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6
Feb
2022
Thursday February 3, 2022
Welcome to February. In our calendars, February is the odd month out – although it has an odd number of days only every fourth year. If months had feelings, February would surely feel discriminated against. The shortest in class, for example. The exception to the rule. The lonely one.
Thirty days has September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one
Except for February alone…
That simple rhyme is a mnemonic – a way of helping people remember.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Mnemonics, February
29
Jan
Sunday January 30, 2022
A group of men, all over 70, meet by Zoom every Monday to solve the problems of the world. We call ourselves the Golden Guys.
Last week, we realized that we have more in common than age. Of the six Golden Guys present, every one of us had at least one child, grandchild, or close family relative with some kind of intellectual, physical, or emotional challenge.
Some of our young ones have been officially diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Some are in excellent physical shape, but have emotional handicaps. Some will never be able to read or do math above a Grade 4 level. Some have physical malfunctions.
I’m deliberately being vague, because this column is not, and should not be, about them.
It’s about us.
And about the Olympic Games, now less than a week away.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: autism, Olympic Games, competition
27
Thursday January 27, 2022
When Canadians have nothing else to talk about, they talk about the weather. (Or , being Canadian, they apologize for talking about the weather.)
It’s understandable.
Recently, a family of four froze to death in a field near Emerson, Manitoba. News reports say they had warm winter clothes. But they still succumbed to wind chill and minus-35 Celsius temperatures.
Apparently they were trying to cross the border, illegally, into the U.S. They died within yards (metres) of the boundary. A few more steps, and they’d have crossed into warmer climes. Where it would have been only minus-31.
Fahrenheit, that is.
That’s a joke, although it’s no joking matter.
Tags: winter, Celsius, Fahrenheit, measuring
24
Sunday January 22, 2022
There was a time in this fair land when commercials did not run (with apologies to Gordon Lightfoot) on the vast majestic airwaves of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Back in those days, in my first full-time job, I wrote commercials for a private radio station in Vancouver. I saw how advertisers knowingly distorted the truth to make a sale; they cared little about the well-being of their customers.
I submitted an article to Maclean’s Magazine for their now-defunct “For the Sake of Argument” section, contending that advertising needed a rigidly enforced code of ethics.
Maclean’s – which of course relied on advertisers for its revenue -- didn’t print it.
These musings were prompted by a recent email from the David Suzuki Foundation, and by a research report on the carcinogenic qualities of alcohol.
Tags: CBC, commercials, advertising
Thursday January 20, 2022
“My wife keeps getting younger,” friend Bob bragged the other day. “Since I married her, she’s had a new hip, a new knee, a new kidney, and a new shoulder.”
He was joking, of course. But it’s no joke. Most people my age have replaced some of our original equipment with spare parts. I have a titanium elbow. Another friend walks on two artificial knees and two artificial hips.
And almost all of us benefit from eyeglasses, hearing aids, and enhanced teeth.
I read an essay, years ago, that wondered what the boundary was between human and artificial. How many parts of the body can be replaced before we lose our identity as individual human beings?
Tags: Renewal. cells, human