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 […]
On this Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the first Pope and his primary missionary bishop respectively, and in light our current Pope’s new encyclical, I thought a few words on the papacy itself would be helpful, and particularly the often-misunderstood charism of infallibility which goes with the office. Today’s Gospel reading gives the […]
The Holy Father’s new encyclical, Laudato Si, whose title is taken from the canticle of Saint Francis of Assisi, lives up to radical Franciscan spirituality (from the Latin radix, going back to the root or source), sparing no punches in his denunciations of the waywardness of the world, calling for a return to a simple […]
A former student sent me an article from the Daily Mail, and asked me to comment upon it. Since the gist of the article follows upon my last post, I thought, why not get right to it, then on to other things, like the Holy Father’s latest encyclical. (warning: if you do go on Daily […]
Sometimes the truth is expressed in a clumsy, awkward way, like a beautiful person drunk at a party, stumbling and semi-coherent, trying to act funny. Thus it was in the past couple of weeks, when two high-profile men, established in their careers, both formed in a past era now long-gone, held forth their opinions on […]
Thomas Mulcair and his socialist NDP party are ahead in the polls for the upcoming federal election, hot on the heels of the NDP Albertan sweep. Of course, polls are only slightly indicative of the political temper, but they do signify something. What this signifies is more than just ‘politics’ or some vague partisan […]
A number of Canadian tourists are currently languishing in Malaysia, and may be criminally charged. Their crime? Standing nude for photos on the top of a sacred mountain. According to the Malaysian authorities, the gods of the mountain were angered, causing an ensuing 5.1 magnitude earthquake which killed a score of people. Hmm. I […]