Tag: June

Hot town, summer in the city! Some cool ramblings for you as summer kicks off (i.e. the June 2024 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)


Hot town indeed! Toronto has recently suffered through a heat wave as we head into the summer of 2024. We had tremendous thunderstorms, crazy wind squalls, and very high temperatures. And yours truly does not generally do well in the heat. Here’s to that heat subsiding somewhat, although, hey it’s summer, why should I expect?

Meanwhile, here’s a seasonal cornucopia of posts and articles I found worthwhile this spring. I hope you find it worth a read. Maybe they can help you cool off. 🙂

COVID/the pandemic: I should be cool about this, but one thing that gets me hot under the collar is the lack of acknowledgement of death that occurred during the pandemic. In Washington there was the temporary memorial of small flags, but it’s gone. I don’t know of any national memorials in Canada. We should have something national like the Covid heart wall in London, England. It is great that we were able to recover so quickly from the pandemic and get back to normal, but we should do more to remember the loss that occurred.

Besides lives, other things were lost. Students of the time suffered especially: the pandemic had a big impact on them during that time, as this shows. Some even created a delayed prom for the “pandemic class of 2020” that they missed out on during that year. Good for them in trying to recoup what was lost.

Other things from the pandemic soon to be lost are the ghost kitchens restaurants that had popped up. Not lost is the belief that COVID was the result of a lab leak. The New York Times had a piece arguing that for that. It’s persuasive, but not conclusive, in my opinion. More of a downsizing than an outright loss is Ontario’s groundbreaking wastewater testing program, which will be replaced by a significantly smaller federal program.

Indeed, most of the stories I’ve seen with regards to COVID seems to be about putting it well into the past. Perhaps the only way we will remember it is through such things as covid 19 related art.


(Image by Tatsuya Tanaka)

Inflation/crypto/work/office space: Meanwhile the ripples of the pandemic continue in the economy. As far as inflation goes, grocery prices are finally falling. Maybe that’s what is inspiring Burger King to offer a $5 value meal. Speaking of offerings, some Toronto office building landlords are offering free rent. Things are grim in New York too. (Some residential landlords might have to do that, as ‘no one’ is buying condos either.) The fact that it’s been proven over and over again that in office mandates do not work may not cheer up holders of said office buildings.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the death world that is crypto, where the hammer is coming down on  Binance’s CZ (Changpeng Zhao). Meanwhile, bankruptcy lawyers for FTX said customers of that cryptocurrency exchange were set to get all their money back, plus interest. At least someone is recovering from the crypto meltdown.

In world news:  The American election drones on with Joe Biden having a narrow path to victory. Speaking of drones, the war in the Ukraine continues with drones playing a big part. In other wars, the War in Gaza goes on, despite massive student protests in the US and elsewhere. The war on women continues in the US as well.

As an aside, one promising thing for American women has been the rise of Caitlin Clark and the related rise of interest in Women’s Basketball. As a basketball fan and a believer that women in sports deserve better, I was glad to see this.

In Canadian news: Some day Canada Post will be no more, based on that article. Some day has come for the Canadian journalist Rex Murphy, who recently died. I used to look up to him a long time ago. Also not doing well is healthcare in Ontario. The Ford government continues to underfund it. Remember when we considered healthcare workers heros? The Ontario government should go back to treating them that way.

The arts: a number of the great artists passed away this spring, Alice Munro being one of the most notable. (The Times has a collection of the  best of her work, here.) Another favorite of mine who passed on was Joe Flaherty. He didn’t get the recognition of some of his SCTV counterparts, but he was equally great and very funny. And I would be remiss if I did not note the death of another great Canadian, Donald Sutherland.

Not Canadian, but truly great, was musician David Sanborn, who is now playing in the great beyond. (Two pieces on him here and here.) Among other things, he was the host of the show “Night Music”, a show I adored and wrote about, here. May they all rest in peace.

Was I glad to see that Daniel Radcliffe won his first Tony award and then went on to a fantastic Tony awards after party? I was.

Finally: We had solar eclipse recently. Did Google searches for eye damage jump after it? Sadly in Ontario they did. Did this woman in Texas build a spa for squirrels to handle the killer heat? Apparently she did. The world is weird.

Let me close off with this link to the Lovin Spoonful’s “Summer in the City”. Enjoy the season! I’ll have another newsletter in the Fall, god willing.

Summertime! And the living is easy? (some thoughts and ramblings for the June 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Summertime! We’ve moved on from late spring into the beginning of the summer season. For some folks, it’s the best of seasons. For me, not so much. But hey, there’s lots to love at least about this month. There’s nice weather (at least in June) and plenty of sunshine and flowers everywhere. I’ve been enjoying it myself so far.

I’m enjoying making this newsletter lately as well, though last June I wrote about giving it up. I’ve had a change of heart obviously. Some of that change had to do with positive feedback I’ve received. Plus I do enjoy going back and reading these newsletters. So you can expect more. Now let me see what was hot and what was not.

What’s was hot: well the forest fires raging out of control in parts of Canada were certainly hot. Though they burned in Alberta and Quebec and Nova Scotia, they impacted everyone, including yours truly. We had some bad days of smoky air, although nothing like what they had in New York. To see the extent of it, I recommend this photo essay in the Verge on how NYC was affected by the wildfire smoke pollution.

In Nova Scotia, they had more than smoke to deal with. People like my sister and her son were forced to mandatory evacuate their homes due to the fires. The fires were spread throughout Nova Scotia, and there was terrible stories of destruction here and here and here and here. It was bad.

The war in Ukraine is definitely hot. Ukrainians are going on the offensive and a quasi civil war erupted within Russia. There’s almost too many links to put here regarding that. I tend to keep abreast by going over the section the Times keeps on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The debt ceiling crisis in the US was also a hot topic for June. There was alot of ink spilled on who gave up more in the debt ceiling negotiations: Biden or the republicans. My take was Biden did well, but the whole thing should never have had to happen in the first place. For more on it, here’s a piece from the Times. More here and here. The Washington Post weighs in here.

Also hot in an almost radioactive way is Donald Trump. To keep up with all the indictments coming out against him I’ve signed up to indictment.fyi by Dan Sinker. You should too.

Would it be terrible if Trump became the next President of the US? Other than for him, yes. He needs to be president again to stay out of jail and to get richer. To see more about the latter, I recommend this: Trump’s real estate deal with Oman. Just off the charts levels of corruption.

Speaking of corrupt, it is interesting to follow the friendships of Supreme Court justices Alito and Thomas. That the two worst members of the Court are also seemingly in the pocket of billionaires is sadly not surprising.

Most of social media is not hot, with the exception being TikTok. And not in a good way.  So you have “titanic tiktok truthers“. You have influencers doing stupid things like promoting products like biore on the back of school shootings. In fact the whole thing about becoming a  tiktok influencer seems out of control. Perhaps they are looking at people like Mr Beast on YouTube and wishing that much influence and wealth. I dunno.

Due to the changes this year, I think baseball is hot again. This piece from the Upshot is worth checking out if you are interested on how the game is changing.

What’s was not: Well, the pandemic is no longer hot. In fact I’d say it’s dormant, if not dead. I’m still tracking COVID. So is the New York Times. As is Ontario Public Health. But otherwise, not so much.

In fact I’d give the Times lots of credit. They are still covering it, and still doing good pieces like this, on covid and lung damage. They also did this piece on what defined the pandemic that I thought was really good. Not so good was this piece on pandemic fraud waste (not the Times).

I used to associate these newsletters with the pandemic. Heck, it was born in the pandemic. Going forward, I am going to drop that association. I’ll still mention anything noteworthy on Covid though.

Inflation is also cooling, it seems. Good. On that topic, I thought these pieces on it were good: what caused the US pandemic era inflation; a comparison of costco vs loblaws food prices; a related piece on inflation, groceries  and Walmart.

Crypto is more ice cold than not hot, especially with the SEC out for one of the last standing exchanges, Binance. You can read about that here and here.

Pixar used to be hot, but not lately. CNN had a meltdown, so kinda hot, but also not.

As for social media, Twitter the company continues to circle the drain as their ad sales plummet. Not to mention them getting hit with a big music industry lawsuit. Fun. Over at that other company, Mark Zuckerberg explains the path forward for meta. Good luck with that, Mark. I mean, who needs the metaverse meet the people still living on second life? A valid question.

Could social media be better? Of course. Anil Dash explains how, here. Also, maybe we should just consider social media alternatives like going outside and touching grass?

In other news: Sports betting  is facing a backlash. Good. The US government continues to  mop up those that contributed to the events of January 6h in the US Capito. Also good.

Cormac McCarthy passed away. This is a fine piece on how unique and now impossible that was. Also this month the five people on the submarine Titan died when that vehicle imploded on the way to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. RIP.

Big companies like Google and Salesforce keep trying to get employees to return to office. On the flip side small tech companies are leveraging this by offering
remote work as a perk to get you to go work with them! Smart move. My expectation is that as leases start running out, remote work will become a hardened norm. Keep an eye out for that.

Enough about work. Summer is a time for relaxing. One way to do that is by reading. If you need something to read this season, the New York Times has your back with many recommendations. For lovers of pure beach reads, check out what indigo.ca has. If nothing else, a book will shade your face from the sun. 🙂

Enjoy the early summer! Thanks for read this too!

The end. Here’s my last highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form, June 2022 edition)

Hey there! Yes, this is my last newsletter in blog form. My first edition of Highlights and Ramblings (a newsletter, as such) was in March of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic. When I started I wanted to provide:

a list of  random items I’ve been stashing away while working from home in this time of social distancing and the pandemic. Initially my goal was to create a newsletter, and perhaps I still will create one. Most of the newsletters I get, though, read like blog posts. That’s fine. But then why do I need to create a newsletter, when I can just post here. Plus, it will save you another thing to deal with in your inbox. Read when you have nothing else to read.

That was my goal. But pretty soon (as early as June 2020) these monthly posts transformed mostly into what was happening pandemic wise. In that month I noted it was…

…a weird time in the pandemic: in parts of the world, the worst is behind them (e.g. parts of Europe)

“The worst is behind them”. How little did I know! In fact, as the months passed, things grinded on with wave after wave of infections. But there was also progress, as I highlighted a year later in June of 2021 :

Canadians continue to ramp up on getting vaccinated. 30% of the population has been fully vaxxed, including yours truly. Well done!

And now it’s been a year later and most Canadians have not only been vaccinated but boosted. Some — like me — double boosted! And many of us — me again! — got COVID anyway. Got COVID and lived and stayed out of hospitals. Not great but good nonetheless.

Societally, we have shifted in our stances. From lockdowns to free travelling and association. Restaurants are full. People are still working from home (although some bullies like Elon Musk are telling staff that ‘remote work is no longer acceptable’). People are still wearing masks. Ottawa even announced the end of troubled COVID Alert app this month. All in all, it feels like the pandemic is over.

But it is not over.  COVID-19 is still out there mutating and people are still getting sick and in some cases dying. It hasn’t gone away, only our extraordinary approach to it has. I don’t know what will happen in the fall. No one knows. Many have beliefs. Some are wondering if and when will COVID-19 be endemic? We will just have to do our best and see.

With that, I think it is time to retire this “newsletter”. Truth is, I don’t have much news to share on a monthly basis that you don’t already know. I’m never go to get rich or gain a big following that way. It’s fine. And not having a monthly deadline is a relief.

Unless  the pandemic was to be medically and socially disruptive, it will stay done. What I do plan to do is just randomly writing my ramblings posts on general topics. We will see. In the meantime, a list of all my newsletters is here. If nothing else, it’s a somewhat interesting plague journal.

Plenty of things have happened in this period. The worst of people (e.g. Putin, Trump) did their worst and left unpunished. The better people (Biden) did their best, only to be unappreciated. Economies recovered, but inflation sprung up. With luck and strong action, in a year from now the war in the Ukraine and worldwide inflation will be positively resolved. One hopes.

Besides newsletters, the other fad of the pandemic  was cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Web3 and all that nonsense. Now with the coming of crypto winter, we may hear less of that. There was also Wordle. Some of you are still playing Wordle, though it seems less so. (if you are, click here to help your score).

We will go on. Thanks to all of you who have read these pandemic ramblings over these many months. If you want to continue to keep up to date on what is happening with Covid, I recommend this newsletter from Eric Topol called Ground Truths. As for me, look here for my (non-pandemic) ramblings and other posts. Take care. Stay well.

 

June, 2021 pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, in blog form)

Wow. It’s the end of June and summer has started. Here’s my latest blog newsletter for you. Short and sweet.

Pandemic:  Canadians continue to ramp up on getting vaccinated. 30% of the population has been fully vaxxed, including yours truly. Well done! I have been impressed by the Federal government procuring the vaccines, as well as the distribution in Toronto. They even had a big event where over 26,000 people were vaccinated in one day at the Skydome/Rogers Center.

Not everything has been awesome. Take the response from the government of Ontario. The Globe has said it has been the worst of all the provincial governments. Hard to disagree with that assessment. Ford has tried to distract others from his performance by trying to shift some of the blame on to Trudeau. That didn’t go far…Trudeau shifted it back onto Ford big time.

While Canadians have generally been good in getting vaccinated, some pockets have been resistant. So governments like that in Manitoba have been offering incentives. Here’s to everyone getting it done this summer!

There has been some positive things to note regarding the pandemic. Crime has plummetted. Quarantine rules are changing for the better in Canada. So that’s good.

Businesses are trying to return to normal, but even the best of them, like Starbucks, are having a hard time getting supplies. There is still a labour shortage too. We are not out of the woods in terms of business.

Overall, this has been a tough time. As VOX argues, it has not been a sabbatical.

If you need more on the pandemic, the New York Times has a whole section, here.

Non-pandemic things I noted: NFRs are getting smarter, though there are still lots of nonsense. However at least  this time people like Sotheby’s are tying their value to the artist themselves. That’s a good thing. Another thing I keep an eye on is ransomware. Sadly, it’s getting worse.

In the US, the GOP are still focused on limiting who can vote in the US. They don’t want to change their platforms, they just want to stay in power.
That is obvious as shown here. Meanwhile, Biden seems to have their number, based on this.As for Canada, there has been a lot of focus on indigenous issues and in particular the residential schools. Here’s a good editorial
on it.

Try and go out and enjoy the nice weather while you can. Everything you can do to make the pandemic better is worth doing.

(Photo by Sofia Mejia on Unsplash )

June pandemic highlights and ramblings (a newsletter, if you’ll have it)


This is my latest not-a-newsletter of highlights (not so many) and ramblings (many) since the last one at the end of May.
It’s a weird time in the pandemic: in parts of the world, the worst is behind them (e.g. parts of Europe). Where I am, the numbers are coming down, but we still have a way to go. Meanwhile in parts of the US, Brazil, and some other places, things just keep getting worse. Hard to know what to think, other than to recognize we are all in this for the long haul. What I do think is 2020 is going to be a milestone year. Perhaps a turning point will occur in 2021. American election can cause such turning points.

I miss some of the earlier aspects of the pandemic. People checking in on you. Artists  sharing their music and creativity. Patrick Stewart reading sonnets every day. The chefs of Le Bernardin sharing cooking tips from home. Sadly much of that has fallen off in this transition period.  Sad, but not surprising. We are all reverting to the norm, even if it is askew of pre-pandemic normality.

In the meantime, you can still go on Twitter and look up Patrick Stewart’s tweets to get him reading sonnets. It’s free culture. And free in this case is good!

Cooking: One thing I did feel good about was my own home cooking compared to the chefs of Le Bernardin. Obviously they are much better cooks than I will ever be. But at home they used dried herbs such as oregano, as well as adding ingredients like garlic powder to their dishes. I have always felt that those ingredients are fine and everything doesn’t have to be fresh. Watching them cook that way was validating. If you have a chance, go and look at Le Bernardin on Instagram and you will see what I mean.

In other food notes, I am a fan of cucina povera, peasant food, what have you. These are  good examples of it:  Victoria Granof’s Pasta con Ceci Recipe on Food52, quick pasta and chickpeas – smitten kitchen

The Media: Newspapers, which were in trouble before the pandemic, seem to be one of the industries that are suffering more than most during this time of severe economic downturn. I expect a lot fewer of them to be in around in the time to come. Meanwhile I am subscribing to as many as I can.

Economics: Speaking of economic changes, this is something I would not have expected before the pandemic:  Toronto rent prices drop for third month in a row. Toronto is still expensive, but supply and demand is what it is.

Mental states: Simply put, people are suffering more during the pandemic. I’ve seen a number of articles like this: Am I Depressed? The Coronavirus Mental-Health Crisis – The Atlantic

The United States: I’m a strong advocate of avoid monocausal explanations for anything historic or sociological. This is not quite a monocausal argument, but it got me thinking about them: Opinion | Why Juneteenth Matters – The New York Times

Jamelle Bouie argues that Black Americans did the work to free themselves in the United States. On the flip side you had people arguing with Bouie, saying that he was wrong and that Lincoln and the Union Army freed the slaves and guaranteed freedom. But these aren’t opposing views. I understand that articles have to have a focus, but complex social changes don’t. There are lots of forces involved in social changes, and while highlighting them makes sense, trying to eliminate other forces does not. Many things led to the abolishing of slavery in the US, and while it is interesting to examine which one mattered most, it is wrong to argue solely for one of them, in my humble opinion. Bouie doesn’t come right out and say that, but it is all but implied. But don’t believe me: read him for yourself.

And not just that piece. I highly recommend that you read Bouie whenever you can. To do that, sign up and get his newsletter. If you do, you will gain a better understanding of things in the US. Also he is a great photographer and cook, and that comes out in his newsletter too.

Speaking of the US, the current president wants a second term at being president because he likes being top dog. That’s not the only reason, but it is definitely one of them. He wants to sit in that role because it is the best role, not because he wants to do anything with it: So what does Trump want to do with a second term, anyway? – The Washington Post. The man is vacant.

Not unrelatedly,  Black Lives Matter seems to me to be undergoing a transformation as a movement, but I think that will be a good thing. If BLM gets to go deeper in our societies, it can have a transformative aspect that is truly needed. That’s not to say that transformation is not already occurring, for it has. I’d like to see it get to the point where our culture and our economies are transformed by it. For that to happen, there will need to be a lot of work done over a fair amount of time. I’m looking forward to that happening, and hopeful.

Alison Roman:  I think Alison Roman is going to be an interesting example of someone in America having a second act. People like to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald (“there are no second acts in American lives”) but I disagree with that. People comeback all the time in the US, and no one loves redemption better than Americans. Let’s see if Roman has a second act in her career.  She certainly has pivoted in some interesting ways with her social media.

Summer: summer is my least favorite season of the year. (1. Fall 2. Spring 3. Winter 4. Summer) but it is summer now, and over the years I’ve slowly learned to like it a bit more. It seems like the shortest of seasons, although I’d argue that Spring gets squeezed between Winter and Summer. If I had my choice, I’d have a long Fall, a medium Spring, a short Summer and a shorter but intense Winter. Regardless of your feelings — and I know for many people, Summer is their favorite season — try and enjoy it while it is here.

Finally: one of the reason I don’t call this a newsletter is because it isn’t really newsy or personal. More just random bits and bobs.  If you got to this point, thanks for taking the time to read it.