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OBAMA’S CRISIS: Aftermath - The "No Fun" Zone
By David T. Jones on November 4, 2010
This is the time of "spin." The Democrats sound as if they were victims of an IED blast, delighted to have only lost an arm and a leg instead of two of each. The Republicans sound like roosters believing that the sun rose because they crowed.
The reality check is more complex. The Democrats were sharply defeated, losing the House of Representatives, but not as catastrophically as was predicted earlier in the summer. And, they retained control of the Senate, saving their vulnerable majority leader Harry Reid. Moreover, Democrats gained a great, oft unmentioned prize: the governorship of California, which will assist them substantially in the 2012 presidential election.
OBAMA’S CRISIS: The political junkies meet
By Dan Delmar on November 4, 2010
A steady stream of beer, wine and fried snacks were being served to patrons crammed into the John Sleeman Pub on Peel St. as they watched U.S. election events unfold last week on big-screen TVs, cheering and jeering with every development. The atmosphere had all the markings of a major sporting event, but the crowd wasn’t watching the Canadiens losing to the Blue Jackets. They were watching the Democrats lose the House of Representatives to the Republicans and almost lose the Senate as well.
Confronter le grand mensonge - L'affaire Al-Durah: ACT for Canada hosts Karsenty
By P.A. Sévigny on November 4, 2010
Pour la majeure partie de la planète, ça fait plus d'une décennie que le monde entier a vu le vidéoclip où le jeune de 12 ans Mohammad Al-Durah a supposément été tué par une volée de balles israéliennes près du carrefour de Netzarim dans la Bande de Gaza. À l’intérieur de quelques heures après que le caméraman Talal Abu Rahma ait filmé le corps du garçon se trouvant à côté de son père blessé, le journaliste français Charles Enderlin a ajouté un commentaire audio où l'histoire entière a été réduite en un court reportage qui a par la suite été télévisé à la télévision française et plus tard diffusé au monde entier à travers l'Internet.
Take back the right to be offensive
By David T. Jones on November 4, 2010
After nine years of carefully navigating between the Scylla of global revenge against the Muslim world for 9/11 and the Charybdis of insisting Islam is inherently peaceful with the 9/11 terrorists depicted as nonreligious miscreants, we have gone aground.
Americans are now impaled on the Constitutional imperative of First Amendment "free speech"-- which we have made even more a national shibboleth than the right to bear arms. Over the years, it has mattered not that many other countries have scuttled free speech and/or neutered it in practice (if it might be interpreted as "hate speech," it must be foregone or punished). We have exulted in discord.
Burma’s Potemkin Election
By l'Hon. Irwin Cotler on November 4, 2010
This week, Burma will hold its first election in two decades. In the last election – May, 1990 – the National League for Democracy, lead by Aung San Suu Kyi – now an honourary Canadian citizen -- won in a landslide. Rather than taking office as Prime Minister, Suu Kyi was promptly placed under house arrest where she has remained for fifteen of the last twenty years. The military junta, which had ruled the country continually since a coup d’état in 1962, continued its reign – as if an election never even occurred.
SORENSEN
By Beryl Wajsman on November 4, 2010
So often today, throughout the free nations of the West, we seek leadership. Not simply the elected kind that confuses bookkeeping with boldness and social engineering with social progress. We seek the kind of leadership that with clarity, candour and courage gives us confidence in ourselves and realistic hope for our nation. The kind of leadership that dares to care, refuses to merely run between the raindrops and does not let focus groups and polls determine its vision and values. This week one of the last ties to one of the last such leaders died. Theodore Chaikin Sorensen passed away at the age of eighty-two from complications of a stroke.
The Economics of the Long Wars
By Robert Presser on November 4, 2010
A US president comes to power promising a change in foreign policy after the previous administration is discredited by overseas wars and tensions among its allies. A recent world financial crisis, coupled with increased spending on social programs has strained government spending. Upon entering office, the new president increases US military iniiatives in the hope of bringing a swift end to the fighting. Almost two years into his mandate, the mid-term elections loom and the president is facing important losses in both the House and Senate, threatening his administration’s ability to pursue its agenda. A presidency that began with so much promise has delivered little success abroad and at home, and fears the results coming in November.
The secrets of the Sistine Chapel
By Father John Walsh on November 4, 2010
The canonization of Brother André brought many Montrealers to Rome. Inevitably they will complain about the long line-ups to visit the Sistine Chapel but will they have uncovered the secrets of the Sistine Chapel? Viewing the work of Michelangelo is breathless but does the Chapel still hold its secrets from the average visitor. The incredible frescoes required a rather complex method to prepare the plaster before the first stroke of the paintbrush would bring color to life. Imagine Michelangelo laying on his back for four and a half years painting the entire ceiling and walls of ceiling and walls of the Chapel. The Chapel is a replica, of identical size, of the Jerusalem Temple and symbolized the successionism of Catholicism over Judaism. The masterpiece has, from the time of its painting, been regarded as an affirmation of the Roman Catholic Church’s central place in the economy of salvation.
“The Jew is not my enemy!” Fatah challenges extremists within his own faith
By Dan Delmar on November 4, 2010
Religious extremism in Islam, Tarek Fatah says, is a “disease that is affecting us to the point that we’re becoming insane with our hatred. I wanted to investigate what is the root cause of the hatred of the Jews.”
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Fatah is the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and the author of the just-released “The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism.” His book tour included two stops in Montreal last week, including one at Côte St. Luc’s Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue.
JFK bust moved
By Alan Hustak on November 4, 2010
The bust of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy that has stood outside the Place des Arts metro station since 1986 is no longer there. Because he public square in which it stood is being rebuilt as part of the new Symphony Hall project, the statue has been taken away and JFK Square has been renamed Promenade des Artistes.
Le Monde de Piperberg
By Roy Piperberg on November 4, 2010
Death and Decadance: Otto Dix
By Alan Hustak on November 4, 2010
“I never give any information about me in writing because you can tell at a glance my paintings contain the most accurate information about me. I have no intention of revealing to the astonished bourgeois and contemporaries the depths and abyss within my soul,” the German artist Otto Dix once wrote to a friend. That may explain why the engrossing exhibition running until January at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Rouge Cabaret, A terrifying and Beautiful World, is both an immersive experience and a revelation. Not only do the 220 works on display examine the career of Otto Dix but follow a chronology that emphasizes the peculiar mix of decadence and despair which not only represents “the abyss within” his soul, but the dehumanizing times through which he lived.
October 1970: An ‘on-the-set’ education
By Fanny La Croix on November 4, 2010
As we pass the 40th anniversary of the October Crisis, my thoughts turn not to the lessons learned, if any, from this not-so-quiet revolution, or to questions surrounding the state of Quebec’s ongoing war between the two solitudes.
No, my thoughts turn to that spring day when I, a young, eager Canadian actress was cast as FLQ terrorist Louise Lanctôt in a big-budget (by Canadian standards) CBC series recounting the events. A particularly vivid memory of the panic-attack that ensued comes to mind: How would I be credible in a role that would have me violently fight for the break-up of this beautiful country?
Le baby-boom, oui! Les «baby-boomers», non!
By Pierre K. Malouf on September 9, 2010
Dans un article publié récemment, j’écrivais que les «baby-boomers» n’avaient pas participé à la Révolution tranquille, que les plus âgés d’entre eux, qui en 1960 venaient à peine de dépasser l’âge de la puberté, n’en avaient été que d’innocents témoins, que les plus jeunes n’étaient pas encore nés. Je vais y aller aujourd’hui d’affirmations plus choquantes encore, ce qui me vaudra, je l’espère, le privilège d’être condamné par ceux qui croient encore à l’existence de ce personnage mythique, le «baby-boomer».
Mathématiques répugnantes: Combattre le mensonge haineux et la désinformation venimeuse sur Israël et le peuple juif
By Jacques Brassard on September 9, 2010
Gérald Larose est un personnage public bien connu. Il fut longtemps président de la CSN, la centrale syndicale la plus gauchiste de toutes. Il est depuis quelques années à la tête du Conseil pour la Souveraineté. Je l’ai connu et côtoyé lors des travaux de la Commission Bélanger-Campeau sur l’avenir du Québec, étant tous deux membres de cette instance. C’était une personne plutôt sympathique dans les relations interpersonnelles, mais il portait et il porte toujours la lourde défroque idéologique de la gauche.
For the decriminalization of vice
By Dan Delmar on September 9, 2010
Not all that is immoral should be illegal. Behaviour deemed unacceptable by traditionalists, or even by the majority, is routinely the subject of fodder for the “There Ought To Be A Law” crowd, simply because it offends their delicate sensibilities. Rarely is there a debate about the consequences to maintaining the charade of the War on (insert vice here) and the effects of said war, which most often are in complete contradiction to the stated goals.
The silly season
By Alan Hustak on September 9, 2010
Summer traditionally is considered the silly season in the news business and it doesn’t get any sillier than in Quebec. There may be dumber regulatory jurisdictions in the world, but you would be hard pressed to find them. Just when you thought nothing could be sillier than the language police, or the garbage police, the tobacco police appear. You didn’t know we have tobacco police? Either did I until the Journal de Montreal broke the story that they were on the march, out in full force during the Grand Prix weekend.
New Brunswick’s brewing language war
By Graeme Decarie on September 9, 2010
Moncton, New Brunswick - There is a flag flying at house down the street from my home in Moncton, New Brunswick. At first, I took its red, diagonal cross on a white background as theold flag of St. Patrick. But a closer look showed a red and white maple leaf at the centre; and I don't think St. Pat was ever big on maple leaves No, this was the official flag of Anglophone New Brunswick.
And I think New Brunswickers, both Francophone and Anglophone, are being conned into a war that can only hurt all of them.
Pour une limite raisonnable au vertu
By Beryl Wajsman on September 9, 2010
Depuis l'époque de la Prohibition des années 1920, l'histoire récente nous démontre que les tentatives de l'État de s'employer à l'ingénierie sociale sont vouées à l'échec. L'homme aura toujours ce qu'il veut; et ce faisant, affermira le soi-disant élément criminel parmi nous.
Des lois relatives aux drogues sont des lois qui n'ont pas lieu d'exister. Depuis Trudeau, les gouvernements se succédant ont tenté, et ont échoué face à une opposition virulente d'une droite rétrograde, de les radier des livres. Jusqu'à présent, les lois régissant les armes à feu auront coûté plus d'un milliard de dollars, sans commission d'enquête, et sont futiles puisque les criminels ne déclarent pas leurs armes. Faut-il une ruade pour que nos législateurs comprennent une réalité pourtant bien simple?
Harsh justice for whom?
By Alan Hustak on September 9, 2010
There are bleeding-heart liberals who are said to be soft on crime and then there are the hardliners who would have us believe that, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, crime is on the rise in Canada and the only fix is to lock up more Canadians.
About 120 out of every 100,000 Canadians, about 14,000 inmates, are doing time in Canada’s 58 federal prisons. The Harper administration now proposes to spend $2-billion to incarcerate another 4,000 because, there are supposedly perpetrators guilty of unreported crimes running loose on the streets. While it wants to build more prisons, the government also proposes an equally misguided policy that would close the country’s six prison farms which were designed, in part, to help integrate inmates back into society.
A Young Soldier’s Burden
By R.M. Jacobs on September 9, 2010
A Young Soldier’s Burden
A mother’s poem to a soldier son
While the Arab League Slept: The EU and cooperation
By Rouba al-Fattal on September 9, 2010
There is no denying that the EU lacks a clear strategy when it comes to the Mediterranean in particular and the Arab world in general, as Abdullah Baabood posits. EU’s strategy has indeed oscillated over the past fifteen years between promoting free-trade and democracy multilaterally, to fostering bilateral cooperation with attached conditions, to lifting the conditionality all together and scraping the human rights and democracy questions off its wish-list in what can be described as a series of reactive policies in response to the oil crisis, EU’s own enlargement, and terrorism threats. It is also true that the EU’s policy towards the region was a factor in deepening divisions between the Mediterranean and the Gulf states, and that there is “much to gain by linking the EU’s various policy threads with different Arab countries”, even more in fostering a Euro-Arab agenda instead of the exclusive and divisive EU-Mediterranean vision.
Canadian High Speed Rail: More Promise than Reality?
By Robert Presser on September 9, 2010
There are two figures readers need to keep in mind as they contemplate the possibility of boarding a 250 km/h train between Montreal and Toronto: 511 and 19. The 511 is the number of kilometers of High Speed Rail (HSR) that Brazil plans to build to link its largest cities, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro via Campinas. The 19 is the number of billions of US dollars this project is likely to cost. The Brazilians deserve a great deal of credit for not hiding the truth from their population as to the cost and complexity of the project. Creating HSR in Brazil is essential to relieving pressure from Brazil’s overcrowded airports and its decaying roads, which are overwhelmed by crowded buses that fight with the truck traffic between the two massive population hubs.
Technology as Magic...in an age of pessimism
By Steven Lightfoot on September 9, 2010
Robert Goddard was a dreamer and inventor. Born in Massachusetts in 1882, he was a sickly child, and fell behind his fellow students. But he had an insatiable curiosity about the physical world and was a voracious reader. He managed to become valedictorian of his high school class, stating in his address, "It has often proved true that the dream of yesterday is the hope of today, and the reality of tomorrow."
Les deux solitudes : Up close and personal
By Fanny La Croix on September 9, 2010
Why do Francophones speak so much English amongst themselves? It’s a question you find yourself asking often when you’re in constant language flux, seamlessly weaving between the two solitudes.
Même parmi les Francophones pures laines, certains dont l'anglais est au mieux passable, ils se retrouvent à utiliser ce langage si confortable et si à la mode, celui de Shakespeare. De temps en temps, il y a un éveil, alimenté par la fierté nationaliste; les excuses commencent ainsi que la détermination bien intentionnée de vouloir parler plus le français, mais c’est de courte durée.
L’Islam est-il né dans un désert?
By Louise V. Labrecque on September 9, 2010
Dans cinq ou huit langues différentes, en fouillant bien, des savants ont trouvés des textes arabiques, qui n’ont aucune parenté avec l’arabe qu’on connait. Le défi, pour quiconque s’intéresse à l’avant-Islam, c’est de trouver des sources. Il faut donc, bien souvent, se tourner vers la tradition orale et de la poésie archaïque, recueillis par les premiers savants arabo-musulmans (des milliers de textes antiques), souvent gravés sur pierre ou métal, espèces de graffitis incisés par des passants sur les roches, le long des chemins et autres documents d’archives écrits sur des bouts de bois, en alphabet cursif. En effet, cette diversité précède la conversion à l’Islam et porte le nom de Jâhiliyya ou « Age de l’ignorance »; en ce temps-là, la Mecque était une petite bourgade aux ressources limitées où la faim et la survie était lot quotidien de la population. Parce qu’elle n’a jamais été réellement conquise, l’Arabie n’est mentionnée qu’incidemment dans les sources orientales (annales syriennes et la Bible).
Piperberg's World
By Roy Piperberg on September 9, 2010
Otto Joachim: A majestic legacy
By Alan Hustak on September 9, 2010
During the First World War Otto Joachim was still a boy taking music lessons at the Buths-Neitzel conservatory. In Dusseldorf each day he passed a house that once belonged to Johannes Brahms. That, he said, gave him an inspiration, if he needed any, to think, “Hey, are you going to be a composer some day?”
New York extremes in a glass of wine
By Robert K. Stephen on September 9, 2010
Do not assume New York City is “a city”. It is a collection of villages within a city. In fact why bother calling it New York City. It’s really Manhattan divided by 22 or so. As geographical and ethnic boundaries go so do a couple of wine bars. Drop in for a glass of wine at two distinct villages in Manhattan and see two different worlds of wine.
LA DÉLIVRÉE
By Louise V. Labrecque on September 9, 2010
Enfin! Éva Circé-Côté est sortie des oubliettes pour entrer de plein fouet dans nos esprits, en même temps que sur les tablettes de nos librairies ! Il était temps, en effet, de dépoussiérer l’œuvre extraordinaire de cette grande dame, libre-penseuse, poète, dramaturge, journaliste, musicienne, et j’en passe ! Dans cent ans, ceux qui voudront comprendre le prix des combats contre l’ignorance et l’intolérance dans le Québec des années 1900, s’épargneront de longues et austères recherches, s’ils consentent à passer au peigne fin le livre d’Andrée Lévesque “Éva Circé-Côté libre-penseuse 1871-1949. »
La Révolution tranquille expliquée aux jeunes (suite et fin)
By Pierre K. Malouf on July 22, 2010
Avant que nous ne soyons interrompus, vous me demandiez des exemples de l’«hyperactivité» du gouvernement de l’époque. En voici quelques-uns : il y eut une loi qui rendait la fréquentation scolaire obligatoire jusqu'à seize ans, la création du ministère des Affaires fédérales-provinciales, la création du ministère des Affaires culturelles, l’Assurance- hospitalisation, la création de la Société générale de financement, la nationalisation de l’électricité...
Conrad Black et le jeu politique de la justice
By Beryl Wajsman on July 22, 2010
Enfin un peu de justice qui, espérons-le, devra apporter une fin à la persécution pernicieuse et à l'emprisonnement injuste de Conrad Black. La Cour suprême des États-Unis a restreint la portée d'une loi fédérale sur la fraude, qui est souvent utilisée dans les dossiers de crimes économiques, et, de ce fait, les trois condamnations pour fraude prononcées contre Conrad Black. La cour, dans une décision unanime, a constaté que la loi était confinée aux arrangements frauduleux impliquant des pots-de-vin. Il n'y en avait pas dans l'affaire Black. En effet, Black fut innocenté de neuf chefs d'accusations de fraude. C'était l'une des seules fois dans l'histoire américaine où quelqu'un a été trouvé coupable de fraude postale (essentiellement envoyer du matériel concernant une fraude alléguée par la poste) alors qu'innocenté des chefs d'accusations principale de fraude.
Don't shoot the messenger
By Dermod Travis on July 22, 2010
Before some of Canada's political class line up eagerly to shoot themessenger, they may be better off asking instead: what if CSIS chief Mr. Richard Fadden is right in his warnings regarding foreign interference in Canada's political affairs.
Because his remarks raise two fundamental questions: do Chinese spies and possibly their non-Chinese operatives in fact lurk within our political structures and, if so, how much of a concern should it be to Canadians?
Creative regulation without reflection, a Montreal trademark
By Dan Delmar on July 22, 2010
Montreal is a city known for overregulation. We have grown accustomed to being punished for a myriad of offences considered banal by any rational person; not holding the Métro escalator handrail, having weeds grow over a decimetre on sidewalks in front of our business, tying a dog’s leash to a tree, spilling cold coffee onto the street…
The latest assault on reason again punishes small and medium-sized businesses. The Métropolitain was prepared for a summer vacation period free of new paternalistic regulation to sift through, but evidently it is asking too much of our municipal leaders to give us this reprieve.
Alors, félicitons maintenant les hommes célèbres!
By P.A. Sévigny on July 22, 2010
Cinquante ans après que le Premier ministre libérale du Québec Jean première Lesage et son conseil des ministres aient entrepris le changement des réalités sociales, politiques et culturelles du Québec, Paul Gérin-Lajoie, son ministre de l'éducation, est le seul homme encore parmi nous qui peut dire au Québec comment c’était d'être un des dirigeants de l’illustre Révolution tranquille du Québec. Pendant un événement qui a rassemblé un grand nombre d’invités un soir au Centre Sheraton du centre-ville de Montréal, plus qu’une simple poignée des élites politiques du Québec étaient heureux d'aider Gérin-Lajoie et sa famille à célébrer le quatre-vingt-dixième anniversaire de cet homme.
