“I live by a mantra I first heard on a cartoon. ‘Your boos mean nothing to me. I have seen what you people cheer.’”
Email from a friend of a friend.
In my latest National Post column I say the “inclusive” teacher who told a Muslim kid to celebrate pride or get of Canada exposes not just reflexive intolerance but a deep, unresolvable contradiction in multiculturalism.
“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
“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.”
Thomas Merton quoted as standalone “WORDS OF WISDOM” in email teaser from Epoch Times January 18, 2023
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But you can make a sow’s ear carry just as much money as a silk purse.”
Horse trainer Ray Hunt on why every horse is a good horse, quoted in British Columbia Report December 5, 1994
“I believe in God as I believe the sun has risen, not because I can see it, but because by way of it I can see everything else.”
C.S. Lewis, quoted in Federalist Patriot No. 04-37 15 September 2004 from Federalist.com
“‘Hurricane Hattie, didn’t you read your assignment? Your quiz answers are all wrong?’ ‘Oh, I read the assignment all right! I just can’t seem to remember anything I read… It just seems to go in one eye and out the other!’”
Dialogue in “Born Loser” cartoon (their elision) in Ottawa Sun May 18, 2000.
“Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.”
The Duke of Wellington according to AZ Quotes [https://www.azquotes.com/author/15482-Duke_of_Wellington] [An old friend’s maxim that a wise man pees when he can etc. may or may not be derived from it.]