Calling someone an old soul says they’re wise before their time.
It has nothing to do with age. A child can be an old soul. But if there’s One Big Thing that happened this year, it’s how the idea of being ‘old’ is changing and how quickly we should move to catch up to it.
Read on…
When my wife Jean was doing family medicine, many of her patients were smart, accomplished, kind and financially-secure women over 50 who had given up finding a mate because none existed.
“Have you tried dating online?” Jean would ask. Their eyes would roll and they would practically spit: “I would never do that. It’s so demeaning.”
Many of these women have turned out the lights on this issue. There are no men out there, so why waste your time looking? Just create a rich life where you don’t need them. Didn’t Gloria Steinem say a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle? Or you can select men for different uses, the way you would a spice from the kitchen cupboard.
Meanwhile…
The best April Fool’s prank I’ve fallen for took place in 1976 when my alarm, tuned to wake me to CBC Radio One, buzzed on the hour. The newscaster announced that because Canada had adopted metric measurement for weights and distances the year before, henceforth Canadians would shift to metric time: there would be 10 hours in a day and 100 minutes in an hour. Ottawa would be subsidizing the cost of retooling our clocks and watches for the future.
“How had I missed this?!”
Not for a second did I remember it was April Fool’s.
Today, you will likely be pranked by the likes of Virgin, McDonalds, Google, and Airbnb. So be vigilant.
Also, here’s perhaps the best April Fool’s, or rather, the best April Fakes of all.
Meanwhile…
The big losses we all know and dread. It’s the little ones that chip away at who we think we are. I read this week that the Kiwi shoe polish company is ceasing sales in Great Britain. It seems no one is shining their shoes any more. The cause is people working from home and wearing running shoes when they go outside. I, of course, took it to mean the decline of all standards of self-discipline, like making your bed.
Meanwhile…
I remember growing up in Edmonton, Christmas was the busiest time of year. My father was a florist and my mom and I picked him up at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and brought him home, exhausted, to sleep – just as soon as he dealt with the complaints from customers who hadn’t got their flowers yet. He’d be in bed by 10 and slept for 12 hours straight, which let Santa deliver gifts late the next morning. But no matter how tired he was, we never forgot to put out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, a tradition that still has me headed to the fridge tonight.
Meanwhile…
Victory may have a thousand hand-maidens, but so does complicity.
This podcast tells how to avoid turning your gaze when others’ bad behaviour comes into view. But while a big part of complicity is often silence – “Nothing to see here, folks” – explicit badness can never seem to shut up and sit down. See FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s “meandering” one-hour take-down of Western countries for daring to criticize World Cup host-nation Qatar; and Donald Trump’s “rambling” one-hour speech announcing his run for President in 2024.
But the best examples of this growing art form are the filmed tributes to mendacity on a national scale, like this with David Beckham as part of his £150 million sponsorship deal touting Qatar.
Meanwhile, here is this week’s Omnium-Gatherum…
Andrew Wilkinson’s idea won’t leave my head as I scratch it to come up with any successful person it doesn’t describe. Which got me to thinking about that other earwig, Donald Trump. He doesn’t seem anxious, except maybe this week he finally will, as New York Attorney General
Letitia James filed a 222-page lawsuit claiming he and his kids have engaged in massive fraud over many years. The document makes astringent reading. And speaking of reports, Wachtell Lipton’s on the racist and misogynist actions of Robert Sarver, the owner of the NBA Phoenix Suns, exemplifies how law firms are now policing workplace misconduct. But the most shocking of this week’s reports comes from the US Congress which revealed just how much energy companies have misled Americans on the industry’s role in climate change.
Meanwhile…
I’ve read this for decades on my passport, feeling even today that we enjoy special privileges in far-off lands. But it’s a testament to how fast things change now that one week the Queen dies, and the next, the King is having to shore up membership in the Commonwealth. Maybe Charles will be a different kind of King. As The Guardian notes, “Prince Charles is eccentric, impassioned, impatient, indiscreet — which, while manageable faults in a prince, are difficult ones in a king.”
Here is this week’s Omnium-Gatherum…
In April last year, as Donald Trump handed the pandemic over to the states to deal with, and then kept Democratic ones from receiving funding
Donald Trump is “writing” a “book.” I italicize those words because their meaning to Mr. Trump is quite different from what you and I mean.
“Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?” asked Chris Wallace. “Proud Boys?” replied Donald Trump….“Stand back and stand by.” That was
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