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Happy New Year and welcome to the first Philanthropic Phriday of 2021! This week's donation goes to the Distress Centre for the Ottawa region:

https://www.dcottawa.on.ca/about/

Christmas and the New Year or, for that matter, any widely or extravagantly celebrated holiday, can be a very difficult time for people on their own or who for whatever reasons feel they have little to celebrate. Pre-pandemic, many churches held "Blue Christmas" services, fellowship gatherings or other events for people in that situation. But in the midst of a lockdown, such services have been curtailed or at least modified in ways not everyone may find satisfactory.

Still, there are some vital community services that continue to operate 24/7 and distress centres are one example that all of us may need at some point in our lives.

And that brings me to the future of this series of Philanthropic Phridays. For now, I plan to continue with them but I may at some point scale back to, say, every two weeks or once a month. I don't expect to continue the series into 2022, although I'll continue to contribute to causes I believe in.

Plans, hopes and expectations, rather than the more intimidating Resolutions. All tentative constructs. Life and the world can be unpredictable at the best of times and even more so at the worst of times. But most of us need a bit of a framework to view the world through. That's what language, including this blog, is all about.

Here's to a better 2021 for all of us.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

Yes, I'm aware that we're already more than halfway through January. I'm also aware that by some folks' measures, the new decade doesn't begin until 2021. But hey, we're just beginning the Chinese New Year - the Year of the Rat - and the rat is apparently the first of all the Chinese zodiac animals. Is that auspicious or what? Of course, rats are also associated with disease and pestilence and maybe this year with Corona virus too. In any case, this seems to be a traditional time to reflect on the year and decade that just passed, and to look forward to the rest of 2020 and the 2020's.

Any nominations for Newsmaker of the year 2019? Or Newsmaker of the decade 2010-2019? Prince Harry? Donald Trump? What about the succession of British PMs up to and beyond the Brexit vote? Or Scotland's independence referendum, defeated in 2014 but possibly to be revived in the current year or decade in the wake of Brexit? Justin Trudeau? More internationally, how about Greta Thunberg?

Having come of age in an era that focused on youth (maybe because in the OK Boomer generation there were so many of us) I tend to be quite encouraged by youth who are forward-thinking enough to want to make a difference and inspire others to do likewise. In past decades we had Malala and her promotion of education and other rights for girls; in the 1990s we had Craig Kielberger who met with Jean Chretien and later (with his brother Marc) promoted the Me to We movement and still writes a weekly column carried by the Citizen. With Greta, of course, it's climate change and her insistence on avoiding air travel.

"Flight shaming" was one of the top picks for word or phrase of the year (I may discuss other candidates in a future post). And climate change is one of those things that's not likely to just fade away any time soon. On the home front, we're already thinking what we'll do in terms of a new home heating/cooling system and a new vehicle in a few years' time - certainly within the decade.

In the shorter term, I have all kinds of ideas about blog entries I'd like to make in the next month or so - books read, films and TV shows seen, concerts, plays and general cultural activities attended, plans for the year, events in the news, general philosophies of life and so much more!

This past weekend was eventful (and in a good way), at least by my standards. I went to Montreal on Friday, mainly to see the immersive Van Gogh exhibit and some modern art at the Arsenal; Saturday I had my first skate of the season - not on the Canal yet, but around the corner at our local rink. Sunday was brunch and a house concert at our daughter's place.

So there's plenty I COULD write about. Let's see how it goes over the next little while.