In my latest National Post column I dismiss various criticisms and call Prince Harry's engagement to Meghan Markle a good thing including the amazing progress in race relations it reflects.
"The sorcerer’s apprentice gets into trouble because he knows a little magic. If he knew none, he’d have no problem; nor would he have a problem if he knew enough."
George Jonas in Ottawa Citizen Jan. 3, 2005
"When you sweep the floor, just sweep; when you eat, just eat; when you walk, just walk."
"the pilgrim-poet Basho" quoted by Robert Sibley in Ottawa Citizen Nov. 19, 2000
"All the will-worshippers, from Nietzsche to Mr. Davidson, are really quite empty of volition. They cannot will, they can hardly wish.... they always talk of will as something that expands and breaks out. But it is quite the opposite. Every act of will is an act of self-limitation.... In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else. That objection, which men of this school used to make to the act of marriage, is really an objection to every act.... Just as when you marry one woman you give up all the others, so when you take one course of action you give up all the other courses. If you become King of England, you give up the post of Beadle in Brompton. If you go to Rome, you sacrifice a rich suggestive life in Wimbledon. It is the existence of this negative or limiting side of will that makes most of the talk of the anarchic will-worshippers little better than nonsense. For instance, Mr. John Davidson tells us to have nothing to do with 'Thou shalt not'; but it is surely obvious that 'Thou shalt not' is only one of the necessary corollaries of 'I will.'"
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
"This contract is so one-sided that I was surprised to see it written on both sides of the paper.”
"An infamous 19th-century comment attributed to Lord Patrick Evershed" quoted in National Post November 13, 1998 p. A9.
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."
Nelson Henderson, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe and Mail March 29, 2001
In my latest National Post column I say we need to be far more alert about online security, and demand that our governments take it seriously too.