Robin Hoodism is on the rise
Once upon a time, and in some periodical publication somewhere, I wrote a piece on Robin Hood. It was a review of some semi-scholarly...
Taking on the Reformation
One of the comforts, for a pundit out of tune with the choir, is to think “history will absolve me.” The whole world, or...
The miserly Canadian
Canadians, as everyone should know, are tightwads. This is true of Christmas-season giving, but also true in every other season of the year. When...
Rediscovering the meaning of Christmas
Christians, or at least the Catholic ones, are supposed to do something through Advent—the season that immediately precedes Christmas. Prepare, in some way.
The “Christmas...
A vocal truth
In addition to the convenient facts—news that fits effortlessly into a writer’s view of the world—he should deal also with the inconvenient facts. This...
Don’t underestimate Barack Obama
The notion that “the voice of the people is the voice of God” is the paper currency of representative democracy. There is no gold...
Stop waiting for policy
I mentioned recently in this space a book by John Pepall, Against Reform, just published, which gets to the core of national politics. And...
Pagan savagery in London
Prince Charles, and Camilla, were not the only things under attack in England this week, on the streets of London, as the British government...
A pogrom in Baghdad
Breaking news quickly passes into “archive”; but days, weeks, and sometimes years may be required, to reconstruct what actually happened. Sometimes there are no...
Something worse than terrorism
It is such a rare event when I disagree with George Jonas, my hero and mentor among Canadian newspaper columnists (along with the late...
Matters of life and death
It has been argued that those who would consider the assassination of Julian Assange, because he has effectively become an “enemy combatant,” are uncivilized....
Treason and Wikileaks
Can there be such a thing as treason?
This is a question no one thought to ask, or at least no one sane, until recently....
Something beautiful and worthy in its own right
One of the happier moments, in what has begun to feel like a long life (for I have now lived through three dekaenneateric cycles),...
Malled all over
The secular shopping year takes a long time to die, but its death throes are now upon us. Yesterday was Black Friday, and not...
Talk loudly, carry a big stick
Technically, the Korean War never ended. There was no peace treaty in 1953. The war (in which Canada was intimately involved) went from hot...