Travels and Travails: Researching & Writing the Birder Murder Mystery Series by Steve Burrows - Fiction

On March 26, 2025, I attended a presentation by Steve Burrows at Deer Park Library, Toronto. Burrows is a renowned birder and an author of the Birder Mystery Series.

As indicated in the program description, Steve Burrows presents a light-hearted look at his path from birder and environmental journalist to author of the best-selling Birder Murder Mystery series.

The author traces connections between the worlds of birding and mystery fiction. He recounts some of his adventures on research trips, looks at the critical reception the series has received from the birding and non-birding communities, and explores some of the surprising opportunities that have come his way as a consequence of writing the series.

Personal Commentary: This was a fascinating presentation. The author took the audience to a world that can be unfamiliar to most people and yet informative in ways that highlight the lives of many species of birds within the environment. 

The Whistler by John Grisham - Fiction

It is expected that judges be honest and wise. Their integrity is the foundation of the entire judicial system. Society trusts and expects them to establish fair trials, protect the rights of all people involved in a lawsuit, and punish those who do wrong. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe?

 
Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. Her job is to respond to complaints of judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

 
But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges from all states and throughout the history of the United States of America. And now he wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. When the case is assigned to Lacy, she immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous.

 
Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.

Source: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-whistler-a-novel/9781101967683.html

Personal Commentary: The Whistler is an informative novel that takes the reader into the world of the justice system in the United States of America. The author has used a compelling case that enables him to illustrate the existence of possible corruption within the judicial system in the United States of America.

U.S. Politics and Big Tech Power : Margaret O'Mara

The Munk School of Global Affairs hosted Margaret O'Mara in Toronto on March 18, 2025. Her presentation was entitled U.S. Politics and Big Tech Power. 

From a historical perspective, O'Mara examined the prominent role of U.S. tech leaders and companies in this second Trump era. She traced the evolution of the decades-long relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., and the political and economic transformations this relationship has wrought.

How did the U.S. tech sector and its leaders become so extraordinarily wealthy, market-dominant, and politically consequential in the U.S. and worldwide? 

Professor O'Mara indicated that Silicon Valley was built on the back of the U.S. government yet has always maintained a paradoxical relationship--criticizing government intervention, except when it suits them.

The Internet was a Pentagon invention as early as the 1940s and 1950s. Two years ago, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) bailout was another reminder of the government’s role in keeping the ecosystem afloat. Steve Jobs lobbied Congress for two weeks to get Macs into schools. And today, tech leaders are writing $1M+ checks to presidential inauguration committees to secure influence. 

For an industry that often champions the idea of small government, Big Tech has a remarkably selective memory regarding its history. What will happen next as we navigate this next chapter of Big Tech’s political power? 

Source: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/event/us-politics-and-big-tech-power-past-present-and-future

Personal Commentary: It was a fascinating revelation about the connections between the U.S. government and the creators of the high-tech industry in today's world.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler - Fiction

Parable of the Sower is set in a suburb of Los Angeles.  The author, Octavia Butler, translates the existing dangers and chaos to portray the lives of a family living in this neighbourhood. 

In the early 2020s,  global climate change and economic crises led to social chaos in California. The residents have to cope with dangers, from water shortage to crowds of displaced persons who will do anything to live from day to day. 

The author brings in fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina who lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors. They are sheltered from this chaos, but Lauren is a person of immense empathy with unbelievable sensitivity to other people's reactions to this crisis situation.

Lauren is determined to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.

Source: https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/parable-of-the-sower/9781538759394.html

Personal Commentary: A touching story of a community of families living in a changing era. The author focuses on a teenage girl, Lauren who attempts to protect her family within the community who do not seem to deal with the crises facing them. 

On January 30, 2025, Anne Morton presented her novel Wild Democracy at the Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, Ontario.  It was an interesting session on democracy with a lively discussion after her presentation. The audience gained different perspectives on the meaning and practice of democratic principles and rules. 

Wild Democracy calls for a more anarchic, more courageous democracy. It is an ethic for people who know their rights and struggle to rule themselves. It is an ethic for unfinished revolutions and those who will not be mastered. It is an ethic for those who hold fast to the rights they have by nature. 

Democracy is always a risky business, full of promise and danger. The promise is the freedom to rule ourselves. The danger is fear: fear of the unknown, fear of the unruly, fear of one another, fear of anarchy. The fearful look for a strong hand, a powerful leader, a protector, a gun. Anarchy leads to courage, self-reliance, self-discipline, self-rule, and solidarity. 

Anarchy is the nursery of democracy. It is not anarchy we have to fear; it is authoritarianism. We have been taught to see people as problems to be managed. Anne Norton sees them as a source of strength. Anarchic democracy grows wild, springing from the everyday actions of ordinary human beings. Liberalism and conservatism alike have turned away from the democratic to institutions, rules, and regulations. Anne Norton turns to anarchic people who practice democratic ethics.

Source:https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/wild-democracy-anarchy-courage-and-ruling-the-law/9798212623193.html

Come From Away: A Theatre Production

On February 12, 2025, I attended the theatrical production entitled Come From Away at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto.

 

This production is based on the real events that occurred in the town of Gander, Newfoundland, directly following the September 11 attacks. Early that morning, the Federal Aviation Administration decided to shut down its airspace, forcing thousands of planes to land at nearby airports. This grounded 38 planes, carrying 6,579 passengers and crew, in the small city of Gander. This was one of the locations that would later be known as Operation Yellow Ribbon.

The objective of Canada’s Operation Yellow Ribbon was to drive as much air traffic out of the United States as possible. This would help minimize the possible damage and loss of life that could occur from using the aircraft as a weapon against the U.S. Thus, airports and military bases across Canada opened themselves to planes needing to be grounded in a desire to help their southern neighbors.

After five hours of remaining in the planes, the passengers disembarked to be greeted with open arms by the 10,000-person town of Gander. Community centers, churches, and schools all housed and fed the “Come From Aways.” 

After five days of hospitality in Gander, the grounded planes and passengers were finally allowed to begin their departure, and on September 16, all diverted planes took off. Come From Away shows the heart behind the generous town that rescues and accepts strangers in a time of crisis.

Source: https://www.scfta.org/discover-watch-listen/articles/_/story-behind-come-from-away

Ron Deibert on "Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage & the Fight for Democracy" - Non-fiction

In this real-life spy thriller, cybersecurity expert Ronald Deibert details the unseemly marketplace for high-tech surveillance, professional disinformation, and computerized malfeasance. He reveals how his team of digital sleuths at the Citizen Lab have lifted the lid on dozens of covert operations targeting innocent citizens everywhere.

Chasing Shadows provides a front-row seat to a dark underworld of digital espionage, disinformation, and subversion. There, autocrats and dictators peer into their targets’ lives with the mere press of a button, spreading their tentacles of authoritarianism through a digital ecosystem that is insecure, poorly regulated, and prone to abuse. The activists, opposition figures, and journalists who dare to advocate for basic political rights and freedoms are hounded, arrested, tortured, and sometimes murdered.

From the gritty streets of Guatemala City to the corridors of power in the White House, this compelling narrative traces the journey of the Citizen Lab as it evolved into a globally renowned source of counterintelligence for civil society. As this small team of investigators disarmed cyber mercenaries and helped improve the digital security of billions of people worldwide, their success also brought them into the same sinister crosshairs that plagued the victims they worked to protect.

Deibert recounts how the Lab exposed the world’s pre-eminent cyber-mercenary firm, Israel-based NSO Group—the creators of the phone-hacking marvel Pegasus—in a series of human rights abuses, from domestic spying scandals in Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Greece to its implication in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Source: https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/Chasing-Shadows/Ronald-J-Deibert/9781668014042

Personal Commentary: This session was thought-provoking as it raised many points about cybersecurity and how it impacts every aspect of individual lives and the tenets of democratic economies in the world.