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George Orwell said, “To see what is in front of one’s door needs a constant struggle.” Business leaders must continually look beyond the door. What do they see now?

MMike Nightingale has laced up the skates with Keanu Reeves. They had played on the same team in Los Angeles, along with fellow Canadian, actor Kiefer Sutherland. (Reeves, a goalie, showed off his hallucinatory Matrix-flexibility; Sutherland is chippy on ice, off ice he’s blatherskite chirpy.) This week, however, Nightingale is in Bangkok for the annual Land of Smiles Ice Hockey Classic. The tournament’s in its 26th year. He’s played in it every year since 2010.

It was the shot heard round northern Thailand. Dan Sinaguglia looked up at the clock. Less than ten sec-onds remained in the period. Standing beside his own goalie, he wound up for a slapshot. The golf equivalent to scoring from this distance would be to get a hole in one on a par five. His missile screamed its way for 50 meters – sizzling passed eight players – to needle its way by the opposing Hanoi Donkeys goalie. Players
were in dumfounded belief as the buzzer sounded to end the period. Bangkok’s Thai Stix had just taken in a 2-1 lead into the final period of the championship game of the LANNA Cup Ball Hockey tournament.

Greg Beatty didn’t expect to be writing chil- dren’s literature. Growing up in Canada he played hockey, often sitting around the locker room with teammates comparing missing teeth, facial scars and broken bones. He was recruited to play varsity hockey in the US at Colby College in Maine. Upon graduation, he went to law school in Boston and laced up his skates for the Bruins Old Timers, a team of retired professionals.

A s Yogi Berra famously quipped, predictions are hard, especially about the future. One year ago, nobody would have believed it would be a low tech (or no tech) mask that would get us through the current pandemic. But we still need to rely on vaccines and other technology solutions for a permanent fix.

Predictions are hard, especially about the future. One year ago, nobody would have believed it would be facemasks that would get us through the current pandemic. But we still need vaccines and technology…

The poet Robert Graves wrote of life in the trenches during WW1, “noise never stopped for one moment – ever.” This year feels a bit like that. It’s the screaming that comes across the sky in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Vulnerabilities have been exposed by trade tensions, a highly charged political climate, and now a global pandemic. Though our circumstance falls short of war, 2020 is a cacoph- ony of dire news headlines, Zoom meetings, and we can’t get on an airplane to escape ourselves.

Neighboring countries weren’t accepting tour- ists. But I had to leave Thailand and re-enter on a new visa for a new employment oppor- tunity. Thus, a twenty-four thousand km roundtrip to my home country, Canada, then come back to the place I was already standing. A Kafkaesque plot was unfolding.

COVID-19 has disrupted everything with whiplash effect.  The science is unsettled, there’s no single approach by governments, and news coverage is schizophrenic. Let’s examine what is expected for society, community, family and personally.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) stakes a claim on productivity, corporate dominance, and economic prosperity with Shakespearean drama. AI will change the way you work and spend your leisure time and puts…