NP Editorials

Content Search Results

• Better than Dr. Strangelove
  The minute people start talking or writing about the Oscars, they inevitably start championing a passed-over film that they think should have been recognized -- but got rudely snubbed by the Academy. They usually have a complicated theory about why their pet project didn't get the honours it deserved, and g
  
  
• The glorious (somewhat Canadian) life of Arnold Beichman
  Since his death on Feb. 17 at age 96, the tributes have flowed to Arnold Beichman, the legendary anti-communist journalist.
  
  
• Something's seriously wrong at York University
  Next week, York University will once again open its halls and classrooms to "Israel Apartheid Week," so-called. This year as every year, militants and activists will use the taxpayer-funded facilities of York to vilify the Jewish state.
  
  
• The RCMP needs a change
  Ican't for the life of me figure out why Conservative Senators would refuse, before prorogation, to endorse a report by the Senate national security committee on how to fix the RCMP. At the very least, they could have attached their own minority opinion.
  
  
• My Canada can take or leave Quebec
  I have long had a sort of hands-off approach to Quebec sovereignty. Let them stay or let them go, it's their decision, just so long as they appreciate the consequences of either action.
  
  
• The bad man
  Our George Jonas was chagrined that Adam Giambrone, Toronto city councillor, abandoned his bid for mayor due to a sex scandal. Giambrone has now banished himself from public view and may not even run for reelection as city councillor, though if you desire obscurity, municipal politics is not a bad option.
  
  
• Praise with a purpose
  Alexis de Toqueville, the legendarily prescient 19th century observer of the American mentalite, (he coined the word "individualism"), believed America's absence of social hierarchy aroused a certain insecurity in people. He concluded that in a system where everyone is sovereign, all citizens, like all mona
  
  
• They're finally admitting the science isn't settled
  Why does Climategate matter? Who cares whether the climate data on a computer at some obscure English university has been deliberately corrupted?
  
  
• Human rights' next frontier: Your parking lot
  You know society has crossed into frightening new territory when a government agency thinks nothing of involving itself in a dispute over parking spaces at a condo, when it believes it has both the authority and wisdom to micromanage such trivial details of everyday life, and when the complainant imagines i
  
  
• Cult of the vajayjay
  Valentine's Day, a licence to print money for greeting-card manufacturers, jewellers, flower shops and restaurants, was never a deeply meaningful occasion. But at least it was the most benign and uncontroversial of "holidays." Who could object to a day devoted to the celebration of romantic love?
  
  
• Cheering on the oddballs
  Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988, and I have very fond memories of our city welcoming the world -- or at least that small fraction of the world interested in winter sports. It was a great festival of goodwill, and we Calgarians gamely went to the Olympic Plaza to cheer the champions of some of the
  
  
• Here come the Green Shirts
  Far and away the cleverest ad from this year's Super Bowl was Audi's "Green Police" commercial for its A3 TDI clean diesel sedan, which is greencar.com's2010 Green Car of the Year. It's easy to find on YouTube and well worth the search. The 60-second spot is a brilliant send up of the excesses of the enviro
  
  
• Elections Canada's uneven playing field
  For the better part of 30 years, equity has been at the heart of Canadian election law. The goal has been to create a "level playing field" among parties and candidates, to make sure that money and influence play little role in the outcome of national campaigns.
  
  
• The lost Eden of childhood
  J.D. Salinger published his first story in 1940 at the age of 21, but it was the 1951 publication of Catcher in the Rye that thrust him into the national spotlight. A lot happened in the world between 1940 and 1951. Salinger witnessed some of its more grisly aspects as a Second World War draftee who saw act
  
  
• Male victims need help too
  Memo regarding the release of a major report: Don't choose a time when most pundits are so distracted by upcoming holidays that their mental inbox is too full to give the report its due consideration. It will get short shrift -- exactly what happened to Justice Normand Glaude's report on the "historical abu
  
  
• What scientists don't tell you about abortion
  For the past month or so, the pro-life community has been buzzing. It would appear that at long last one of the leading breast-cancer researchers in the world, Louise Brinton, chief of the hormonal and reproductive epidemiology branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI), has admitted a link between
  
  
• On campus, a symbol of Palestinian paralysis
  This past week, the Canadian government announced that it would make a significant change in how it supports the Palestinian Authority (PA). Instead of making contributions directly to the PA operating budget, Canadian funds will be targeted to specific projects.
  
  
• Lorne Gunter: Prorogation isn't the problem
  Here's why the proroguing of Parliament doesn't matter in a practical sense: On any given day, most Canadians couldn't tell you whether Parliament was in session or not. Sure, those Canadians who watch Question Period regularly --and tune in to the afternoon parliamentary wrap-up shows on cable news network
  
  
• Our own worst enemy
  Western-style democracies can survive terrorists. Whether we can survive our own security bureaucracies is a different question. We're stuck in the groove of an obsolete mindset that isn't helping us in the age of asymmetric warfare. Many security measures, far from defeating terrorism, are doing the terror
  
  
• Lorne Gunter: Forget the hundred-mile diet -- buy a mango
  'Among all the politicizations of private activities and pleasures, the one I probably resent most is the politicization of food'