“You sit in the park and you watch the grass die... /You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio/ Well I spent a week there one day/ They’ve got entertainment to dazzle your eyes/ Go visit the bakery and watch the buns rise”
John Denver “Toledo” quoted on the Wall St. Journal’s “OpinionJournal” Jan. 15, 2003
“The situation is not as bad as it seems – it’s worse.”
A Greek Olympic official quoted in Maclean’s July 7, 2000
In my latest Epoch Times column I argue that the painfully visible vulnerability of our electric grid is due to politicians and bureaucrats who increasingly think we should be grateful that they let us pay high prices for lousy infrastructure and other public services.
“when I opened the door [into his own office] and walked into the musty silence of the little waiting room there was the usual feeling of having been dropped down a well dried up twenty years ago to which no one would come back ever. The smell of old dust hung in the air as flat and stale as a football interview.”
Raymond Chandler The Little Sister
“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”
C.S. Lewis, quoted in Joseph Pearce Literary Converts
“paring knives that were duller than a throne speech…”
Bruce Ward in Ottawa Citizen December 27, 2002
“Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation.”
Charles Mackay Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
In my latest National Post column I say the enduring, stomach-churning, decades-long futility of the Toronto Maple Leafs furnishes valuable lessons on how not to succeed in all sorts of areas of life including public policy… if only we could figure out what their secret is.