In my latest National Post column I look back at the year now ending and say we can be more intelligent and decent in the next one.

"The mark of civilization, says [Yale professor David] Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life. But now footnotes are being added to the list." Richard John Neuhaus in First Things January 2004

In a Christmastime piece for Convivium (a Cardus publication) today I explain how my lack of musical talent has lately come to seem a valuable, if peculiar, gift.

In my latest National Post column I argue that the horrifying fate of Aleppo reminds us that things are better in Canada than in most of the world, and that they are better because of our beliefs and habits, a.k.a. our "Canadian values".

"I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble." Agatha Christie (quoted as Thought du jour in "Social Studies" in Globe and Mail August 6, 2001)

"scrambling like a cat on a linoleum floor." MP Peter MacKay in 2002 (re a minister dealing badly with a crisis)

"The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon who is wasting fairyland." G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Kyro R. Lantsberger in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #1 (September 2005)

"The demand for 'relevance' in what is studied has its lazy, philistine and intolerant sides. But relevance has always been sought by readers if not (for good reason) by writers of history, for without a knowledge of his links to the past man is a social amnesiac, intellectually and therefore to some extent emotionally rootless." J.R. Hale Renaissance Europe 1480-1520