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Plus the power of prime ministers, and the rabbi helping Gazans escape
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The dread I feel perusing the grocery store aisle isn’t in the high‐frequency pitch of immediate poverty. I have a well‐paying job, decent rent, and no kids. Another pot of inedible sludge isn’t going to ruin my finances, just my pride and digestive system. I know that I am very lucky: nearly one in four Canadians reported feeling food insecure so far this year, according to Food Banks Canada. The dread I’m talking about isn’t that; it’s not the knife twist in the gut as you wait to see if there’s more in your chequing account than in your grocery cart. No, the dread is more ambient, more abstract—a feeling that there is something seriously wrong. It’s a kind of dread rooted in powerlessness. Why do we accept it?

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“Rollie Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon), songwriter and author of Bedroom Rapper (McClelland & Stewart), talks about his relentlessly curatorial approach, about the need for criticism in art, and about how books and writing will soon eclipse music as his central creative pursuit.”

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Samia Madwar
Senior Editor, The Walrus

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This newsletter was produced by CIBC Digital Journalism Fellow Makda Mulatu. Email us at letters@thewalrus.ca and your letter may be included in a future issue of The Walrus.



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