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On Canada’s Charter, and reading for the weekend

Today is the anniversary of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  When I was a young teen I was enthralled with flying, so enthralled that I worked late nights as a convenience store cashier to pay for ground school and flying lessons. I was pretty good at them; I finished ground school at age 15. But calamity struck the only flight school in my small town before I was old enough to finish – you had to be 16 to fly solo. So, at the next career fair at my high school, I approached the Air Force and asked about

Jean Vanier of the Big Questions wins Templeton Prize

In 1964 in France, Jean Vanier invited two disabled men into his home and life, as friends. It was the start of L’Arche, a global network of communities in which people with and without disabilities live and work together. Today, Vanier received the 2015 Templeton Prize, sometimes called the equivalent of the Nobel Prize, in the realm of spirituality. The prize, currently worth about $1.7 in U.S. dollars, “honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.” “Vanier’s five decades of living with deeply vulnerable people have led him

Suit by Wikimedia and partners targets American mass surveillance

A law suit aimed at mass surveillance was filed Tuesday against America’s  National Security Agency and Department of Justice, by the Wikimedia Foundation and eight other complainants. “The surveillance exceeds the scope of the authority that Congress provided in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (“FAA”) and violates the First and Fourth Amendments,” stated the suit, filed in Maryland. “Because it is predicated on programmatic surveillance orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“FISC”) in the absence of any case or controversy, the surveillance also violates Article III of the Constitution.”  A statement from Wikimedia said the suit challenges the

New this week on F&O

In Commentary: A new age of ignorance, by Tom Regan Ordinarily, it would be laughable for a U.S. Republican senator to throw a snowball in the chamber, as did climate change denier James Inhofe, and say that recent cold temperatures in Washington, D.C., prove that climate change was a hoax. But Inhofe is the head of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee, which means he gets to highly influence American policy about climate change. It is like a member of the Ku Klux Klan being appointed the head of a anti-racism committee. Yankee Seamen on Fresh Water, Part 2

New on F&O: Boko Haram; press freedom; Tennessee Williams, and more

  Boko Haram heaps electoral bad luck on Goodluck Jonathan, by Jonathan Manthorpe (Paywall)   Reports from the Nigerian military that they have launched a major offensive against Boko Haram, killed 300 of the group’s fighters and recaptured 11 towns and villages should be treated with skepticism and caution.  Freedom of the press ain’t so free anymore, by Tom Regan A country often gets the press it deserves, particularly in the Western world. While we have no dictatorships in countries like the United States, Canada, Britain, France or Australia, we do have governments which will do everything in their power

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