Happy New Year to all of you! With the beginning of a brand-new year, let me offer you my New Year’s predictions for 2023. The war in Ukraine will come to an end not on the battlefield but instead at the negotiating table, which is where almost all wars are settled. There will be no…
Category: Vancouver
Libraries are not Profit Centres
Should our libraries be profit-making institutions? We would never agree to the installation of turnstiles on our places of worship. Likewise for the installation of meters in our public schools. Credit cards are not required to access our hospitals. Given all of the above, I say we should never permit politicians, not even Mayor Ken…
TransLink’s Climate Action Plan
On Wednesday November 30th I was one of a number of people invited to a virtual meeting at which TransLink revealed its Climate Action Plan. The meeting began with an inspiring and motivating speech by TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn. He was firing on all cylinders. He clearly gets it. Mr. Quinn stressed TransLink’s commitment to…
More “Hot Air” from COP27
COP27 is over, and I am devastated by the magnitude of its failure. If ever there was a need for decisive action by world leaders, it is now. That is because if we have not already passed the point of no return, we are perilously close. Yet COP27 produced no commitment to phase out oil…
Planet Earth Snatches Victory from the Jaws of Defeat in US Midterms
What great news for Planet Earth from south of the border! In the leadup to the U.S. midterm elections, all the pundits were predicting a Red Wave. (I have never quite understood why the Republicans are referred to as the red party.) The Red Wave was seen as so certain that the Republicans were drooling….
Criticism of Israel ≠ Antisemitism
I am opposed to antisemitism. I am opposed to antisemitism with every fibre of my body. I always have been opposed to antisemitism. I always will be opposed to antisemitism. Why then am I and so many others who are opposed to antisemitism so deeply concerned with the definition of antisemitism proposed by the International…
Go Lula Go!
I’m delighted to report that one of my Hopeful Predictions for 2022 has come true. Planet Earth breathed an enormous sigh of relief on October 30th, 2022 when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – commonly referred to Lula — was elected President of Brazil. Had his opponent Jair Bolsonaro, who was running for re-election, been…