I recently completed The Splendid and The Vile, a book by Erik Larson exploring the first year of Winston Churchill’s prime ministership. He assumed the leadership in 1940, at which point Britain had already been at war with Germany for one year. With the U.S. following an isolationist policy, things
Continue readingTag: Letters to the Editor
Song of the Watermelon: Globe and Mail Letter
Today’s Globe and Mail contains a letter to the editor from yours truly (second from the bottom) in response to an op-ed criticizing those who take offence at J.K. Rowling’s misguided views on trans people. I discuss one of my pet peeves in the current “free speech” wars — namely,
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Globe and Mail Letter
Today’s Globe and Mail contains a letter to the editor from yours truly (second from the bottom) in response to an op-ed criticizing those who take offence at J.K. Rowling’s misguided views on trans people. I discuss one of my pet peeves in the current “free speech” wars — namely,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heroes No More
The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? Things like corporate greed, for example. The public was much heartened when grocery store magnates granted pay boosts to front-line line workers as an acknowledgement of the risks they were facing during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. However, that corporate
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Strange Fruit
H/t Michael De Adder Those who say the police are just doing their job are just not paying attention. Be warned. Both of these videos are hard to watch: This is Fucking nuts! How is this even a reasonable thing to do by police. This was murder. https://t.co/HxKHVOhnaB — Rick
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Opportunities Exist
During this time of crisis, it is easy to forget other, equally vital issues and the fact that the problems we currently confront do not exist in isolation. Climate change and the myriad emergencies it has spawned are not going away. Two letters in the print edition of the Toronto
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Time For A Massive Reorientation
It is perhaps to state the obvious that a crisis of the scale the world is currently experiencing is also an opportunity to reorient our perspective and our society. As many of us are now acutely aware, and despite the ‘social distancing’ we are observing, none of us live in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Larger Perspective
In these uncertain times, we are all seized by concerns about Corvid-19. The prospect of death invariably focuses the mind, especially in the short-term. Facilitated by fossil-fuel propaganda and an often uncritical media, it is unfortunately easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, one that we have been warned
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: It Makes Perfect Sense
While many bemoan the fate of the Teck Resources Frontier tarsands project as yet another example of restrictive regulatory measures, others, as the following letter from the print edition of the Toronto Star suggests, say its death makes perfect corporate sense. Free market now realizes carbon reserves best left alone
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Going, Going ……
I posted recently about the Teck tarsands development that is seeking the Trudeau regime’s approval. If the government gives its go-ahead to the project, it will destroy whatever remnants remain of Mr. Trudeau’s claims to green bona fides, not to mention the incalculable damage such a massive enterprise will do
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A New Horrifying High Our Leaders Will Ignore
News that Antarctica just reached new horrifyingly high temperatures, forerunner of the deluge to come, once more reinforces the perilous state our world is in. Despite that, it seems likely that the Trudeau government will approve the massive tarsands project known as the Teck mine, which I posted about the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tell It Like It Is
I have written nothing about the Iranian missile that brought down the Ukrainian flight, frankly because I don’t know what to say beyond the fact that it is an immense tragedy, not only due to the loss of life but because of who was killed: primarily young people with their
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Makes Sense To Me
I had this exact conversation with my son this week as he and his wife visited from the west. Alberta, Ottawa set to clash over rent supplement cost, Dec. 27 This story reports another impasse over money between Alberta and Ottawa. Yet it fails to explain the full story as
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Looking Toward Liberation
I have regular telephone conversations with my friend Dave, who lives in Winnipeg. Like me, he has a very jaundiced view of those elected to ‘serve’ us, and part of our routine is to compare and bemoan the atrocities committed by our respective provincial governments. While things are bad under
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Time For Reflection
While the battle for climate-change mitigation will be won or lost by regulating the big polluters, it is all too easy for us to scrutinize them to the exclusion of our own profligate greenhouse-gas-emission practices. The following letter in the print edition of today’s Toronto Star should give us all
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What About The Common Good?
One of the things that has most disturbed me about this election campaign is the emphasis both the Liberals and the Conservatives have put on so-called cheque-book issues. Whether it is Mr. Trudeau’s constant references to “the middle class and those working hard to join it,” or Andrew Scheer’s promises
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Give Me Your Frightened Masses
Run, children, run, to your polling stations!H/t Theo Moudakis Meanwhile, for those made of sterner stuff, there is an insightful analysis by Larry Kazdan of Vancouver of what should truly frighten all of us: Today’s unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent may be considered “rock bottom,” but unemployment after the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: "It Is Not Fair"
H/t Greg PerryI suspect the following letter by a young person expresses the angst of an entire generation: I had hoped my final years in high school would go smoothly. But instead of stressing over university applications, I worry if it is even worth it to go through all this
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Journal’s Sad Decline
Readers of this blog will probably know that I am a big supporter of newspapers. In my view, they are the best bulwark against the ignorance that seems so prominent in Western society today. As a subscriber to The Toronto Star and a financial contributor to The Guardian, it is
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: But Is Anyone Listening?
The Star has been running a series on climate change that I have read with some interest, offering as it does a good and extensive primer on the peril we face. Ultimately however, it fails, especially in the last part which talks about what we can do to combat it.
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