What Donald Trump means by fake news is not the reporting of what’s materially false. It’s the reporting as true what only could be true. It could be true – because it would be perfectly understandable if it were –… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
DON QUIXOTE’S BLESSING
Why is it that some truths have to be learned over and over and over again? I suppose it’s because they’re just too hard to believe. I learned about fifteen years ago that many of the people I work with… Read More ›
A MODEST WORRY AND A MODEST PROPOSAL
Living next to the American juggernaut puts Canadians in an ambiguous position. It’s not that we’re worried that the current American drift towards fascism is going to spill over the border. Not all, but I think enough Canadians find the… Read More ›
CAN UNSOLICITED POETRY BE SEXUAL ASSAULT?
I have no problem with your sexual orientation provided you stop calling it that. You say you’re not attracted to women. Well, I’m not attracted to most of them either. And of the ones I am attracted to, the last… Read More ›
THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW
We all have things we’re better off not knowing. I don’t want to know how my meat gets from field to supermarket. Others don’t want to know just how fair Fair Trade coffee really isn’t. And I’m betting you don’t… Read More ›
TRUMP, VOLTAIRE, AND EDMUND BURKE
In real estate it all comes down to location, location, location. In comedy it’s all about timing. Put the two together and that’s all that can be said about one’s own take on the world. From the here and now,… Read More ›
DESIDERATA
What Donald Trump has done, both during the campaign and in the year and a half since, is tapped into the backlash against both political correctness and what’s correct politically. The backlash against political correctness was long overdue. In saying… Read More ›
CURMUDGEONISM # 643 – ON THE HIJACKING OF SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
Am I answerable for what was said in Curmudgeonism # 618 (below) when it’s entirely possible I didn’t write it? The technology is now such that anyone with a little savvy can hijack your blog or social media account and… Read More ›
MONIKA’S MOM AND PIUS XII
Monika Schaefer, a Jasper, Alberta woman, and daughter of post-war German immigrants, is currently in a German prison awaiting trial for Holocaust denial, a criminal offense in that and several other European countries, though not in Canada. The charge was… Read More ›
THE MIGRANT DILEMMA
By a human right, as distinct from a civil right, is meant, presumably, one one has independently of the polity to which she happens to belong. But a human right does not extend between sovereign jurisdictions. By this I mean… Read More ›