It is becoming increasingly difficult not feel a fair amount of pity for American Christians. Having the fortune of spending several weeks in the Carolinas with my family, perhaps the most striking thing to a visitor traveling through “God’s Country” is the sheer number of churches. In one town, which was little more than a single extended road, I counted thirteen. In another, eight, including four on opposing corners from one another. It should go without saying then that despite advances…
Tag: News
On mergers and other idiotic ideas…
There’s been talk of union, of merger, between the Liberal Party of Canada and the federal New Democrats now that a grand iconoclast has passed into the great hereafter. Perhaps it will be developed into a kind of ‘unite the left’ initiative, much like the successful ‘unite the right’ campaign of the late-1990s. In fact, if there is serious consideration of a merger between the Grits and NDP at the federal level, there’s little doubt in my mind that it will be subsequently marketed specifically as a united alternative to Stephen Harper and the ruling Conservatives…
Habeas what? Harper government set to renew controversial clauses in Anti-Terrorism Act
If anyone tells you that Stephen Harper’s gang of neo-cons subscribe to some sort of libertarianism, you can spit in their eye for me (to quote the great Barney Gumble)!
The libertarian school, though I strongly disagree with it, basically calls for less government (if not abolishing it entirely!) intervention in our lives. Yet the basic premise of the Federal Anti-Terrorism Act including the sunset clauses that is currently being championed by…
9/11 – Keeping the Fear Alive, Ten Years On
Ten years after that fateful Tuesday morning in September 2001, the world continues to mourn the tragedy that saw four hijacked airplanes take the lives of nearly three thousand innocent people from around ninety different countries. The terrorist attacks on the United States have been marked every year with memorials, the reading of the names and of old news coverage of the events to go along with a new credible imminent terrorist threat. While a tragedy of such size and sophistication is always worth remembering, it is more important to reminisce…
Remember 9/11 but don’t forget the rest
Ten years ago I was working the night shift in a call centre. I had been up kind of late the night before and a phone call before 9am was not what I wanted, but it’s what I got. My initial reaction to news of a plane hitting the World Trade Center was blunt: “Yeah right, Jerry, I’m trying to sleep.” But he insisted that he wasn’t joking and that I turn on the TV…But he insisted that he wasn’t joking and that I turn on the TV. After a bit of groaning, I left my bed that I had only reached a few hours prior, went into the living room…
I want my TV for free, just like it used to be
We all know those people. The kind that proudly don’t own a TV, don’t need one and don’t want one. I know people like that and I sympathize. I agree that TV can be an intrusive presence and a real conversation stopper, not to mention it’s a medium dominated by corporate advertising which I despise.
Still, I never counted myself among those ranks because there is something mind-numbingly pleasing about watching a good show, even a cop show. Yes, this anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate activist likes him some CSI.
We also all know people who feel that owning a TV is…
Israel: Losing Friends by the Hour
The Israeli Government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems to be on a one way ticket to oblivion. His right-wing hawkish stances are jeopardizing peace in a region where the Arab Spring is still going strong heading into autumn. To make things worse, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting Israel’s socio-economic problems. The UN recently released its report into Israel’s raid…
Anarchy in the UK: A Culture of Chaos?
If anyone is trying to understand the recent events in England, may I suggest watching Alfonso Cuaron’s cult masterpiece Children of Men. You would be hard pressed to find a more prescient work of art than this gritty post apocalyptic fable of a country gone mad with an Orwellian nanny state, a segregated immigrant population and a general population afflicted by profound malaise. Okay, the film also deals with a fictional plague which means…
Sleeping with the Elephant: Ending our dependence on the U.S. before it rolls over…
About twenty-five years ago Canada was ruled by a charismatic and media-savvy Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. He was a man hand-picked for his ability to unite a somewhat reluctant progressive Conservative base in Québec with Western ‘provincialists’ and stand as a distinct yet casual alternative to the staunchly intellectual federalism of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. More or less exactly twenty years ago the sheen of the go-go eighties was gone, an economic recession was in full swing on both sides of the 49th and Mulroney, like his much-maligned American counterpart George H.W. Bush, was embroiled in scandal and generally poor approval ratings…
Closing the window on Irene
As the remnants of Tropical Storm Irene pounded Montreal this past Sunday, I hunkered down in my apartment. Listening to the winds blow and the rain fall, I thought to myself: “I should really close the living room window, my roommate’s XBox is getting wet.” If you were expecting my rainy day thoughts to be something more profound or at the very least profound-ish sounding and dealing with the nature of nature and its relationship to our very unnatural culture, well, that’s not the case here. And why should it be? Yeah, I had been outside earlier in the day. I had felt slightly stronger-than-usual winds press up against me as I ran some errands. I witnessed the closest thing my neighbourhood got to destruction…