"So far as I am able to discern, there are only two kinds of strong-willed people: saints and psychopaths. According to the ancient understanding, the former have made a pact with God, the latter with the Devil. The modern understanding is, nature and/or nurture on both sides. As ever, the ancient understanding is correct."
David Warren in Ottawa Citizen Jan. 3, 2009
In my latest Mercatornet article I say the extended version "making of" DVDs show that The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was an amazing logistical and creative achievement that unhappily missed much of the moral point of Tolkien's masterpiece.
"the telescope through which we can see the star upon which we dwell."
G.K. Chesterton defining religion, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #1 (Sept. 2004)
My latest crowd-funded documentary project "Israel for Canadians" is now live on Kickstarter.
Too many Canadians have somehow acquired a mistaken impression of Israel as a regional bully, a fortress under siege, an intolerant, chauvinistic or even theocratic culture, or a colourful museum. I want to dispel all such illusions, showcasing its technological achievements, its contemporary culture, its environmental movement, its vigorous debates on everything from religion to security, its very real security challenges and its inhabitants' abiding desire for peace.
If you value the only democracy in the Middle East, a dynamic, open society, an ally of the West, the home of one great world religion and the birthplace of another, please visit Kickstarter and make a pledge.
Because as the late George Jonas once put it, "Truth unasserted is a lie unopposed."
"Pain is not suffering"
Slogan on a Nike ad featuring Olympian triathlete Simon Whitfield in Globe and Mail August 27, 2008
"‘The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.'"
G.K. Chesterton, quoted in "Serenity in Storms” in George William Rutler He Spoke to Us
"it is only by eternal institutions like hair that we can test passing institutions like empires. If a house is so built as to knock a man's head off when he enters it, it is built wrong.:
G.K. Chesterton What’s Wrong with the World p. 193.
"Chesterton begins his essay ["The Philosophy of Gratitude"] by recounting a passage from a letter he received in response to one of his essays. The writer wanted to know the meaning of the following sentence that he had read in Chesterton: 'No one can be miserable who has noticed anything worth being miserable about.' Chesterton tells us that he wrote this sentence in 'a wild moment.' But it was still true, whatever its wildness. If I notice that I am miserable, then I must have some sense of what it means to be not miserable. My condition, in other words, is not exclusively locked into misery."
James V. Schall SJ in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 13 # 8 (July-August 2010)