Joe Campbell I think I’ve figured out why our top judges are allowing physician-assisted suicide. It’s about restitution. Years ago, they took away our right to birth. Now, they’re making up for it by giving us a right to death. It’s the latest thing in restorative justice. Oh, I suppose they could have made restitution by giving us back the right [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell While reading, I often stop to meditate, and not just on sacred texts like the Bible and the Catechism. I also meditate on secular texts like the Constitution and the Criminal Code. Usually, the sacred uplift me. Too often, the secular depress me. I found especially depressing a Supreme Court of Canada text entitled Saskatchewan [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell When she revealed that she was carrying twins, her next-door neighbour suggested an ultrasound to determine their sex. “Ultrasounds don’t determine sex,” she replied. “Of, course,” the neighbor declared, “I should have said ‘discover.’” But the clarification didn’t help. The twins came only minutes apart. When the first arrived, the doctor declared happily, “It’s a [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I’m a victim of textual harassment. Texts that pressure me to buy, subscribe, donate, bequeath, support, upgrade, downsize, respond and beware invade my snail and electronic mail boxes daily. Not only do they pressure me to change my life. They hassle me to plan my death. It’s more than I can stand, especially as radio [...]
“Fear not,” Dingwall said, when I complained about the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the law against physician-assisted suicide. “What do you mean ‘fear not’?” I replied. “The learned judges are turning compliant doctors into legally approved merchants of death.” “They turned into that when the unlearned politicians legalized limited abortion and the Supreme Court removed the limits.” “In both cases,” I conceded, [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell As I used to compose them, headlines rarely excite me. Recently, though, I read one that did. It said Climate change could be the cause of record cold. I was excited because my meteorological mentors also call climate change global warming. As both labels contain the same number of letters, the headline writer might as easily have typed Global [...]
I’ve always known that our situation is risky. I thought, though, that risk was about the chances of suffering ill fortune, like dying unexpectedly. It didn’t occur to me that it might be about the chances of enjoying good fortune, like escaping death unexpectedly. Risk is the downside of chance, not the upside, or so I assumed. My insurers gave me no [...]
T hey say that computers are becoming more like us. I don’t care if they are as long as we don’t become more like them. I wouldn’t want us to treat our elders the way computers treat theirs. Why, new computers are so full of themselves they want nothing to do with the old ones and eventually don’t even communicate with them. [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I feel sic [sic]. Increasingly, I find myself reading sentences like: “Why hire someone, and invest time and money training them [sic], if you may be forced to fire them [sic] before they [sic] have proved themselves [sic] capable of doing their [sic] job?” The question, no doubt, is important. More important, however, is why [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell My plumber impressed me when he drove up in a box truck full of tools and spare parts. Although I had let my fixtures deteriorate significantly, resulting in leaky faucets, faulty flushing devices, clogged drains, and the like, he was ready for anything. Or so it seemed. After several hours of inspecting, repairing, and replacing, [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell To wed is to marry. But there are differences. Weddings, including related celebratory events, last a day or two. Marriages, including related blessed events, last a lifetime. This, at any rate, is the intention. And yet couples often spend more time preparing for weddings than for marriages. Maybe that’s why failed marriages outnumber failed weddings. [...]
It looks as though the Senate is here to stay, unreformed and unloved. I’m speaking, of course, of the Canadian Senate, also known as the Red Chamber. The nickname, from the traditional royal colour of the interior, symbolizes historic links with the Crown. The Senate also has historic links with patronage appointments, a sense of entitlement and, more recently, an expense claims [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Like me, you might not have known that sexpert is an officially recognized word. Well, it is. You can look it up in the Oxford dictionary, which defines it as an expert in sexual matters. I don’t object to the word. I do, however, object to the definition. I think it should be an alleged expert. Years [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I’ve tried, really I have, but I can’t understand why, as a society, we discriminate so aggressively against homosexuals. Rare is he, or she, who at some point in life does not need help for mental, physical or spiritual disorders, if not all three. But when homosexuals need help, we deny or ignore afflictions that [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Judges think they’re divine, apparently. When interpreting the constitution, they can create something out of nothing. That’s what they did with same-sex “marriage.” Lawyers know they’re human, apparently. When pleading cases, they can create something out of anything. That’s what they did when they made sleepwalking a defense against murder charges. An even more creative [...]