“If the policeman regulates drinking, why should he not regulate smoking, and then sleeping, and then speaking, and then breathing?”
G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News June 5, 1920, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 #5 (May-June 2023)
“Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe it’s just a cosmic coincidence. For many TikTok users, the moon phase trend affirms that they did find their soulmates. TikTok users are comparing the moon phases of the days they were born to those of their significant others — if the phases fit together to make a perfect full moon, according to the trend, they’re soulmates. If there are gaps between the overlapped moons, the relationship is supposedly doomed to fail.”
NBC March 6, 2023 [and filed in my notes under “How we laugh at the superstitious past”]
In my latest Loonie Politics column I cite the tragic case of Ottawa’s Dow’s Lake to illustrate the way trendy modern urban “densification” theory is wrecking nature in the name of fighting climate change.
“by chance, in 1971, I saw a feminist interviewed on the CBC, claiming a ‘right to her own body’ and a ‘right to abortion.’ In law school, I had learned that an unborn child could inherit property and could be the subject of a trust, and suddenly here was someone telling us that the unborn child had no rights and could be disposed of simply because it was inconvenient and unwanted. I was incensed over this injustice. Something had to be done. Shortly afterwards, I founded and became the first president of the Toronto Right to Life Association and was one of the founders of the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada, Campaign Life Coalition.’”
Gwen Landolt, quoted by Michael Wagner Standing on Guard for Thee: Newly Revised Second Edition
In the Western Standard my latest book review for the Aristotle Foundation praises John Ibbitson’s The Duel while taking issue with the author’s belief that his subjects, John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson, were giants.
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow according to an email from a friend, also supported here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39025-a-nation-of-sheep-will-beget-a-government-of-wolves
In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the fiscally reckless Ontario budget is more proof that the politicians can barely be bothered going through the motions of governing responsibly any more.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we hate politicians and they hate us because everybody is behaving badly in the era of self-indulgent authenticity.