In my latest Loonie Politics column I ask for discretion and charity while insisting that the character of those who would rule over us is a matter of key public importance.
“The Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival is a secondary school competition... More than 120,000 students have taken part in the event since it was established 30 years ago. For the past decade it has been awarded about NZ$30,000 annually from Creative New Zealand. But this year, the organization has withdrawn its contribution. A board member from the country’s arts body said: ‘I question whether a singular focus on an Elizabethan playwright is most relevant for a decolonizing Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand) in the 2020s and beyond.’ Another member said the funding was withdrawn because the festival represented a ‘canon of imperialism.’... Nicola Hyland, a senior lecturer in theatre at Wellington’s Victoria University, said... ‘It would be a massive, awesome act of decolonization if we discovered our own stories first and discovered Shakespeare afterwards,’... But the head of Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand... Dawn Sanders... said: ‘Just like the MeToo movement, Measure for Measure explored misogyny, Taming of the Shrew explores the way women are controlled and Othello looked at cheating and manipulation.’ The festival allowed students to interpret the plays in many ways, she added, with pupils free to introduce elements from their own cultures, from Maori and Pacific Islander to Asian. ‘Not many scenes are done in doublet and hose anymore,’ she said.”
Daily Telegraph story in National Post October 15, 2022 [think they’ll do one about the “Musket Wars” and the Moriori genocide?]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I berate Canadian “conservative” politicians for being as clueless about how to avoid wedge issues as they are spineless about how to approach them.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we should get back to the values that made Canada great starting by celebrating them with gratitude on July 1.
“Eddie Izzard likes pink. Pink coats, pink jackets – they’re all over the website promoting his failed bid to stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election. Labour’s colour is traditionally red but pink is for girls, and Izzard has been campaigning in what he coyly calls ‘girl mode’ for months now. Alas, all his efforts came to nothing at the weekend when he was soundly beaten by a local councillor who also happens to be a woman…. while people are ready to applaud an actor and comedian who challenges gender stereotypes, they may not be so keen on a man making demands that defy the evidence of their senses. Izzard’s claim to be trans highlights the problem at the heart of self-identification, which is that it requires so little of the individual – but so much of everyone else. Izzard is a man who likes to wear women’s clothes, favouring garments that are a parody of what actual women choose to wear.... The setback to Izzard’s attempt to become a Labour MP is a heartening sign of a return to sanity. After all, being a woman involves a great deal more than wearing pink.”
Joan Smith on Unherd December 5, 2022
“Women spend more time wondering what men are thinking than men spend actually thinking.”
This one was emailed without any attribution at all, and is widely available online in that condition. It was probably invented before writing, and possibly before fire.
“No man with any sense assumes that a woman’s words mean to her exactly what they mean to him.”
Archie Goodwin’s internal monologue in Rex Stout The Mother Hunt
“In the famous exchange of letters (in Latin) between C.S. Lewis and St. Giovanni Calabria, Lewis makes a prescient remark: ‘They err who say: “The world is turning pagan again.” Would that it were! The truth is, we are falling into a much worse state. Post-Christian man is not the same as pre-Christian man. He is as far removed as a virgin from a widow.’”
Ted Janiszewski in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #1 (Sept.-Oct. 2022)