“Send in the Clowns.”
“There ought to be clowns – Well, maybe next year” are the haunting words at the end of the Stephen Sondheim song that is a lament using a circus metaphor.…
World Politics
“Penny for the Guy, Gov?”
By this November five, Guy Fawkes Day, one really wonders at what the value of the Brit Pound might be on world markets? It used to be a Brit tradition…
Empty handed in Hanoi.
That came as a shock. We had no idea that the sawed-off little runt of a dictator from North Korea was smarter than American president Donald Trump. He left Trump…
The Pathetic Pretenders.
Gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protestors are a particularly French phenomenon, as French law requires all automobiles be equipped one of those fluorescent vests in case of emergency. It made for…
Trump and Trudeau fail Venezuela.
Venezuela’s oil-based economy continues to collapse. The Americans are helping it collapse. And what the Canadian interest is, defies imagination. The corrupt and destructive Nicolás Maduro regime in the country,…
Forget the Queen, save the Magna Carta.
If the Brexit-related events in the next few months get ugly, the Brits have a plan in place to keep the Queen and her immediate family from harms way. We…
Potholes on the Yellow Brick Road.
While the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion are still planning their trip with Dorothy to the Emerald City and the October election in Canada, it is best to…
John McCallum is no diplomat.
Canada’s ambassador to China never was a diplomat. He is a politician. Maybe he has always been too much of a neoliberal to my taste but he finally did what…
Brits’ Brexit Bonkers.
Oh, the Brits did it up right proper yesterday. That parliament of woolly thinking, stepped out the palace window looking for the executioner with his axe. “Come, chop off our…
Don’t send a boy…
Maybe if they draw pictures for us, we might understand why prime minister Justin Trudeau would ask U.S. president Donald Trump to help with Canada’s current problems in China. Talk…
The world’s worst walls.
There are walls to keep people in. There are walls to keep people out. They all ultimately fail. Walls to keep people in are just a challenge to human ingenuity.…
Would a gold piano sound tinny?
Most commentators write a recap about the preceding year on New Year’s Eve but I only thought back a week to an ‘oops.’ I realized that this Canadian missed the…
Rules of entitlement.
The recent troubles in Paris have brought to mind a week I spent in Paris on business back in the 1970s. My business ‘host’ and tour guide for the week…
Pompeo’s Rebellion.
It makes you wish you were there to see the look of astonishment on the European’s faces as American secretary of state Mike Pompeo explained his version of Donald Trump’s…
The woe of women in politics.
Last weekend there was a trifecta in political opinions in the Toronto Star that were equally wrong. The paper must be desperate for more knowledgeable opinions other than their usual…
American capitalism betrays us.
Since 1908, when Sam McLauglin started building auto bodies in Oshawa for William Durant’s Buicks, Canada has been part of what became General Motors. Through good times and bad times,…
Underlining the ignorance of Trump.
U.S. President Donald Trump is but an immature child playing at being the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. The point was so perfectly positioned the other day…
In the grip of the political vortex.
Friends, foes and the pubic ask: “What the fuck is going on?” The answer is that nobody really knows. Did you see the polls before the American mid-term elections? You…
Exploring electoral ennui in America.
The one overriding perception of the 2016 American presidential election was that people were angry. Their disgust with Democrat and Republican party politics was visceral. A wise host and hostess…
It should not all be about Trump.
The other day newspapers in North America and around the world joined in a paean for a free press. It needs to be said that where it failed was that…