In the spirit of Mary Walsh, I take the piss out of menopause, reframing it as a window of liberation. I encourage women to be scary enough to buy the time they need to make the big leap from life for others to life for oneself.

The Male Gaze that was the bane of women is now trained on men, to their similar diminishment. I recall Foucault's Panopticon as a mechanism for efficiently controlling inmates, and decry that we have invited internet exposure to similar ends.  And I recommend three ways to resist: civil disobedience, being cleverly stupid about the rules, exercising power in personal exchanges. 

I extol the variety of NORC-like housing opportunities appropriate for seniors that we have locally. And make a pitch for a local rep to a provincial advocacy body. It is still open! Any takers?

I propose that we walk out of our toxic relationship with the USA and learn to live solo. I acknowledge it will cost dearly, but also that it will pay off when the power of (re)learning to be who WE are moves into the empty space. Divorce is a fresh start, and a good one when badness has taken over.

revisit the dialectic that informed my doctoral work to consider how to analyze candidates for municipal office. Best equipped for the job is those who are fluent enough in both Care (inclusive, responsive, minimizes harm) and Order (roles, rules, reciprocity) to apply the proper lens/language to the myriad of situations their role will cover.  

I tussle further with the question of how/when a person with dementia could give permission for MAiD, and how/whether there is a something (I call it soul) that guides the body through the process of death -- even, perhaps, in the absence of mind. 

I dig deeper and differently into Pollan to unpack the question of whether dementia could or should be included when federal legislation reconsiders whether people will be eligible for MAiD solely on the basis of mental illness.  I conclude not, but the issues beg further discussion.

I take my first go at Michael Pollan's book to explore whether machines (as in AI) can develop a conscience, as their creators say they can.  I conclude they can't.

Unpaid directors of boards, including municipal councils, are eagle-eye watched for Conflicts of Interest, but generously paid directors of for-profit boards are expected to bring their Confluences of Interest to the table. The municipal election season has just begun. 

It is dangerous to question the right to choose one's gender these days, but I exercise the right to interrogate the milieu in which it takes place. 

Gisèle Pelicot twisted the direction of the blame finger from the woman raped to the men who raped her by inviting the world into a courtroom that, however, falls short of holding accountable the larger social structure that creates and protects sexual predators. 

A horrifying story of a 73-year-old daughter charged with failure to provide necessities of life for her 96-year-old mother rips back the curtain on the high moral cost of under-resourcing elder care. 

A local attempt to encourage engagement in upcoming municipal elections exposes how we structurally discourage good people from running for office.  

This is a delayed part 2 of my earlier rant about the difficulty the world has in appropriately understanding and respecting the role of women. In this salvo, i suggest that older women consider withholding their contribution to community and family life to raise awareness about what exactly it is and how it should be honoured.

I amplify several suggestions made by Dave Meslin, author of Rebuilding Democracy, in a recent local event, designed to reclaim local democratic process.  Specifically, in preparation for this fall's municipal election, where silly season has already commenced.

An old theme, perhaps a new angle, on the structural exploitation of femaleness in our culture. It's the foundation for a column yet to follow that may be a full-throated rant on I Am Crone, Hear Me Roar.