test blog #10

During the pandemic shutdown, there were so many offers of interesting things to do online -- cooking, crafting, indoor exercise, art classes, author readings, and on and on. I didn't do any of it. I began piano lessons with Pianote , read books, took walks, and generally (although somewhat guiltily) enjoyed myself. One online series looked interesting to me, but I kept forgetting to do it. The New York Times posted walking tours of different areas of New York City, hosted by Michael Kimmelman . Kimmelman was formerly the paper's longtime chief art critic, now the architecture critic. Although I miss former architecture critic Paul Goldberger , whose columns taught me how to look at buildings, Kimmelman brings a similar open, inclusive perspective that I enjoy. For each walk, Kimmelman is joined by a historian, architect, or writer who has a connection to the area. I'm off work this week, and as we bite our nails and hold our collective breath waiting for the results of th...

How to Move to Canada 1. Go here: Citizenship and Immigration Canada . 2. Read everything that might apply to you. Find out if you qualify, and what will be required if you do. 3. Trust no other source . The process changes significantly in a short period of time. Anyone who emigrated at any other time will have outdated information.  Many people think they know how immigration works. Don't take a chance. Go to the only source that is correct and up-to-date.

To quote a headline I saw tonight, what should have been a landslide has turned into a nail-biter. No matter what the outcome of this election, we can clearly see that about half of all American voters have asked for another term of DJT.  It is stunning, bizarre, baffling, and deeply depressing. You could perhaps explain away voting for him once. (I can't, really, but for argument's sake, we can say they didn't know, or they hated Hillary Clinton that much.) Now, after four years of this torture, of this outrage, of this tweeting buffoon, of this laughingstock, who has wreaked havoc on the country and the world in countless ways: millions of Americans ask for more of the same.  A re-election campaign is essentially a referendum on your first term. DJT should not have taken one state. Not one. This should have been the biggest electoral and popular-vote landslide in American history. Instead, it will come down to the wire, and to counting every absentee and provisional ballo...

This article was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity , a nonprofit investigative news organization based in Washington, D.C., from their excellent series " Barriers to the Ballot Box ". Analysis: New And Age-Old Voter Suppression Tactics At The Heart Of The 2020 Power Struggle Making voting harder is about grabbing even more disproportionate power and delaying the impact of shifting demographics. By Matt DeRienzo, Editor-in-Chief, Public Integrity, October 28, 2020 "You will not replace us!" The words chanted in 2017 by tiki torch-wielding white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, get right to the heart of what voter disenfranchisement tactics are all about in the 2020 election. Non-Hispanic white people are a shrinking percentage of the U.S. population and won't be a majority within a few decades . They've held on to grossly disproportionate political power and wealth through discriminatory tactics that go back hundreds of years...

Election day in the U.S. tomorrow. My American family and friends are all quietly freaking out. The whole world is quietly freaking out.  The massive turnout through mail-in voting and advance polling are very good signs. Thousands who didn't vote in 2016 have already voted in 2020. Personally, I think it will be an anti-Trump landslide in the popular vote, and a decisive win in the electoral vote. Not that anyone should put any faith in what I believe! In 2016, I told anyone who would listen that the Republican party would never nominate Donald Trump, then declared that there was no way he would be elected. I'm in good company there: no less a maven than Fran Lebovitz did the same .  The biggest question isn't the outcome of  November 3. It's what happens on November 4th, and 5th, and 10th, and months on, until January 20, and possibly beyond.  Trump has been inciting his minions to question the legitimacy of the election, and as the results come in, that will onl...

Remember the severe hives I complained about ? That condition is now officially chronic idiopathic urticaria . Translation: long-term hives of no known cause. After struggling through our mini-vacation in Victoria and Salt Spring Island, I called the dermatologist's office and pleaded my case. They very kindly squeezed me in as an emergency, on the day we were driving through that town -- saving us six hours of driving. I later learned it was the doctor's last day before his own vacation. Thank goodness friends suggested I stop waiting for the referral! After that appointment, I went on high doses of a newer antihistamine, and for the first time in  months, had some real relief.  I went back on my medication (I had stopped taking everything, fearing I might have developed an allergy to one or more), I started sleeping again, and was feeling like myself for the first time in months. The hives were 90% gone... then they were not. One day, the welts just reappeared. Imagine my fr...

The statement If you are exposed to any bigoted, right-wing media or social media -- whether by misfortune, sport, or a delusion that you must counter their arguments -- and someone raises the subject of slavery, you will doubtless see this trope.  They were sold by their own people. Africans sold other Africans. Slavery began in Africa, and was imported to the new world. In fact, you might hear or see some version of this any time racism is mentioned. Or as a complete non sequitur. It appears to be a wingnut favourite. They should stop complaining! Slavery is in the past! Get a life! And anyway THEY started it! Slavery was started in Africa! Blah blah blah!! Meaningless drivel!!  There are many myths and inaccuracies about slavery in the Americas -- this wrap-up in Slate is good -- but this one in particular interests me. Some facts We know that Black people were involved in the transatlantic slave trade. At any time, a handful of people, a few hundred -- perhaps over the ce...