Follow the Money. A commitment to truth and justice marks the resistance of the less powerful against the exercise of institutional power. Again and again, that resistance collides with a familiar quid pro quo: the inscription of billionaire donors’ names on our most beloved cultural and educational institutions, and their influence on policy. Sackler at […]
NOTE: This piece was researched and written by a very alive human (John Graham-Pole), not by ai robot. A year ago, we launched our local Death Café here in Antigonish, and we’ve been meeting every month ever since. Up to twenty of us come together, and recently we’ve been talking about capping our numbers because […]
Now is the Time of AI Monsters Posted by Dorothy Lander It was the best of AI, it was the worst of AI. * * * In the liminal space between 2025 holiday festivities—Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa—and Little Christmas (Epiphany) on January 6, 2026, coinciding with the return to work and school, our use of […]
by John Graham-Pole I’ve been reflecting on words I rarely heard during my fifty-plus years of medical practice. Words I was especially drawn to in later years, when making rounds, when writing chart notes, especially when listening and responding to my patients and their families. These are some of the words I’m thinking of: purpose, […]
WATER IS LIFE A Settler Child Celebrates the Legal Personhood of Pemadeshkodeyong/Rice Lake by Dorothy Lander A landmark announcement during the “Giving Rights to Nature to Strengthen Climate Action” COP30[1] event at the Canada Pavilion on November 21, 2025 in Belem, Brazil on the doorstep of the Amazon, transported me to my childhood home in […]
By John Graham-Pole For more than three decades, the University of Florida’s Arts in Medicine program (AIM: artsinmedicine.ufhealth.org) has brought visual, literary, and performance artists into the hospital’s wards and clinics. Its mission has been simply to enrich the experience of patients and caregivers through countless forms of creative expression. When my nurse colleague […]
Since the beginning, we humans have been intimately linked to trees, sharing the breath of Mother Earth, the inhale-exhale cycle of carbon and oxygen. Behold how images of trees are featured as cover art for titles representing separate genocides four decades apart: to the left, In the Arms of Inup, as told by Indigenous Storyteller and […]
Join us on August 26 for a festive book launch in Antigonish, NS, as we celebrate the power of creativity with poet, dancer, and educator Celeste Nazeli Snowber. Antigonish is about to welcome acclaimed poet, dancer, and educator Celeste Nazeli Snowber to the Highland Heart of Nova Scotia for a celebration, the launch of her […]
Where My Shadow Fell – John Graham-Pole, MD, MRCP-UK, Professor emeritus of pediatric oncology and palliative care, University of Florida In this essay I reflect on my journey through the evolving field of pediatric oncology—from a time when childhood cancer was nearly always fatal to the gradual emergence of cures. Drawing on my personal experiences […]
Instead of spreadsheets and strategic plans and business plans, consider the part you can play in designing a sustainable future for the world, guided by existing art – dance, poetry, storytelling, humour, gardening, culinary arts, essays, paintings and … and -? Here is my Canadian template that highlights fempieces over masterpieces as my guide. 2. […]
