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It’s been more than six months since my last entry.  The hiatus came as a result of some personal difficulties I experienced at the end of May and throughout the summer.  Then, a busy Fall semester occupied much of my time and I am only slowly emerging from those labours.  Time and hindsight offer a perspective not otherwise

Anti-Asian racism and hate-crime is on the rise.  Across North America and Europe, there are reports of racially-motivated assault.  These reports make for grievous reading, and those who scans this litany of egregious offences must brace themselves for waves of outrage and sorrow. It is presumptuous of me to diagnose this malignancy, but here I go: perhaps we habitually

The life of the Buddha is composed of many apocryphal stories.  One story in particular strikes at our present situation.  Here is the story of the Buddha’s encounter with Angulimala, as described in The Life of the Buddha, compiled by Bhikkhu Nanamoli[1]: Once when the Blessed One was living at Savatthi a bandit had appeared in the real

News outlets are reporting a significant decrease in air pollution as a result of stay-at-home orders.  These reports began to emerge at the end of March, with indications that Nitrogen (NO2)Dioxide levels have dropped precipitously after a sudden halt in economic activity.  In Canada, data from four Canadian cities indicate a similar drop in NO2.  More recently, the Guardian reports

Health authorities have been issuing stark injunctions to citizen across the world.  Stay home.  Bend the curve.  Contain the spread.  Here in British Columbia, Health Minister Adrian Dix has been emphatic in his daily press conferences: “We all have to do 100 percent and we have to do it now.”  Rarely has isolation been so crucial to the welfare of togetherness.

My wife Pam is an Occupation Therapist who works at an Arthritis Clinic.  In anticipation of a staff shortage at Vancouver General Hospital due to COVID-19, the administrators have closed the Arthritis Clinic, and all Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists have been deployed to VGH.  The weeks leading up to the deployment have been stressful.  The growing pandemic and

Nine years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Soderbergh’s film, Contagion, presaged the current outbreak.  The compelling narrative aside, it was the film’s closing sequence that haunted me when I saw the film.  In the first vignette in the sequence, a heavy dozer emblazoned with the “Aimm Alderson” logo plows down a tree in a tropical forest.  The felled tree

It is now reported that approximate half the world in living in some form of mandatory isolation or lockdown. The dispatches from the U.S. are frightening: New York is overwhelmed, and California braces for a tidal wave. The global death toll has surpassed 40,000. British Columbia is not on lockdown (yet), although physical distancing and