Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won’t even say their names.
December 2 marked five years since Islamic terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik invaded a government office party in San Bernardino, California, and murdered Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Ngyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel.
There’s a well-known saying that goes, “You don’t choose a cat, a cat chooses you.” So what should you do, asks Anisa Subedar, when a persistent pussycat in the neighbourhood decides to adopt you?
For me, it began about 18 months ago, one long, hot summer evening when two huge wanting eyes, accompanied by serenading mews appeared at the kitchen door. It didn’t recoil when I approached it. In fact it appeared quite pleased when I began speaking in ridiculously high-pitched baby speak (imagine the word “choochy-face” being used). Nor did it flinch when I softly stroked behind its grey, fluffy ears. Instead it lay on its back and allowed me to feel the softness of its white belly fur and loudly purred in gratitude. In appreciation that my affections were returned, I opened a can of tuna which it hastily scoffed and left.
One conservative historian sees in the 1960s the beginning of the country’s divisions
“Look, Jez, what I’m trying to say is, so, for better or for worse the ’60s happened and now sex is fine. But can’t we take the best of that, the nice music, the colours, the ‘I have a dream’, etcetera, but not have to face the… squalor?”
Mark from Peep Show’s take on the 1960s is one I have some sympathy for. That most controversial of decades saw revolutionary cultural change and, depending on your worldview, it was either a period of liberation or the start of a free-for-all that undid the social fabric. It was the decade that created now, and how much you like the modern world will shape your view of it, of the civil rights marches, San Francisco hippies, love-ins and various other groovy happenings.
Multiculturalism destroys nations.
Like millions of people, I watched the viral video of dancing Boston Dynamics robots that made its way around Twitter this week. But unlike many of those millions, I did not think, “Wow, the future is so cool.” I thought, “We gotta keep these away from the cops.”
I admit that some of my aversion is a gut reaction to the uncanny valley. The dog-shaped ones creep me out the most. A predator, often headless, unfazed by rain or heat, without need for food or water or rest—that’s the stuff of science fiction nightmares. I know, objectively, these robots are an incredible technological achievement, yet I can’t erase that instinctive unease.
It's pretty awesome how dancing makes robots less intimidating. Looking forward to seeing more nontrivial Machine Learning on these robots. Credit: Boston Dynamics. pic.twitter.com/wnB2i9qhdQ
— Reza Zadeh (@Reza_Zadeh) December 29, 2020
While the peasants locked themselves in their homes and connected with family through windows and cellphones, Ontario’s now-former finance minister, Rod Phillips, jetted off to St. Barts. On the day he left the country – shirking recommendations against international travel that have been in place for the better part of the year – almost 2,000 people were newly diagnosed with COVID-19 in the province.
Pretty scathing. Go incognito.
In 2021, let’s put a stop to the malicious vogue for shaming anyone who speaks out of turn.
By now most of us will be familiar with ‘gaslighting’, a term which describes the tactic of contradicting observable reality as a means to undermine someone’s security in their own point of view. The word comes from the 1940 movie, Gaslight, in which a husband convinces his wife that she is going insane by, among other things, dimming the lights and then denying that the house is getting darker when she complains. Social-justice activists are well-known for levelling the charge of ‘gaslighting’ at their opponents, yet it is a strategy that they have themselves perfected. Even their accusations of ‘gaslighting’ are a form of gaslighting, given that we are expected to believe that they are somehow not guilty of the very behaviour they are projecting on to others.
Each day, thousands would also flock to famous museums along the boulevard, including Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Odditorium.
Meanwhile, Grauman’s Chinese Theater – which has frequently hosted glamorous film premieres and the Academy Awards – was also one of the most popular destinations along the boulevard.
But the area has been abandoned in the past 10 months, with souvenir stores shuttered and rates of homelessness and crime surging as tourists stay away and the coronavirus rages.
Canadians have become accustomed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s penchant for verbal gaffes and ridiculous remarks – and 2020 was no different.
The number of deaths in Ontario’s long-term-care homes is showing a worrying trend, an analysis by the Star reveals.
The data is the latest to pull back the curtain on the mounting toll COVID-19 has taken on care homes, which have been ravaged by the pandemic, exposing systemic and long-standing issues to deadly effect.
To date, 2,749 residents of the province’s long-term-care homes have died.
How is Canada doing in the fight against COVID-19? Not so well if we compare ourselves to other countries.
Last summer, when daily new cases were low and the economy was bouncing back, Canadians gave their governments high marks as managers of the fight against COVID-19. But now they have become more critical as new cases keep rising, lockdowns have been reimposed, and the economy stalls.
The year 2020 is now commonly dubbed the annus horribilis — “the horrible year.” The last 10 months certainly have been awful.
But then so was 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive escalated the Vietnam War and tore America apart. Race and anti-war riots rocked our major cities. Protesters fought with police at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. A new influenza virus, H3N2 (the “Hong Kong flu”), killed some 100,000 Americans.
It’s the single question that haunts all Americans as they turn the page on a dreadful year: Why is “Wonder Woman 1984” so bad?
Why did this eagerly anticipated follow-up to the delightful 1917-set “Wonder Woman” — starring the same stunning Gal Gadot and directed by the same Patty Jenkins and released for our homebound viewing on HBO Max as a Christmas Day gift to its subscribers — have to stink up the joint like no comic-book movie has since “Howard the Duck” in 1986?
Did America go crazy in 2020? I suspect observers years hence will think so because of the responses, of both elite officials and ordinary Americans, to the COVID-19 pandemic starting last February and to the shocking video from Minneapolis police officers released over Memorial Day weekend.
The response to COVID was unprecedented and disproportionate to the threat.
