Weekly News Recap: December 31, 2021

Weekly News Recap: December 31, 2021

Archbishop Desmond Tutu gestures at the launch of a human rights campaign marking the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2007. Tutu has died at the age of 90. (Mike Hutchings/Reuters)

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. -- Desmond Tutu

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year! From all of us at ViTreo, we wish you, your family, and your colleagues a prosperous, energized, and safe 2022. See you next year 😊!

SOME GOOD NEWS

  • N.S. veteran whose medals were stolen gets some good news (CBC) NOVA SCOTIA STORY Nice work from the office of the Governor General. "A Nova Scotia veteran who had his medals stolen out of his hotel room earlier this year will soon have a new Meritorious Service Medal."

  • 12-year-old Calgary girl makes ‘incredible’ $1,000 donation to food bank (Global News) CALGARY STORY #IHeartTinyFundraisers "A 12-year-old Calgary girl is really showing the spirit of the season this Christmas, putting in a lot of work on her project to help struggling families. Ella Altvater has spent the past month making and selling 'fun bags' to other kids. The bags contain things like pencils, stickers and Play-Doh. [...] With the money she got from sales of the fun bags, Altvater made a $1,000 donation to the Calgary Food Bank."

  • Meet the Coquitlam sisters who are trying to protect the environment one watercolour painting at a time (CBC) COGUITLAM STORY How great is this? "Two sisters in Coquitlam, B.C., have taken a skill taught to them by their grandmother and turned it into a way to try to help protect the environment and mitigate climate change. Since January, Grace Moseley, 12, and her sister Julianne, 14, have been creating watercolour paintings and cards, selling them and donating the proceeds to charities such as Ocean Wise, whose mission it is to restore and protect the world's oceans."

  • Calgary officer who rescued 2 from burning semi-truck given Chief's Award for life saving (CBC) CALGARY STORY #Hero "Const. Jason Van Dorp was on patrol in March 2019, scanning traffic as he drove down Stoney Trail, when he noticed a semi-truck crash into a median in his rearview mirror. As he turned around, he watched the truck hit a concrete pillar and explode. In the next crucial moments, Van Dorp dragged a woman — the truck's passenger — away from the burning vehicle. She had been ejected from the vehicle and passed out."

  • How an act of kindness using Christmas lights sparked a neighbourhood tradition (CBC) Community. It grows one small gesture at a time. #Lovely "When Baltimore resident Kim Morton received a text message from longtime neighbour Matt Riggs to come outside last Christmas, she thought it was an invitation to enjoy the snowfall. But when she stepped outside with her daughter, she was welcomed with a box of homemade cookies and a gift that literally lit up her world."

  • Got Two Zip-Top Bags? You Can Make Ice Cream (Bon Appetit) One of the best things I have learned in a long time. "Most sitters met me somewhere in the middle, which meant half the movie and no-bake treats. Peanut butter buckeyes were a favorite, as well as those oat-and-chocolate drop cookies that firm up in the freezer, when I could wait that long. Then one day, a favorite ex-pre-school teacher named Karen came over with a bag of rock salt and totally changed the game. With some basic ingredients and no fancy machinery, she taught my sister and me how to make ice cream in a bag."

  • America's Oldest Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin (YouTube) I have heard about Betty before. She is simply amazing. "At the Rosie the Riveter Home Front National Historic Park in Richmond, CA, 100-year-old Betty Reid Soskin is America’s oldest park ranger. Employed with the National Park Service beginning in 1942, Soskin believes that remembering our history is key to understanding the future. Her memoir Sign My Name to Freedom was published in 2018."

TOP TEN STORIES OF THE WEEK

  1. Desmond Tutu, South African equality activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dead at 90 (CBC) A truly great man. I had the privilege of being on the stage in 2000 at the UofA when Dr. Tutu received an honourary degree. Lois Hole was chancellor. RIP. We will not see your like again. "Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice and LGBT rights and retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, has died, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Sunday. He was 90. An uncompromising foe of apartheid — South Africa's brutal regime of oppression against the Black majority — Tutu worked tirelessly, though non-violently, for its downfall."

  2. Opinion: Values that Transform: The Path Forward for Alberta’s Economy (Calgary Herald) ALBERTA STORY Brand is about many things including policy, PR, media, and...the actions of citizens. We need to be better. "Arguably, Alberta has a branding problem at the moment. We’ve allowed our province to be stereotyped as nothing more than dirty, carbon-spewing industries and unkind, narrow-minded people. This is far from the truth. But as these images and perceptions continue to define the narrative, how can Alberta expect to attract and retain young, talented and globally-minded people? Why would they live in a place that is seemingly incongruous with their own values and priorities?"

  3. How Alberta's tech sector is turning a corner (CBC) ALBERTA STORY Nice to see. More please. "Alberta's tech sector is slowly recovering from mostly self-inflicted wounds that threatened to leave the fledgling industry behind Canada's tech leaders in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. In 2019, the Alberta government eliminated incentives for investors to fund the province's tech startups, prompting some venture capital, private equity, individual backers and angel investors to take their money elsewhere. As 2021 draws to a close, there are some in the sector who believe Alberta is finally experiencing a resurgence, with help from a more supportive government and investors who are more willing to open their wallets. Investment is climbing, confidence is growing and some early-stage developers and entrepreneurs are starting to see the money roll in. At a recent pitch event at the brand-new Platform Innovation Centre last month, firms from Edmonton and Calgary (and five from Saskatchewan) lined up to sell their latest ideas and inventions to investors watching virtually or in person."

  4. Young people flocking to Nova Scotia as population reaches 1 million milestone (CBC) NOVA SCOTIA STORY This is excellent. "The tides are changing in Nova Scotia — more young people moved to the Maritime province this year than in recent memory as the total population surpassed one million people for the first time. During the second quarter of this year, Nova Scotia saw the second-highest population gain in the country for interprovincial migration at 4,678 people, behind only British Columbia, according to Statistics Canada."

  5. It's time we recognize the full value of volunteering. A simple change to the tax code could help (CBC) CANADIAN CONTENT ViTreo is behind this movement. We will be working hard in 2022 and beyond to bring more recognition to volunteering. "In times of crisis — and 2021 had its fair share of crises — the power of voluntary citizen efforts is often seen on full display. Volunteers are both the input and the output of resilient communities. Yet, we see in both data from Volunteer Canada and in recurring anecdotes that non-profits are finding themselves doing more with less; and that includes fewer volunteers. Earlier this month, the United Nations celebrated International Volunteer Day as a time to honour the transformative power of volunteering in our communities and encourage citizen and government support for volunteerism. This year, Secretary General Antonio Guterres made a very specific 'appeal to all governments to promote volunteering.'"

  6. Eight charts to watch on climate and energy in 2022 (Macleans) CANADIAN STORY These are excellent. "For Maclean’s eighth annual chartstravaganza, we’ve once again asked dozens of economists and analysts to ponder the year to come, and choose one chart that will help define Canada’s economy in 2022 and beyond, and explain this outlook in their own words. This year, we’ve decided to release the charts over several days, making this more of a Chart Week than a one-day data binge. We’ll also cover jobs and income, inflation, COVID, and—yes, don’t worry—real-estate outlooks."

  7. Pickleball a really big 'dill' in Calgary, across Alberta (CBC) ALBERTA STORY Bad headline pun aside, this is true a fast-moving trend. "But the paddle sport is already exploding in popularity across the province, so much so that venues are often booked up and membership in clubs has swelled. There are 24 pickleball clubs across Alberta, including in Calgary, Airdrie, Red Deer, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. This year, Pickleball Alberta reported that membership in the Calgary Zone — where there are the most players — has grown by about 30 per cent since 2020, despite the pandemic, from 863 players to now 1,120."

  8. The Lazarus heist: How North Korea almost pulled off a billion-dollar hack (BBC) This is hyper-scary...imagine hackers stealing the equivalent of an entire day's worth of your country's sovereign wealth. This would be the equivalent of having almost $5 billion stolen from the Canadian Government "In 2016 North Korean hackers planned a $1bn raid on Bangladesh's national bank and came within an inch of success - it was only by a fluke that all but $81m of the transfers were halted, report Geoff White and Jean H Lee. But how did one of the world's poorest and most isolated countries train a team of elite cyber-criminals?"

  9. The Museum of the World (British Museum) This is an amazing resource. Best viewed in a desktop web browser. I took a deep drive on StoneHenge. "The Museum of the World brings an exciting assortment of objects from the archives of the British Museum to the web where you can explore them and their connections."

  10. A wildly fascinating map captured our top Google searches for each day of 2021 (Upworthy) It is worth the 60-second watch. Very enlightening and also a view into why 2021 was such a WTF year. "Google has become such a ubiquitous part of our lives that the data it reveals is a pretty decent indicator of our collective reality. It's a weird phenomenon, considering the fact that Google has only been a thing for 25 years—basically a single generation—but here we are."

SEVEN LIFE AND CAREER HACKS

  1. Does Wisdom Really Come from Experience? (New Yorker) We can certainly learn a ton from those over 70. Some great vignettes here.

  2. Pandemic to endemic: How the world can learn to live with COVID-19 (McKinsey) The four pillars of the new normal by McKinsey. As close to a crystal ball as you are likely to get.

  3. Write it down: Keeping a journal can be a productive way to cope with uncertain times (CBC) Journaling has always helped me with my mental health. So glad CBC put this out there.

  4. 7 visuals that will save your next meeting (UX Collective) Pictures, drawings and visuals are so powerful. Some great tools to make your 2022 presentations amazing.

  5. Stop your defensive behavior and resolve conflicts peacefully by creating a reaction strategy. (Better Humans) Oh man, this article hit me right between the eyes. Very very helpful.

  6. This Is (By Far) the Best Way to Remember What You Read in Books (Books Are Our Superpower) This is NOT another article on how to take notes while you read. It is WAY better than that. I really love the ideas put forth here. Not least because they are very doable.

  7. Sardines are your best friends (Christiana White) This is a love them / hate them nexus. I feel most will be on the hate them side but, for me...I love them. Peel back the foil and expose these "fat, glistening babies." #Yum

TOP THREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

  1. Samuel L. Jackson And Wife LaTanya Richardson Jackson Make Largest Spelman Alumni Donation In The HBCU's History (Essence) "Atlanta native and Spelman alumni LaTanya Richardson Jackson joined her husband Samuel L. Jackson in providing Spelman College with its largest alumni donation in the school’s history. They contributed $5 million toward renovating the school’s John D. Rockefeller Fine Arts [building.]"

  2. Atlanta Beltline surpasses $300M in funding after major donation (WABE) "Atlanta’s Beltline project is on track to complete a planned 22-mile loop by 2030 after raising more than $300 million for new trail construction, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Thursday. Beltline CEO Clyde Higgs told the newspaper the effort got a boost from a new, $80 million donation from The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation."

  3. Denver Museum of Nature & Science receives $25M anonymous donation (The Denver Channel) #Wow "An anonymous donor contributed $25 million to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and its supporting organization, the DMNS Foundation, which marks the largest gift in the institution’s 121-year history."

LAST WEEK'S MOST POPULAR STORIES

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