Humour

November 29, 2020

As the Trump presidency slowly comes to a sputtering halt, one lingering question in the “Now what?” department has to do with the forthcoming legal entanglements in which the soon-to-be-former-president will find himself.

To begin with, there is the idea that he’d pardon himself, but that’s far from trivial.

First of all, there’s the question of whether he can actually do that. There isn’t agreement on that point, but it doesn’t matter. That pesky issue can be easily sidestepped… just resign a few hours before noon on January 20th, swear-in Mike Pence for what would be the shortest presidency in history, and have him do it.

But that doesn’t really address the salient issue of pardoning him… which is, of what? Both Trump and his diehard minions have been telling us for years… it’s all smoke… no fire here… move along. That being the case, there’d be nothing to pardon. To some extent, they’re right. You can’t preemptively pardon someone for crimes they haven’t committed, nor admitted to, nor been charged with. There’s no blanket pardon he can grant for the future… “Just in case…” – it doesn’t work that way. So… for any of this to work, Trump would have to admit to the crimes for which he’s seeking a pardon. It’s a magnificent Catch-22.

A lingering question over the last several years has been about just how feasible it actually is to indict a sitting president, and where might those cases go. It seems nobody wanted to test those waters, so it’s been a holding pattern for four years. There were rumours before the 2016 election of what was coming down the line… that, had Trump lost the election, new charges and allegations would’ve been forthcoming. All of that was put on hold.. except there has been an additional four years of opportunity to investigate.

For decades, Donald Trump was synonymous with New York. His real-estate projects, his towers, his skating rink, his reality show, his presence… everywhere. You may have noticed Trump has significantly soured on New York, and the same can be said vice-versa. Trump has made it clear he’ll be moving to Florida and that he’s done with New York. Donald Trump may be done with New York, but New York certainly isn’t done with him. Waiting in the wings, there may be both civil and criminal charges. Trump has been under investigation by both the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York State Attorney General. There are also the numerous allegations of sexual assault. There are lingering tax questions. From civic to state to federal… and from civil to criminal, Trump may be facing a wall of legal problems.

And, with all of that in mind, it’s important to note… presidents can only pardon federal crimes. Nothing at the state level and nothing at the civic level.
A lot of people want their day in court, and many of them will get their wish… in what order, who knows… but I suspect the afternoon of January 20th, 2021 will be a busy one for the filing clerks.

Traditionally, after the new president is sworn in, the former president gets a helicopter ride from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base, and from there, one final ride in Air Force One… to wherever he wants to go. Right around the time a flurry of lawsuits are being filed, Trump will be boarding that plane. The flight plan will already have been filed, but you can always file more than one, just in case… and perhaps, right at that point, he’ll have a difficult decision to make. I wonder if he’ll have on him a little list of alternates… some welcoming places around the world that don’t have extradition treaties… maybe China? No. Russia? Nah. Qatar and the UAE are not unreasonable choices… you can live very well there if you have money.

Or, Georgia. The country… not the state.

By |2020-11-29T23:07:10-08:00November 29th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
Read More

November 27, 2020

If you haven’t already seen “The Queen’s Gambit”, you probably have a lot of people telling you that you should… and they’re right. It’s really, really good. You probably know that it’s about chess, but, like chess itself, it’s about a lot more.

The basics of chess are easy to learn; anyone can learn how the pieces move in less than 10 minutes. But then you spend a lifetime trying to move them well. I’m happy that series came into this household… I only wish it’d been at the start of this pandemic. There would’ve been a lot more quality screen time in those early days.

It was funny… a few nights ago, to hear my son yell for me… “Dad! Help!” – I ran over there… what, is the room on fire? No… he was on chess.com, playing against some guy in Russia, and found himself in a precarious position, not quite sure what to do because he thought he was about to lose his queen. That’s quality father/son time right there, ganging up to beat some Russian in chess. Right on.

I get the impression that Donald Trump wouldn’t be a very good chess player, and here’s why I think that: Chess requires you to think a few moves ahead, and if you can’t do that, you have zero chance of success. Just like in life, if you lead it in such a way that’s entirely reactionary – stimulus/response, stimulus/response… you’re going to have a tough go of it. That lifestyle works well for single-celled organisms, but our real world is a lot more complicated than a paramecium needing to navigate a petri dish. And in chess, if every time you move a piece it gets taken… and then you stare at the board wondering how that could’ve happened… well, you’re doing it wrong.

The stimulus/response pattern of the soon-to-be-former-president is something I guess we’ve gotten used to over the last four years, but now that he’s on his way out, it’s a little more pathetic than it used to be.

Actually, at the start, it was far from pathetic; it was frightening, with real-world consequences.

Early in the presidency, Trump was watching TV and saw something… and then Tweeted about how the new Air Force One is too expensive, and “Cancel Order!” There’s a lot of misinformation in that Tweet to begin with, but the immediate response was a sharp drop in Boeing’s stock price. It recovered quickly when people realized the president didn’t know what he was talking about, but the damage was done, and it was a good indication that this guy shoots from the hip and doesn’t really consider the implications. Much bigger and broader shooting from the hip was his unilateral and unexpected Muslim travel ban. Never mind that it violated the first amendment, the fifth amendment, the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act… who cares. You can see Trump, with his infallible logic… Muslim = Terrorist, Terrorist = Bad, Banning Bad is good… what’s the problem? No need to consider the consequences. We all remember the chaos that resulted, and how much effort it took to resolve it.

But these days, with only 53 days, 15 hours and 57 minutes (but who’s counting) left in his presidency, his shooting from the hip holds little clout. Now, it’s the same old baseless nonsense, and none of it is surprising to hear. I honestly thought he might have some surprises waiting in the wings, but… nothing. Like an awful chess player, he telegraphed ahead everything he had planned. He called the election a fraud before it even took place, threatened he had lawyers in place ready to challenge it, and, as a result, everyone was ready for it. He served up exactly what was expected.

Of course, there was no wide-spread fraud, and the “superstar” team of lawyers who were happy to say “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to him in person, and who were happy to take his money… most of them bailed before making complete fools of themselves. Those that stuck it out longer faced serious admonition from judges who were not happy to see their court’s time wasted with this nonsense, especially when the stakes were so high. Vague handwaving and unfounded, grandiose statements don’t work well in a court of law. Case after case was thrown out, some of them angrily.

At a recent press conference, Donald Trump was repeatedly asked if he was going to concede. His long-winded answers of irrelevant bullshit and false claims were exactly what we’ve grown accustomed to. He never answered the question, which of course, in itself, is the answer.

If this were a chess match, he’d be the king, pretty much left all alone. All that’s left of his colour is the king itself… and a few pawns. The other side has more than it needs… the queen, a rook or two, a knight or two. A bishop. Perhaps a few pawns. Perhaps 80 million pawns. Whatever.

In 53 days, 15 hours and 57 minutes, his Tweets will go from presidential and influential… to those from just another right-wing conspiracy-theory-believing nut-job. Right now, he could be Tweeting about how maybe masks aren’t such a bad idea. How maybe a little social distancing wouldn’t hurt. Will he do that? Of course not.

And during that time, more than 5 million Americans will become infected with C19, and more than 100,000 will die. And, after all of that, Donald Trump, the former president, will have the rest of his life to think about what he did, what he didn’t do, and what a mess he left behind. Maybe he can think about it while he’s sitting in prison, where he belongs… and where there isn’t much else to do.

Well, I guess he could always take up chess.

Follow & Discuss on Facebook

By |2020-11-27T19:45:06-08:00November 27th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour, Movies, Music & Entertainment|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |12 Comments
Read More

November 23, 2020

One might be a fluke, but two implies some consistency… and three pretty-much says, “lock” – and that is where we’re at with respect to vaccines.

Another announcement this morning from yet another vaccine manufacturer, this one from AstraZeneca, showing an average efficacy of 70%, but going up to 90%, depending on the dosage. Regulators from the FDA and Europe will be having a look at it soon.

From a timeline point of view, the two frontrunners, Pfizer and Moderna… may have their vaccines hitting the streets in the last two weeks of December, assuming the present timeline and FDA approval (set to be discussed Dec. 10th). Pfizer expects to make 50 million doses by the end of the year (and up to 1.3 billion next year). Moderna will have 20 million doses ready this year. Who will get it first? Mostly Americans, I would expect… and, honestly, they need it.

That great American Founding Father Patrick Henry proclaimed, “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” back in 1775. Americans, known for wanting it all, are taking those words to heart… potentially changing the “or” to an “and”.

Over the weekend, over 3 million people passed through security checkpoints in American airports. Something like one in 111 Americans travelled on a plane in the last 48 hours, the majority on their way home for Thanksgiving, where they will mingle in close quarters for several hours if not days… before boarding those same planes and heading back to wherever.

The timing with “vaccines vs. the virus” will be interesting… and will be the grand crescendo of 2020. In fact, let’s call it for a specific day – Dec 20th, 2020, precisely one month before Donald Trump exits, stage left. On that day, many places in the U.S. will be facing a catastrophic and unmanageable surge in cases, with hospitals completely overwhelmed. And right alongside that, there will be the knowledge that the vaccine is out there, and “How the hell do I get my hands on it?!”

The amusing-if-it-weren’t-so-tragic part of it will be the conspiracy spin… from those people who for the better part of a year have been claiming it’s a hoax and it’s all bullshit… who will now be screaming that only the elite have access to it and how come we don’t all get it, like, *now*, and it’s my right to have a vaccine… my *constitutional* right as part of the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Clearly a vaccine fits into that. Like, you know, I don’t want a vaccine, I don’t need a vaccine, vaccines are for crowd control, vaccines are to murder us, Bill Gates, 5G, etc, etc… *BUT*, even so, if I want a vaccine, I should be able to get one. OK.

Keep your seatbelts securely fastened… the roller-coaster has just begun that big downhill. This is the part where you can put your hands up in the air and scream… or just hold on for dear life. Like I keep saying, there’s a finish line… but it’s going to be a wild ride getting there.

Graph for November 23, 2020

Follow & Discuss on Facebook

By |2020-12-03T18:59:31-08:00November 23rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Humour, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

November 20, 2020

In hindsight, there was plenty to learn from Donald Trump’s nomination of the first (of his three) Supreme Court Justices. Before Barrett and Kavanaugh, there was Gorsuch.

This was very early into his presidency, and the announcement was to be like no other. Trump wanted a full-on reality-TV moment. Had he had his way, it would’ve been like a Bachelor/Bachelorette-like Rose Ceremony – held in the White House Rose Garden, of course – where Trump would’ve had his three finalists standing there, and with some great drama – heck, perhaps even by handing them a Rose – revealed to the world his choice. One of the other two, Tom Hardiman, was actually on his way to Washington for the “ceremony” until an insider reached out and told him something like, “Dude, bail… this is bullshit.”

Trump still made the best of it. He had Gorsuch and his wife hidden away, in a hallway. Trump made it all about himself, as usual, and after his magnanimous speech, finally had Tom Gorsuch, and his wife, emerge… to the thunderous applause so that he, Trump, could take credit for his awesome selection. “What is going on?”, asked some people. “This is going to be fun!”, said some others.

The astonishing reality show is exactly two months away from cancellation. Many of the actors have already moved on, some trying to distance themselves from the negative reviews, to find new shows. Some are holding on, hoping for a sequel. They will soon be bitterly disappointed. Nobody is picking this up for another 4-year run.

The problem, of course, is that the star of the show doesn’t want to go away, and it’d be funny were it not so tragic. His pathetic attempts of “They love me! They really love me!” aren’t going to take him anywhere.

Yet – and this is where it gets very serious – every single hour that goes by, with this petulant child-actor’s attitude of “If I lose, we all lose”, people are dying. The studio needs to reconfigure for the next 4 seasons, but they can’t, because the soon-to-be-former star won’t hand over the keys. He just makes lame and baseless excuses. How appropriate it was for Giuliani to be holding that almost-final press conference in the parking lot of a Four Seasons. Not the elegant hotel, of course, but the kind of Four Seasons operation the specializes in shoveling manure, exactly what his BFF/client has been doing for four long seasons.

It’s far too late to restore the tarnished image in which Trump has enveloped himself, but like any good show or series, some people just remember the end. The last 10 minutes of the last episode. And here we are, and Trump could actually make a difference. With now literally nothing else left to lose as president, he could at least leave it with a bit of a swan song… and invoke a federal mask policy. It would upset a lot of his core. It would also save tens of thousands of lives. It’s sad – tragic – that he won’t.

Closer to home, we *do* have a new mask policy, and whether you agree with it or not, how about you just do it? We can discuss it next year, whether it was as right as I said or as wrong as you said… because we both agree we’d like to get to next year, and we’d also like everyone around us, especially those we care deeply about, to get there as well. Yes, you might be young and healthy, and maybe this won’t affect you… notwithstanding a recent death here in BC was an otherwise-healthy man in his 30s… he and some co-workers tested positive. The co-workers all had mild symptoms, but the unfortunate victim got it much worse… and the point is, that even if you think you’re immortal, you have friends and family who are older, immunocompromised and/or simply as unlucky as that guy whose friends, family and co-workers still can’t believe it.

Outbreaks can happen anywhere, but the serious ones we hear about are care homes, which of course are populated with the people who are at highest risk… and it’s within those walls that infections can spread like wildfire. Tabor Home, a long-term care facility in Abbotsford had 4 cases (two staff, two residents) two weeks ago. Today, it’s over 100. How did that happen…?

There are more of you out there than you think… that have this virus. Eighty percent of you will never even know it… yet, for a while, you were just as infectious as anyone else… and somewhere along the line… while not wearing a mask and/or being too close to someone else, you passed it along… and so on and so on. Breaking those chains of transmissions is what it’s all about, and far more of us are potential links in that chain… that inevitably end at someone who is unable to fight it off. Once it enters an environment like a care-home, it hits hard.

If you think wearing a mask or not getting together socially or not travelling isn’t to your benefit, think about others… because your irresponsibility could literally kill someone else. Think about them… some elderly resident of a care home… whose life is worth far more than your irresponsible little maskless get-together. The get-together can wait. That elderly resident is also waiting… for a hug from their grand-daughter. Do your part to make sure that eventually happens.

Follow & Discuss on Facebook

By |2020-11-22T17:04:33-08:00November 20th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Follower Favourites, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

November 13, 2020

Out of the top 20 worst countries to be in, with respect to this virus, there is only one that can claim less than 100 deaths per one million of population. For comparison, as per the attached data, U.S. has 750 and Canada has 283.

But India, a country of 1.4 billion people and widespread poverty and overcrowding and nowhere near enough infrastructure to handle the medical catastrophe this could be if it got out of control — they’re doing surprisingly well. Their number is 93.

They are second in the world for number of total cases; only the U.S., a country with a quarter the population of India, has more. But while 250,000 (and counting) people have died in the U.S., that number is only 130,000 in India. Even Brazil, a country with less than one seventh of India’s population (and a leader as despicable as Trump), has more. So… what’s going on?

Perhaps it’s better testing? But it’s not. The U.S. has tested about 500,000 per million. India has tested 89,000 per million. And through that testing, the U.S. has learned they have 33,000 cases per million, as opposed to India’s 6,300. There are presently almost 4 million active cases in the U.S. There are less than half a million in India.

No… the answer is actually pretty simple. Following the rules…. and masks. There have of course been lockdowns and a level of somewhat sophisticated and targeted Unlocks in different regions… but what has made a big difference is national buy-in with respect to masks, where 90% of the population believes they should be mandatory. There is a fine for not wearing a mask, around $20, but 40% of people think that fine should be increased.

For a while, a couple of months ago, it looked like India might spiral out of control. Their graphs looked a lot like what you see here… except they managed to get it under control… and it starts with people doing their part.

On a related note… Diwali this year begins tomorrow.

Diwali is the 5-day Indian festival of lights. I’m not familiar with the intricacies and symbolism, but the celebration part of it… I think if you change Diwali to Chanukah and the 5 to an 8… it’s pretty close. The whole family gets together, you eat great food, you hang out. Good times. Chanukah is in less than a month. A few weeks after that, Christmas. Right after that, Kwanza. If none of that applies to you, there’s always Festivus.

Dr. Henry reminds me a bit of British policemen, before they were allowed to carry guns. “Stop! Or I will say ‘Stop!’ again!”. Well, there’s only so much she can do. Especially now, as numbers are rising alarmingly… either you get it or you don’t. Two weeks ago was Halloween. Here we are. Where will we be in two weeks? This isn’t rocket science. Cause and effect are taught in grade school.

Whatever you’re celebrating… you know what’s ok and what’s not. For your benefit, for your family’s benefit, for everyone’s benefit… be responsible.

COVID-19 Daily Report Graph for November 13, 2020

Follow & Discuss on Facebook

By |2020-11-13T19:37:20-08:00November 13th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Life in Vancouver, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
Read More

October 27, 2020

The unfortunate truth these days is that there’s just too much to write about. Around here, numbers spiraling upwards. Down south, in a week, they go to the polls… and, to a great extent, just in time. I had a quick look at the headlines-du-jour, looking for something appetizing that I could sink my teeth into… but you know, never bite off more than you can chew… and for some reason, today… it just looks overwhelming. Some of it looks tasty, but there’s too much, and after eating so much of this over the last little while, I think I’ve had enough for now. Here’s a news story that looks as appetizing as a plate of nachos, the melted cheese still steaming, the salsa… the chilled sour cream… and a frothy Guinness sitting next to it… but I’ll pass.

The exhaustion leading up to this final stretch… and now, this last week… looks like the last 100 yards of a marathon… and I’m not talking about the Kenyan guy who just ran it in 2:09 and could probably go another 10 miles… I’m talking about the guy who decided 3 months ago to train for a marathon… and managed to survive running 15 miles last weekend, and now just decided to go for it… you know that look, the middle-aged over-weight guy, bald but with a headband anyway, wobbling his way over the finish line in over 6 hours and collapsing in a heap… that’s the way we’re all going to look and feel in a week. And that’s just us Canadians… our poor American friends to the south… well, it’ll be a long recovery.

And anyway, we have ourselves to worry about. This country just went over 10,000 in C19 deaths. As bad as that sounds (and, it is) – that’s less than how many people have died in the U.S. since Oct 14th… and those are the curated numbers; the reality is unfortunately higher.

There’s a one-week finish line to the U.S. election. There’s also a more-distant finish line to this marathon of a pandemic… and we’re definitely on that last, killer hill. Eventually it plateaus and there’s a nice, gentle downhill to the finish. Unfortunately, like the marathon guy whose face is so drenched in sweat that not even the headband can do its job properly, we can’t really see where we are right now, nor how much is left to go. But we plug ahead in the right direction because eventually we’ll get there. And when that guy finally crosses the finish line, I hope he treats himself to that tasty plate of nachos and a beer; he deserves it. We all do.

Follow and Discuss on Facebook

By |2020-10-27T20:50:43-07:00October 27th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour|Tags: , , , , , , |5 Comments
Read More

October 11, 2020

When NHL commissioner Gary Bettman stepped onto the ice a couple of weeks go to present the Tampa Bay Lightning with their hard-fought-for Stanley Cup, there was something missing. Well, there was a lot missing, not the least of which were the fans. To its credit, the NHL pulled off an excellent season, given the complexities involved. It all worked out as planned, their whole bubble-infrastructure held together, and even virtual fan experience was so well-executed, you’d forget there weren’t sold-out arenas surrounding the play. The lights, the sounds, the announcers, the crowd noises – as genuine and convincing as possible.

But what was missing were the boos. It’s a well-known tradition… Bettman steps onto the ice, and the fans boo. Loudly. Like the monkeys pulling each other back from reaching the banana, most people might not even know why they’re booing… but everyone else does it, so you do it too. And, for what it’s worth, there are plenty of reasons to boo the guy; pretty-much every team has a reason to, thought it occurs to me that Arizona might be the only exception… and further to that, Arizona might be the only place on the planet that cheers Bettman and boos Wayne Gretzky.

I’m sure the NHL and the broadcasters thought about it. I’m sure they had the recorded boos all queued up ready to play, and left it to a last-minute decision. I’m sure Bettman wouldn’t have cared; he always laughs it off. And/or knows, to a great extent, that he deserves it.

It was a missed opportunity though… just one little bit of normality that could’ve been implemented, but wasn’t… and that’s too bad. I guess the politics and implications of it outweighed the humour and fan appreciation of it… but these days, when all of us are looking for evidence that, as crazy as things are, there’s some normalcy lurking in the background… it would’ve been nice to see.

I hope the next time he’s awarding the Stanley Cup, Bettman is showered with 20,000 real-life boos. I can’t wait. It will long and loud and powerful. I’d love to experience it. And, considering what that implies, I think we'd all love it. Even Bettman himself.

View Original Post and All Comments on Facebook

By |2020-10-11T17:03:02-07:00October 11th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: |1 Comment
Read More

September 26, 2020

No numbers till Monday… though it’s worth sadly noting that by this time tomorrow, the world will have seen its one millionth C19 death. We have a long way to go with fixing things.

You know… “Fixing things” used to mean something positive… like, you have something, it broke, you fixed it… and now it’s good again.

The word’s more sinister implications… well, you have disgraced and disbarred former attorney Michael Cohen… Trump’s “fixer”… who fixed things like campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud. Evidently, like cheap scotch tape, his illegal fixes were temporary, and fell apart when put to the test.

I have a particularly fond memory playing poker. A friend went to the washroom, and in the 60 seconds he was gone, we “fixed” the deck. By the end of the hand, he’d put every penny he had into the pot, and lost it all on the last card. He couldn’t believe it, and we couldn’t stop laughing at the emotional rollercoaster we put him through. All in good fun; he was incredibly relieved to hear it was all a set-up, and he hadn’t actually lost his entire net worth. I suspect most fixed poker hands don’t end so well.

When it comes to elections, history has seen plenty of fixes… and some are so blatant, they’re ridiculous.

The Liberian general election of 1927 is a good example. There were 15,000 registered voters. One candidate received 9,000 votes – pretty reasonable. The other candidate received 243,000 (that’s not a typo).

It’s interesting to note that until relatively recently, like the mid-19th century, when you voted, you made your vote public. The British colony of Victoria, ie Australia, adopted a secret voting system in 1856… where a generic paper ballot was produced by an independent third party. Before that, each campaign would produce their own ballot, on a piece of paper with their own colour. To vote, you’d drop your selected coloured ballot… into a glass bowl. Surrounding those glass bowls would be party operatives or even the candidates themselves… persuading, bribing and even threatening the voters. It took guts to vote because, as you might expect, it was frequently a violent undertaking.

Fortunately, neither the American nor Canadian upcoming elections will be people publicly dropping red of blue pieces of paper into large glass bowls, for all to see. That would be crazy.

Unfortunately, what will ultimately happen may be another sort of crazy. I’m not too worried about up here; we haven’t had a disputed election ever, and the closest thing to a scandal was that Conservative robo-call nonsense orchestrated by some junior staffer in 2011.

But south of the border… fasten your seatbelt. I don’t think any of us, in person, have ever seen what’s about to happen… and it’s already started. The president is already calling it crooked, and has made it clear he won’t accept the result if he loses.

Disputing the security of mail-in ballots, watching the USPS dismantle the infrastructure needed for a fair election, seeing how a top official in Philadelphia explained that up to 100,000 mail-in ballots might be invalidated due to a technicality (Pennsylvania is one of those key states that could, on its own, decide the election)… it’s all just beginning.

Just like a slow-moving train-wreck, it seems everyone is watching with morbid curiousity, unable to do anything to stop it. No matter what, it’ll be a big mess to clean up. Let’s just hope we can one day… fix it.

 

View Original Post and All Comments on Facebook

By |2020-10-08T01:08:41-07:00September 26th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics, Travel Stories, Humour, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , |8 Comments
Read More

September 24, 2020

When I was around 13, my mom’s cousin came to visit – from way far away; he and his family live in an industrial town in Slovakia. It was just him that came to visit, and he spent a week with us. I recall he arrived on Saturday morning, and we spent the weekend taking him around town, hitting a bunch of tourist sites. The beauty of Vancouver made a big impact on him; it was all very different from his typical surroundings.

On Monday morning, we all had breakfast together, and then it was time to go… my sister and I to school, my parents to work. They offered to take him downtown or drop him somewhere to look around, but no… he just wanted to chill at home. No worries. When we all left, he was sitting outside, on the deck, overlooking the backyard… with a cup of coffee and a cigarette in his hand.

Fast forward about 10 hours… I got home before anyone, and there he was, still sitting on the deck… the cup of coffee had transformed into a beer, and the ashtray was now overflowing with cigarette butts.

“Have you been sitting here all day?”

“Absolutely.”

OK… whatever melts your butter, I guess… but at the time, I do remember thinking how insanely boring that must have been. I thought about everything I’d done that day (a lot) and compared it with what he’d done (nothing).

The next day, it was the same thing… a full-on 10-hour chill. A few cups of coffee, a few beers, a pack of smokes… and call it a day. And that was pretty much it for the rest of the week. Every single day, all he did was sit outside and stare into the garden.

The world’s most boring man, I thought, at the time.

I told him, at one point,

“I really can’t understand how you can just sit here all day.”

“One day, you will.”

Over the years, every time I think about it, I have a more profound appreciation for it. This guy flew 8,000km to disconnect from his day-to-day reality, and he did it right. Back home, he was a hard worker with tons of responsibility and stress. And here, well before the era of perpetual connectedness, he’d found his oasis and he milked it for all it was worth.

These days, it’s an inward-facing question I ask myself… when I find myself spending time on something I’d rather not: Would I rather be here, or sitting on a deck, staring off into a garden or ocean or space or whatever…

You don’t need me to tell you that we’re living in a crazy world… and that it’s probably going to get a fair bit crazier before it gets better… which means, more than ever, scheduling those “deck moments” ahead of time. Scheduling an entire week of them is a lofty goal we can only aspire towards, but every little bit helps. As the weather gets worse and the days get shorter and the stresses mount and the case-counts and hospitalizations and ICU admission numbers all rise… find your deck – and visit it as often as you can.

View Original Post and All Comments on Facebook

By |2023-04-02T13:54:32-07:00September 24th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Follower Favourites, Life in Vancouver, Humour, Space & Astronomy, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , |24 Comments
Read More

July 28, 2020

A lot of discussions these days – the ones where you ultimately have to walk away, or at least agree to disagree because you can’t actually believe what you’re seeing/hearing/reading… end like this:

“Where on earth did you get that idea from?”

“I researched it.”

The “researched it” thing gets thrown around a lot these days, and as per the famous quote from The Princess Bride… “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Unless you compiled a literature review, and wrote (or at least, read) abstracts of the articles you read… and/or collected a random sample of sources and performed an independent analysis of their credibility… and, if not, at least looked into the sources of those articles (authors, publishers and, most importantly, funders) and dug into that… for fallacies, distortions or just plain-old, flat-out lies… you didn’t really research it.

And even if you didn’t do any of that, did you at least think about the source of the article and why the aforementioned list (author, publisher, funder) might have been motivated to distribute it? What about the people who refer or promote the article; what might be their motivations? This wouldn’t be research, but it would be at least a semblance of critical thinking that might serve to possibly justify your opinion with respect to the credibility of your sources.

To be clear, clicking a link to a video or an article from your finely-tuned, curated feed on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok or whatever flavor-of-the-day social media platform serves as your de-facto news source – no, that’s not research. In fact, given the way with which that information is making its way to you, it’s perhaps as opposite to research as you can get. It’s spoon-feeding you exactly what you want to hear, because then you’ll click on it and generate some revenue for someone far down the line. And, in doing so, pad your conformity-bias just a little bit more because something new agrees with it… and set you up to click the next related thing.

Digging around the internet is the place to do research these days, but what exactly you’re doing makes all the difference. There’s a lot of good stuff out there; it’s just a question of wading through the crap to find it, and using some methodology to achieve that.

Incidentally, Wikipedia… a relatively good place to find a pretty good summary of anything within the entire body of knowledge of human history — can be easily downloaded. As crazy as it sounds, it’s only 10GB (compressed)… which is 42GB uncompressed, ie plain text… which means all of it, like all of Wikipedia – every single article – fits easily onto a $15 64GB USB thumb drive. You can carry around with you the entire knowledge base of humanity on your keychain, with lots of extra room for pictures and family videos. Not a bad thing to carry around in case you’re shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere with your solar-powered laptop. Or abducted by aliens.

Yeah, aliens… they’re here, living among us. It’s true; I researched it.

View Original Post and All Comments on Facebook

By |2020-10-08T01:10:34-07:00July 28th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Humour, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , |15 Comments
Read More

© 2020-2023 Horatio Kemeny | Web presence supported by KJS Design

Go to Top