"I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer”: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column Mary Beth Norton (Princeton, $34, 203 pages) In the 1690s, John Dunton published a two-page broadsheet, the Athenian Mercury, a double-sided broadsheet that was “the world’s first advice column,” answering queries from anonymous writers and responded to by the paper’s anonymous Athenian Society of [...]
Canadians divided on abortion, euthanasia, not so much on divorce, contraception Paul Tuns: On Oct. 16, Research Co. released the results of their online poll on what behaviours Canadians find morally acceptable from abortion and euthanasia to marital affairs and gambling. With the exception of pedophilia, there was significant support for most immoral behaviours and majority support for many of them. While [...]
Victor Penney: Interim writer Victor Penney, Sporting Life Do you know why we have the stereotype that professional athletes are into gambling, partying hard, and having babies out of wedlock with multiple women? Precedent. I don’t need to point to any specific examples here, but you know I’m right. Let’s face it: Pro-sports is a world that seems to enable [...]
From the editor’s desk: From the editor's desk On pages 14 and 15 of this issue we have book reviews of three giants of mid-20th century conservatism: William F. Buckley, Frank S. Meyer, and James Burnham. All three were at the founding of National Review, a magazine that has shaped U.S. conservatism since its founding 70 Novembers ago in 1955. [...]
Rory Leishman: The book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible describes an era in ancient Israel when, instead of obeying the commandments of God, most men did what was right in their own eyes. The result was chaos, confusion and disaster. The same is true of our own era. Instead of steadfastly upholding the traditional principles of Judeo-Christian morality, most people have [...]
Paul Tuns: Just 11 days after Charlie Kirk was killed, his widow Erika Kirk addressed the nationally broadcast memorial service with words of grace: “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life … On the cross, our Savior said: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man—that young [...]
Paul Tuns: Canadian Press reported that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is prepared to use the notwithstanding clause to uphold three transgender laws if the courts attempt to overturn them. In a Sept. 10 memo obtained by the Canadian Press, the Smith government’s Justice Department directed other departments to prepare for Smith’s office to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights [...]
Paul Tuns: After the League of Nations disintegrated in the wake of World War II, U.S. President Frank Delano Roosevelt proposed the idea of the Four Powers (the U.S., U.K., Russia, and Red China) as an international body to coordinate cooperation among them. Throughout the war the idea morphed into what became the April 1945 San Francisco United Nations Conference on International [...]
Paul Tuns: Editor’s Note: There are descriptions of graphic sex acts in this story. The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) published a report that reveals the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has developed resources and funded activities that promote obscene sex-ed programs, homosexuality, and transgenderism to children. In “UNICEF Programs Sexually Groom Children: Evidence of UNICEF Promoting Comprehensive Sexuality Education, [...]
From the editor's desk One of the necessary ingredients to reversing tanking fertility rates is restoring the vaunted place of motherhood and one way to do that is to make life easier for moms and families. Katherine Boyle, general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted some policy ideas on how to accomplish this: “Here’s some super easy things states [...]
Victor Penney: Interim writer Victor Penney, Sporting Life It turns out I have something in common with the greatest golfer in the world and, no, it has nothing to do with our abilities. Scottie Scheffler makes the game look easy and has earned tens of millions of dollars playing it. On my end, golf has every right to get a [...]
Josie Luetke: In the Spring, a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that the province must legally recognize multi-parent families. The plaintiffs were La Coalition des familles LGBT+ and three families—a man and two women and their four kids; a lesbian couple and the sperm donor who wants to be a part of his child’s life; and an infertile woman, her husband, and [...]
From the editor’s desk Paul Tuns: From the editor's desk Kevin Yuill writes about the eugenic roots of the euthanasia movement in Spiked: “This campaign of involuntary euthanasia, known as Aktion T4, cost tens of thousands of lives. According to the Nazis’ own record, at least 70,000 disabled people were put to death, although some sources suggest that the figure [...]
Samara Douma: On May 18, eligible Polish voters headed to polling stations to cast their vote in the Polish presidential election. When votes had been counted, none of the thirteen candidates had the majority needed to win the presidency. The top two candidates, Rafal Trzaskowski, with 31.4 per cent of the vote, and Karol Nawrocki, with 29.5 per cent of the vote, [...]