Tag Archives: National Post

The columnist versus the commons

Posted on March 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

All who have written for the newspaper editorial section know what readers know, that theirs is a strange and, in some respects, ridiculous task. We understand how tedious it can be to discover us, once again, with our opinions of the moment. In the defence of editorialists, however, I’ll note it’s simply the case that someone must fill the area between the ads, and a fellow with something to say about the President’s latest tweet (or whatever) is a cost-effective proposition. Not only this, comment sections are as a rule popular features of a paper. As a result you are probably stuck with us, as we with you. This being so, isn’t it time we confessed to some unspoken truths of editorial, opinion, or political writing?

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Posted in Personal Essay

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Let’s Talk Tee-Vee

Posted on November 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

2014-10-29 10.29.26

A LOT OF PEOPLE (at least two of them) have asked about this little TV thing I do each week. So today I’m dedicating a segment to some Tee-Vee talk. Segment, by the way, is a TV word. See how I worked it like a real pro!

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Posted in Humor

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More Thoughts on Unpaid Internships and Writing for Exposure

Posted on April 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

zero-dollar-bill

THE ONTARIO MINISTRY of Labour recently announced an enforcement “blitz” of provincial regulations governing unpaid internships, an action which led to the termination of internship programs at Toronto Life, Canadian Geographic, Rogers Publishing and The Walrus.

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Posted in Writers and Writing

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Another Way of Looking at Minister Flaherty

Posted on April 17, 2014 | 1 comment

flahertyharris

THE CURRENCY of the word outpouring was notable this week: over at the National Post, Michael Den Tandt has not only described the phenomenon, but indulged it himself. His essay “Former finance minister Jim Flaherty’s death leaves a void in the Conservative party” issues high praise, pressing Kipling and Aristotle into the service of a lush panegyric. Again, nothing unusual here – it’s what everyone is doing these days, not only at the National Post, but elsewhere.

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Posted in Canada, Obituary, Politics

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Face It: Indian Residential Schools Were Bad

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 20 comments

Indian Residential Schools
LAST WEEK, Paul Russell (the letters editor at the National Post) ran a piece entitled Could it be that residential schools weren’t so bad?:

The National Post has carried many stories about [Indian residential schools] before and since that apology. And every time we do, it is interesting to see that most of the letters we receive argue that the schools have been unfairly portrayed in the media. That phenomenon was on display again this week, following the publication of last Saturday’s story, “4,000 Children died in residential schools; Truth commission.”

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Posted in First Nations

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Canadians Need to Understand Before It’s too Late

Posted on December 19, 2012 | 1 comment

Idle No More

IT’S BEEN ONE YEAR since the Attawapiskat First Nation housing crisis became a widely deliberated point, and perhaps that Attawapiskat itself became a known point on the map of Canada. It thus happens that the current hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence is among other things an anniversary marker of a sort.

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Posted in First Nations

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The Richard Smoke Trial

Posted on January 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

ON DECEMBER 23, 2011, Ontario Superior Court Justice the Honourable Alan C. R. Whitten rendered his verdict in the case of a vicious beating in Caledonia of builder Sam Gualtieri, by defendant and Six Nations resident Richard Smoke. The judgement has received only a smattering of press attention, most of it issuing from the National Post. My feeling is that there ought to be more attention paid, but of a sort which begins by acknowledging universal failure and the urgent need to do something constructive before southern Ontario becomes a Gaza strip of AK-47-wielding Warriors, rock throwing children, and the Canadian army. If you think this is a dramatic and paranoid fantasy, then you are simply one of the many sleep-walking Canadians who has forgotten (or never bothered to notice) that such a thing has already happened. There is no reason at present to conclude it can’t happen again.

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