One of the reasons I just couldn’t see my kid at the local public school even before COVID and CRT is that it looks so industrial. And the religious school looks cozy and homey. It’s surrounded with greenery, while the public school doesn’t have a tree in sight. I wouldn’t be able to leave my child there.

Cherries at Walmart cost exactly half of what identical cherries cost at the fancy local grocery store. I guess that at the fancy place one pays a premium for the ambiance of the shopping experience.

My university is holding a virtual summer camp for kids between the ages of 6 and 8. I have no idea what kind of an eccentric parent wants their 6-year-old to spend more time in Zoom after a whole year of Zoom. Have they heard of outdoor play? Unlike the camp, it’s free.

P.S. That virtual camp is $220 for a week. People are certifiably nuts. Who needs to pay $220 to have a kid sit in front of a screen when you can achieve that goal for free at any time?

Men are triggered by Prince Harry like women are triggered by Liz Bruenig. The intensity of the emotional investment in both is incommensurate with their utter unimportance. They are just people expressing opinions, yet my Twitter feed is littered by people going off their nut about them. In both cases, what drives people crazy is that both claim to be happily married in a model that people just can’t accept.

I have a tendency to be very rigid and complacent. Once I find something that works, I stick with it and don’t explore other options. This works amazing for my personal life but it’s kind of dumb in other areas. For instance, if I travel and find a restaurant I like, I’ll go there for every meal and not bother to look at other options.

So at work I found my exact opposite, a woman who is really into shaking things up, being constantly on the move, traveling, exploring new opportunities. We are now co-chairing a project, and it’s really intense. I hope she shakes me out of my torpor a bit.

I will have to develop a stronger LinkedIn presence because I need to develop business connections in the Caribbean. But the profile is trying to make me list “pronouns” to “help people know how to refer to me.” This is simultaneously creepy and idiotic. I have my name listed right there! I’d hope people use it to refer to me. If that’s too hard, they can just say Professor.

By the way, did you, folks, know that N once published a book on how to use LinkedIn and it sold all over the world? It wasn’t a mega bestseller, or anything, but it was a really helpful book back in the very early days of LinkedIn.

He said some mildly controversial things in the book, so he assumed an identity of an Indian guy to publish it.

There is a very simple explanation for why Canada turned into such a police state during COVID. Canada’s healthcare system is very bad. It’s barely coping in the best of times. Any strain on the system can’t be absorbed at all.

This is why Ontario today has worse lockdowns than we saw in the US in April of 2020. Nova Scotia locked down with less than a dozen people hospitalized for COVID. Nobody wants to recognize that this is all because the healthcare system isn’t coping even in the best of times.

And if Canada isn’t managing to get the healthcare system to work for 30 million people, how would the US do that with more than 10 times the population?

Importing the Canadian healthcare system here is a dumb idea.