By Rick Salutin |

It is striking and, to use a religious term, a bit awe-inspiring to see how central that religion has become to politics in the post-Cold War era. For more than 200 years, the defining split was left versus right. Now religion is in the equation in a big way. Continue Reading

The Spartacus of SeaWorld: Who knows, of course, if Tilikum the SeaWorld orca had a motive in killing his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, and withholding her from rescuers. But an impulse to attribute humanish motives to animals is ancient and irresistible. Continue Reading

Rabble.ca – By Rick Salutin

There’s something enigmatic in Stephen Harper’s foreign policy. Since he decided to cut and run from Afghanistan, it seems to have only one pillar: total support for whatever Israel’s government does.  Continue Reading

By Rick Salutin

B.C. has always been a centre of excellence for the Olympians of citizen protest. Vancouver is its Athens; they could send out the torch from Whistler. In fact, maybe they did, to Athens, in view of this week’s demonstrations there by taxi drivers and others over being told to pay for the crimes of bankers and financiers. Continue Reading

The H1N1 of the economy: It’s baaack, the bogeyman of the 1990s and, before that, the 1980s: deficit hysteria. Get out the old Halloween masks. What’s remarkable is how common sense — i.e., the wisdom of most people — resists panic even as politicians and opinion makers ladle it on. Continue Reading

By Rick Salutin

The saddest event in politics is the death of the hope that things can basically change. This genre of loss involves a setback not just to an individual but to a population, or a large part of it, which placed its hope in a candidate or party. Continue Reading

By Rick Salutin

Outside responses to the Haiti earthquake have come with smug side helpings of superiority and self-congratulation. The New York Times’s David Brooks described Haitian culture as “progress-resistant” and prescribed “intrusive paternalism,” as if Haiti hasn’t had 200 years of that. Continue Reading

By Rick Salutin

Speaking writer to readers, I want to register some year-end thoughts on climate change in the realm of reading.  Begin with technology. Canadians can finally buy Kindle e-readers. I know there are people who’d rather these had never got here. They say they’ll miss the tactility of print on paper, the rustle of turning pages, etc. Continue Reading

By Rick Salutin

First, all the experts said no Canadian would vote based on the issue of delivering Afghan prisoners for torture. But Stephen Harper killed Parliament anyway, to squelch that debate. Why? What did he know? Perhaps what anyone studying PR at a community college learns: that impressions are cumulative and, as a series moves along, each new one weighs heavier. Firing nuclear watchdog + global black eye re tar sands + ending KAIROS funding + torture scandal = bad election news. Continue Reading