Wednesday Night #2046 with Peter Berezin

The appalling news of the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the Kamloops residential school (No longer ‘the disappeared’: Mourning the 215 children found in a mass grave at Kamloops Indian Residential School) has prompted reactions ranging from distress to anger, demands for apologies, criticism of the initial reaction of the authorities (Trudeau response falls short at a moment of national shock) and questions about why “Missing Children and Unmarked Burials”, Volume 4 of the TRC report was not acted on. So many questions to be answered.
Lost children, unmarked burials and questions that are way overdue as the country faces the reality that that more graves are likely to be found at many more residential school sites.

Meanwhile, in a sad and disturbing parallel, the U.S. commemorated the centenary of the Tulsa Massacre – a disgraceful event rarely mentioned in history books. In an emotional speech, President Biden called for the US to confront its past. Knowledge of this violent attempt to suppress Black success in Greenwood, Tulsa, fell victim to a decades-long conspiracy of silence. The atrocity was not taught in schools, even in Tulsa, until the mid-2000s and was expunged from police records. Those who threatened to break to the taboo faced disapproval or death threats. Even many Black residents preferred not to burden their children with the story.

We are fortunate to have Peter Berezin joining us tonight. His latest Strategy Report addresses “Mo’ Money Madness” – the explosion of money growth in the U.S. and to a lesser degree, in the other major developed economies.
We hope he will also continue his discussion of cryptocurrencies, The Crypto Impossibility Theorem  and perhaps take on Five myths about cryptocurrency

Congratulations to Chris Bourne who is moving to Champlain College – Lennoxville, taking a position as a Pedagogical Counsellor; he will work to directly support teachers and on various policy implementation tasks such as Program Revision. “It’s a big move, but we’re very excited to get to know the new community. And don’t worry Montreal, we aren’t going far.”

Especially for Michel Jutras: Air Canada granted special stock awards and $10-million in bonuses while negotiating government bailout (See Comment below) and the more generic piece Flying isn’t back to normal. It’s worse.
[7 June UPDATE: After outcry, Air Canada says its top executives giving back bonuses
Majority of the $10 million bonus program, held by middle managers, not returned
4 June UPDATE: How do you feel about Air Canada’s bonus payouts to executives? With Henry Mintzberg, Globe and Mail reporter David Milstead, and McGill’s John Gradek]

On the Covid Front Lines, When Not Getting Belly Rubs
In Thailand and around the world, dogs are being trained to sniff out the coronavirus in people. So far, the results have been impressive. “The hope is that dogs can be deployed in crowded public spaces, like stadiums or transportation hubs, to identify people carrying the virus. Their skills are being developed in Thailand, the United States, France, Britain, Chile, Australia, Belgium and Germany, among other countries. They have patrolled airports in Finland, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, and private companies have used them at American sporting events.”
No mention of any Canadian program – why not?

As Montreal and Quebec begin to enjoy a relaxation of rules imposed to combat the pandemic, we would like to draw attention to the speech given by Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong to his nation Singapore “on track” to bring COVID-19 outbreak under control. An example of how leaders should address their people at times of emergency – calm, factual, and offering realistic hope and plans. Justin Trudeau and Canadian premiers should study and learn from it.
Unfortunately, with diminished Covid worries, it is likely Quebec will be able to devote more energy and airtime to Bill 96 and other political gambits What’s behind Québec’s latest, and largely superficial, constitutional gambit

In addition to this week’s Hill Times column Outside Quebec, French is in decline, Andrew Caddell‘s op-ed It’s time to develop a new generation of anglo leaders was published in The Gazette. We agree!

Netanyahu Faces Ouster as Foes Reach Deal for New Government
Negotiating as the clock ran down, Israeli parties ranging from the left to the far right, including an Arab bloc, agreed on a coalition government..
BUT
Netanyahu is out, but not down, as new coalition unseats Israel’s longtime prime minister
In a likely taste of things to come, a stern-looking Netanyahu has decried the coalition of right-wing, centrist and Arab parties as a ‘dangerous, left-wing government’

Events
June 8, noon
Panel discussion hosted by the Banff Forum
Should vaccine passports be mandatory for access to services, schools, large-scale events or provincial borders?
Could implementation of mandatory vaccine passports allow Canada to immediately reopen our borders to international flights?
Join moderator Julie Quenneville with experts:
Michael Bryant, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Dr. Donald Sheppard, Director of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative for Infection and Immunity (Mi4)
Laurie Trautman, Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University

Long reads
Why it took 100 years for America to learn about the Tulsa massacre
The long-hidden racist attack on “Black Wall Street” and its residents is finally in the open — and raising questions about all that Americans don’t know and have tried to hide.
The true costs of the Tulsa race massacre, 100 years later
Our goal is to provide a concrete way of understanding just how catastrophic the economic losses were for Black residents of Tulsa. This exercise reveals the devastating economic impact of racism on communities, and it also provides important justification for concrete reparations as a response to undeniable economic injustices.
Four Setbacks to Western Credibility in Ukraine (Part Two)
Along with United States President Joseph Biden greenlighting Gazprom’s Nord Stream Two project, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken giving Ukraine’s concerns the short shrift preparatory to Biden’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin (see Part One in EDM), NATO has unexpectedly toned down its endorsement of Ukraine’s ambition to join the Alliance in the future; while Germany and France have given Kyiv reason to conclude that their position is weakening vis-à-vis Russia in the “Normandy” negotiations on the war in Ukraine’s east.

Your ability to focus may be limited to 4 or 5 hours a day. Here’s how to make the most of them.
Although there’s not much hard science behind it, a lot of productivity gurus push the idea that we get our best work done with about four or five hours of focus a day.
They came up with this range partly because of a well-known study of music training, led by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson, that inspired the “10,000-hour rule.” … What’s the connection to four or five hours of focus? That’s how long the “best” students in Ericsson’s research tended to practice.