Tough questions on the health risks of abortion remainFriday October 23rd, 2015
October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Upcoming, November is International Preterm Birth Awareness Month. “Uh oh,” I can almost hear certain pro-choice stakeholders muttering: “Is she actually going there?” Yep. Fasten your seat belts, readers. Like they say in those corny action movies, “I’m going in!”
"In” is t...
Do you want to adopt a dog? Reconsider the pit bullThursday October 22nd, 2015
In June of 1997, seven-year old Sharon Reynolds of Kingston, Ontario was savaged to death by a pit bull living in her home. Her mother Louise was erroneously charged and convicted of her murder. Louise’s misfortune was to have the infamous Dr. Charles Randal Smith, head pediatric forensic pathologist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, witnessing against her at trial. Sm...
It was the snitch line, not the niqab stance, that hurt HarperTuesday October 20th, 2015
Noted on Twitter last evening: “Two lasting political idioms emerging from elxn2015: 1. “pulling a niqab” (ugly populism). 2.”Pulling a fordfest” (bonehead campaign finale).”
I approve the “fordfest” neologism; but I have reservations about “pulling a niqab” as an “ugly populism.” I think Harper’s stand o...
PEN International’s criticism of Harper hypocritical considering its own omissionWednesday October 14th, 2015
PEN International, the association mandated to support freedom of expression for writers, recently held its 81st annual congress in Quebec City. Every year the organization sums up the prevailing state of liberty of expression in the country in which the congress is held. Thus, this year the country under scrutiny was Canada.
According to a report released Tuesday, the organization is concerne...
The social right to see each other’s facesTuesday October 13th, 2015
My 10-year old granddaughter is an empathic child, easily distressed by tales of human or animal suffering. Yet in her chosen Hallowe’en costume she will appear to be carrying her head and a “blood”-stained plastic meat cleaver after having been decapitated.
I don’t see her as a future recruit to ISIL, though. One needn’t be a psychiatrist to understan...
Don’t sell fathers short: They are as crucial to a child’s well being as a motherTuesday October 6th, 2015
For a recent web edition of The Walrus magazine, editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay wrote a sympathetic (but not sycophantic) reflection on Justin Trudeau, with whom he spent considerable time in his role as editorial assistant for Trudeau’s 2014 memoir, Common Ground.
“The Trudeau I Know,” reproduced in Monday’s National Post print edition, dwells on the trials o...
Ten reasons to ban the niqab — in the public serviceWednesday September 30th, 2015
Libertarians are committed to the principle that every individual has the right to live his life as he pleases, as long as he does no harm to others. But the meaning of “harm” isn’t always as identifiable as a physical assault or “fire” shouted in a crowded theatre. Nor is the phrase “to others.” Add up enough “others” and you have a ...
AP offers a victory to us ‘doubters’ of climate changeMonday September 28th, 2015
The AP Stylebook editors are updating their nomenclature on climate change. Henceforth, people who have been described as climate change “skeptics” and “deniers” will now be referred to as “doubters” or “those who reject mainstream climate science.”
This is welcome news, for it releases people like me from implicit mental alignment wi...
Attention paid to male issues doesn’t diminish from feminism: it’s not a zero sum gameThursday September 24th, 2015
Cathy Young is a widely admired libertarian “equity feminist” American journalist, whose considerable critical skills often deployed in dismantling the “rape culture” narrative, continually ruffle ideologues’ feathers.
Young was scheduled to speak at the University of Toronto tonight, Thursday, September 24th, on “The Politics of Gender and Victi...
Seeing Islamophobia everywhereWednesday September 23rd, 2015
Racial profiling happens. It’s a serious business and when it’s clear that a visible minority has been arrested or charged or held up for public humiliation because of his race or ethnicity, opinion writers should leap on it with all the requisite indignation, dudgeon and umbrage they can muster. The trick is in knowing whether any racial profiling actually took place, becaus...
There’s honour, and history, in being old stockTuesday September 22nd, 2015
(--image--)
I’m not understanding the fuss about Harper’s “old stock” remarks. I get that Jacques Parizeau once used it in a nasty context (drunk post-referendum loss bitterness, implying the “real” Québécois descended from the original 14 French families who came over in the year dot, ...
HPV rule is more evidence that boys don’t matterFriday September 18th, 2015
Some years ago, a medical researcher at a Canadian university told me, in confidence, that he and his team had been following a most promising hypothesis, which, if tested successfully, might bear extremely fruitful results in combatting a major disease. But the test had to be be done with a certain kind of incubation methodology only practicable with male subjects. It would mean that an...
Niqab – Federal Government not going far enoughThursday September 17th, 2015
On Sept 15 the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the federal government’s appeal of an earlier Federal Court ruling declaring the ban on face coverings during citizenship ceremonies unlawful. In response, the Conservatives have declared they will take the matter to the Supreme Court, meanwhile vowing to re-introduce the niqab ban within 100 days of re-election.
...
The man behind the monarch is a remarkable soul in his own rightWednesday September 16th, 2015
Last week, Queen Elizabeth II became Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. The media gushed with commentary on her extraordinary life trajectory, but Prince Philip also set a record: he’s the longest serving consort in British history. Yet coverage of his milestone has been scant. Not that he would care. As Elizabeth said on their Golden Wedding anniversary, “(Philip) is ...
Canada’s quiet, reassuring electionTuesday September 8th, 2015
Normally a federal election would claim the undivided portion of the attention I allot to politics. But this time, with more fascinating political campaigns in progress abroad, I find myself distracted from our own, which seems dull by comparison. I hasten to add that by “dull” I mean normal and orderly, while by “fascinating” I mean weird, threatening and an omin...
Sometimes a shower is just a shower. Even at AuschwitzFriday September 4th, 2015
The refugee crisis in Europe is having the effect of peeling back the thin veneer of politeness that oils the wheels of civic reciprocity. Fear is making everyone jumpy: There are so many of “them”; where will they all go? How will this affect “us”? And then there is the very real, and daunting problem of actually keeping track of people as individuals, as the wav...
Quebec wants to uncover faces while it covers mouthsTuesday September 1st, 2015
Over the years I’ve written many columns about honour killings in Canada’s South Asian communities. Under the terms of Quebec’s proposed Bill 59, my frequent allusion to the demonstrable fact that most victims of honour crimes are Muslim girls and women might, posted on the Internet as all my published writing is, lead to prosecution for Islamophobia with a possible fin...
Pit bulls are disproportionally dangerous. Why is Calgary importing more of them?Tuesday August 11th, 2015
Only two countries allow the importation of pit bull type dogs: Canada and the U.S.
In mid-June, 32 rescue dogs were saved from “death’s row” in a Bakersfield, California kill shelter and sent to Calgary for rehoming. The operation was jointly arranged by Wings of Rescue, an American charity, and BARC, a Calgary rescue organization. Of the 32 dogs, 17 are pit bull...
The decision to die is a private matter; its execution should be, tooFriday August 7th, 2015
On the surface, Gill Pharoah was an English woman much like myself – a healthy septuagenarian with grey hair, living with a partner she loved, also in good health, a mother of two like me, a grandmother, mentally fit, not subject to depression or other mood disorders. Pharoah did have some physical aches and pains, as do I, but none that actually needed more than over-the-counter m...
Feminists won’t like the ending of Amy Schumer’s latest flickWednesday August 5th, 2015
Rom-com ditzy dames are a time-honoured Hollywood tradition. Comedians like Judy Holliday, Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball were adorable. And, however kooky, “nice” girls all.
But in order to satisfy feminist dogmas in our era, postmodern rom-com writers have had to premise their plots on the assumption that loveable ditz, wanton promiscuity and landi...
Tough questions on the health risks of abortion remain
Friday October 23rd, 2015
