The Crusades are, in general, vilified, an example of Eurocentric, Anglo-Saxon and, worst of all, Christian imperialism turned fanatical, bloodthirsty, imposing their view of God and civilization on peaceful Arabians, who just wanted to build up their own civilization based on the tenets of their own religion, Islam, whose main premise is peace and […]
The call-in show over lunch today on the CBC, as I enjoyed my very first kefir smoothie (quite enjoyable, in fact, made more so as I thought it was not invented by, nor named after, Kiefer Sutherland…somehow, I connect him with the CBC, perhaps going back to that anti-Catholic CBC screed of a movie he […]
I must admit when I have been mistaken. Well, not completely mistaken (at least in this case!) but perhaps seeing things from the wrong point of view. I have been rather harsh on the public servants of our country (and our neighbours to the south), for their high wages and benefits, implying that they make […]
There is an old saying that the three rules of real estate are ‘location, location, location’. A similar rule applies to public speaking: ‘brevity, brevity, brevity’. And, we may also apply an analogous principle to teaching: ‘clarity, clarity, clarity’. The ultimate point of teaching is to transmit the truth that is in the teacher’s […]
In the college at which I teach, we believe in the ‘Great Books’, going back to the primary sources of our religion and civilization, the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, the Greek and Latin classics, the teachings of the Church, Dante, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein, the great philosophers and literary geniuses. By reading original works, […]
There is a lot of confusion amongst people in this fair land that law and morality are the same thing. Not so, as recent history has taught us. What is moral is not necessarily legal, and what is legal, not always moral. The problem is that law works two ways, pedagogically, by teaching us the […]
Rick Genest’s body is mostly covered in permanent ink drawings, embedded in the lower layers of his dermis, a phenomenon we call ‘tattoos’, derived from its Polynesian origins. Mr. Genest has parlayed his tattoo-ness, mysteriously, into some kind of successful renown; his fifteen minutes of fame derive largely from his appearance in a 2011 Lady […]
El Chapo (or ‘Shorty’, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman Archivaldo Luera), the infamous fifty-something-year old drug lord, recently made a dramatic escape through an elaborate tunnel from a maximum-security, and supposedly ‘inescapable’, prison in Mexico. This raises a number of questions, such as, a propos, whether Mexico is a failed state. Does that even […]
The world is waiting in anticipation to discover whether Greece, after their referendum last week voting a resounding ‘no’ to austerity, will accept the conditions attached to a bailout deal, or face expulsion from the European Union. Like some finale to a Bond movie, Greece has been given 72 hours to submit, or accept life […]
Mark Steyn is right, that the recent Supreme Court ruling in the United States, officially legalizing ‘same sex’ marriage in all fifty states, with a sop thrown in, for now, for religious exemption, says far more about our culture than about our laws. As I wrote a few posts ago, law is a fruit of […]