Columns
The driving force behind Japan’s hopes for resurgence
Shinzo Abe, now six months into his second try at being prime minister of Japan, is a puzzling man.
In his first, spectacularly unsuccessful go in 2006-07, he was a crude nationalist and an economic ignoramus who rarely had control of his own dysfunctional cabinet. By the time he quit, after only a year in office, his popularity rating was below 30 per cent and his health was breaking down. READ
B.C. NDP loss impact wide
No New Democrat anywhere in the country can afford to brush off Tuesday’s upset defeat in British Columbia. READ
Bean leaves, bedbugs and biomimicry
Scientists often come up with new discoveries, technologies or theories. But sometimes they rediscover what our ancestors already knew. A couple of recent findings show we have a lot to learn from our forebears — and nature — about bugs. READ
Red Deer expressway not arriving by express
I share some of city Coun. Paul Harris’s skepticism about the proposed 20th Avenue expressway. Although experience in both Edmonton and Calgary shows that a ring road on the edge of the city does indeed improve traffic movement, I just don’t see Red Deer ever needing a six-lane route. READ
Defying the polls, again
British Columbia Liberal Leader Christy Clark pulled off an upset for the history books on the West Coast on Tuesday night, confounding every pre-election poll and prediction, retaining power for her centre-right coalition. READ
B.C. students lean to the left — is that leadership?
If I were a B.C. resident, realizing that my children and their classmates at school were the only ones in the country whose mock election ballots did not match those of their parents, I’m not sure how I’d like it. Goodness knows (and so does my family) that my lifelong attempts at raising a brood of rampant socialist ideologues hasn’t quite worked out. But that’s just me. Oh well, there’s always the grandchildren. READ
Here comes the future
The story so far: Cody Wilson, who describes himself as a “crypto-anarchist” and almost certainly wears a Second Amendment belt-buckle, had a bright idea early last year. No government could ever oppress its people again, reasoned the 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas, if everybody in the world was able to manufacture their own guns at home. READ
The dark, deadly side of globalization
It is the dark side of globalization. This is the pressure of companies and consumers in the rich countries to profit from exploitation and desperation among the poorest of the poor in high-poverty, developing countries. READ
The race to the bottom
In a giant leap backward, Alberta Education Minister Jeff Johnson recently announced his plans to scrap the Provincial Achievement Tests (PAT) currently written by Grades 3, 6 and 9 students. READ
Puck hounds, bunheads and soccer moms
Winter. A weekend. 5 a.m. A typical Canadian family. … The alarm clock is screaming at you, rudely interrupting the only really good dream you’ve had in ages and when you manage to wrench yourself out of your coma, the red numbers, glowing like evil eyes in the darkness, are telling you a time that is so blinkin’ early you just can’t comprehend. Much of anything. READ
Love that lasts a lifetime
It was a Nov. 22 early evening in 1969, the seventh anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, when the front doorbell rang. A rambunctious three-year-old child playing in the hallway was told by her Mom to quiet down while she opened the door. READ
Bhutan redefines progress as happiness
My parents lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s and were profoundly affected by it. READ
Clark not out of race
Less than a week before voting day in B.C., Christy Clark has risen from the dead. But the rest of Canada should take note — a large part of the Clark resurrection is based on the British Columbia premier’s campaign against Ottawa and Alberta. READ
Israel takes sides in Syrian civil war
After making two major air strikes in and near Damascus in three days, Israel informed the Assad regime on Monday that it is not taking sides in the Syrian civil war. But of course it is. READ
Fashion turns kids into sex objects
It’s a scorching hot July weekend in Central Alberta and the family decides to leap into the cooling waters of Sylvan Lake. But what to wear at the beach? Worse yet, their four-year-old daughter has outgrown her bathing suit, so what to do? READ
Is Trudeau a real threat?
A perplexed reader asks why the ruling Conservatives are trying so hard to take Justin Trudeau down. Should they not just let the Liberals and the NDP kill each other off? What exactly is it about Trudeau that has the ruling party so rattled? The answer begins but does not end with the polls that report a big boost in Liberal fortunes. READ
The art of getting along
I don’t do Facebook. I don’t Tweet. On those rare occasions when I need to borrow someone’s cellphone, I have to ask the owner how to turn it on. Texting? Forget about it. Divorced from the social network, I am quite outside the global discussion that will likely formulate answers to the great questions of our times. But if one has friends (not to be confused with the Facebook variety), and if they trust you to listen, you can eavesdrop on the parts of the chatter that are interesting. READ
Drones and Guantanamo: politics vs. logic
John Bellinger is the last person in Washington you’d expect to criticise President Barack Obama for making too many drone strikes. It was he who drafted the (rather unconvincing) legal justification for targeted drone killings when he was legal adviser to the Secretary of State in George W. Bush’s second administration, and he still supports them. But he went ahead and criticized Obama anyway. READ
$3.1 billion can’t be sloughed off
The $3.1-billion loss of tax money by the federal government to protect us from terrorist attacks is not quite as bad as the first headlines suggested. But for a Conservative government that presents itself as a careful fiscal steward, it’s still pretty embarrassing. READ
The sad reality of warfare: part of the human condition
Of course human beings have always fought wars. Of course a quarter of the adult males in the typical primitive society died violently, in wars and in fights. (I’m using the banned word “primitive” here because it’s shorter than “hunter-gatherer and horticultural non-state societies,” not because primitive peoples are inferior.) READ
