RamsayTalks

THE PLAGUE-GROUND A SHOT IN THE ARM The vaccine’s no longer coming. It’s here. The trouble is, its presence is as spotty and enduring as our response to the pandemic itself. And by here, I don’t just mean Canada, but the world.... Read on... https://ramsaywrites.com/a-shot-in-the-arm/

THE PLAGUE-GROUND WE’RE SEEING OTHER PEOPLE What one word sums up your year? Mine isn’t ‘COVID’ or ‘coronavirus’, even though those words appeared in half the stories in the New York Times and four-fifths of them in The Economist by late March. No, the word that sums up the year for me is ‘divorce’.... Read on... https://ramsaywrites.com/were-seeing-other-people/

THE PLAGUE-GROUND WHERE WILL YOU BE IN THE HOUR AFTER SUNSET TODAY? I urge you and your family to go outside, point your eyes to the southwest sky and behold something no human has seen since the year 1226, and none will see again until 2080. Jupiter and Saturn will be so close together, as wide as a toothpick held at arm’s length, that they’ll look like a single planet. Not to view it as a star of wonder shining bright on this, the longest night of the shortest day of the ...worst year, suggests a shocking decline in your belief in miracles, or at least your sense of irony. Read on... https://ramsaywrites.com/where-will-you-be-in-the-hour-aft/ #saturnandjupiter ##wintersolstice2020

THE PLAGUE-GROUND IT’S COMPLICATED. LIFE AND DEATH ALWAYS IS. On Monday I wrote about A Bill to Kill You, otherwise called Bill C-7 which proposes big changes in the rules of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Today, you can qualify for MAiD if you are in the advanced stage of a serious illness, disease or disability; if it is causing you enduring suffering; and if your natural death is reasonably foreseeable.... C-7’s changes include denying MAaiD if you’re suffering solely from a mental illness; reducing the number of witnesses to your request from two to one; removing the mandatory 10-day waiting period between your request and its execution; and doing away with the idea that your death must be reasonably foreseeable. Read on...https://ramsaywrites.com/its-complicated-life-and-death-al/

THE PLAGUE-GROUND BUT DO YOU REMEMBER THE MOST FAMOUS CHRISTMAS OF ALL? It’s arriving in 10 days, and whatever we call the Great December holiday, it will be the one we’ll never forget as the pandemic forces us to celebrate in awkward new ways. Or all alone. Or not at all. So if that day has come to mean less for you, if you just want it to come and go like all the other locked-down days, now’s the time to give it more meaning, not less, and to restore the purpose and magic... of the season. Here are a few ways to start: Read on.... https://ramsaywrites.com/but-do-you-remember-the-most-famo/

THE PLAGUE-GROUND A BILL TO KILL YOU If you’ve never heard of Bill C-7 or recall only vaguely that it’s something Parliament is debating, it’s time you learned more, because C-7 can determine how and when you die. Some background: medically-assisted death (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in 2016. The rules weren’t perfect, and anything involving legally killing people is bound to break people into opposing camps, especially doctors who take an oath to do no harm and yet who... are there at your bedside, your angel of death. Read on....https://ramsaywrites.com/a-bill-to-kill-you/