Tags: Israel

LET’S CANCEL CULTURE.

The Giller Prize ceremony takes place on Monday.

Two big things have changed since last year’s Giller. It’s no longer called The Scotiabank Giller Prize because of a gymnastic compromise whereby the award’s lead sponsor agreed to pay for the sponsorship but remove their name. (This uniquely dysfunctional compromise reminds me that Canada is also the only nation where pharmaceutical companies can either mention the name of their product in their advertising, or what it’s used for, though not both.) But I digress…

Also, between last November and this, some Giller nominees and judges have refused to let their names stand for Canada’s biggest literary prize. Indeed, many writers who have nothing to do with the Giller have also waded in to say, “If nominated I will not stand; if elected I will not serve.”

As if.

Read on…

THE ENDURING RESILIENCE OF SEXUAL MONSTERS.

On October 5, 2017, Jodi Kantor and Meg Twohey broke the story of Harvey Weinstein as a sexual predator in The New York Times. Just days later, Ronan Farrow (Woody Allen’s son) expanded that story in The New Yorker.

Those two pieces sparked a revolution in how men should behave with women
at the office and on the shop floor. It was just months before the #MeToo movement swept dozens of men from their jobs and rewrote the rules of engagement between men and women, especially men and women with vastly different degrees of power.

Here in Canada, soon after The Times pieces, The Globe and Mail tried to get the goods on our own business leaders who were thought to act like Weinstein. (All our media had been stung by the CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, but he was fired eons before in 2014, and then found not guilty at trial two years later).

The Globe wasn’t able to turn up much.

Play your Trump Card

Donald Trump didn’t just win in Iowa. He won Huge!

But recall that two weeks before the Iowa caucuses in 2016, then-candidate Trump said at Dortd University in Sioux City:  “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?…It’s, like, incredible.”

Incredible, but true, and Trump isn’t the only one anticipating his inauguration one year from today on January 20, 2025.

Credit card companies are as well, particularly American Express.

Read on…

What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.

I went to an event in Toronto on Wednesday to hear five Muslim speakers talk about the war between Israel and Hamas. The room was jammed with 650 eager listeners.

The keynote speaker was Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of the co-founder of Hamas.

Then three panelists each spoke, chaired by Raheel Raza, President of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow. The panelists were Ontario MPP Goldie Ghamari, the first Iranian-Canadian woman elected to office in Canada and the Chair of the Standing Committee on Justice Policy; Asaad Sam Hanna, a member of the US Armed Forces and a strategic advisor to the Lobo Institute; and Bassem Eid, founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.

Read on…

A Slap in the Face

My wife says don’t plant anything in Ontario until the May 24th weekend. But the impulse to declare winter over (spring officially started last week) lies deep within us. Why else would we worship cherry blossom season when the blossoms are covered in ice?  At least they tell the truth on Fogo Island: “Pack Ice Season follows winter, bringing multi-year sparkling ice floes to surround our shores.” Meanwhile, here in Toronto, it’s still a Hobson’s Choice: the parka or the chilly walk.

But these should warm you up:

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