Ten things I learned from today's Globe and Mail

1. Elizabeth Renzetti wants me to know that she appeared alongside Margaret Atwood at a fundraising breakfast this week. Her column on A2 was devoted to sliming Donald Trump, who really doesn't need any help with that. She is very sad that "a sizeable proportion of the electorate" is prepared to vote "an alleged groper" into the Oval Office. Don't cry Liz; it's happened before.

2. It must have been a busy week for Renzetti. In addition to rubbing elbows with Atwood, she's got a feature interview with Bruce Springsteen in the Arts section. Not only is he a mega-zillionaire rock star, I learned that he is quite an audacious political pundit with some astute insights. He likes Hillary and thinks she'd be a very good president, whereas Donald is a real danger to democracy. Who knew?

3. The Focus section is mostly focused on Donald Trump this week. Tabatha Southey assures us that "there's little to remark upon in WikiLeaks heavily hyped document dump." Really? Wonder what Brad Marshall, Luis Miranda, Amy Dacey, or Debbie Wasserman Shultz would think about that assertion? She's also alerting us to the fact that Bad Vlad, Donald's hero, is probably behind this WikiLeaks outrage. The most recent document dumps also illustrate that, while Obama may be right that it's impossible to rig an American election, the Podesta emails convincingly demonstrate that the Dem hierarchy is determined to try.

4. Joanna Slater and Affan Chowdry inform me that the suggestion the election could be rigged is "preposterous." Whew! Good to know!

5. Joanna and Affan also make the observation that Al Gore was gracious after being swindled out of the 2000 election. They're worried Trump might not be as gracious. Yes, when the preposterous happens, it's good to have a gracious loser who is happy to roll over... for the good of the country, of course.

6. Still in the Focus section, John Ibbitsson informs me that to steal the election would require corrupting the media, the pollsters, and the vote itself. On the last point, google "hacking voting machines." For the former, see what you can find in those innocuous WikiLeaks revelations.

7. John also throws in a plug for the journalism profession, informing me there's a "crusading tradition of the craft." Sorry John; the tradition of progressive muck-raking journalism was dead by the time Washington unleashed shock and awe to vanquish Saddam's arsenal of WMDs, to the enthusiastic cheer-leading of your profession. And that was a quarter century ago. Get real!

8. John quotes professor Arthur Lupia of U of Michigan who assures us that "voter fraud is a myth." Good enough then, I guess. That tidbit follows a paragraph which references Project Veritas. Two high-end Dem operatives, one of whom has allegedly made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, lost their jobs this past week after they admitted hiring people to stir up violence at Trump rallies. Corruption? What corruption? Shades of Hitler's Brown Shirts?

9. Slate's culture podcast host Stephen Metcalf gets a guest slot in the Focus section. He informs me that in the Trump camp "...preparations are being made for a ghastly finale, in which populism is turned loose on democracy itself." Wow! That's some scary shit!

10. I don't want to leave the impression that Canada's newspaper of record was only about American politics today. I did in fact learn about Adam Capay, a young native Canadian man who has spent over 1,500 days in solitary confinement. Thank you Patrick White!

For that The Korean charged me $5.75. I'm returning the paper tomorrow to get my money back.

Canada could learn from Mississippi on human rights

My Globe and Mail had an excellent account today of the state torture inflicted on a young Native man, Edward Snowshoe.

Mr. Snowshoe died by his own hand while serving a sentence for armed robbery. When you read the story, you get the impression that the crime itself was a cry for help.

This multi-page feature story challenges many of the sanctimonious assumptions that Canadians, and especially our politicians, routinely make when it comes to Canada's track record on human rights. I'm a regular reader of the press releases churned out by our Department of Foreign Affairs, and you don't have to read very many before you conclude that Canada is indeed that most enlightened of nations, saving the less fortunate everywhere in the less fortunate world, especially if they happen to be women or girls.

Evil-doers world-wide cringe at the prospect of being lambasted in a John Baird barrage of self-righteous condemnation.

Yes, our leaders are ever-vigilant in ferreting out human rights abuses in other countries, but are beyond blind when it comes to seeing what's going wrong in their own.

Overall, journalist Patrick White does a great job drawing attention to Canada's increasing reliance on solitary confinement as a management tool within the penal system. The fact that Mississippi is closing down solitary confinement facilities while Canada expands them will come as a shock to many readers who take our moral superiority for granted.