The Sunday Edition for March 29, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with host Michael Enright:
A COVID-19 confinement chronicle: week two — Michael's essay: "My time guide is a wonderful little book published in 1982 called Time and the Art of Living. It's written by an American English professor named Robert Grudin. His cardinal argument is that humans have expended too much energy trying to conquer time. Instead he says, we should learn to 'bend to its curve.' He argues that we should stop our nervous twitching about time lost or time spent. 'Patience,' he writes, 'is the moral virtue which most nearly approaches pure pleasure.'"
Geopolitics during the pandemic: Remember just a couple of months ago, when the world's attention was transfixed by Iran's showdown with the U.S. and its downing of an airliner, killing dozens of Canadians? Or earlier this month, when analysts warned of a heightened new phase in the Syrian civil war and humanitarian disaster? The Sunday Edition's go-to sage on geopolitics, U.K. security expert and peace studies professor Paul Rogers, returns to the program to talk about COVID-19's impact on the world's geopolitical hotspots, and how well Europe has dealt with the pandemic crisis.
A pox upon your productivity obsession: Social media have been full of people reminding us that Shakespeare allegedly wrote King Lear while in quarantine during the plague of 1606 — apparently to goad people four centuries later to make more productive use of their weeks and months of social isolation. Bill Richardson is having none of it, and responds to the productivity scolds with his own declaration of indolence.
COVID-19 and catastrophe medicine: The demands and conditions that Canada's hospitals and health care providers are going to face in the weeks and months ahead will be entirely new territory, according to Halifax physician Dr. Sundeep Chohan. Dr. Chohan has many years of experience in the field of catastrophe medicine, having worked in conflict zones and natural disasters. He argues that the medical response to COVID-19 will call for the skills and approach required in a war zone or humanitarian crisis rather than in conventional modern medicine.
How the pandemic will affect Canada's urban Indigenous population: More than 60 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada live off-reserve. Many urban Indigenous organizations worry the people they serve are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 … and could fall through the cracks. Leslie Varley, the Executive Director of the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, discusses her concerns about the impact COVID-19 will have on Indigenous people in Canadian cities.
A Canadian conservative makes the case for universal basic income: Governments are promising unprecedented levels of income support for Canadians whose finances have been hit hard by the pandemic. Some argue this shows the need for a universal basic income program to ensure no one is left behind by economic hardship. Shortly before the pandemic dealt a devastating blow to Canada's economy, former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal spoke with Michael about his latest book, Boot Straps Need Boots: One Tory's Lonely Fight to End Poverty in Canada — inspired in part by his own experience growing up poor in Canada.
There's poetry for any occasion, even a pandemic: The unofficial poet laureate of Twitter has penned some verses about living in the age of COVID. We'll replay our interview with Brian Bilston (a pseudonym) from last October, along with his new pandemic-inspired poetry.
Mail: Dr. Sandy Buchman, Justine Kennedy
Music this week by: John Adams, Alice Coltrane, Willie Nelson, Angela Hewitt, Debussy, Alison Young
