The view from the top of the hill

Interesting contrast in the two stories on the front page of the Globe's Opinion section today. Neocon David Frum gets the top half of the page and uses it to give us a nostalgia bath in America's golden age - the "before Trump" era; ie before Trump started "sabotaging the institutions and agencies that protect the United States and sustain the peace of the world."

Yup, that's what America's been up to; sustaining the peace of the world.

In North Korea from 1950 on.

In Vietnam.

In Laos.

In Cambodia.

In Grenada and Panama and Iraq and Afghanistan and so many other places...

Sustaining the peace in the world?

I marvel at how far one must have one's head up one's arse to make such a statement.

Yanis Varoufakis gets the bottom half of the page for what is essentially a eulogy for the same neoliberal order that brought us all that peace that Frum laments the passing of.

Perhaps they're both right.


Strapped on the snowshoes and made my way to the top of the hill this afternoon, just me and the hounds. Bought a pair of those newfangled metal and plastic jobs at Crappy Tire recently because they were on sale. I was an old-school wood and leather guy till last winter, when I blew a binding on a hike around Bass Lake. Took fifteen minutes to get in and an hour and a half to get out.

From the top of our hill I can see the Meaford Tank Range, aka the "4th Division Training Centre Meaford," a good twenty or thirty miles distant. As much as we revel in being out of harm's way, I can't help but wonder if that might become a target in a worst case scenario.

Another reason to say bye-bye to the NATO gang and forge a future as a neutral nation as far as I'm concerned.


Elsewhere in the Globe you'll find a huge thumbs-up from David Shribman for Frum's latest book. Shribman shows up a lot in the pages of the Globe & Mail these days. I know it's hard times in the newspaper biz, and maybe they don't actually pay a real salary in Pittsburgh any more and he pays his bills with this free-lance stuff we see in the Globe.

According to Shribman, Frum's book is "a masterful diatribe against Trump's presidency." Shribman is another guy who believes America's golden age ended last January. Nothing like fobbing off a book review to someone who is on the same page of the hymnal as the guy whose book you're reviewing.

I enjoyed how he pegs Frum as "Canadian royalty." Interesting to see ourselves through the eyes of an outsider. What is Canadian royalty? Why, you're Canadian royalty when mom was a marquis name at the CBC and your sister is in the senate. Shribman forgot to mention that Papa Frum's mega millions helped that other stuff happen.

But maybe I'm being too cynical. I always had the highest regard for Barbara Frum's journalism, and while Murray Frum may not have invented the strip mall, anybody who can build a fortune out of such a pedestrian concept has my undying respect.

Finally, I have to admit to being alarmed by something Jeremy Freed wrote in what used to be called the "Style" section of the paper before all those high-priced consultants prevailed in the G & M makeover battles. Apparently ugly fashion is in! Yup, serious people who know the latest trends are looking at folks who dress like me and asking "are they really cool or is that just an ugly outfit?"

So if you see an old geezer in baffed out SAS shuffleboard shoes and baggy jeans loitering about the U of T campus, it's just me visiting. Say hello if you want, but trust me; I'm NOT cool.


Once I got them on and properly adjusted, the new snowshoes worked out OK. The problem is it took a good twenty minutes for the "adjustment" part of the process. That's because the plastic bindings are wonderfully pliable in the store at room temperature, but virtually impossible to manipulate in the cold.

I would consider that a major shortcoming in snowshoes.

What I learned from my Globe and Mail today

Jeremy Freed informs me that I can spend $2,300 plus applicable taxes on a baseball cap!

I had no idea! But it's true; Stefano Ricci has opened up a boutique in Vancouver. Great! You'll just have to step over the homeless addicts on the sidewalk, and you too can put down $2,300 plus tax for a baseball cap!

Is this a great country or what!?

Elsewhere, Kelly's got an interesting profile of Tim Bezbatchenko. Even though I don't give a fig for football, a good writer can find the human interest angle in any story. But the best part of the sports section was the obit for Gregory Baum.

I've always been fascinated by obviously intelligent and well-educated people who manage to hold on to their religious convictions in spite of their intelligence and education, and Baum was such a man. It is somehow reassuring that such a thing is possible.

On A21 Lee Berthiaume tells the sorry tale of Canadian Special Forces who have been training the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi army for a couple of years. Yup, we trained them both and now they're fighting each other!

Good job, Canada! That was an obvious waste of resources, and underlines once again the folly of doing something just to be seen as doing something, even as you have no clue as to what you're doing.

Berthiaume completely misses the bigger story; most of the nominally independent Kurdish area in Iraq was retaken by Iraqi forces this past week in an operation so swift and seamless that it must have had the connivance of the American overlords.

Thanks for your help with ISIS, now forget about that Kurdish homeland nonsense and do as you're told.

Also on A21 we're treated to a Canadian Press story about a chap in Gatineau who inflicted a year's worth of violence on his teenage daughter for "removing her hijab when she was away from the family home." Hmm... wonder what culture that family hails from?

What a pity the Globe brain trust couldn't find room to place that story on A5, where Ingrid Peritz gets an entire half page to bemoan the fate of niqab-wearing women who are being bullied by Quebec's Bill 62. It would have made for great juxtaposing.

Frankly, I think Bill 62 is a pretty big hammer with which to thwart the scourge of a few dozen Muslim women choosing (or being coerced) to cover themselves. Is this really a "problem?" Don't they have bigger fish to fry?

No edition of the Globe is complete without at least some token Putin-bashing, and that's what you'll find on A6. Between hosting the latest Ukrainian PM and passing our version of a Browder Bill, we're still sticking it to Putin big time.

Finally, Renzetti uses her A2 slot for something other than professing her love for Hillary or contempt for Trump. She dumps on Amazon instead! How refreshing! There really needs to be more questioning of Amazon and Big Tech in major media, and it's a welcome thing to see at least a hint of it.

There you go. Was it worth $6.30?