It’s amazing how the hospital can be both the location for some of the happiest moments of people’s lives (births of children, news about diseases being beaten and bones being healed) and some of the worst (a loved one doesn’t make it after an accident, grandma’s last breaths on the palliative care ward, the diagnosis […]
Yes, the *next* mass pandemic. We dodged the bullet a few times with recent outbreaks like SARS, H1N1, Ebola, etc. But some very smart people foresaw that a devastating worldwide pandemic was inevitable due to the increasing number of viruses that were reaching humans. This is the result of a combination of humans aggressively moving […]
Of course my hope is that as many people as possible come out of this pandemic unharmed as possible. But I can’t help but note the rich irony that the virus is most likely to affect people who least believe in science, non-religious authorities, and who are the most susceptible to misinformation and false narratives. […]
From working on the Ryan Meili leadership campaigns, mostly in the area of social media plus my own personal interest in the topic, I know some of the “rules” about what makes tweets/Facebook posts successful. But ultimately, human nature is a funny thing and no one can truly predict what will make a tweet go […]
As a fan of dystopian literature, it’s still shocking how quickly we’ve gotten to this point. Within a couple months of COVID-19 appearing, we’ve shut down billion dollar sports leagues, concerts, schools, libraries and more. I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between a panicked response, a prepared response and a proactive response and […]
With apologies to Daniel Dafoe, some scenes from the past few days… Busy disinfecting everything in the house… I *love* my library’s “In the News” display. It’s been a huge hit with how timely and responsive it is and our COVID-themed display was no exception (yes, I know some of those “boost your immunity” books […]
I still tell the story of the woman I traveled to England with for a University exchange in 1995 meeting a group of people in a pub and saying she hadn’t changed her pants in days. Turns out trousers are pants in England and pants are underwear! 🙂
Layton Burton was one of the few who didn’t have to leave the province when the government cut the Film Tax Credit but he did have to go back to school in his 50’s and completely reinvent himself.
Walked Sasha over to her school’s Family Literacy Night earlier this week and we didn’t even read one story at the “Reading Activity Station” but we sure had fun playing with the stuffed animals and telling stories using crazy voices. One mom sort of glared at us goofing around and I was this close to […]
