobs are never hard, why breakfast is an easy first place for the hard business of online dating, and why digital distraction doesn’t address boredom but expresses it.
8. Busted myths. People who live in Blue Zones, like the Mediterranean, don’t live longer than those who don’t. Also, organic farming isn’t better for us than traditional agriculture for the globe or for farmers. And, your brain isn’t resting when you’re doing nothing. Plus, Scientific fraud doesn’t just hobble research, it takes thousands of lives.
9.Trump Watch. JD Vance visits a donut shop. Trump posts fake endorsements by Taylor Swift. Plus, how much money Trump made overseas (including Canada, which starts at 3:25).
10. Where you live means how long you’ll live. Statistics Canada just released a study showing how your lifespan can vary not by what province or city you live in, but by what neighbourhood. As the Globe and Mail reported…”[Statscan] found differences as much as 20 years between one census tract and another, all within a single large city.”
“Of Canada’s 15 largest cities, Victoria had the widest range in life expectancies, while Oshawa had the smallest range. Victoria, St. Catharines, Ont., and Winnipeg had the largest associations between life expectancy and income poverty rates and median family incomes, while Vancouver and Toronto had the weakest associations.”
11. What I’m liking. I’m streaming The Little Drummer Girl, based on John le Carré’s novel. Not the dreadful movie with Diane Keaton, but the 6-part BBC series directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Florence Pugh, which sets the spy-and-terror story in the early 70s. The world back then (bell-bottom jeans, dial phones, big sunglasses) feels old and slow, but the drama is intense, because British playwright Michael Lesslie and screenwriter Claire Wilson wrote the screenplay. Worth watching, on Prime.
Also, le Carré’s son, Nick Harkaway, a respected British novelist, has just released his first novel that uses his dad’s character of Karla, the fictional Soviet spymaster.
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ON SEPTEMBER 23, TANYA TALAGA STANDS CANADA’S PAST ON ITS HEAD. BE THERE.
The Knowing reshapes our sense of Canada in a way only Tanya Talaga can.
The famed Anishinaabe journalist and Massey Lecturer reveals how all-embracing our mistreatment of our founding people was, and offers a way forward to real reconciliation.
Big new ideas like hers are rarely comfortable, and The Knowing is the big new book of the year. So it deserves a big hall to hear what’s vital to us all.
Tanya will also be interviewed by Mark Sakamoto, author of Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents. 
Date: Monday, September 23, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m) ET
Place: Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. West, Toronto, just west of the ROM
TICKETS HERE
Please pass this invitation on to like-minded friends and family.
Cheers,
Bob Ramsay
In partnership with
