2024-12-16

With any luck, Canada is now finally en route to holding its 45th General Election.

The next government would do well to heed this advice from Ryan Manucha, in a recent guest piece in the Globe and Mail, which is, incidentally, the best thing I read all week:

The nation of Canada was forged in part as a response to the harmful trade policy changes of foreign governments. Canada must once again look within for economic resilience and prosperity. Specifically, it must renew focus on obstacles to trade within our own borders.

The best thing that I heard all week was Craig Ferguson’s recent Joy podcast chat with Adam Savage. If you’ve heard a lot about the medium recently and have become curious, this episode is a great example it’s becoming increasingly popular.

2024-12-09

If you did not see that presidential pardon coming, as the equal and opposite reaction to being dropped from the ticket, you’ve got brain rot, mate.

If there’s any tension between Einstein’s famous definition of insanity and Mark Twain’s quip about history rhyming, it’s on full and terrifying display in Andrew Rudyk’s recent retrospective on Hoovernomics in the Toronto Star.

The best thing that I listened to all week was a recent episode of journalist Latika Bourke’s podcast, Latika Takes, where she recently hosted a panel at the the Australian Institute of International Affairs conference on the subject of the incoming American administration. The immediate context was Australian politics and national defence, but their commentary may as well suffice for other countries like Canada. There’s also a seriousness here that reminded me I haven’t heard a group of Canadians talk like this in a long time.

Rounding out other items of note this week, the Spectator’s Matthew Parris has written an exceptional defence of the venerable first-past-the-post voting system, while the Economist offers up a thoughtful piece about our new, increasingly fractured media era.

2024-12-02

The word that unites respective guest editorials about the tariff threat, from former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (in the National Post) and the head of Toronto’s Regional Board of Trade (in the Globe and Mail), which led the punditry pack last week for sharpest takes, is serious. They’re right. It’s time to get serious.

The Spectator’s sensible Sam Leith on rule by petition.

Mike Murphy of the Hacks on Tap podcast recently shared the three “rules of gravity” regarding the looming Democratic leadership contest (that we ought to internalize immediately):

The first law of gravity is nobody knows anything. The second law is early polls don't matter, they're all name ID. And then third law is vacuums get filled. So I think everybody's going to run.

Lastly, AppleTV’s exceptional series Shrinking (2023-) just concluded it’s second season. If you’re in the market for a smoothly written series, by a handful of television veterans, who know how to balance comedy and drama, and bludgeon you with both lovingly but without warning, look no further.

Correction: Shrinking actually concludes Christmas Day.

2024-11-25

The ongoing stand-off in the House of Commons provides an opportunity to retire this cliché that our system is broken. I know that’s counter-intuitive, so let’s use a simple metaphor to make the point: the problem is not the hardware, it’s the latest software. Our venerable hardware has been effectively operating for centuries. What changes over time are the members themselves. Uninstalling them can often resolve the issue. Of course, as is the way with software, newer versions may fix old bugs, while introducing new ones entirely.

Speaking of Canada, and questionable priorities, it’s only fair that I now also admonish the federal government for their year-end tax holiday and new year tax rebate cheque plan—that is, $6.28 billion that will not go to address our national debt (nearing $1.5 trillion) or, say, meeting our outstanding NATO obligations.

If you’re interested in the future of media, don’t miss Canadaland’s recent interview with the founder of Substack.

2024-11-18

You’re still over-thinking it. Luckily, the Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey has an even better follow-up article this week. You still needn’t read anything else.

I sure picked an odd week to read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958). Well, who is to say what calls to us from the book pile and why? Here’s an evergreen passage we would all do well to keep in mind now and always:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you."

2024-11-11

“Prices spiked more during the Biden administration,” writes Annie Lowrey in the Atlantic, in the only post-election analysis that is worthy of your time, “than at any point since the early 1980s.”

Don’t over-think it. Don’t point fingers. And, don’t call people names.

Sometimes you lose. That’s what it means to live in a democracy. Losing takes time to walk-off, but the only thing that matters is getting right back in the game. The Democratic Party has an extraordinary generational opportunity before it to rebrand from the ground-up. It should take that seriously. Starting with, if I may, examining their coalition’s key fault line of overlooking 24% of the electorate, as astutely observed by Scott Galloway, in his No Mercy / No Malice newsletter endorsement of the vice president (prior to the election).

Today is Remembrance Day. Let’s remember that fighting for what you believe in means contesting every inch of ground, not throwing your hands up in preemptive surrender. There are many threats to democracy, but repeatedly saying that it’s already over is an insult to our forebears—who fought for every inch to get us here.

The president-elect has already named a chief of staff. Politico is among the first to offer a primer on the first woman to be appointed to the role. If you’re interested in the unique role this position plays in the administration, I highly recommend Chris Whipple’s excellent book, The Gatekeepers (2017).

Farewell, Quincy Jones. I liked Spencer Kornhaber’s tribute in the Atlantic most for this thought: “Jones used his talent and expertise to design a future we’re still catching up to.”

2024-11-04

The government of Ontario recently confirmed its intention to send each taxpayer a $200 refund cheque early next year. It’s probably safe to assume, with this comment, that the editorial board of the Globe and Mail aren’t looking forward to spending that on alcohol at their respective corner stores:

…a true fiscally conservative government would at least ensure that it eliminated its budget deficit before handing out billions of dollars in electoral bribes.

According to some back-of-the-napkin fiscal responsibility from the Frasier Institute Blog, Ontario’s debt will rise by $21 billion this year to $429 billion. The rebate scheme will cost $3 billion. Like the kids say: that math’s not math-ing.

Speaking of leadership, here’s former US Navy admiral William McRaven in the Wall Street Journal reflecting on civility and the week ahead:

Being a person of good character matters. Doing what is right matters because when a leader exhibits honor, integrity and decency, it instills those qualities in the culture of the institution and in the next generation of leaders.

To quote a former president: Don’t boo. Vote.

Here’s a passage that I enjoyed from Anil Gomes’s review of Daniel Dennett’s memoir, I’ve Been Thinking (2023), in the London Review of Books:

Dennett’s stories have a dialogical function: they’re a way to get you to see the truth, but not by means of argument. This also explains the variety of intuition pumps one finds in his writings. Some philosophers offer multiple arguments for a view, as if stacking them up somehow made for a more convincing case. But if you have just one good argument, nothing more is necessary; and if your arguments are bad, it doesn’t matter if they are one or many. Stories, by contrast, can strike different people at different times in different ways.

2024-10-28

“According to the Liberal [Party of Canada’s] constitution,” writes Tristan Hopper in his First Reading National Post newsletter:

…the only time party members get to vote on their leader is if a leader dies, resigns or contests an election in which they fail to “become or continue to be the Prime Minister.”

The same parliamentary principle that requires a government to maintain the confidence of the House also extends to the leader of each party and their caucus. Leadership changes between elections (or “spills” as Australia charmingly calls them) are never elegant—recall, for example, that the UK most recently had three different Conservative leaders (and, therefore, prime ministers) between elections—but, they’re a feature and not a bug. Caucus leverage over leader is an important convention, one to which the LPC (and all parties, for that matter) should adhere.

Trick or treat? Well, we won’t know the answer to that until after Halloween. With just seven days to go before the US presidential election, keeping perspective, like the Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker, is critical:

One thing we desperately need to get away from is the silly idea that our country's greatness is a partisan achievement, one that can be eviscerated by a few thousand voters going the wrong way in a swing state next month. Merely to articulate the thought is to show how stupid it is.

I cannot recommend Charles C.W. Cooke’s most recent National Review article (on the future of conservatism) enough. First, it reads like a devastatingly blunt but fair report card on both presidential candidates. Second, it reminds us that a healthy political spectrum should be the goal of our politics more generally. That is, you don’t have to be a member of the opposing tribe to have a vested interest in their continued coherence and clarity.

Dana Gould has released his annual Halloween podcast special. Don’t miss the middle feature about film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula (1897). The book-based-on-the-movie-based-on-the-book point of order alone is both terrifying and hilarious.

2024-10-21

For all the international commentary regarding the apparent plot within the prime minister’s own party to politely push him out, let’s not overlook his government’s continued flirtation with being held in contempt of Parliament. As a Globe and Mail quite rightly reminds us:

There is no precedent that allows the government to weasel its way out of a House production order; its only alternatives are to prorogue Parliament, a doubling down on disdain that the Harper government resorted to in a similar case in 2009, or simply refuse to comply and be found in contempt of Parliament, an extremely rare occurrence that the Harper government inflicted upon itself in 2011, and which can lead to a non-confidence motion.

It’s not over until it’s over—and, even then, it may still not be over until the very last vote is counted (and recounted). The only thing pundits and polls will do in the meantime is feed your anxiety. If you absolutely must engage in idle speculation about the forthcoming US election, better to aim for thoughtful fare like Gerald F. Seib’s “bright spots” essay in the Wall Street Journal, or Adam Gopnik’s reflection on the worst case in the New Yorker, which includes this anchoring observation:

To grasp what is at stake in this strangest of political seasons, it helps to define the space in which the contest is taking place. We may be standing on the edge of an abyss, and yet nothing is wrong, in the expected way of countries on the brink of apocalypse. The country is not convulsed with riots, hyperinflation, or mass immiseration. What we have is a sort of phony war—a drôle de guerre, a sitzkrieg—with the vehemence of conflict mainly confined to what we might call the cultural space.

The best thing I read all week was Giles Coren’s response in the Times to the news about Christopher Columbus’s apparent DNA analysis. It’s precisely what I thought when the evidently breaking news alert rudely arrived on my phone.

Over on his excellent podcast, Lexicon Valley, John McWhorter takes a fun look at the word busy.

2024-10-14

I admire anyone who can capture the prevailing mood—read the room—in any given situation, with as few words as possible. Here’s a first rate example from Lance Morrow, in the Wall Street Journal, on the final days of the US presidential campaign: “Rarely has history seemed so silly and so ominous at the same time.”

Here’s a great line from Randall Denley, in his open letter to the Ontario Liberal Party in the National Post, on their obvious struggle to score on an open net: “Democracy doesn’t work well unless there are at least two parties offering credible alternatives on important issues.”

This year’s Massey Lecture, by Ian Williams, entitled What I Mean to Say (2024), explores the theme of conversation. It meanders, like a conversation, but charmingly so. I hope the subtle effort to engage some of the previous lectures in the series during the final chapter in, well, conversation, does not go unappreciated.

Here are the two respective passages that I appreciated most:

There is a greater danger in not having the conversation about the state of our world, by which I mean the state of our lives, than in having it. If we don't talk, we risk imagining each other in ways that are self-serving; we use each other as props to confirm our treasured biases, to invent malice, and to scapegoat for social problems. Conversations act as a corrective to our assumptions and delusions.

Our insistence on shoring up identities is constantly setting us in opposition to other identities and turning them to strangers, most neutrally, or enemies, more typically. The psychic exhaustion of carrying identities is pressing us down, depressing us.

2024-10-07

If you read only one thing this week, make it Adam Gopnik’s guest article in the Globe and Mail about antisemitism on right and the left.

Speaking of the Globe and Mail, let’s hope that Andrew Coyne’s recent column about the potential fault line in national unity following the forthcoming federal election remains merely a comprehensive exercise in applied anxiety.

I was distressed to learn that even students fortunate enough to be admitted to elite colleges, as Rose Horowitch reports in the latest edition of the Atlantic, not only typically have no formal reading practice, but struggle to complete even a single volume. Remember, it’s not what you read (or how) so much as keeping at it.

Speaking of the Atlantic, Ross Andersen’s report about a little corner of Wikipedia confirms that not all catastrophizing need be defeatist and boring.

“In adapting to changing technology,” writes Fraser Nelson in his retrospective on fifteen years at the editorial helm of the Spectator, “a 196-year-old magazine, developed the culture of a start-up. With the introduction of blogs, podcasts, videos, newsletters, events and all else, we were able to bring The Spectator to people not in the habit of reading magazines.” In so doing, he grew the value of the magazine by £80 million. That’s not only one hell of a run, it’s also proof that news of the death of the media business model (and product audience) has been greatly exaggerated. Congradulations, Mr. Nelson.

I’ve been enjoying Alan Alda’s podcast, Clear and Vivid, for some time. The recent Steven Martin episode is a great place to pick it up.

Farewell to both Maggie Smith and John Amos.

2024-09-30

The end of a month is a fitting opportunity to take stock of things.

Here’s a smart summary on the state of media, borrowed the Economist’s Bagehot columnist, in a broader view of the still new UK government’s struggle between chaos and calm:

Declining circulations mean newspapers today offer only a pastiche of popular opinion; broadcasters reach far fewer people than they once did; deranged TikTok videos will determine the next election as much as what leads the evening news. Where there was once a discernible set of narratives, whether positive or negative, there is now chaos.

And, here’s the Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein, commenting on the most important group of eligible voters in the forthcoming US election (that may as well sum up the state of the entire contest):

In the end, however, neither party expects too many of the voters who are telling pollsters today that they might switch to the other candidate to actually do so. The bigger prize for the two campaigns is the irregular voters who are, as [Sarah] Longwell put it, deciding “whether they are going to get off the couch” to vote at all.

My favourite tell in a review is an early pivot, from the subject or product at hand, to something either more personal to the reviewer or tangentially related, like an earlier work by the same artist. Sometime’s it’s less a pivot than a whole platform, like this review from the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin, who has used the occasion of a new George Clooney vehicle to remind us of perhaps the greatest of all: Tony Gilroy’s film Michael Clayton (2007).

Here’s wishing the Spectator’s Lionel Shriver a swift and full recovery.

2024-09-23

“It is incomprehensible that a country would learn that there may be foreign government collaborators walking its halls of power,” writes the Globe and Mail editorial board, “and then take no discernible action. Ottawa’s lack of urgency in so serious a matter is corrosive to voters’ trust in democracy, and raises questions about Canada's willingness to defend itself.”

Quite right.

Speaking of taking things seriously, here is the definitive line (by Jen Gerson) from the multi-contributor feature collection, in the November edition of the Walrus, speculating at life under the presumptive winner of the next federal election:

“My concern with [Pierre] Poilievre isn't that he's polarizing but, rather, like [Justin] Trudeau before him, that he's unserious.”

Reports about the death of Moore’s law may well be greatly exaggerated, but they do seem to double every two years.

2024-09-16

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker (1974). New York magazine’s own city editor Christopher Bonanos has the interview and retrospective that you didn’t know you needed.

With political polling in disrepute, we may as well let the the astrologists in on the guessing—hey, at least they can plainly explain their methodology.

Canada also holds a by-election in two federal ridings today. Once the ensuing wave of urgent punditry subsides, critical attention should be paid to the activists who worked to bloat the ballot in at least one of those ridings, by signing up as many candidates as possible, in the hope of persuading voters to embrace electoral reform (not actually on the ballot). I wonder how many candidates they expect to see on the ballot under a more proportional system, but I digress. The point is this: if you want change, get the votes; don’t undermine faith in our political institutions with a cheap stunt. Elections Canada has earned our pride and deserves our respect. We should be so lucky.

Speaking of respect and federal politics, let’s appreciate Navneet Alang’s recent article in the Toronto Star, which bravely reminds us that two things can be true.

I was grateful for friends with great taste also in possession of surplus Toronto International Film Festival tickets last weekend. I had the chance to see Seth Worley’s wonderous film feature debut, Sketch (2024). Do enjoy at least the first two spoiler-free paragraphs of Variety’s review until you can see it for yourself.

2024-09-09

In his latest New Yorker feature, Dhruv Khullar discovers a real use case for artificial intelligence that you’ll find interesting even if you’re well over the hype.

Over in Politico, Justin Grimmer reminds us that not only are polls not to be trusted, they can actually depress voter participation.

Lastly, read this report from the Economist, about last week’s regional election in Germany, and tell me again why proportional representation is superior.

2024-09-02

For a culture that spends most of its free time arguing about progress, you’d assume we’d be a little more sentimental about Labour Day—now that, for example, we’ve all generally agreed to frown upon child labour and all.

The Economist’s latest feature series on Sudan is very much worth your time.

Here’s a passage from Egypt’s own Yusuf Idris, in a short story entitled, “All on a Summer’s Night,” that I found in Penguin’s somewhat recent english collection, The Cheapest Nights (2020), that gives Gatsby a great run for his new money:

Once more we found ourselves roaming, back on the same road that saw us coming, driven in spite of ourselves. We were limping and groaning and leaning on one another. Our thoughts were dwelling on the coming dawn, rising suddenly, giving shape to the earth, with grief and care in its folds. And the harsh inexorable day loomed ahead like a huge monster, bigger than the sun.

2024-08-19

The World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern” over the potential spread of mpox last week. Should that escalate, especially as media report domestic cases, I think we’re going to discover one of the darker realities of the post-pandemic: You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to have trust issues with governmental failure to lead, set meaningful metrics, or even clearly narrate in a crisis.

Let us praise Annie Hylton for reminding us, with her recent profile of premier Scott Moe in the Walrus, that we ignore Saskatchewan provincial politics at our peril. The anecdote about the text from his brother-in-law, following his successful leadership bid, is worth the price of admission alone.

The two minds behind the “Expanse” science fiction franchise have returned with the first work in a new universe entitled, The Mercy of Gods (2024). I’m already looking forward to the next one.

2024-08-12

If Parliament have the time to investigate the (alleged) unbecoming behaviour of the coaching staff of the national women’s soccer team at the Olympics in Paris, then they obviously also have time to investigate the (alleged) unbecoming behaviour of their own number, with the foreign agents—or, am I the only who remembers that as-yet addressed disgrace? The t-word was used, after all.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has won the so-called “veepstakes” to round-out the Democratic presidential nomination ticket, but allow me to nominate Charles P. Pierce for rising about the morass of punditry with this in Esquire: “Personally, I approve of the selection of anyone who once supervised a lunchroom.” Seriously, anyone who can hold their own in that context obviously has real transferable skills.

Here’s a profound observation from Ezra Klein, in the form of a question to his podcast guest last week, former US Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

You have a sort of tendency when a thing is beginning to fall apart to simply assert that it isn't and to sort of reopen people's imagination about the options. You talked about that in terms of intuition. But how do you know when something is breaking and how do you know when it can actually be held together in those two cases maybe?

What I appreciate most about this is that it sheds light on a frustrating undercurrent in our political culture: we all too often given up ground for no reason. Western civilization, democracy, even the planet itself—if you judged purely from how we talk about these things, you’d have no choice but to conclude they’re each a firm breeze from folding. As I’ve observed here before, I see a perfectionist trend in our politics that suggests if we can’t solve a problem, completely, immediately, then we conclude that there’s no hope and we’re doomed. Instead, as Pelosi suggests, there’s always a pragmatic path forward—even if you don’t personally like or prefer it.

Lastly, here’s a stray thought from Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore (2017): “Ideas take their energy from the perceptions of others.”

2024-08-05

Well, that was a weird week.

Here’s a lesson in politics from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the man who led that one word tone-shift, from helpless catastrophizing to the personal, in his recent appearance on Ezra Klein’s podcast:

What I see is that that kind of stuff is overwhelming for people. It's like other big issues, like climate change. If you can't tackle it one piece at a time, it just seems, why should I do anything about it? And for me as a teacher, you couldn't make your case while people were in that mindset. When they're in a fear mindset, it's very difficult for them to listen. And they kept hearing that.

I hope your decision not to adopt the federal electoral boundary changes for the next provincial election, as reported this week by the Toronto Star, is in the public interest, Premier Ford.

Not to be outdone by the New York Times’s list of the (alleged and, frankly, rather topical) one hundred best books of the century, the Economist has published an interactive calculator to help you assess how long it will take you to read the greatest five hundred books of all time. It’s fun to play with—and, actually, a great reminder that many of these so-called classics are not worth your time.

2024-07-29

Cheating at the world’s sport. Not a good look, Canada.

It’s the middle of the summer and I’m delving deeper into the civics library. Here’s a prescient thought from C.E.S. Franks in his book, The Parliament of Canada (1987):

Reforms that are not solidly grounded in reality are not likely to succeed. Quite the reverse, they are likely to create unreasonable and unreal expectations which cannot be met. The resulting failures lead to disillusionment, pessimism, and a loss of legitimacy for the public and participants. Constant reform can become as much a habit as immobility and can be as inappropriate a response to problems.