Dingwall was telling me about a friend who had a heart attack. “Fortunately,” he said, “it occurred in a cab and the doctor who was driving stabilized him and took him to the hospital.” “The cab driver was a doctor?” “An immigrant who isn’t licensed to practice here.” “We’re short of doctors,” I said. “I know,” Dingwall replied, “but if [...]
The opening scene of Mother and Child, a 2009 box office dud recently recalled to life on DVD, opens with a scene that’s pitifully familiar. A boy and a girl – teenagers, and just barely at that – sit on a bed kissing; it’s the bad hair and bellbottom ‘70s, but it could really be any time since what’s next is dramatically [...]
A social conservative assessment Stephen Harper, the Liberals like to tell us, has a hidden agenda. Deep down in his black heart of hearts he wants to ban abortion. Yet, for nearly two decades, Campaign Life Coalition has rated him as “pro-abortion” or “not pro-life,” based on his public statements, CLC questionnaires he returned, and voting record. I’d like to [...]
Robert Latimer has been granted full parole. I am not surprised by the decision, just ticked off. It sends a terrible signal to society that the life of a person with a disability is less valuable than the life of an able-bodied person. That is sick, perverse and dehumanizing. Canada is better than that. As the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s Alex Schadenberg says, “the EPC has [...]
I thought I knew what pro-choice means. I guess I don’t. In fact I have difficulty with most pro-choice language. Take sex-selective abortion. It’s about expectant couples who prefer sons to daughters and use ultrasound to find out what they’re going to have. If it’s a daughter, they abort her. When I learned that pro-choicers are against sex-selective abortion, I [...]
There is nothing right or left-wing about pro-life, but pro-lifers are repeatedly and ridiculously condemned and dismissed as being on the right. Life, however, is more important than political labels. But while we know of the murderous fascists of the 1940s, we need to understand something of those assumed to be the good guys – the socialist thinkers and writers [...]
From a pro-life perspective, President George W. Bush may have been less than perfect, but in comparison to his successor, he is looking ever better. Bush devotes an entire chapter of his compelling memoir Decision Points to the controversial decision he announced in a televised address on Aug. 9, 2001, to authorize federal funding for embryonic stem cell research using [...]
It’s a rare film that justifies its running time, and if over two decades’ worth of movie reviewing has taught me anything, it’s that every film, no matter how good, is probably too long. That proved itself once again with The Social Network, one of the films tipped early on as an Oscar favourite when it was released this fall. It’s just [...]
Sometimes life can be disappointing. Just like when I was a child and that longed-for present wasn’t in Santa’s sack, my hopes were dashed recently when I was once again not included on the list of the inductees into Canada’s Queer Hall of Fame. Last year saw the first inductees: Pierre Trudeau, swimmer Mark Tewksbury and drag queen Robert Kaiser, [...]
I am the proud possessor of a Bob Feller autographed baseball card. On reflection, however, my pride should be tempered for two reasons. According to certain knowledgeable collectors, there are more of his cards around sporting his signature than not. Feller, the former Cleveland Indians ace, has been most obliging at innumerable card shows. At 92 years young he has more post-induction [...]
Take care if you aspire to be a criminal. A life of crime can be bleak and unrewarding, unless you go to jail. As long as you’re on the run, you have few options. Once you’re incarcerated, you have more than you can pursue. Like most criminals, however, you may never make it to jail. If you do, opportunities abound. [...]
I was invited to Rob Ford’s victory party in Toronto in a live 10-second phone invitation and he implied everybody was welcome. Ford said that people were already starting to arrive early. Ford’s people were expecting over 2000 but they came in with around 1500. That is still an amazing figure. I guess the Ford sign on my front lawn got me [...]
There are no accidents in popular culture. Trends and fads might crest with seeming randomness, but do not be fooled – every hit movie, TV show or book and the copycats in its wake are meant to scratch some cultural itch. The motivations might be obscure at the time, but hindsight reveals all, so I cannot help but anticipate just what led [...]
“Welcome to Earth – population zero,” goes the ominous tagline at the start of every episode of Life After People, the History Channel-produced documentary series that aired its second season just recently in Canada on History Television. It’s our cue to get cozy and enjoy an hour’s worth of empty cities falling to pieces, if they’re not inundated by rivers and seas, [...]
We appear to be living in the darkest of Dark Ages. We have a convicted bombmaker, Inderjit Singh Reyat, as per the Toronto Star (Sept. 10), who repeatedly told the Air India trial, “I don’t know,” “I can’t remember,” “I can’t recall” and lied 19 times during his testimony, according to Crown lawyer Len Doust. Reyat already pleaded guilty to supplying bomb [...]