Categories for Feature

The future? A future? It beckons.

— 04.13.2020 08:57 AM

This is a long read, but it’s worth it.

Italian novelist Francesca Melandri, who has been under lockdown in Rome for one month due to the Covid-19 outbreak, has written a letter to fellow Europeans “from your future”, laying out the range of emotions people are likely to go through over the coming weeks.

I am writing to you from Italy, which means I am writing from your future. We are now where you will be in a few days. The epidemic’s charts show us all entwined in a parallel dance.

We are but a few steps ahead of you in the path of time, just like Wuhan was a few weeks ahead of us. We watch you as you behave just as we did. You hold the same arguments we did until a short time ago, between those who still say “it’s only a flu, why all the fuss?” and those who have already understood.

As we watch you from here, from your future, we know that many of you, as you were told to lock yourselves up into your homes, quoted Orwell, some even Hobbes. But soon you’ll be too busy for that.

First of all, you’ll eat. Not just because it will be one of the few last things that you can still do.

You’ll find dozens of social networking groups with tutorials on how to spend your free time in fruitful ways. You will join them all, then ignore them completely after a few days.

You’ll pull apocalyptic literature out of your bookshelves, but will soon find you don’t really feel like reading any of it.

You’ll eat again. You will not sleep well. You will ask yourselves what is happening to democracy.

You will miss your adult children like you never have before; the realisation that you have no idea when you will ever see them again will hit you like a punch in the chest.

Old resentments and falling-outs will seem irrelevant. You will call people you had sworn never to talk to ever again, so as to ask them: “How are you doing?” Many women will be beaten in their homes.

You will wonder what is happening to all those who can’t stay home because they don’t have one. You will feel vulnerable when going out shopping in the deserted streets, especially if you are a woman. You will ask yourselves if this is how societies collapse. Does it really happen so fast? You’ll block out these thoughts and when you get back home you’ll eat again.

You will put on weight. You’ll look for online fitness training.

You’ll laugh. You’ll laugh a lot. You’ll flaunt a gallows humour you never had before. Even people who’ve always taken everything dead seriously will contemplate the absurdity of life, of the universe and of it all.

You will make appointments in the supermarket queues with your friends and lovers, so as to briefly see them in person, all the while abiding by the social distancing rules.

You will count all the things you do not need.

The true nature of the people around you will be revealed with total clarity. You will have confirmations and surprises.

Literati who had been omnipresent in the news will disappear, their opinions suddenly irrelevant; some will take refuge in rationalisations which will be so totally lacking in empathy that people will stop listening to them. People whom you had overlooked, instead, will turn out to be reassuring, generous, reliable, pragmatic and clairvoyant.

Those who invite you to see all this mess as an opportunity for planetary renewal will help you to put things in a larger perspective. You will also find them terribly annoying: nice, the planet is breathing better because of the halved CO2 emissions, but how will you pay your bills next month?

You will not understand if witnessing the birth of a new world is more a grandiose or a miserable affair.

You will play music from your windows and lawns. When you saw us singing opera from our balconies, you thought “ah, those Italians”. But we know you will sing uplifting songs to each other too. And when you blast I Will Survive from your windows, we’ll watch you and nod just like the people of Wuhan, who sung from their windows in February, nodded while watching us.

Many of you will fall asleep vowing that the very first thing you’ll do as soon as lockdown is over is file for divorce.

Many children will be conceived.

Your children will be schooled online. They’ll be horrible nuisances; they’ll give you joy.

Elderly people will disobey you like rowdy teenagers: you’ll have to fight with them in order to forbid them from going out, to get infected and die.

You will try not to think about the lonely deaths inside the ICU.

You’ll want to cover with rose petals all medical workers’ steps.

You will be told that society is united in a communal effort, that you are all in the same boat. It will be true. This experience will change for good how you perceive yourself as an individual part of a larger whole.

Class, however, will make all the difference. Being locked up in a house with a pretty garden or in an overcrowded housing project will not be the same. Nor is being able to keep on working from home or seeing your job disappear. That boat in which you’ll be sailing in order to defeat the epidemic will not look the same to everyone nor is it actually the same for everyone: it never was.

At some point, you will realise it’s tough. You will be afraid. You will share your fear with your dear ones, or you will keep it to yourselves so as not to burden them with it too.

You will eat again.

We’re in Italy, and this is what we know about your future. But it’s just small-scale fortune-telling. We are very low-key seers.

If we turn our gaze to the more distant future, the future which is unknown both to you and to us too, we can only tell you this: when all of this is over, the world won’t be the same.

© Francesca Melandri 2020. Her novel Eva Sleeps, translated by Katherine Gregor, is published by Europa Editions.


Comments (2)

Depression, anxiety and the pandemic

— 04.06.2020 03:53 PM

The past year was a pretty bad one.

Depression, anxiety, grief, all of that. Wrote about it for Bell Let’s Talk day, here. Have been pretty open about it, too – which is harder for guys to do. (And it’s particularly hard for guys in politics, like me, who aren’t supposed to have feelings and all that bullshit.)

Anyway. I made changes, big ones. I discovered who were the real friends, and who weren’t. I met lots of amazing, beautiful, smart women, and none of them were liars.

I got stronger. I got better.

This essay, which I found on The Daily Beast, said some things that I, too, had been feeling since the pandemic began. Namely: I feel okay. As in, totally okay. Totally prepared.

People have noticed. They’ve reached out to me to talk about their anxieties and fears, and I’ve tried to help them. I have felt enormous gratitude and responsibility that I have been able to do so, too.

This essay is about that, written by a woman who is experiencing the same thing. When the whole world is depressed, it turns out, your own depression doesn’t seem like that big a deal anymore. And, you’ve been given some tools to help others through it.

Snippet below. Full essay here. Read it.

As COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has spread around the globe, many people have found themselves struggling to cope, regardless of their mental health histories. And to be clear, many if not most depression and anxiety patients have seen their symptoms worsen. But a fraction have, paradoxically, actually felt their symptoms alleviate. Like Weinstein, I am one of those people.

It’s not that I’m unaware of the terrible toll the global pandemic is exacting. I’ve cried about it late at night, like I imagine most have. I’ve worried for my grandmother, and boiled with rage as various wealthy blowhards suggested that the best thing she and other elderly people could do for this country is to die. I’m furious at the gross incompetence and indifference to human life within our country’s leadership. I check the news often—too often—staring at my phone in disbelief every night into the early hours of the morning.

And yet, when I wake up, I don’t feel as sluggish as I normally do. I find it easier to get out of bed. The intrusive thoughts that normally buzz around my brain like flies on a feeding frenzy have disappeared. My family is healthy, I tell myself. I am healthy. We are all doing what we can. And for whatever reason, that has been enough. My mood has stabilized after years of oscillating between paralyzing anxiety and debilitating, at times suicidal, depression. Despite everything, I realize, I am OK. More OK than I have been in years.

That’s a strange thing to admit. But evidently I’m not alone.


Comments (21)

You need to wear a mask. Here’s how.

— 04.05.2020 11:53 AM

From the Washington Post.

[Joseph G. Allen is an assistant professor of exposure and assessment science, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health]

First, masks of any type help prevent the user from infecting others by acting as a physical barrier that will block large droplets from coughs and sneezes. These droplets can travel up to 20 feetwith a powerful sneeze, so six feet of social distancing is not always enough. And wearing masks is not just a good thing for those who are actively sick: Any one of us might be harboring this virus asymptomatically and could transmit it to others, cascading into a thousand new infections.

Second, masks will protect you from others around you who might be sick. The degree of protection will depend on the mask type, and we absolutely must reserve our scarce supply of N95 respirators — which filter out 95 percent of aerosols — for front-line health-care workers. The consequences of commercial mask shortages are so severe for our health-care workers that the rest of us cannot afford to be using them.

That means the general public must resort to DIY masks. The good news is that you can craft your own using something that pretty much everyone has in their home: a 100-percent-cotton T-shirt. (Here’s a good tutorial on how to make one.) Depending on factors such as the fabric thickness and the fit around the nose and mouth, these can be anywhere from 50 to 70 percent efficient at capturing particles.

Third, masks serve as a reminder not to touch your face. A virus has to find a way into your body to begin its takeover of your cellular machinery. By now, we’ve all heard the guidance not to touch your face so that if you do pick up the virus on your hands, you won’t transfer it right into a hospitable environment. Wearing a mask puts a physical barrier between your hands and your nose and mouth, and, maybe more importantly, reminds you to use more caution.

Fourth, wearing a mask serves as a vital social cue. You are sending a signal to others that there is a real threat out there. When enough people do it, it will become self-reinforcing. Standing six feet from people at the grocery store felt awkward at first, but it quickly became normalized and even appreciated. Now if someone stands too close to you, it’s offensive. Soon, not wearing a mask will seem selfish.

Now let’s talk about the right way to use masks:

  • Each person in your home should have a mask — absolutely no sharing.

  • The mask should cover the bridge of your nose and cup your chin.

  • There should be two straps, one that goes above your ear, and the other below

  • How to put it on and take it off — what we call donning and doffing in my field (yes, those are the terms we use) — is also important. To put it on, use one hand to hold the outside of your homemade mask and put the top strap over your head, followed by the strap that goes below your ear. To take it off, don’t touch your mask, which could have infectious particles on it if you came into contact with someone infectious. Instead, take it off using the two straps.

  • If you make one mask, wash it daily.

  • If you make multiple masks, place the recently worn one in a bag and set it aside for five days (there shouldn’t be any virus left after that time). Wear a new one each day.

  • Wash your hands when you’re done.

Be advised: Wearing a mask does not replace other important public health control measures such as hand-washing, social distancing, covering your cough and cleaning surfaces. In fact, masks are a type of personal protective equipment, which health professionals consider the last line of defense.

Last, I must restate what I said earlier: Commercial masks should be left for front-line health-care workers. If you have one lying around, donate it to someone in your neighborhood who works in a hospital. You can also give one to a grocery-store or delivery worker. The true badge of honor is someone wearing a homemade mask. 

They say not all heroes wear capes, but most do wear masks. We can all be heroes.



Comments (1)

My latest: leadership in tough times

— 04.02.2020 04:13 PM

Leadership in good times means little.

Leadership in bad times means everything.

And these times, they are indisputably bad. Grim, grinding, grotesque.  For the rest of our lives, we will all remember the dark days of 2020, when nothing was again the same. Everyone, everything, everywhere: it’s all different, now.

“All changed, changed utterly,” Yeats wrote in Easter 1916, and which he could write again in Easter 2020, if he was still here.  (No “terrible beauty,” though.)

When times are this bad, we learn things about ourselves. We learn things about our leaders, too.

For this writer, few leaders are as inspiring as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. No adjectives, no spin, no homilies: in that New Yorker’s brusque dialect, Cuomo sits there every day, no notes, and simply offers up the truth.

He emotes honesty. He tells it as is; he does not give false hope.  And he seemingly knows everything.

More than once, I’ve been driving my Jeep – to locate toilet paper, to pick up some canned food my little band of survivors – and I’ve pulled over to the side of the road to listen to Cuomo. In the way that my grandmother told me that she and her seven children would stop everything, and gather around the radio to listen to Winston Churchill during World War Two. Giving hope, giving faith, giving a path forward.

Doug Ford, too. He’s given hope, and he’s shown no small amount of strength and decency. Even his detractors now admit that Ontario’s Premier has revealed himself to be an inspirational voice.  One they did not expect.

On the subject of Ford,  I’m biased. (He has been a friend, and I’ve done a couple writing assignments for his government.) So don’t take my word for it. Former NDP Premier Bob Rae: “With the Premier on this.” Current Ontario Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca: “Ontario Liberals support the government’s decision to shut down non-essential business.”

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, on the so-called Right, BC Premier John Horgan on the Left: they, too, have stepped up in a way that their political adversaries did not expect.

Our federal leaders, not as much. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative leadership frontrunner Peter MacKay have disappointed, lately.

Trudeau did so well at the outset of the pandemic, and then – when he perhaps thought no one would be looking – he tried to seize unprecedented, and unnecessary, spending and taxation powers.  The outcry was immediate and came from across the political and media spectrum.

The Prime Minister lost in ten minutes what had taken ten weeks to build up. His partisan adversaries are unlikely to fully trust him anytime soon.

Peter MacKay, too, seemed more preoccupied with power than the general good. With the pandemic raging – rendering hundreds of Canadians sick, killing dozens – MacKay stubbornly refused calls for his party’s leadership race to be paused.

No one was paying attention to the Tory leadership race. No one cared about it. But MacKay insisted that it continue, because no less than “democracy” was at stake.

He looked like a fool. Last week, his party completely rejected his demands, and thereby did the right thing.

The missteps of Justin Trudeau and Peter MacKay are nothing, however, when compared to Donald Trump’s tyrannical reign of error. Trudeau and MacKay were merely self-serving. Trump is far, far worse.

In a devastating ad, leading Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden documented Trump’s serial lies about the growing coronavirus threat – how Trump said “we have it totally under control.” How he said “it will disappear like a miracle.” How the virus was “a hoax.”

Trump’s fans will say that he is popular, now. And it is true: polls show Americans are currently prepared to give their “president” the benefit of the doubt.

But Jimmy Carter’s popularity soared, too, after the hostages were seized in Iran four decades ago. 

From the New York Times on December 10, 1979: “Public approval of President Carter’s performance in office has increased dramatically in the month since the United States Embassy in Teheran was seized and hostages held by militant students, according to a poll by the Gallup Organization. The percentage of people who approved of Mr. Carter’s handling of the Presidency jumped from 32, in a Gallup survey, to 61 in the latest poll.”

Jimmy Carter’s presidency would ultimately be destroyed by the Iranian hostage crisis. So will Donald Trump’s, by this new crisis, and for how he has mismanaged it. 

It is always this way: political careers are made in times of crisis. 

But they can be ended by crises, too.  


Comments (25)

Doug Ford. Wow.

— 03.30.2020 04:49 PM

See that guy?

That’s Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario.

Dental Brands, a company in Markham, texted him to say they were donating 90,000 masks to hospitals in Ontario. Ford drove to their warehouse and loaded the masks onto his truck. Didn’t tell his staff.

Got the masks. People noticed.


Comments (38)

My living will, Jake Tapper and Brian Goldman

— 03.29.2020 10:37 AM

A living will is sometimes called an advance care planning document, or an advance directive. I call mine a living will, like the Americans do.

Basically, it’s a document that describes the care I would (and would not) want to receive if I’m not able to communicate my wishes about medical treatment.

My Dad had one, and he suggested we all get one, too. He was a doctor. He used to take me and my brothers to the hospital with him, sometimes, to gently remind us that sickness and death are part of the deal for all of us.

So, I got a living will. Originally, it was to give guidance to the love of my life and my youngest brother. But the love of my life dumped me, and my younger brother is far from where I am. (Everyone is far from where I am, these days.)

I got in touch with my estate lawyer, then, yesterday. He’s an amazing guy and a longtime friend. I told him I wanted my living will amended to specifically exclude the use of a ventilator or CPR when and if I get sick.

I decided to do that because of two people – Jake Tapper on CNN, and Brian Goldman on CBC. Truth.

I’m not friends with Jake Tapper, but I admire his journalism and his integrity very much. I periodically tweet funny stuff at him and he tweets funny stuff back.

A couple days ago, however, he had a New York doctor on his show and what the doctor said actually shocked me. The doctor said ventilators prolong “life,” but they don’t restore it.

Nobody ever really comes off the ventilators, he said. The clip is here, sent along by Jake Tapper. Around the four minute mark.

That shook me. I didn’t know that. I hadn’t heard that before.

Then, around the same time, Dr. Brian Goldman – the well-known CBC Radio doctor, and a friend who has given me advice that has helped get me through aforementioned difficult times – tweeted that, if he got sick, he would refuse a ventilator and/or CPR.

I thought about that for a minute, and then I tweeted: ditto. Use the machines on someone else. No heroic measures.

So, there you go. I told my daughter last night at supper, and now I’m telling you guys. None of my sons or brothers are around here to tell, so I’m telling you. I’m doing that to ensure it gets communicated to the right people at the right time, if needed.

Now, I’m pretty healthy. No health problems, no allergies, no headaches, no “underlying conditions” at all. I exercise, I eat right, I don’t do drugs, I dislike booze, I’ve never smoked, all that.

But this disease doesn’t discriminate. Young or old, rich or poor, healthy or not. So, if I get it – and, the available data suggests many of us will, eventually – I want the ventilators and doctors and nurses to focus their remedial efforts on more-deserving others. (If I get it bad, that is. Maybe I won’t. Who knows.)

Death is part of life, my Dad used to say to me and my brothers. So, if death beckons, all of you guys now know what I want, too.

You’re my living will. I’d shake your hand and thank you, but that’s not advisable in the current circumstances.

So it goes, I like to say.


Comments (17)