Seizing the high ground is universally considered a crucial element for military victory. The moral high ground is equally essential in the aftermath. Claiming and then trying to hold it with snap judgements, over-blown rhetoric and no-matter-what backing of obviously evil actions is a sure way to lose it.… Read the rest
Responding to a war crime by committing one doesn’t bring justice, it creates equals. Aiding, abetting or condoning one side merely adds another guilty party. All but the most ardently naïve know that Israel’s vengeance on Gaza will be ferocious. Unless those with the power to make changes start thinking about the aftermath now, it will also be pointless.… Read the rest
This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, six weeks before our American neighbours have theirs. We also beat them to the idea by 43 years. The Pilgrims feast dates to 1621. Sir Martin Frobisher’s expedition to find the northwest passage held one in present day Nunavut in 1578, to give thanks for the safety of its fleet.… Read the rest
Nuance in discourse is as imperilled as chalk cliffs and sandy beaches beset by climate change storm surges. Such is the state of spoken English that all you need to know are the buzzwords. As long as you can use them in a way that sounds like it fits the “zeitgeist”, you can safely avoid inconveniences like informed debate.… Read the rest
Nothing can be done about youth being “wasted on the young”, but squandering the power of moral outrage on the ridiculous is waste to the nth degree. Beset as we are by screeching to ban books for “woke” agendas, universities more focused on ensuring students don’t feel “uncomfortable” than in sparking critical thinking and a Press willing to quote lies in the name of “balance”, it’s time to rehabilitate the Luddites, if only in spirit.… Read the rest
“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.” The chances of enjoying that 16th century insight from philosopher Francis Bacon are slim to nil in today’s world. But a little more peace and quiet would go some way to starving the ignorance with which society is progressively bloating.
Not only is there too much noise of every kind, many people seem to find it not just tolerable, but necessary.… Read the rest
The Moody Blues’ 1970 hit “Question” opened, appropriately, with the lines: “Why do we never get an answer/When we’re knocking at the door/With a thousand million questions/About hate and death and war?”…”
In a world where those three ills are at pandemic level, the answer may well be because the question “why” isn’t asked often enough.… Read the rest
As a former broadcast journalist, what I’m about to confess amounts to heresy: at the moment I neither have, nor miss having, a TV set. That’s due in no small part to being where more intimate and gentle ways measure and put the world into perspective.… Read the rest
Paddling my kayak along the granite shore of the lake where I currently reside, I came upon a small group of young merganser ducks. They may, or may not, have been siblings. Mergansers have a characteristic that is common among humans who have the least to share and sadly, often rare among those who have more than enough.… Read the rest
Of the many aphorisms on hindsight, the one which ought to be the truest was penned by the ancient Greek writer Homer: “After the event, even a fool is wise.” Too often and albeit for different reasons, policy makers and journalists have an ability to be the exception. One of the most sinister examples is jihadism and I was, in a small way, part of it.… Read the rest