The Column

Trump’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

By Stan Persky | 2017 September 6

The end of the world used to include Death, War, Famine and Pestilence. The 2017 edition features Climate Change, Civil War, Nuclear Armageddon, and Trump. And don’t forget the Pink Lady.What’s a Dreamer to do?

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Omar Khadr: Window on the Canadian Soul

By Daniel Gawthrop | 2017 July 11

Thinking through the controversy over a child soldier.

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Report from the Writers’ Union, or, Why Should Not Old Men and Women Be Mad?

By Brian Fawcett | 2017 June 8

Brian Fawcett attends the AGM of the Writers’ Union of Canada, encounters several revolutions in the making, along with a Manifesto written by writers who are clinically insane or pathologically angry. He passes on the revolutions and joins the angry and/or the crazy writers.

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Letter from Europe: The Little Dutch Boy

By Stan Persky | 2017 March 23

He stuck his finger in the leaky dike. Did it stop the floodwaters of right-wing populism washing over Europe?

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Trump’s Oink-Oink, er, Inaugural Speech

By Stan Persky | 2017 January 21

The joys of free speech and writing columns-by-number.

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Nanaimo Pride: The Resistance of Memory

By Daniel Gawthrop | 2016 July 7

Nanaimo, B.C. held its first Pride Parade. But when?

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Insiders, Outsiders

By Sidney Australia | 2016 April 24

How to keep your head (and mind) when most of the “narrative” about the 2016 U.S. presidential election is b.s.

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Bringing Up Mother

By John Harris | 2016 February 14

John Harris reads the work of 1970s Vancouver poetry icon Daphne Marlatt through the eyes of her relationship with her son, Kit. This is part of a series of parent/offspring critical studies Harris has embarked on.

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Defender of the Faith

By John Harris | 2015 June 4

A few months ago, Conrad Black returned to the Christian faith. John Harris looks it over, and says, “Not so fast”.

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Charlie Hebdo, PEN, Ondaatje

By Stan Persky | 2015 April 29

The writers’ organization , PEN, is giving an award to Charlie Hebdo magazine. Six prominent writers are protesting. What’s at stake?

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