“’I remember back on the farm... my mother calling to me... “Jon, you’re boring the cattle!” Ever see a cow yawn?’ ‘Now you’re boring the cat.’”
Dialogue with Jon talking then Garfield thinking in Garfield cartoon in Ottawa Citizen May 16, 2002
In my latest Loonie Politics column I draw on the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton to unravel the attitudes of populist and their opponents to accountability.
“To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.”
“On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family,” in G.K. Chesterton Brave New Family
“The same sense of the relentlessly interwoven texture of human fate was touched by the schoolboy who said: ‘Dad, I hate war.’ ‘Why, son?’ ‘Because war makes history, and I hate history.’”
Marshall McLuhan Understanding Media
“Popular writing in this connexion is far below the zero of knowledge or common decency. On this plane, not only is any real knowledge of the Classical writers non-existent but, further, their place has been taken by a set of mythological figures, passing by the same names, but not infrequently invested with attitudes almost the exact reverse of those which the originals adopted. These dummies are very malignant creatures indeed. They are the tools or lacqueys of capitalist exploiters – I think that has the authentic stylistic flavour. They are indefatigable opponents of social reform. They can conceive no function for the state other than that of the night watchman.... Now, doubtless, the best remedy for this state of affairs would be that people should once more turn to the original texts. I hope that this... is what will happen in those universities which are once more insisting on some minimum knowledge of the history of economic thought. But, since life is short and the literature is extensive, there is perhaps something to be said for yet another attempt to get the wide field into something like a correct focus.”
Lionel Robbins The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the apparently trivial cancellation of camping lessons in Montreal by Parks Canada is a worrying symptom of mental and moral rot.
“The feeling of having taken a wrong turning in life was made worse by the fact that he could not, for the life of him, remember having taken any turnings at all.”
“Charles Fernyhough, writer”, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail June 11, 2010
“I am unbelievably lucky: a. to be an American; b. To have my wife, the world’s finest human; c. To have never been severely or at least life-threateningly ill; d. To have never been in combat; e. To have had loving, caring, prosperous parents; f. To have an interesting, well-paid career; g. To have great friends, a great sister, nephew, niece, cousins, and, above all, son; h. Above all, to have learned to love and worship a God of love and understanding.”
“Benjamin J. Stein’s Diary” on his 60th birthday in The American Spectator February 2005