Estragon: I can’t go on like this. Vladimir: That’s what you think. Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot   Part II: Four Ways to Change the Local World   Proposal #1: A CBRM Citizens’ Assembly on COVID-19 & Post-Pandemic Recovery “Watershed periods in history,” Mikhail Gorbachev declared in 1992, “mayRead More

Part 2: Rojava The world of the 21st century faces the ruins of past and present. War has become a normal state, poverty and hunger marginal news that no longer merit headlines. Many people have lost the meaning and significance of being human, and the word ‘society’ means only isolatedRead More

Part 1: Tigray The evil of modern states is their power to decide who eats. Russel Lawrence Barsh, ‘The Nature and Power of North American Political Systems,’ American Indian Quarterly (1986)   In mid-February, heads of state and government of the African Union (AU) convened at the organization’s headquarters inRead More

I want to escape from my own threshold. Where to? The street is dark And conscience shows up ahead of me, white, Like salt scattered for pavements. Osip Mandelshtam (1891-1938)   On 23 January 2015, 49-year-old Ruslan Kotsaba – journalist and blogger, president of the Ukrainian Pacifist Society and anRead More

On March 3, Canada announced new emergency measures to support Ukrainian refugees. We have opened a special pathway for Ukrainians which waives all fees and normal visa requirements, we have established a special family reunification and sponsorship pathway for extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, we areRead More

The Thick of It [I must begin with a warning to the Spectator’s War and Peace columnist Sean Howard: do not read the following story while drinking a beverage of any description or there will be a spit-take in your future.] Earlier this week, I received an invitation from theRead...

The lady was not happy. There was no mistaking that as she angrily asked the policeman why he was blocking the road she wanted to enter. Cars were lined up wanting to do the same but the policeman was adamant even as she told him in no uncertain terms howRead More

Timothy Schmalz, a renowned Canadian sculptor, has a reputation for producing pieces of art that are influenced by the Bible, including “Homeless Jesus,” a sculpture of a man sleeping on a park bench, wrapped in a blanket and identifiable as Jesus by the wounds on his bare feet. The workRead More

Welcome to 2019! As I write, I’ve already used up 19 days of a brand new year, and by the time anyone reads this, there will be 342 days left in which to accomplish anything, whether of real value or not. Glancing back at the topics that grabbed my interestRead More

On September 23, the town of Windsor in Nova Scotia commemorated the 100th anniversary of the training of the Jewish Legion, a battalion of the British army that fought to liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In 1918, a young Jewish man named David Ben-Gurion wasRead More