‘Tis the time of year when corporate marketers and online engagement specialists step up their game and bombard me with phony holiday wishes, hoping to sell more goods and services. If they wanted to extend genuine goodwill, they’d forever take me off their distribution lists.
On (Not) Buying a Gun
When I awoke a week ago this past Saturday, I was among the most rabid supporters of gun control laws, a reflection of my Canadian roots where I grew up believing that only police officers should carry guns and that I could rely on them to protect me. Less than 24 hours later, I planned on buying a gun and supported the rights of Americans to bear arms.
A Woke West Side Story
Why I hope Stephen Spielberg’s West Side Story remake bombs.
When Private Equity Goes Organic
I developed a severe tummy ache upon discovering that Erewhon, my overpriced organic food emporium I mistakenly believed was 100 percent owned by a local couple, is backed by a New York private equity firm. Adding insult to injury, the CEO of the PE firm was accused by more than 300 neighbors of trying to build a McMansion on an environmentally fragile lake in Southampton.
My indigestion worsened upon discovering that private equity is heavily involved in the organic food industry, including the supply chain.
Public good rarely results from private equity involvement.
Fox News and Michigan’s Covid Crisis
As an emergency room doc working at a rural Michigan hospital, Rob Davidson presumably took the Hippocratic oath promising to do no harm. Blaming Fox News and Republicans for the inability of Michigan hospitals to care for the surge of unvaccinated patients gives a pass to those who bear responsibility: Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, and their fawning anchor friends at CNN and MSNBC.
The “Misunderstood” Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio embodies the greed, arrogance, hypocrisy, and lack of shame required to reach the billionaire stratosphere of money management professionals. Here’s why he is one of Communist China’s biggest sycophants.
Omicron and the Intrepid Dr. Coetzee
Researching Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the doctor who diagnosed the first cases of the Omicron variant in South Africa, I came to appreciate that she’s part of a feisty medical establishment that stands up to government interference. Coetzee is chair of the South African Medical Association, which puts the American Medical Association to shame.
China’s Steve Simon WTA Nightmare
President Xi Jinping, Communist China’s president for life, has long enjoyed subjugating U.S. corporations and their chief executives to his will. Steve Simon is the rare U.S. business executive willing to forfeit tens of millions of dollars rather than ignore Xi’s human rights atrocities.
Beaumont Health’s Unvaccinated Pandemic
Michigan’s Beaumont Health, which has received unusual federal medical assistance at one of its suburban Detroit hospitals, says the hospital system’s covid patients are “almost exclusively unvaccinated.” I’ve obtained Beaumont’s internal system-wide covid stats for Wednesday, Dec. 1.
They tell a slightly different story.
Kevin Nishita And A Camera Worth Dying For
Kevin Nishita, an armed security guard and former police officer, died this past weekend from a gunshot wound he sustained protecting the camera equipment of San Francisco television station KRON4. Had Nishita killed his assailant, he likely would have sparked national media outrage about his use of excessive force. Yet few tears are being shed for Nishita, who leaves behind a wife, two children, and three grandchildren.