“To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child.”
Cicero, quoted in Andrew Nikiforuk School's Out: The Catastrophe in Public Education
“I cannot understand how a man who is not a Roman Catholic can regard a real Roman Catholic with absolute neutrality. A man who really thinks that a wafer is God Almighty, and who really believes that rational men owe any sort of allegiance to any kind of priest, is either right – in which case the man who differs from him ought to repent in sackcloth and ashes – or else he is wrong, in which case he is the partizan of a monstrous imposture.”
James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty Equality Fraternity
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the idea of national strategies where governments reform citizens is bad, including if one targets “Islamophobia”.
On Global News Radio 640 with Alex Pierson and John Mraz I discussed Ontario’s flirtation with anti-racist math, the right of private businesses to set their own policies on proof of vaccination, and complaints about a new Governor General whose bilingualism doesn’t involve French.
In my latest National Post column I express enthusiasm for freedom in Cuba… and Canada.
In The Interim I reflect on classic books on the vital topic of citizenship only to realize I can’t think of any.
“Give your brain as much attention as you do your hair and you'll be a thousand times better off.”
Malcolm X (widely quoted online; I was first alerted to it in a paraphrase in the Ottawa Citizen March 7, 1999)
“I hate a man who swallows [food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.”
Charles Lamb, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail December 20, 2002