"Hey, I’m not a Pollyanna about the way the world works. Not all the turtles are going to make it to the ocean. That’s not negativism. That’s pragmatism." Dennis Miller The Rants
"Begin by looking at everything from the moral point of view, and you will end by believing in God." Thomas Arnold, famous headmaster of Rugby school and father of Matthew Arnold, quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb The De-moralization of Society
Lincoln County in the New Mexico Territory, in its Wild West days, was the kind of place "where a man would kill you just to see if a gun worked." TV documentary on the "Lincoln County War" famously involving Billy the Kid that aired in Ottawa on December 18, 1998 (as a pedantic rule I try to source my quotations as accurately as possible but sometimes all you get is all I scribbled down at the time)
In my latest National Post column I say the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester should remind everyone, including progressives, that Islamist fanatics do not hate our open society for being repressive or for defending itself. They hate it because it is tolerant. They hate our permissiveness. They hate us for who we are not what we do. And there is nothing we can do to appease them that would not be a fundamental betrayal of ourselves and our ideals.
"it must be remembered, that life consists not in a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of our daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures…" Samuel Johnson, quoted in D.J. Enright’s introduction to Johnson's The History of Rasselas
In my latest National Post column I urge people to take men's needs seriously and support the new Canadian Association for Equality's Ottawa Centre for Men and Families.
"Victims can be victims and not be innocent." David Rieff, A Bed for the Night (header quotation on Chapter 2 of Carol Off The Ghosts of Medak Pocket)