Team editor, Opinion @torontostar. Send me smart pitches at nalang@thestar.ca. Writer. PhD.
Toronto, ON
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Regular reminder that I am always looking for interesting opinion pitches on almost any subject of interest to a @TorontoStar audience. And if you have ideas for an essay, a Q&A, a reflective slice of life piece with a point of view, also get in touch. It's nalang@thestar.ca
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In “some personal news” news: I’m now one of the editors in the opinion section at @TorontoStar. (If you’re smart and you can write, pitch me)
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Josh Matlow has been called a NIMBY, a centrist, and a showboat. Those are quite fair labels. He's also put forward a pretty progressive slate of policies. What are we supposed to feel when politicians change? Here's my profile of Matlow for @TheLocal_TO. thelocal.to/josh-matlow-toro…
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Patty and Mike are concerned about their retirement. They both have full pensions and own a $2 million home in North Vancouver. Patty has $634,000 in her RRSP and Mike has a bit less at $453,000. They each have $200k in their TFSAs. Will they have enough? Let's ask the experts.
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This is basically correct: you don't "fix" congestion. You can only reduce the percentage of people stuck in cars by having them switch modes. tvo.org/article/the-only-way…
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Letter writer to the Globe in response to an article on seniors downsizing: “These are our homes. This is where we worked our lives to live. The housing crisis is not ours.”
About sums it up, yeah?
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A while back, the folks at @bonappetit asked me to write on what it means when a restaurant is called "New American." It ultimately turned into a consideration of what American food actually is. bonappetit.com/story/new-ame…
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For the cover of the July/August issue of @thewalrus: I did a deep dive on AI. I spoke to academics. I visited Microsoft. I thought about language and intelligence, why we create -- and why even genuinely transformative tech can only change so much. thewalrus.ca/ai-hype/
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For @TheAtlantic, I wrote about the frustrations of autocorrect, and why predictive text algorithms are being tasked with something sorta impossible: figuring out how we communicate. theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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In response to Google/Meta blocking news, you might ask - was it the fault of the government, the media, or the tech giants???
The only reasonable answer to that question is: yes.
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probably a more honest way to write these titles. “Assets owned by wealthier Canadians increasing in value again.” “Housing crisis deepens.” Etc etc
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Thanks to @jayasax and @PadmaLakshmi for my inclusion in this year’s The Best American Food and Travel Writing anthology. I’m deliberately bragging when I say it’s the 2nd time.
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Can’t stop thinking about a line from the Zadie Smith review of Tar in which she says something like the young are baffled by mid-life crises, but that in fact, the mid-life crisis is a clearer, sharper recognition that you are going to die
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this dumb exchange from years ago popped up on reddit again, and I sort of hate it. it was a funny exchange at the time, but beyond it making it sound like English isn’t my first language, I just sort of loathe how into dunks people get
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Great to see @Suresh in the NYT. nytimes.com/2023/03/05/world…
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still perturbed by the image of a bunch of young e-bike delivery folk (lots of them Sikh international students) getting on a Go train from Brampton with their rides to head downtown and deliver food to the well-heeled
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There's a lot going on today, but I suggest taking the time to read this lucid, important essay by @pacinthe on 'The Palestine Exception.' thestar.com/news/insight/thi…
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an extremely belated thought but the sole good thing about new Twitter is the popularity of the menswear guy
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sorry but there’s something deeply satisfying about reaching in for a little salt! sue me.
actually, no, don’t sue me. i’ve wasted all my money on kitchen gear and I have none left.
i was at sur la table the other day and learned about the "salt pig," a sandworm shaped device purely for *pinches* of salt surlatable.com/emile-henry-s…
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personally, I’m still mad that someone can just buy a thing that verges on a public utility and undermine it. I’m also mad at the people who lean into
schadenfreude at Twitter collapsing but who have platforms, audiences, incomes elsewhere
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That was glib. But it seems like there is significant fault on all sides. The bill was poorly designed. The so-called "link tax" is a red herring, when the obvious issue is the ad market. Media floundered and continues to. Tech refuses to take any responsibility. It's a mess.
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I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about Chow as mayor. Definitely more optimistic than I've felt about Toronto in a while. Let's see what happens.
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thus far it seems the main purpose of “AI” is to degrade the world
NEW from me: The true crime fandom has just gotten a lot grosser. TikTok creators are using AI to post videos of real-life child murder victims telling the stories of their gruesome deaths: rollingstone.com/culture/cul…
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At least part of the problem facing young & lower income Canadians is that the influential voting bloc who own property and are in the ~upper 30% of income brackets are insulated from so much. Not sure pols realize just how much anger there is bubbling up.
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I understand how hard it is to give up this place - here I am, unable to delete my account, after all - but ngl, it feels strange to log on and just see business as normal.
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a) don't drag me into this; b) this is the saddest thing I've ever heard
Drake could do a concert with Canada artists NAV, Kardinal Offishall,Party plus local acts. Grab all of Memphis (gotti, glo, yo,boogie, key, finesse, three 6,8ball etc) and dance hall artists (Sean Paul, popcaan, Beenie man etc)
Now it’s game on
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I don't think ppl have a clear sense of just how intimately tied cars are to ppl's sense of their own standard of living. Saying "you won't need a car" sounds, to your average suburbanite, not too different from "you won't need a washing machine - washing by hand is just better"
Better public transport and safe cycling infrastructure isn't about taking away people's freedom to drive - it's about giving them the freedom to not have to drive
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ok sure, sometimes Twitter makes you feel like there’s no hope of any positive change at all, but you also get to read the thoughts of the absolute worst people alive. so there is that.
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sometimes feels like all of Canada's best & brightest young women writers move to New York eventually
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"no reasonable mid-tier" seems true of most things these days: apparel, furniture, housewares etc etc. period of decline!
As someone who has done repeat cross-country moves, I loved this story. Like in other areas, quality and bespoke stuff is out of reach for the regular consumer — even when you factor in the need to buy repeatedly. There seems to be no reasonable mid-tier. washingtonpost.com/home/2023…
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Again: the reason this isn’t considered a dire situation to be addressed immediately isn’t only NIMBY-ism, or political timidity, but that there is a large enough number of people for whom it is beneficial
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ngl, part of the reason I tip heavily is bc of the chance the person delivering food is Punjabi ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Meanwhile, right-leaning commentators keep saying what we need is business model innovation and subscriptions... which seems to ignore the risks of walling off news to a tiny fraction of people, while also assuming that there *is* a model, for local in particular, that will work.
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From last Friday, don't know if this is what you're looking for. thestar.com/news/gta/former-…
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on what site am I supposed to make jokes about Twitter/X, then try and say something insightful, then get a DM from an editor asking if I want to take those thoughts and put them into a piece? asking for me :((
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Anyway, I think it's time to start sending CVs to the companies I've spent the past 15 years or so criticizing...🤪
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Sort of incredible moment of "saying the quiet part loud" etc when the new housing minister essentially says outright that bc an issue now extends beyond low income people it's become a serious problem
Liberals are late to urgency on the housing question, and time is running out: Housing Minister Sean Fraser says in an interview his government has put a new focus on housing affordability for the middle class. theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
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Today‘s Financial Facelift is pretty par for the course - paid off house, $1.5M retirement savings, can we retire early? - but the pic takes the cake
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A very common and unfortunate phenomenon on here is liberals inevitably becoming slowly radicalized by the awfulness and vitriol of twitter... but then starting to miss the point, rooting themselves to an imagined centre and cocoon of "reasonableness".
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really hard to make the case for a walkable city when the roads are cleared and the sidewalks have a foot of snow
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If I had to guess re the chasm between fans and critics of the Air Show: ppl who don't live under the flight path of fighter jets are fine with it, those of us who do absolutely fucking hate it.
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I’ve felt for a while that we’re living through an inflection point in history, one in which the forces of the right, and their nativism, xenophobia, nationalism, and basic conservatism — that desire to return to what they believe are ‘timeless truths’ — all ascend.
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I've been saying for years now - literally years! - that everyone is completely handcuffed by the fact an incredibly influential voting bloc has their wealth tied up in real estate and thus nothing will be allowed to affect it (except severe economic shock).
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ICYMI: wrote a thing about Toronto’s need for a “food critic,” the economic realities that likely makes it impossible, and ended up doing a quick survey of Toronto food media in the process: navneetalang.com/2023/03/25/…
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