Tag: Fighting Words

By Eric Mathison

The Vatican is in a tough spot. When news broke over a month ago that Irish Cardinal Sean Brady admitted to taking part in a secret tribunal to make rape victims take an oath of secrecy, the Vatican had enough to deal with. Then, things got worse. Reports arose detailing the cover-up of Rev. Peter… Continue reading The Catholic Church deserves investigation

By Eric Mathison

Last August, I wrote an article discussing the imminent fall of the book. The e-reader, I suggested, was going to overrun the market just as soon as people realized what a great idea it was for many of the uses that the traditional book fills. Few agreed with me. There is something important about the… Continue reading The cure for the common e-reader? Espresso!

By Eric Mathison

Two cases in the last month have brought Germany’s education policy under scrutiny. In the first, a family fled to America, sought asylum and were granted it by a Tennessee judge, because the parents wanted to home-school their children. The second is much the same, but it strikes closer to home: after fleeing Germany for… Continue reading The case against home-schooling

By Eric Mathison

“O Canada” has a storied past. Canada’s national anthem was commissioned in 1880 by the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec for that year’s Saint Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony. Some of the English version used today was penned in 1908 by Robert Stanley Weir, who wrote new lyrics instead of using the French version. Weir’s lyrics were amended… Continue reading Our national anthem needs revision

By Eric Mathison

In late October, a boy was born in Rocky Mountain House. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and, by the end of the 40-hour labour, the baby needed to be flown to Edmonton to be placed in neonatal intensive care. Over two months passed before doctors determined that the boy — Isaiah James… Continue reading Baby Isaiah should be allowed to die

By Eric Mathison

The Olympics has a bad reputation. With its nationalism, its history of human rights being sidelined wherever it goes — Vancouver included — and the incredible amount of money spent, thinking the entire thing is unjustified is a defensible position. In spite of these problems, there is one upside to the Olympics that is often… Continue reading Can the games solve Canada’s weight problem?

By Eric Mathison

There is a difference between freedom of speech and freedom from taxation. This difference makes it possible to retain the former without being able to claim the latter, but not everyone sees it this way. In October the King’s Glory Fellowship Association, a protestant church, was alerted that they would be losing their charitable status… Continue reading Stop giving tax breaks to religious groups

By Eric Mathison

Underlying all earthquakes is the idea of Fault,” says a character in Salman Rushdie’s novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which begins with an earthquake that kills the female protagonist, and then jumps back to trace her life from beginning to end. Rushdie is a master story-teller who wonderfully describes the search all people face… Continue reading On Haiti, God, and the case for aid

By Eric Mathison

Yemen keeps a low profile. It’s rarely mentioned in the news, few can find it on a map and most of the international community has had little reason to pay it any mind. Things are changing, however. The terrorist who attempted to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day came from Yemen,… Continue reading The trouble with aiding Yemen

By Eric Mathison

Switzerland has long been known for its neutrality, but the attitude Swiss citizens have recently taken toward Muslims is calling into question its non-partisan reputation. On November 29 Swiss voters chose to ban all minarets in Switzerland. Minarets are the tall spires connected to some mosques and are used by the mosque’s leader to call… Continue reading The Swiss aren’t neutral anymore