Opinion

Most people just want to ensure that we and our families are safe and healthy during this crisis, and to do all we can to halt or slow the rapid spread of COVID-19. We've seen the best in human nature over the past while.

During daily walks around Whistler this past week, I was again disheartened by what I saw and experienced.

First, to be clear, the following column is not a guide on how to make your quarantine time the most productive, fulfilling, rewarding or some other gerund. For those common tropes, you may look no further than your social-media feeds.

Thumbs up for Vail Resorts I received today a form letter from Kirsten Lynch, executive vice president of Vail Resorts, with the response to Whistler passholders for the upcoming season in view of the early closing due to the virus epidemic.

Canada is learning a lesson in humanity that we have not experienced for a generation. As a nation, we are mourning the loss of hundreds of elders to COVID-19 and being faced with hard truths about how we have neglected this segment of our community.

As a nature-addled kid, I spent most of my time combing the gardens and ravines of our neighbourhood, and my earliest memories are of watching ants build nests, spiders eating the ants, and birds hoovering the spiders. The web of life was my TV.

Governments cannot stand by any longer As we settle into this new normal of greatly diminished and rapidly disappearing business, it is important to reflect on forgotten financial victims of this unfolding tragedy.

Several weeks ago, as the world was watching the tragedy of COVID-19 unfold in Italy, we are also uplifted and mesmerized to hear physically isolated people singing from their balconies or playing music.

Earth Day was born on April 22, 1970—50 years ago. Since then, the human population has more than doubled, from 3.7 billion to almost eight billion.

Anyone following the train-wreck known as the Trump administration is familiar with its combination of internal chaos, ham-fisted policy-making, childish diplomacy, and wilful, revenge-motivated rollback of Obama-era policy.