While heroes pay the bills in Hollywood, the creative class labouring in movies and TV are in thrall to anti-heroes, a mad love reinforced in the hymns sung by critics hardwired to prefer a menacing, flawed protagonist to a clear-browed, virtuous one. Batman versus Superman, if you will, and a loaded choice ultimately corrosive to the audience’s moral clarity, especially [...]
Every year since 1976, the United States Congress has adopted the “Hyde Amendment,” a legislative enactment banning the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. In addition, most of the states likewise ban public funding for abortions. Within the United States, these measures have [...]
While campaigning for president in 2008, Barack Obama repeatedly stated his opposition to same-sex marriage. That, to say the least, was a deception. While purporting to uphold traditional marriage as the union of a man and a woman, Obama said he would vote to repeal the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), a statute signed into law by former President Bill [...]
I heard from Premier McGuinty’s office that they were looking for help in the forthcoming provincial election and I was in a “must go to” folder. I was more shocked than surprised to hear from them because my Interim column back last November. “The Real McGuinty,” in which I said: “go, Mr. McGuinty! Take your pagan agenda with you.” This was certainly [...]
Eunice and Owen Johns, 62 and 65, have just last month been ruled by the highest British court to be unsuitable as foster parents. They’re renowned as wonderful people, they do extraordinary outreach in their own English midlands black community, they give large amounts of their time and money to charity, and they have successfully and selflessly cared for 15 [...]
Abortion requires obfuscation, cannot survive the Truth Ten days after Remembrance Day (November 21, 2010), the Toronto Star, Canada’s highest-circulation newspaper, ran a massive four-page “Insight” feature explaining how an abortionist can reconcile his strong support for “women’s rights” with his personal life. One might imagine a future Remembrance Day when the unborn are remembered and memorialized. Major John McCrae’s celebrated poem [...]
Ecologists keep warning us about greenhouse gases and the changes in climate they allegedly cause. There is much to fear, they say, from global warming. Well, I’ve just learned that one of the chief greenhouse gases is nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is laughing gas. What is there to fear from global laughing? Instead of climate change, ecologists should focus on [...]
Editor’s Note: There are book titles and quotes in this column that use language that some reader’s might find offensive. Despite my wife’s best efforts, I never had much time for the popular parenting textbooks that ended up on our bookshelves – the “What To Expect When You’re...” series and their like, all written in useful gulps of text, with diagrams and [...]
According to a recent Gallup poll, 57 per cent of Americans – and I suspect Canadians as well – have little or no trust in the mainstream media which publicizes, promotes, defends and almost worships secular humanists, and their ideology. Henry Morgentaler and Stephen Lewis appear to be their secular saints. Who would have suspected that in just one generation Ontario Liberal [...]
It’s awe inspiring how far the pharmaceutical industry has come during my lifetime. When I was growing up, the only pills we had in our medicine cabinet were aspirin tablets. Now, there are pills for practically every ailment and you get an order of side effects at no extra charge. My financial advisor thinks I should invest in pharmaceuticals. I [...]
The last few months have been a disgrace for journalism. Especially for Canadian journalism. Especially for liberal Canadian journalism. Unable to tolerate what seems to be losing in the game of democracy and terrified by the possibility of a Conservative majority government, left-leaning pundits decided to blame the participants. Welcome to the hellish world of The Christian Right. I’ve never [...]
In an interview with the CBC broadcast on Jan. 18, Prime Minister Stephen Harper indicated that he would go on opposing any legislative restrictions on abortion, even if the Conservatives were to win a majority of the seats in Parliament in the next federal election. “If you want to diminish the number of abortions,” he said, “you’ve got to change hearts and [...]
At the end of January of this year, writer Yann Martel mailed his last book to Stephen Harper. For over three and a half years, the prize-winning author of The Life of Pi has sent a biweekly letter to the Prime Minister, enclosed with a book that he hoped our country’s elected leader would read, in the hope that it would – [...]
First he was, then he wasn’t, now he is again. In charge of Sun TV, that is. Kory Teneycke is his name and he’s a bright, fearless and startlingly youthful media expert. He’s also someone I’m proud to say is a friend. Frankly, I’ve never really discussed abortion, euthanasia, population size, sexuality and related issues with Kory, but I suspect [...]
On Jan. 10, Orville Nichols was in a state of shock: He knew he might lose in a ruling that day by a panel of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in the Marriage Commissioners Reference, but he probably was not expecting to lose by an overwhelming five to nothing decision. Nichols is a devout Baptist who has served as a [...]