The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves Alexandra Hudson (St. Martin’s Press, $39, 416 pages) Alexandra Hudson wrote her book about civility after witnessing first-hand the incivility in Washington D.C. first hand while working for the Department of Education. Her hardship in government is a blessing for readers, for Hudson might not have written about civility had she [...]
Paul Tuns: Barrhead, Alberta, population 4320, will hold a binding plebiscite on a new bylaw that, if passed, would ban rainbow flags and crosswalks following a citizen petition urging the city to take the action. In June, a group of Barrhead residents started a petition to remove all pro-LGBTQ rainbow crosswalks and flag from municipal property. The petition was presented to the [...]
Rabble, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized Mike Aquilina (Ignatius, $23.50,206 pages) Mike Aquilina is the best-selling author and president of the St. Pauls’ Center for Biblical Theology. His latest book, Rabble, Riots, and Ruins, is an examination of how a dozen famous ancient pagan cities were Christianized: Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, Edessa (Urfa, Turkey), Lugdunum [...]
The Chicago Manual of Style 18 University of Chicago Staff (University of Chicago Press, $97.50, 1180 pages) The offices of The Interim have used the latest Chicago Manual of Style since its present editor took charge of the paper in 2000. While the paper does not adhere to its stylistic conventions (we follow Canadian Press style), it is a regularly consulted guide. [...]
Joanna Alphonso: Today’s technological advances, intended to benefit humanity, have a significant capability to harm every one of us, especially as long as they remain legally unbridled. Welcome to the world of artificial intelligence (AI). What is AI? AI makes it possible for computers to learn from experience based on inputs of its human users. It has exploded over the last year [...]
Interim staff: On Sept. 20, 2024, the second Million Person March for Children, organized by “Hands off Our Kids,” was held in communities across Canada. Although numbers were down in many locations compared to last year according to one-the-ground reports, one organizer said “the message was still clear that parents of all faiths want their children protected from the dangers of LGBTQ [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life (Sutherland Books, $35.95, 212 pages) Former Interim columnist Andrew Lawton has written a biography about Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a book which will help readers understand how an adopted, middle class, politically obsessed kid from Calgary rose to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Lawton’s book is a well-researched, based on newspaper stories [...]
Immigration responsible for nearly all population growth Paul Tuns: Source: Statistics Canada On Sept. 25, Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s fertility rate has been declining for 15 years and reached the new low of 1.26 children per woman in 2023. Demographers consider 2.1 children to be the natural replacement rate. The number of live births in Canada was unchanged at [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Ethics for Beginners: Big Ideas from 32 Great Minds by Peter Kreeft (Word on Fire, $32.50 pb, 260 pages) Peter Kreeft may be the best living explainer of philosophy and in his most recent book he examines what some of the greatest minds in history had to say about ethics. Ethics for Beginners is a book for “intelligent beginners” who [...]
Click on the images to expand. On October 6, 2024, pro-lifers across the country witnessed to the sanctity of life and the evil of abortion as part of the annual Life Chain. [...]
Victor Penney: Interim writer Victor Penney, Sporting Life One of the strongest pro-life messages during this U.S. Presidential election hasn’t come from everyone’s “favourite” Republican candidate. In fact, it hasn’t even come from a politician. It’s from someone who made a good living by getting grown men to knock over tackling dummies. So, who is it? It’s none other than [...]
According to the 2024 report by Open Doors, an advocacy group, at least 365 million Christians worldwide suffer persecution and discrimination because they believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. At least 5000 Christians were killed for their beliefs last year. Many Christian congregations designate either Nov. 3 or Nov. 10 as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted [...]
RickMcGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements By the time this column comes out America will be on the eve of a presidential election that has been alternately incredible and improbable, and might transform that country’s politics irrevocably no matter who wins. In hindsight this vertiginous moment is the result of events that began over a quarter century ago, though I [...]
Moms for the Motherland A recent CBC online story has reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin is pushing towards more traditional Russian conservative values, aligned with the Orthodox Christian faith. He is encouraging Russian women to have more children. Russia’s fertility rate -- the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime -- is 1.4, considerably less than the [...]