What caught my attention the Week of February 7
Truthiness – a truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence. So, something has truthiness because of a feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true.
Doomscrolling or Doomsurfing – These words refer to the practice of spending hours of screen time absorbing negative news. The practice often results in deteriorating mental health and insomnia. Maybe you suffer from the scrolling of doomsday scenarios in your head as you toss and turn? It is an addictive practice that drives people into echo chambers and towards conspiracy theories. They have detox centres for drugs and alcohol. Perhaps we should have detox centres for doom scrollers.
The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible. – Winston Churchill
And that’s a wrap for the Week of February 7
I know! I am going to sound like a grumpy old man. Maybe that is because I am. I have been scratching my head in wonderment at the Taylor Swift phenomena. Is she an Incredible song writer, composer, and performer? I really don’t know! A discussion for another time? But probably not. At my age […]
Don’t build it! At least, Not In My Back Yard ! I acted as an advisor in the sale of a beautifully natural, 14-acre urban waterfront estate. Existing zoning allowed for the development of 30 to 35 single-family homes, which after road dedication would leave very little green space. I did not think that was […]
We were visiting Glasgow (literally that Dear Green Place in Gaelic) to see where my father was born, grew up, and went to University. Fortunately for me, my cousin John from Australia had just visited and had met with historians, Bruce Downie and Norry Wilson. So, we too arranged to meet them in the Govanhill […]
Vienna on top again. This week both Monocle Magazine and The Economist unveiled their quality of life / most liveable city indexes. There are differences in the way each publication sets its index. So it is even more impressive that once again, Vienna tops both lists. I am a bit lazy today so rather than […]
Many Viennese went from hot bedding to superblocks overnight. Could they even imagine an apartment complex 1000 metres long built along two streets with even more massive landscaped courtyards? Could they conceive of 1400 apartment units built to house 5000 people on 56,000 square metres or 38 acres of land. Or a vertical build-out that […]
Vienna had been a poor city even before the First World War. “Normal” housing arrangements meant six to eight people sharing one room and a kitchen. Then, in early 1919, just after the Armistice, the cost of living tripled in two months. Bed lodgers could no longer afford their 8-hours a day in a shared […]