commentary

Insightful comments on the web are often few and far between. But I found one yesterday afternoon on one of Heather Mallick's columns, via cbc.ca:

Canada is the product of an arranged marriage that has been difficult. As such, young Canada is leery of simplistic window dressing, which explains why we've never strutted ourselves across any stage or blared our own horn or imagined that the "Canadian Way" should work for everyone else.

Canada is young, but by no means the adolescent nation that the USA is. Their flag waving, hand-on-heart patriotism is actually a cover-up for a very basic insecurity and rather unfortunate split personality that vacillates and lurches between isolationism and economic imperialism.

Canada doesn't want to have "dates". Canada wants to adopt. Canada lives in a very large house, has lots of room, and is looking for children who will not trash the house, or tear it down, but who will respect the rules, help mow the lawn, and take the garbage out.

More here: cbc.ca

Happy Canada day

Lisa sent me this link yesterday evening after reading about my upcoming trip to Uganda:

'Lure of big paycheck tugs at grads considering public service' - NYTimes

As Adam M. Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it, “A lot of students have been asking the question: ‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’ ”

This is precisely what I was thinking when McKinsey came to recruit at McGill earlier in the year. I watched their presentation, with some distrust, and asked the panel how they felt working for a company which is known not to discriminate when working with particularly nasty clients. The panelists, mostly fresh recruits, kept stressing the financial benefits and prestige...

I left before the complementary wine & cheese.

Great article though, it captures a very important trend.

From the CBC:

The P.E.I. Potato Board received a call from the Nova Scotia Network of Food Banks earlier this week with an urgent plea for help, said board chair Bob Harding.

"They called to say their cupboard was bare," he said. "We put the call out to our growers, and tomorrow there will be a truckload going to Halifax Food Bank from across the island, from east to west."

Harding said the truck will leave Charlottetown with 60,000 pounds (about 27,000 kg) of potatoes. He said more farmers wanted to donate, but the truck was full.

In yesterday's Globe, Ivor Tossell kicks around the idea 'friendship' and how its definition has changed with the advent of social networking websites like Facebook.

My friend list, like many others, has growth beyond reasonable size, increasingly becoming a mixture of former classmates, co-workers and some real friends. Perhaps the word 'contacts' would be more appropriate, says Tossell:

These days, a list of 1,000 “friends” looks more dubious than impressive. Social networks might have provoked a lot less eye-rolling from their users if they'd gone with the word “contacts” instead of “friends.”

I think that alarmist responses from elder generations are a bit overblown, but it's hard to ignore the impact folks like Zuckerberg have made.

Meanwhile, it looks like 'real life' friend Ryan Palmer is re-locating to Montreal. I think the city could use a little of the Palmer charm. Ryan has been doing some work with mignon media as of late. Also, Nathan and Sandi plan on making visits to Montreal in June. Looking forward to that as well.

Boy can Friedman write. This on the decline of US influence:

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

And I'm liking this idealism that academics like Friedman, Jeff Sachs and Barack Obama are promoting. The world's eyes are on America.

"Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

"I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

NYTIMES OP-ED: Who Will Tell the People?