Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

THE MOSQUITO DETERMINED OUR HISTORY Review by Herman Silochan - Toronto Caribbean Independent Newspaper The Mosquito - A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, by Timothy Winegard In the past four decades, history has been forced to be dramatically rewritten, over and over, from ancient times to the here and now. The further opening up of archives in the great libraries, monasteries, museums and government records offices of the world is but one avenue for revision. Significantly though, subjecting specimens, species, animal and plant, even relics, to DNA classification and testing has forced re-interpretation on its head. Forensic anthropology and archeology have come into their own. Those of us who recall our high school history, and later at university, do have a good sense of the sequence of events. But what about the scenes behind the scenes, so to speak? All of us know that Alexander the Great invaded western India through the Indus Valley, and it was drummed i...

RBC Finalist Matti Friedman (Pumpkinflowers) describes his life in the Israeli armed forces as  "beyond the mindset of life in Toronto.” --> review by K.J. Mullins for Weir website Matti Friedman When Matti Friedman moved from Toronto to Israel he thought he had landed on another planet.  He was 17 and he was leaving the world’s most diversity friendly city for a place that  was “so beyond the mindset of life in Toronto.” “I was young enough to roll with the punches,” Friedman said of the move from his safe North York childhood home to the Middle East as we started to talk about the differences between North American and Middle Eastern culture and his current book Pumpkinflowers which has been shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction. “I liked the cultural shock. Israel is chaotic with its Middle Eastern culture.” One of the most jarring differences between Canada and Israel is in the military draft. All yo...