Donald Trump, frontrunner in the Republican presidential primaries, told a rally of admiring supporters an apocryphal story about an American general who, faced with Islamic terrorism a hundred years ago in the Philippines, lined up 50 captured Muslim terrorists and had 49 of them executed with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood. He let one go … More Bullets Dipped in Pigs’ Blood and Unintended Consequences
Donald Trump’s new book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again is becoming a nightmare for publisher Threshold Editions, a division of Simon and Schuster. Apparently buyers of the book have complained that it’s “all words.” Trump is reportedly livid with his editor for not seeing that there were way too many words, many … More Trump: Crippled America and Chapped Lips
Pope Francis has said that Donald Trump is not a Christian because he wants to build a wall along the Mexican border and deport 11 million illegal Mexican immigrants. I have to leap to Trump’s defense. After all, he is an affiliated Presbyterian. Last I heard, Presbyterianism is a Christian denomination. Maybe what the Holy … More Donald Trump the Christian
There is little question that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered. A small poison dart of the sort used by the Kenyan Luo tribe, which just happens to be the tribe of Obama’s Kenyan father, was found in the wall behind Scalia’s bed. Luo tribesmen are notoriously short-sighted, and the assassin obviously missed. It … More Antonin Scalia Was Murdered!
When it comes to humour, nearly all of us live in more than one world. I long engaged in the classic cliché of locker room humour. For years I traded outrageous, sometimes very funny, jokes with my workout partner that neither of us would have ever have told in our other worlds. One particularly offensive … More Donald Trump as a Clownish Christ Figure
Because both our birthdays come in January, just after the major holidays, my wife and I have always had rather muted birthday celebrations. Because our wedding anniversary comes in September when the educational institutions both of us worked for all our lives are just gearing up for a new academic year, our anniversary celebrations … More A Valentine’s Day to Remember
It has been common for left-wing American intellectuals to claim that there is really only one American political party with two wings, both of which essentially serve business interests. The massive backing both Democrats and Republicans traditionally get from Wall Street and other big money supports the one-party thesis. But the rise of the so-called … More Can Bernie Sanders Win?
I am a political junkie, and as an ex-pat American and typical immigrant, I follow the politics of the old country obsessively from my adopted home of Canada. On the day of the New Hampshire primary, I was driving to meet a friend for coffee and started to search the car radio for an American … More Snake Oil
I was waiting to turn right on to a busy main street, and the car ahead of me was turning left. Turning right is a much easier maneuver in heavy traffic. There was no traffic light. The stream of traffic on the main street was relentless. I began to think that I would be behind the left … More Road Rage
Several years ago when I wrote a grammar column for The Edmonton Journal, I objected to the use of “impact” as a verb, not because I objected to turning nouns into verbs—it happens quite naturally in English all the time—but because “impact” was being used inappropriately as a synonym for “affect: How will smaller paper … More Impact or Affect?
No Harm Spilt 