In my latest National Post column I say that politicians and voters need to make a New Year’s resolution to think about why bad things are happening and how to stop or reduce them instead of just wishing them away.
“Our greatest yet with least pretence,/ Great in council and great in war,/ Foremost captain of his time,/ Rich in saving common-sense,/ And, as the greatest only are,/ In his simplicity sublime.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”
“That is informative merely about you, madam, not about the problem.”
Nero Wolfe to a client in Rex Stout The Mother Hunt regarding her thought processes.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say Canada is especially vulnerable to the chronic global phenomenon of oversold, over budget, underperforming megaprojects because a widespread conceit that our public sector is world-class leads us to neglect mundane public-sector accountability.
“The opinions of our enemies come nearer to the truth about us than do our own opinions.”
LaRochefoucauld, quoted in Dale Carnegie How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
“I will not shut me from my kind,/ And, lest I stiffen into stone,/ I will not eat my heart alone,/ Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:/”
Alfred Lord Tennyson “In Memoriam” CVIII
My talk to the Dec. 11 Canadian Association for Equality “Momentum” conference, on the subject of politics being downstream from culture, is now available here (as is the entire conference). And if you’re thinking I haven’t learned much about Zoom setup in the last two years, well, the results speak for themselves… unfortunately.
“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’ whispered Anne softly.”
The end of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables