In an article reacting to my blackface blog post, I am accused of calling all Quebecers racist. Somehow, by sharing my thoughts and experiences as a Quebecer, I ceased to be one myself -- placed by this media outlet as a spiteful outsider to the only society, culture, and civic family I've ever intimately known.

Don Cherry's regressive rhetoric betrays Canada's reputation as a nation of inclusiveness and cultural tolerance. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has tolerated this treatment for too long. Don Cherry's distasteful diatribes belong in hockey's past, not in the Canadian national pastime's present or future.

Writing in The Jerusalm Post, Israeli Sharon Udasin quoted Nofar Gal, who lives near the border with Gaza: "The situation in the South has been very difficult not only for us humans but also for our pets." Predictably, her writing about an Israeli's pet dog triggered outrage in sensitive non-Israelis. The professionally sensitive -- liberal reporters -- were especially incensed.

The film the Innocence of Muslims has recently been thrust into the spotlight and has played the willing role of firestarter to what can be seen as a tinderbox which harbours the sensitive feelings of my Muslim brothers and sisters. You, my dear Muslim brothers and sisters, fell for it. You have played right into the hands of this hate-monger filmmaker and into the hands of his bigoted friends who view Muslims as "crazy," "intolerant," "violent" all in the same breath. And thanks to you we have handed them another high profile example. On a big fat shiny platter.

There was a time when it would have been unthinkable for an American president to utter those words, but today that era has passed. In a nation divided by Democrats and Republicans, secular and religious, north and south, today marks a day where America has moved one step closer to no longer being a nation divided by straight and gay.

Someone's mother falls to the sidewalk; on the next street someone looks up. In the cathedral, a burst of laughter; in another city the pigeons fly up and scatter. Someone put down in a New York subway a newspaper picked up in Australia. For each event, the inarticulate glory, the equal and opposite, will tell the story.

Why, when I see other cultures being critiqued, I sometimes bristle, while at other times I welcome it as thoughtful analysis? Because employing a measure of tastefulness and mindfulness and listening to others makes all the difference.