Tag: Conservative

Polio behind a plastic screen

(Long Read)   It was the late spring of 1957. I was six, just about to turn seven. One afternoon, I was walking home from school when I suddenly began to feel pain in my legs and shoulder. Our house in the temporary Smeltersite settlement in the new town of Kitimat, British Columbia was uphill […]

Rex Murphy, dead at 77, from astute commentator to bitter curmugeon

Rex Murphy, one of Canada’s best known, loved and hated TV commentators and columnists has died at 77. I have mixed feelings about his passing. I was Rex Murphy’s online editor from 1998 to 2003 when I was web producer for CBC’s The National. In those days his writing was superb and he had incitive […]

Robert Heinlein’s nightmare vision. The US elects a dictator in 2016.

In the year AD 2100, an evil Dictator rules the United States. He maintains power through the clever use of advanced science and pyschology. And he is backed by a dedicated military clique…. From Robert A. Heinlein, the dean of space-age fiction, comes this thrilling novel of a soldier who dare to defy Authority who […]

The silver lining in the Canadian prorogues, and a black eye for UK democracy

Here in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has twice prorogued parliament to avoid  political challenges, first the threat of a coalition of the three opposition parties and second a rather unsuccessful attempt to avoid nasty questions about the treatment of Afghan detainees. When Harper porogued  parliament, all the government bills on the order paper died […]