Tweets are brief. I get that. But Robyn Doolittle's response to my earlier blog post is telling. She failed to address the widespread concerns about her reportage, and opted instead for a straw man strategy starring yours truly. It's a familiar defense aimed at ending debate. Call someone a sexist, a racist, a homophobe. I've heard them all. But I've never used them.
Either way, with all of his other scandals in mind, if this video proves to be true, Ford must leave office. But the fact that he should leave office as a man in need of help, and not a morally bankrupt criminal (at least for potentially using crack), remains. Unfortunately, the lingering effects of the Drug War likely will remain as well.
Living in Vancouver, I'm no Rob Ford fan. I'm not even sure what that is. Media outlets across Canada and around the world reported on what the Star published while their reporter Robyn Doolittle has gone Hollywood. Drug dealers, no video proof, there's nothing right about this whole thing. Folks, prepare yourself for the new normal.
A January 8 letter to the Toronto Star headlined "Preventing Another Newtown" pointed out that "The perpetrators of almost every mass shooting were on psychotropic drugs." As absurd as it may seem, there is a myth that continues to grow after mass shootings and that is that the cause of these shootings are psychiatric medications themselves. But studies demonstrate that most acts of violence are committed by people who are not being treated.
Last Thursday, CJF's full-house gathering was titled Gutenberg's Last Stand: Reinventing the Modern Newspaper. Sitting in the audience, I was certain that -- plagiarism being a mortal sin in our honourable profession -- someone would raise Wentegate. I waited. Nobody mentioned Wentegate. Or resignations. Surely, if nothing else, Stackhouse deserved his chance to explain?
Canadians who value tolerance, respect and harmony should not listen to the voices of people like Chris Selley of the National Post who wrote that the media should show clips of the anti-Islam film behind the outrage if it offends people or not. Why on earth would anyone go out of their way to screen this obnoxious product, unless it is to inflict further hurt on Muslims and inflame more anger? Those who are portraying themselves as advocates of freedom of expression are hypocrites in the highest order. Canadians should listen to balanced voices that bring people together at a time when hatred is taking its toll on humanity.
Tony Burman, current Ryerson University journalism professor claimed "the Harper government's outsourcing of Canada's Middle East policy to Jerusalem is now complete" in the Toronto Star. Without even a modicum of evidence to support his allegation, Burman used only conjecture and specious argumentation to smear Israel, instead of grounding his opinions in facts.
Education is a hot topic in Canadian editorial pages at the moment, following some recent hullabaloo of parents demanding their kids be able to opt-out of classes involving various ungodly topics, like sex and global warming. All columnists, of course, dance around the awkward fact that this story is as much about immigration as education.
A Toronto Star article recently identified three potential areas of savings under bulk purchasing of drugs that amounted to $2.48 million, $968,000, and $325,000. While these amounts are significant, it is just barely scratching the surface of what the potential savings could be from bulk purchasing and tendering of medications in Canada.
In cottage country, and even on Toronto's beaches up to the mid 1950s, it was common to see signs that read "No Dogs or Jews Allowed." Though we, as a nation, have made great strides in the name of human rights for all, we cannot be complacent. There cannot be justice for Jews if there is not justice for everyone.
Over the past eight months, I have had the pleasure of being one of Conrad Black's editors. His blogs have arrived weekly from prison like clockwork. Often I wondered how he wrote these from prison. I don't just mean the mechanics (because those were obviously an issue: How do you get access to a computer? Do you have Internet?). But how did he manage to keep up on everything? Reading his highly informed and topical blogs you would never know this was a man almost entirely cut off from the information sources we take for granted. Here's the bottom line: The key to Conrad's survival has been his mind.