Okay, perhaps this title is a bit of an oxymoron, but good manners tend to rise and fall in politics, and we seem to be diving into a pretty deep hole at the moment. For example, Christia Freeland is not a comedian, and she shouldn’t try to be. Her comment in the House last week…
Social Commentary
Remote Work in Ottawa Sounds More Remote
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
The COVID truce seems to be over. Public sector unions have become used to working from home and have decided somehow that it is now their right. Civil Service employers have decided to return to the letter of their contracts. It is a summer of contract negotiations; both sides have forgotten what the cooperative method…
Politics
Lobbying: Inequity in Government
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
There is no such thing as bad publicity, at least not in Pierre Poilievre’s poll-pumped world right now. He attracted a complete swarm of attention last week when he pronounced that lobbyists were useless. The immediate reaction from both left- and right-leaning media was, “Then why do you keep meeting with them?” I’m more interested…
Social Commentary
Free Expression Isn’t Free
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
The Israeli war protests on university campuses raised a lot of discussion this week about who is in the right and who is wrong. To make that decision, it is necessary to draw a line between what is a protest and what is an illegal imposition of a group’s will upon the populace. Protesters who…
Politics
Winging It to the Right
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
Big news this week is Pierre Poilievre’s impromptu visit to a far-right protest about the usual stuff. Nobody cared what the protest was about; the discussion was about the wisdom or stupidity Poilievre’s interaction with the radicals. The Background In order to understand what’s going on here, we need to dig a bit into the…
Politics
Budget ’24: Has Trudeau Finally Grown Up?
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
My usual readers will be aware of my tepid support for Justin Trudeau. He is too much like so many “leaders” I have come across in my wide and varied career: those who have “earned” their position through an accident of birth and a cult of personality. However, the past few months have been surprisingly…
Politics, Social Commentary
Visiting a Country at War
by renaissanceadmin • • 1 Comment
When I’m travelling, one thing I never forget is that I’m in someone else’s country. I am living by their rules and, when push comes to shove, their laws are made for their people, not for me. So, I have a sliding scale of countries that I won’t go into, try to stay out of,…
FUN STUFF
Sarasota: an Atoll in the Middle of Everything
by renaissanceadmin • • 1 Comment
An atoll is a wide area of shallow water surrounded by low, sandy islands. As such, one could be forgiven in calling Sarasota an atoll. It consists of five sandy keys (in true Florida fashion, connected by soaring bridges and rod-straight causeways) and a stretch of the mainland. The John Ringling Causeway has a 1000-metre…
Social Commentary
Another Look at Propaganda
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
Headline in a Vancouver Sun article: “This university is a hotbed of anti-Semitism.” Isn’t that just terrible. What’s wrong with the administration in that university? Well, actually, nothing. I strongly suspect that the average students at that university have other things on their minds. Picturing this institution as a hotbed of racism could even be…
Politics
Let’s Hit the Twit
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
Stay Short and to the Point I wouldn’t bother to post this, but what played out this week is exactly what I was trashing last week: Politicking. For the past week the Leader of the Opposition has pronounced proudly, over and over, his threats as to what he was going to do if the Liberals…