Karen – The Handmaiden of Decline
Readers of this blog will be familiar with my outsize focus on social cohesion and its role in societal collapse. A friend recently posted a video of an irate American…
2021
BC Closes Out the Year With Another Climate Blow
It’s been a tough year for British Columbians. Extremes of heat and cold, drought and floods. Heat so intense it killed off billions of sea creatures, the sort that anchor…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andre Picard discusses the need for people to avoid giving up in the battle to protect against the worst effects of a pandemic…
Aaron Wherry in Search of a Silver Lining
It’s hard to imagine much good coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic but the CBC’s Aaron Wherry sees a distant glimmer of hope. What, asks Wherry, if the pandemic embedded…
Americans Behaving Badly
While the title would seem to be redundant, the following story demonstrates especially well how crazy our neighbours to the south are: A Los Angeles woman is facing a federal…
Pie in the sky: a history of the Ontario Waffle
Waffle leaders James Laxer and Mel Watkins in 1972. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library. The following essay by Robert Hackett appeared in the October-November 1980 edition of Canadian Dimension. It…
Buying Time Provides More Than Buying Objects
Start 2022 with a new mindset of buying time instead of material objects. Researchers continue to find more evidence that for a fulfilling life one should eschew material gains for…
The Post Pandemic Economy
In retrospect, David Olive writes, our economic response to the pandemic has been pretty good: In the Great Reset of 2021, the $119-trillion global economy was guided back to near…
Okay, There’s the Heat. It Had to be Somewhere.
Nothing fuels skepticism about the climate emergency than cold snaps of the sort now affecting western Canada. In previous years it’s been the dreaded “polar vortex” that has plagued eastern…
The ‘champion of change’?
This writer has never been a fan of former new democratic politician Ed Broadbent nor of the institute that he has named for him. There is no reason for him…
No plan? Expectation of mass Omicron infection, reduced access to PCR tests, dominate Alberta COVID-19 update
Reading between the lines of remarks by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems evident they have reached a…
Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Ornamental cats.
Justin Didn’t See This Coming When He Decriminalized Marijuana.
Unforeseen consequences.
Why Are The Cons Still Doing Nothing To Stop Covid From Spreading?
As the Omicron variant keeps spreading like wildfire, many hospitals in this country are teetering on the edge of collapse. Burnout and staff shortages have created a dangerous situation, and…
My latest: fearless predictions to disregard!
Warning: Reckless, feckless predictions ahead. Buckle up, readers. A year ago, 2021 was supposed to be the cure for 2020. Remember that? Now, 2022 is supposed to be the cure…
Interviews with On Necrocapitalism contributors
As the pandemic transitioned from science fiction to reality in early 2020, a number of writers and thinkers in the imperialist metropoles declared the impossibility of writing in the face…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Michela Antonelli et al. study the disease profile of post-vaccination COVID, concluding that full vaccination helps to reduce both the number and…
Parenting in the Time of Covid
He was on his way out the door, to walk around with a new friend outside. Me: Rapid test, masks, or walking 6′ apart? Which are you doing? Him: It…
A Ray of Hope
Some day we might think of Omicron as the friendly Covid variant. English experts confirm that it is both milder and shorter-lived than its predecessors, the Alpha and Delta variants.…
Paris, the City of Bike Lights
When I visited Paris long ago it was a traffic clogged mess, with lovely architecture. Parisians have had enough of bad traffic and decided to solve their mobility challenges by…