We only went once before, for my birthday last year, but were sad to show up at a local restaurant called the Neighbourhood Pour House yesterday to find the doors locked.
Shea did some digging when we got home and found an announcement that they’d closed their doors very recently but their flagship restaurant, Jack Keaton’s BBQ, would remain open.
Good article from The National Post about the changing nature of the debate around Freedom of Expression.
What remains is that challenges still come from all sides of the political spectrum.
…the bulk of work on freedom of expression is shifting from people who fruitlessly complain about books to attacks on journalists and bloggers. Also on the table are concerns about the shady, hard-to-discern role Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social-media outlets have in policing and suppressing speech by “deplatforming” people without any kind of clear public process — often using algorithms that work in undisclosed ways.
The camping season’s over but I can’t help but share this funny video…
This song has always been incredibly powerful from when it became a worldwide smash in 1990 but it might even be more powerful to hear it now, nearly thirty years later, after Sinead O’Connor has led a life full of controversy and pain.
“Nothing Compares 2 U” – Sinead O’Connor
Shea and I went to see “Book of Mormon” today, one of the most successful, long-running Broadway shows of all-time, written and produced by the same guys who made South Park.
I’ve been a fan of South Park since someone told me about “Rainbows? I hate rainbows!” but I don’t watch it as religiously (pun intended) as I used to.
But watching the very NSFW, very hilarious “atheist love letter to religion” (as Stone called it) play, it got me thinking back about some of the most offensive, controversial stuff South Park has done.
Walking to school…
(This is also the cleanest his room has been in seven years as well since we’d cleared it out while preparing to paint it.)
Shea and I are binging “Handmaid’s Tale” right now and both loving it (while also regularly cringing!) but if pressed, I’d still say “Breaking Bad” is my favourite TV show of all-time. (It’s up there for Shea too but I think she picks “The Wire” as her all-time favourite.)
Anyhow, can’t wait for this…
As someone who loves visiting all-inclusive resorts (and frequently meets overseas guests while there including many who probably traveled with Thomas Cook), I’ve been watching the collapse of the 178 year old travel agency with with great interest.
Some thoughts:
* Some are calling this the first “Brexit Bankruptcy“, a result of uncertainty caused by all the back and forth confusion around Brexit – if and when it will happen and what the terms will be.
* It’s crazy that not just tens but hundreds of thousands of people are affected including many who are currently *in* resorts that haven’t yet been paid so there’s the crazy situation where people who are at a resort are being asked to pay *again* for a trip they already bought since apparently travel companies don’t release funds until *after* the package vacation is over and obviously Thomas Cook isn’t in a position to do that.
* Fortunately, the UK has some sort of national insurance scheme for international holidays that I don’t think we have here (I’ve read different things about whether it applies to all international travel or just package holidays.)
* Thomas Cook hasn’t operated in Canada for thirteen years so it’s unlikely that very many Canadians were affected, at least directly.
* Will be interesting to see how this affects resorts in the coming months – both in terms of prices (will they go up because of less people booking or down to attract more customers from North America?) and inventory, especially at destinations popular with British/European travelers.
* And obviously this is a tragedy for all of Thomas Cook’s workforce who ended up without jobs extremely abruptly.
