Christie reached readers’ hearts, minds and guts. That’s why they loved herWednesday February 12th, 2020
When you write regularly for a newspaper, people assume you know your colleagues personally. Christie Blatchford’s fans would ask me, “What’s she like in person?” I had to explain that I hardly knew her at all. She was in Toronto, I live in Montreal, most writers work in solitude — I certainly do — and so our paths crossed only twice.The first time it was ...
Jordan Peterson and the deadly overprescription of benzosTuesday February 11th, 2020
In a 2018 CBC interview, Wendy Mesley asked Jordan Peterson, then at the zenith of his celebrity, what he thought lay ahead for him. Peterson responded with his typical gloomy realism: “I don’t know what’s next, really.… The overwhelming likelihood, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s been this way since September of 2016, is that this will go terribly wron...
Trump puts on a clinic at State of the Union addressWednesday February 5th, 2020
No matter how much you hate President Trump—and I have some world-class Trump haters in my immediate circle of family and friends, so I know how deeply authentic and ferociously visceral that particular hatred is—you have to admit he has some great speech writers. As Stephen Kruiser put it in a PJ Media morning briefing following Trump’s third State of the Union address Tuesday night, “The pres...
The reframing of African-American historyTuesday February 4th, 2020
The National Association of Scholars (NAS), an American non-profit whose mandate is to “uphold the standards of a liberal arts education that fosters intellectual freedom” by advocating for the academic freedom of students and scholars, has inaugurated the 1620 Project, which will commemorate the signing of the Mayflower Compact, the first governing document of the Plymouth Colon...
Even secular Quebec needs to water its cultural rootsWednesday January 29th, 2020
On April 15 last year, a fire broke out in Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral. Thousands of Parisians turned out to watch the threatening flames in stunned sorrow. Most onlookers were not religious, for France is a fiercely secular nation. But their anguished expressions told us they saw more than the possible loss of a beautiful old building. Notre Dame represents a huge chunk of France&rsq...
‘Provocative’ gender dysphoria expert gives vital speech at McGillMonday January 27th, 2020
On Thurs Jan 23, University of Toronto professor of psychiatry Dr. Ken Zucker, a leading international expert on gender dysphoria, and editor-in-chief of Archives of Sexual Behaviour, spoke at McGill University. Dr. Zucker’s presentation was titled, “Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: Some contemporary research and clinical issues.” Inviting Dr. Zucker to speak in an open forum was...
Will 2020 will be the year of reason in the cancel-culture wars?Thursday January 23rd, 2020
In the hard news business, it is well understood that “if it bleeds, it leads.” In cultural news, the same principle applies. Not a day goes by that we don’t see a story of a panel discussion in jeopardy or cancelled, a controversial film withdrawn, or an academic on the “incorrect” side of a cultural debate de-platformed. One could be forgiven for assuming that cancel culture reigns supreme...
Young Canadians are being sold ‘gender-affirming’ top surgery on InstagramMonday January 20th, 2020
Author’s note: I am grateful to the recently-launched caWsbar (Canadian Women’s Sex-based Rights) for bringing the McLean Clinic, and its aggressive marketing techniques, to my attention, as well as for files they contributed to this column. Dr. Alicia Hendley, Phd in psychology and founding member of caWsbar told me: “We’re very alarmed about the current trend of ...
Why won’t the Liberal government make its Gender Based Analysis public?Thursday January 16th, 2020
Our prime minister is a proud feminist, a zealous champion in the protection of women’s rights. With that objective in mind, Justin Trudeau decreed early in his tenure that all new policies by his government would thenceforth include a Gender Based Analysis (GBA) to assess their impact on women.Bill C-16, informally known as the “Transgender Rights Bill,” was proposed in th...
Kay: The real sources of Jew-hatred in AmericaThursday January 16th, 2020
On Dec. 30, the Toronto Star published a strange op-ed by CJN columnist Bernie Farber, titled Once Again, Jews Are Being Hunted. It concludes that, “By refusing to call out hatred, no matter its source, we ensure its continuation and its devastating effects.” It’s a fine sentiment, yet half the piece ignores the source of the present pogrom-like conditions in New York and New Jersey, while the...
Confronting Iran: US is Taking the Right ApproachMonday January 13th, 2020
In March 2004, an Israeli missile strike killed Islamist zealot Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, which has been classified as a terrorist movement in Canada since 2002 and in many other countries, including some Arab nations.
Suicide bombing his specialty, Yassin’s hands were continually sticky with Jewish blood. Response to his death from his followers was fierce. Hamas declared th...
B.C. Supreme Court allows schools to hold mandatory Indigenous smudging ceremoniesThursday January 9th, 2020
The B.C. Supreme Court has handed down a decision that comes as a great disappointment to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (on whose board I sit). The Court ruled that obliging schoolchildren to take part in an Indigenous smudging ceremony whose purpose is to “cleanse” the spirits of participants does not implicate them in a religious ceremony, but rather a “cultural” experience.T...
According to data, it’s the males of our society who are in crisisWednesday January 8th, 2020
In her 1998 address to a First Ladies Conference in El Salvador, Hillary Clinton observed: “Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. … Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.”If pressed, Hillary might have admitted that it is preferable to suffer bereavement than...
An old Jewish joke about anti-Semitism is new againThursday January 2nd, 2020
Jewish jokes tend to mingle humour with a touch—or more—of melancholy. Here’s an example that’s old, but seems sadly relevant to the U.S. news cycle of the last few weeks. Two yeshiva boys in 19th century Poland are walking home from synagogue in the gathering dusk. They hear rapid footsteps behind them. Looking back, they see two youths of threatening mien gaining on them and hurling anti...
The shocking ‘obedience’ experiment that shook the worldThursday January 2nd, 2020
Herb Winer, who was my fellow synagogue congregant, friend and mentor in my middle years, died a few weeks ago in New Haven, Conn., at the ripe old age of 98.In a 2000 Granta Magazine article in which he featured, writer (and psychoanalyst) Ian Parker correctly described Herb as a “likeable, deadpan, Jack Lemmony sort of man.” Herb’s dry wit, gentle demeanour and high intel...
Netflix’s ‘Marriage Story’ a grim look at men during divorceThursday December 19th, 2019
The new film Marriage Story is creating buzz, mostly positive. I caught it on Netflix the other night. It bothered me. Be warned, spoilers ahead.Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are actors. Nicole has put her Hollywood career on hold to support Charlie in his ambitions as a playwright-director in New York, as well as to provide stability for their little boy, Henry. It i...
Do We Now Have Social Classes of Hate Killers?Monday December 16th, 2019
On Dec 10, religious fanatics Francine Graham and David Anderson went on a bloody rampage in Jersey City, New Jersey. It began in a cemetery where they opened fire on Detective Joseph Seals, a father of five who had been investigating the murder of an Uber driver the day before, to which Graham’s and Anderson’s stolen U-Haul had been linked.
When Seals approached them, they shot him dead...
Exploring the phenomenon of the social justice Jewish warriorMonday December 16th, 2019
In a recent talk to the Jewish Labor Committee, Hillary Clinton exhorted her audience to bring all their forces to bear to defeating Trump: “It’s gonna be a tough election and you need to bring your organizing skills, your shared sense of values, your feeling of empathy and compassion and caring, your deep conviction about justice, because we’re gonna need every single person in this fight,” sh...
A victory lap for democracy after Jeremy Corbyn’s humiliating defeatFriday December 13th, 2019
Boris Johnson’s Conservatives racked up a stunning victory in the U.K. elections, with numbers so decisive – 368 of 650 seats – we will hear no more rumblings about a “second referendum” on Brexit. You can love Boris or hate him, or struggle with mixed feelings (as I confess I do), but he now has a mandate to get Brexit done.But I have no mixed feelings about th...
Kay: A home for small-c conservative JewsThursday December 12th, 2019
Last month, lured by the topics and a roster of brilliant speakers, I finally made it my business to attend the full-day Jewish Leadership Conference in New York that’s sponsored by Tikvah Fund, a conservative organization that describes itself as “politically Zionist, economically free-market oriented, culturally traditional and theologically open-minded.”
Tikvah is a bricks-and-mortar Jewish ...
Christie reached readers’ hearts, minds and guts. That’s why they loved her
Wednesday February 12th, 2020
Trump puts on a clinic at State of the Union address
Wednesday February 5th, 2020
Kay: The real sources of Jew-hatred in America
Thursday January 16th, 2020
Confronting Iran: US is Taking the Right Approach
Monday January 13th, 2020
