In my latest National Post column I wonder how a person as apparently sensible as our federal Finance Minister could have started talking such nonsense so quickly after becoming a politician.
"There was but one rule [for inclusion in his book]. 'Did the country or the person in question produce a new idea or perform an original act without which the history of the entire human race would have been different?' It was not a question of personal taste. It was a matter of cool, almost mathematical judgement. No race ever played a more picturesque rôle in history than the Mongolians, and no race, from the point of view of achievement or intelligent progress, was of less value to the rest of mankind." Hendrik van Loon The Story of Mankind
In my latest piece for C2C Journal I lay out a business model for the media, including conservative media, in the age of the dang Internet.
The audio-only version is available here: [podcast title="Ask the Professor, March 1"]http://thejohnrobson.com/podcast/John2017/March/Ask_Professor_81.mp3[/podcast]
"When good economists die, they come back as physicists. When bad economists die, they come back as sociologists. It is an old joke, but class envy is no stranger to academics: Everyone wants to go up-market in the rigour wars." Paul Kedrosky in National Post May 5, 2001
In my latest National Post column I suggest that punk rockers and other postmoderns hate and love big government because we've done the Nietzche transvaluation thing. Choice doesn't mean deciding between existing alternatives including right and wrong anymore. Now it means dictating what alternatives should exist and deciding for ourselves what shall be right. Conformity can be rebellion, awful art can be great, big can be small, down can be up, anything we like. Or so we like to think.
So here's a happy story. We had a great time at Universal Orlando Resort a few weeks ago but, in what I expect is an all-too-common end-of-day experience, a happily exhausted kid lost a souvenir Ollivanders wand on a shuttle bus. And now it's back. Having contacted Universal to express appreciation over an unrelated matter during our visit, I decided to ask whether anyone happened to find it and turn it in. No one had. But Universal insisted on sending a replacement free of charge anyway. (A Hermione Granger model, if you're curious. And yes, Diagon Alley is well worth a visit. So small from the outside, so big from the inside. Almost like... magic.) And yesterday a courier package arrived with the wand in it.
What great customer service, on top of excellent rides and other attractions.
Thanks, Universal. Or in the spirit of Harry Potter, vobis gratias ago.