Veteran sci-fi writer Kurt Vonnegut has this to say about the world we live in today: Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing […]
A few weeks ago, I placed an order at Amazon.ca for a CD that was going to be released on April 20th. Since Amazon.ca offers free shipping for orders above $39, I thought I’d add a couple of other things I was interested in in order to exceed that limit. I added a paperback and […]
I am subscribed to the VH-1 Music News service, which sends a daily e-mail digest of music news provided by both VH-1 and its sister station MTV. I must admit that I was quite shocked today when I saw that one of the news items included in the digest was a piece entitled “Al Qaeda’s […]
US president George Bush called last Thursday’s bombings in Madrid “a grim reminder that there are evil people in the world who are willing to kill innocent life“. Correct me if I am wrong, but, last time I checked, Mr. George Bush himself was more than “willing to kill innocent life” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and […]
I suspect most of you have heard about the so-called “breast-baring incident” during the Super Bowl half-time performance last Sunday. I know very little about American football and don’t watch it, so I didn’t see the thing live, but it was replayed several times during the Monday evening newscast on CBC here in Canada. If […]
The Globe and Mail columnist Rex Murphy used to be pretty funny at times. But September 11 happened, and everything that followed seems (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) to have taken its toll on the poor man. His latest editorial piece titled “Bush-haters, you’re running out of esteem” is really the worst piece I have read from […]
My Late-Term Abortion
I am not interested in starting a discussion about abortion, but I found this article quite moving: “My Late-Term Abortion“, Gretchen Voss, The Boston Globe And I continue to find the current Bush administration very scary indeed.
As someone who was still living in western Europe in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, I am all too aware of what mad-cow disease is. In fact, the simple fact that I was living there at the time — whether I actually ate beef or not — means that I am […]
Le crash de l’avion de Flash Airlines transportant 133 touristes français le 2 janvier dernier est évidemment une tragédie pour les familles concernées et leurs proches. Je ne pense pas être le seul, cependant, à trouver que les hommes politiques et les médias français en font un peu trop. Si je ne m’abuse, il y […]
This very long account by George Packer in The New Yorker of what’s really going on in Iraq is pretty much required reading for anyone interested in what has been happening there in 2003. Among the numerous erroneous assumptions and miscalculations of the Bush administration, the one that stands out is this idea that “liberated” […]
It’s interesting to read William Safire’s November 10 column in the The New York Times entitled “The Age of Liberty” and then Ellen Bork’s November 15 column in the Washington Post entitled “No Exceptions for Democracy in China“. They both deal with George W. Bush’s recent speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment […]
It’s already a week old, but… New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes: “The terrorists won at Cancún” — and connects the dots for the Bush administration, since they seem to be unable to do so themselves.
This “Live Online” transcript on the Washington Post web site in which Associated Editor Robert Kaiser answers questions from readers is an interesting read. It shows that at least some Americans have a fairly open-minded and balanced view of the whole US/Iraq/UN situation. The question it doesn’t address, of course, is how representative this is […]
It’s been interesting to follow the developments in the British inquiry into the suicide of Iraq weapons expert David Kelly. The whole issue is about whether Tony Blair’s administration did indeed “sex up” the dossier to make Iraq look more threatening than it actually was. I think it is pretty safe to say that most […]
Apparently, a couple of TV stations in the US have decided to drop the new US version of the hit BBC2 sitcom Coupling. The reason? The show’s racy sexual content “pushes the envelope well beyond the boundaries of our community’s standards”. I’ve talked about this SHOW before and about the fact that the US version […]