In one of Kafka’s haunting parables, “An Imperial Message,” we read of an august Emperor who dispatches a daring, trusted messenger with a communication from his deathbed which is specifically for you, the most humble subject in his realm. But although this emissary is full of dignity, authority, and power his errand is hopeless. Layers upon layers of walls and palaces, and [...]
Michael Taube Commentary “You better watch out, you better not cry / You better not pout, I’m telling you why / Santa Claus is coming to town.” Have you heard the news? Santa Claus is nearly here! Santa’s sleigh is always led by eight tiny reindeer, you know - and guided by Rudolph’s shiny red nose, of course. The elves are making [...]
Paul Tuns Review The Critical Temper: Interventions from The New Criterion at 40 edited by Roger Kimball (Encounter, $39.99, 561 pages) The idea of the culture wars is much derided by pundits, often considered distractions from real issues. I would argue there is nothing more important than to go to (metaphorical) war over than culture. A field general in the war over [...]
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality Helen Joyce (One World, $34.95, 311 pages) Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality delivers exactly what the subtitle promises, juxtaposing the trans ideology with biological facts. Joyce begins her examination of gender identity in Weimar Germany where the discredited Institute of Sexual Science, founded by the gay Jewish drag queen Magnus Hirschfeld, offered hormones and surgery [...]
John Carpay This past Remembrance Day, I thought of my grandparents and all the others who fought for freedom against foreign dictatorships: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, fascist Italy, and communist forces in Korea and Vietnam. While successfully defending freedom abroad, Canadians have now surrendered to living under a medical dictatorship on our own soil. Starting in March of 2020, we were prohibited [...]
The Music of Christendom: A History Susan Treacy (Ignatius Press, $16.95, 235 pages) ”It behooves us,” says Susan Treacy, professor of music at Ave Maria University and music columnist for St. Austin Review, “to immerse ourselves in music of the Western classical tradition, which is so imbued with the beauty of Christ. This is our music!” In The Music of Christendom: A [...]
From the editor’s desk I read a lot. Not only for my job, but for fun so I thought I’d write about a few non-work books that I enjoyed immensely this year. For years baseball was my favourite sport; it has since been usurped by football and I no longer watch the game that I spent years watching and listening to, but [...]
Donald DeMarco Commentary Helen Alvaré is a professor of law at George Mason University, and a courageous defender of unborn human life. In her case courage means a willingness to tell the truth when political correctness forbids it. “The government is essentially proclaiming,” she writes, “that there is only one legitimate kind of homicide in the US: killing within the family.” To [...]
Janice Glover Commentary In the pages of The Interim over the past three years, we have been highlighting various “family friendly” policies and legislation that Hungary has been passing in its parliament that have stood out as a model for a 21st century country. The country has been criticized by the European Union and others in the West, including personal attacks on [...]
Interim Staff The trial of Bill Whatcott for an alleged hate crime began at the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto last month in relation to the distribution of flyers at the 2016 Toronto Pride parade displaying the potential consequences of homosexual activity. The literature described both the physical and spiritual dangers of homosexual activity and the Crown prosecution says that is [...]
Thirty years ago, in the midst of an American election campaign, then-Vice President Dan Quayle made a speech in Los Angeles. His comments took the recent riots in that city as an occasion to reflect more broadly on the connection between law, society, and family values. While the riots themselves were sparked by a controversial court case and were fueled by racial [...]
Donald DeMarco Commentary: Author, Carly Manes, who describes herself as “white, queer, and Jewish,” together with illustrator May, who goes by that singular name and identifies herself as a “brown, genderqueer cultural worker,” have produced What’s an Abortion Anyway? in a concerted attempt to propagandize children (ages 8+) into accepting abortion. Since nearly 60 per cent of women who have had abortions [...]
Interim Staff: As the push for universal vaccination continues with provinces creating vaccine passports for residents to use in order to access non-essential services such as gyms, restaurants and many other entities including universities and (in Moncton, New Brunswick) Catholic churches requiring proof of vaccination to enter premises, some who are opposed to the vaccines for pragmatic or principled reasons are looking [...]
Sarah Gangl: The Ministry of Education announced a new policy on July 6 mandating the implementation of anti-sex trafficking protocols in school boards across Ontario. The Keeping Students Safe Policy is the first of its kind in Canada, by which every school board will adopt a framework with core components to protect students and equip school communities in the fight against sex [...]
John Henry Newman once wrote that mankind’s most vivid and proximate experience of God is the phenomenon of conscience. He argues that the feelings that accompany moral action yield a “picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, (and) retributive.” The Abrahamic religions, grounded as they are on the Decalogue, affirm this deep and universal intuition: God is a [...]