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Stories about the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
Shining a light on the communist darkness
It will take years, even decades, to comprehend fully the impact of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Ian Hunter, National Post, August 5
Once, the bravest man in the world
Solzhenitsyn and his fellow prisoners understood what the outside world (including much of Russia) couldn't comprehend: The Soviet Union had established scores of slave labour camps where prisoners were overworked, underfed and brutally treated.
Robert Fulford, National Post, August 5
A soldier for morality
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate who died Sunday, was born in 1918, a year after Lenin's revolution hijacked a historic nation in service of a corrupt modern ideology. Solzhenitsyn would outlive communism in Russia; the Soviet Union died in 1991, the Russian patriot in 2008.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, August 5
Russia's Literary Patriot
To die of natural causes at the age of 89 in his home near Moscow, as he did on Sunday, Alexander Solzhenitsyn had to beat nearly insuperable odds. The Nobel Prize-winning writer first had to survive Hitler, whose invading hordes he resisted during World War II as a frontline officer. Next he had to survive Stalin, who (for a careless remark in a private letter) made the highly decorated artilleryman a guest in his nightmarish system of labour camps for eight years after the war. And when he was released into internal exile following Stalin's death in 1953, Solzhenitsyn had to survive being treated for stomach cancer in Kazakhstan.
George Jonas, National Post, August 5
Putin came to appreciate the man he couldn't crush
It's said a picture is worth a thousand words: ten thousand couldn't do the work of the one shown above. Consider that the fellow in the suit joined the KGB in 1975, not long after Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union. Putin was made an officer in the Fifth Directorate, the specific branch with responsibility for, among other things, undermining and discrediting emigre dissidents. In the prime of Putin's life, it is likely that the destruction of the shrunken, rigid little ex-gunner in the wheelchair would have been the major preoccupying concern of his existence . and he came late to the effort, too, after torture, starvation, and hard labour had already failed against Solzhenitsyn's infinite inner resources.
Colby Cosh, Full Comment, National Post, August 5
Solzhenitsyn
Prophetic writers are a holy nuisance to everyone, but especially to themselves. The gift of prophecy renders a man incapable of a quiet life, incapable of enjoying idle pleasures, incapable of looking the other way -- when it is to no immediate personal advantage to be staring at the truth. But it cannot take away the normal human desire for such comforts.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, August 6
Solzhenitsyn's double-edged legacy
The mythology that Mr. Solzhenitsyn "revealed" the existence of Gulag to the West best serves those it exonerates -- those who chose to ignore the truth of the Soviet Union's contempt for human rights. In providing wider publicity for what was a well-documented but not yet universally reviled system, he unwittingly provided an easy out for those who had turned a blind eye to the victims of the Soviet Union for decades and now needed cover for their political conversions.
Ned Richardson-Little, Globe and Mail, August 6
Stories about the "Jesus sucks" stunt and other "human rights" complaints:
This just in: The Jewish establishment admits Canada's human-rights system is screwed up (better late than never, I suppose)
These three reforms would be welcome, I suppose. But a far better solution would be to simply get rid of Section 13 of the federal Human Rights Act (and all of its provincial equivalents), which give human rights commissions the power to censor politically incorrect speech. As I (and dozens of other pundits and bloggers) have argued numerous times, human rights commissions should stick to protecting people from bigoted landlords and employers, not acting as thought police on the Internet.
Jonathan Kay, Full Comment, National Post, July 31
B.C. resident files complaint over 'Jesus Sucks' stunt after watching it online
A British Columbia resident has filed a complaint with the province's Human Rights Tribunal after watching an episode of the prankish television show Kenny vs. Spenny online. Dean Skoreyko said he took offence to the slogan "Jesus Sucks," which was put on an airplane banner, pictured, and flown across Toronto skies earlier this week.
National Post, August 1
Reform rights commissions: B'nai Brith
Canada's human rights commissions are in urgent need of reform to prevent complainants hijacking them as political platforms, according to B'nai Brith Canada. . . . The call marks a notable milestone in the debate over Canada's human rights bureaucracy because B'nai Brith Canada has long been co-operative with and supportive of the quasi-judicial human rights legal system.
National Post, August 1
How I beat the fatwa, and lost my freedom
Some 900 days after I became the only person in the Western world charged with the "offence" of republishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, the government has finally acquitted me of illegal "discrimination." Taxpayers are out more than $500,000 for an investigation that involved fifteen bureaucrats at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The legal cost to me and the now-defunct Western Standard magazine is $100,000.
Ezra Levant, Full Comment, National Post, August 6
Earlier: Stories about "human rights" tribunals and commissions
Stories about the Greyhound bus attack and Fred Phelps:
Tragedy tests one's faith
The horrific story that took place this week on a bus near Brandon, Man., is one of those reminders that the world is full of nasty surprises, evil exists and innocent souls can suffer horrible torment for no reason at all. Terrible things happen all the time, but rarely does a single incident focus so many people at once on one act of horror.
Charles Lewis, National Post, August 2
Suspect in bus beheading described as hard working
A man who witnesses said stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized a fellow traveler on a Greyhound bus immigrated to Canada from China four years ago and worked for a time as a church custodian, the pastor who employed him said.
Associated Press, August 4
Controversial U.S. church plans to picket funeral
Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church are threatening to picket the funeral of Tim McLean, the young man decapitated on a Greyhound bus last week. . . . God is sending a message through Mr. McLean's murder that He and the commandments must be obeyed, Shirley Phelps-Roper said.
National Post, August 6
Playwright welcomes messages of hate
Outside the Cameron House tavern, one group will arrive to take in a stage show that satirizes the hard-line anti-gay teachings of Pastor Fred Phelps and his Kansas church, while another, comprised of seven members of Mr. Phelps's very flock, plans to greet them in protest. Controversial as it all sounds, it could be a marriage made in heaven from a publicity perspective, as each side draws more attention to the other's message than either might receive on its own. Both sides acknowledged as much yesterday, in the lead-up to the opening of The Pastor Phelps Project: A fundamentalist cabaret.
Globe and Mail, August 6
Stories about Stephen Harper's apology to Sikhs:
Sikhs don't accept apology for Komagata Maru
Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized Sunday for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident in which hundreds of Indians seeking a better life in Canada were turned away. Mr. Harper was speaking to a crowd of about 8,000 people in Surrey, B.C., which has a large east Indian community. But as soon as he left the stage, members of the Sikh community rushed to the podium immediately denouncing the apology. They said they wanted it delivered on the floor of the House of Commons.
Canadian Press, August 3
Indo-Canadians 'deceived' by Komagata Maru apology
Prime minister issues statement in Surrey park instead of Parliament
Vancouver Sun, August 5
Harper isn't sorry enough for Indian leaders
It turns out the official apology business is not unlike the Olympic high jump competition, in which the bar keeps getting higher until it's all but impossible to get across.
Kelly McParland, Full Comment, National Post, August 5
'We were duped,' Indo-Canadians say of PM's speech
Those involved in organizing the event in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident said yesterday they feel they were used by Ottawa politicians for purposes they do not understand. "We were duped," Jasbir Sandhu, a spokesman for the Professor Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation of Canada, said in an interview. "I don't know what their agenda was."
Globe and Mail, August 6
Stories about atheists and atheism:
Believing in the power of humour
Dr. Robert Buckman worries about his fellow atheists. The top Toronto oncologist, author and former collaborator with Monty Python's John Cleese, said the godless can be way too dogmatic and far too humourless. So at a major conference of fellow non-believers this weekend in Toronto, Dr. Buckman hopes to deliver a simple message: Try to be more humble. Or as he puts it, "humble up."
National Post, August 2
Embracing goodness, without God
Atheism is on the rise in Canada. Or maybe it's just that people now are willing to admit it
Toronto Star, August 2
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Stories from Douglas Todd's series on traumatized war vets:
The Trauma of War: Finding healing
It's now estimated that hundreds of thousands of emotionally injured North American soldiers are facing a host of destructive inner demons after returning from peacekeeping missions and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The veterans are emotionally crashing while trying to make the transition back to civilian life. They're traumatized. Many, like Spiess (photo below), have trouble living with the horrifying things they witnessed. Or did. Many feel guilty they could not stop the destruction of innocents. As soldiers, they have been trained to be hard-assed. But psychologist Marvin Westwood and Dr. David Kuhl, co-directors of a unique program for veterans at the University of B.C., say many soldiers begin discovering they cannot handle their trauma. They feel ashamed of it. And they don't feel understood.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, August 2
The Trauma of War 2: Dropping the "baggage"
It is normally "career suicide" for a Canadian soldier to admit to suffering psychological wounds from combat, says Westwood, a professor in UBC's department of educational psychology who also works with the faculty of medicine.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, August 2
The Trauma of War 3: Men learning to deal with grief
Sgt.-Maj. Jim Harris, a career soldier who now lives in Chilliwack, told the UBC group of soldiers about the time his patrol was taken hostage by a drunken Serb militia at a road checkpoint in the former Yugoslavia.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, August 2
Stories about Muslims, Islam and the West:
Sex charges dropped against C.W. Jefferys youths
All charges against six youths accused of sexually assaulting a young Muslim girl in the bathroom at C.W. Jefferys high school in the fall of 2006 have been dropped.
Toronto Star, July 31
Mosque job, $300K bail proposed for Abdullah Khadr pending extradition ruling
The eldest son of Canada's infamous Khadr family should be released on $300,000 bail and allowed to work at a local mosque pending the outcome of his extradition fight with the United States, where he is wanted on terrorism-related charges, his lawyers plan to argue Wednesday.
Canadian Press, August 5
Mosque offering Abdullah Khadr job if granted bail linked to extremists: Crown
Muslim extremists, including the late patriarch of Canada's notorious Khadr family, have visited an Islamic centre that is now willing to give his son a job as part of a bail proposal, an Ontario court heard Wednesday.
Canadian Press, August 6
One angry Muslim's tale of rage
I'm a Muslim male and I'm angry. No, let me correct that. I'm a Pakistani Muslim male and I'm very angry. Who wouldn't be if they had gone through what I just did?
Farrukh Rehan, Full Comment, National Post, August 6
Earlier: Stories about Islam and the West
Other stories from the past week:
Colleagues prepare to carry on couple's mission
Bob Rowe says he has no fear of travelling to the same area in Kenya where two Canadian missionaries were viciously assaulted and left for dead earlier this month. Rowe is part of a six-member group planning to leave for the rural community of Kitale on Sept. 26 to establish a new orphanage just north of the area where John Bergen, 70, and his wife Eloise, 66, were attacked.
Calgary Herald, July 31
Earlier: Stories about the missionary couple attacked in Kenya
Saint Batman?
Heath Ledger is mesmerizing in The Dark Knight, the latest Batman film. Here in his Australian homeland, his posthumous appearance as the Joker has been a major news story for two weeks. It's an extraordinary film, even if you are, inexplicably, unmoved by the addition of futuristic gadgets to the most reliable blockbuster combination in cinema: explosions, firearms, car chases and more explosions. This Batman comes with the bonus of some of the more combustible questions in philosophy. What is evil? Is there a moral order built into our world, or is to speak of such a moral design delusional? This Joker does not permit us to dismiss him as delusional; he comes with an argument. This is not the maniacal buffoon of Jack Nicholson's star turn nearly 20 years ago. This Joker is diabolical.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, July 31
Earlier: Dark Knight raises profound questions
40 years later, the Pope's words on birth control have stood the test of time
Forty years on, however, it is Humanae vitae -. not the Winnipeg Statement -- that has stood the test of time. Study after study has documented the uncanny accuracy of the Pope's much scoffed-at predictions, which stand out sharply against the failures of the preferred prophets of the day, such as Paul Erhlich, who in the same year published his famously misguided book, The Population Bomb.
Douglas Farrow, Full Comment, National Post, July 31
Victim ran 'fly-in' church from hangar
Businessman pilot Micky Jovkovic, one of two men killed in an ultra-light plane crash yesterday near Port Perry, was a man of faith who had created an aviators' "fly-in" church in his airport hangar.
National Post, August 2
Community divided over Ed's grassy boulevard home
Home for Ed Chase is a patch of grass near the corner of 96th Avenue and 160th Street in Surrey. He and his dog, Daryl, who is old and whose hind end is paralyzed, sleep there and spend their days there out in the open, or under a big, gaudy beach umbrella when it rains. It is a busy intersection, cornered by a high school, a Chevron station, a Husky station, and the Parkland Fellowship church, which owns the patch of grass Ed has homesteaded.
Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun, August 1
Help me guard against pride and despair
Barack Obama has a way with words. His speeches tug at the heartstrings of a United States desperate to believe in its leaders. But what would he say if no one were listening? No one, that is, except God? In his weekly look at the soundbites of our times, Stephen Marche deconstructs Obama's most private prayer
Stephen Marche, National Post, August 2
It's all Greek to everyone
Nike, goddess of victory, has emerged in our time as the greatest celebrity among all the Greek divinities. On the streets of every city, sweaty worshippers proclaim their love on T-shirts and shoes. Nike was always impressive: Look at her as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a don't-miss-this stop for every tourist in Paris who gets to the Louvre. Still, she was hardly in the top rank. She was an attendant of Zeus, the chief god, and now she's eclipsed him in every gym in the world. Zeus doesn't even have a line of underwear named after him. She's made him an also ran. For his sake we can only hope that, as Christians argued while eradicating paganism, Zeus never existed in the first place.
Robert Fulford, National Post, August 2
U.S. official vies for control of polygamist private school
In an unprecedented cross-border initiative, a court-appointed official from the United States is trying to take over a private school in British Columbia run by the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bruce Wisan, who was appointed by a U.S. court to protect the assets of the FLDS, has launched a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court seeking authority to gain control of the Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School located in a rural area outside Creston, B.C.
Globe and Mail, August 3
Earlier: Stories about the polygamist cult at Bountiful
Why Canada needs an abortion policy: A cheat sheet with 8 good arguments
Joseph Ben-Ami of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies has just come out with a concise, lucid paper entitled Why Canada Needs An abortion Policy. None of what Mr. Ben-Ami writes will be entirely new to anyone who's followed this issue closely in recent years. But he does a nice job of bringing together the arguments for an abortion law into a short essay of a few thousand words.
Jonathan Kay, Full Comment, National Post, August 3
YouTube comic spoofs Manitoba's Mennonites
Cornie likes to go on the "InterTube." He also confesses to a "dark" period in his life when he became "sucked into the vicious Mennonite gang culture." He sold "knack zoat" (which literally translates as "crack seeds," or sunflower seeds, in low German), engaged in "drive-by shunnings" and fought "turf wars." "We would rip up huge chunks of grass and throw it at each other." Cornie the Mennonite, small-scale YouTube video star, is making people laugh by spoofing Manitoba Mennonites.
CanWest News Service, August 5
Mythbusting manuscript
Saint Paul University has obtained a coveted limited-edition copy of the Chinon Parchment, which sheds light on the mysterious, maligned warrior monks, Jennifer Green writes.
Ottawa Citizen, August 5
An icon to too few
The New Yorker magazine recently got into all sorts of trouble for its satirical front cover cartoon depicting Barack Obama as an orthodox Muslim and his wife, Michelle, as a terrorist. Some people, it seems, simply can't take a joke. G. K. Chesterton could. Which is a good thing in that the British writer was the subject of a long and critical essay in the preceding issue of The New Yorker, in which the great man was accused of anti-Semitism and his Catholic religion painted with a strong, dull coat of condemnation.
Michael Coren, National Post, August 5
'People's rabbi' Monson gave to society
He was known affectionately as the "people's rabbi." Rabbi David Aaron Monson, founder and rabbi emeritus of Beth Sholom Synagogue in Toronto, earned many accolades, titles, and praises throughout his extraordinary life.
Toronto Star, August 6
August 7/2008
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