Writings - Good Columns

Four weeks or less. Those are the words of President Donald Trump, two days after Israel and the United States started bombing Iran on February 28. That’s how long he said the war would last. “Four weeks or less.” As of today, 24 days - three weeks and a bit - have passed since Israel and the U.S. launched what they called a “decapitation strike.” On the very first day of the war, Israel and America scored an impressive victory: they eliminated the monstrous Iranian dictator,

In politics, there’s kicking a hornet’s nest, and there’s tripping over one. Typing up a column about Don Cherry’s suitability for the Order of Canada without being asked to? That’s kicking a hornet’s nest. But here goes. Everyone has an opinion about the former hockey broadcaster. Mine is this: he made hockey games entertaining. He did. Cherry was like Donald Trump, in that you never knew what he was going to say next. But, unlike Trump, Cherry didn’t seem to revel in being

One sign shows a stooped and feral Orthodox Jewish man, wearing a kippah  atop stringy, payot  sidelocks, his eyes black like an animal. Another features the same sort of image: a weeping Orthodox Jew, his nose hooked and exaggerated, begging the United States for salvation. Behind him, another man waves around a sign bearing Israel’s flag, and the word ELIMINATED. A woman, her face visible, holds up a sign that reads in Arabic: “We will knock on the gates of Heaven with the

The media is in the simplification business. We try to simplify reality. In a world that is complex and cruel and fast-moving, our preferred question often is: “Why did it happen?” Assigning motive following newsworthy events - terrible, horrific events - is what we usually focus on first. A madman gets in his pickup, armed with a gun, with about $2,000 worth of explosives loaded in the back. And then he drives through the doors of Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield,

For Israel, arguably the most consequential foreign policy achievement happened on October 25, 2009. At a wedding. On that date, Jared Kushner married Ivanka Trump, who had earlier that year converted to Judaism. Of their union, the President of the United States would later tell Israel’s Knesset: “[Jared] truly loves Israel…In fact, he loves it so much that my daughter converted…I didn’t know this was going to happen.” “At least, I think they’re happy. If they’re not, we hav

Leon Panetta, the revered former U.S. Secretary of Defence, is speaking about war. “Leaders have to understand,” Panetta says in an interview. “That when you send people into war, you better damn well have a very clear mission for what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.” He pauses. “And, if you constantly change that mission…that really begins to screw up what soldiers are thinking. The reason they’re out there, putting their lives on the line. It begins to hurt your own

The decision was absolutely, unreservedly the right one. Israel and America’s decision to move against the Iranian regime, that is. For decades, Iran’s Islamist leaders have murdered and brutalized their own people - and exported terror all around the globe . So the decision to take action was the right one, and it was overdue. But make no mistake: the Israel-America-Iran conflict is likely to become very unpopular, very soon. Ten reasons. 1. Leadership. Donald Trump is the

Ali Khamenei is dead. The Iranian regime's "supreme leader" - who presided over a decades-long campaign of murder and brutality against his own people, and sponsored acts of terror around the world - has been eliminated, fittingly, by an Israeli. War is always easy to start, and harder to end. Yes. But this war, at least, is starting with an historic victory over hate. We shouldn't be naïve, of course. While their "supreme leader" may be gone,the Iranian Islamic dictatorship

Getting a tattoo is a big decision. I know. I’ve got several. When people see them - four ravens and/or crows, two totems, one family crest, a bit of Latin, a Haida myth, a New Order lyric, family member initials - they’re often surprised.  Tattoos can be controversial. For many Jews, tattoos are even more controversial. Some note that Jewish law - as decreed in Leviticus 19:28 - strictly forbids tattoos.  The human  body is effectively on loan from God, and it is not to be i

Hey, look: this started to come out this week. E-book first, hardcover later. ** Win the gold, turn it into tin by currying favor with a fascist. That's America's men's hockey team. That team, in fact, has reminded us all that Trump's departure isn't going to make us all magically like America again. After Trump, Americans are still going to be pretty easy to intensely dislike. Because Trump is America, now, and America is Trump. Remember, Team USA: Trump destroys everything

Michael Bauer has the best story about the looming Iran-Israel-America war. It’s about his two sons. The weekend is coming, and the Israeli author’s sons are arguing about who should get to use the family car. “I need the car on Friday,” says Bauer’s oldest son. “No, I’ll need the car on Friday,” says his younger son, “unless there’ll be a war, and then I won’t need the car.” The older brother agrees: if there’s a war with Iran, he won’t really need the car, either. The sold-

The terror group Hamas has covertly targeted scores of Canadian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities operating in Gaza – to infiltrate the organizations, steal aid, and attempt to control their operations, according to a respected watchdog organization. The shocking allegations are contained in confidential Hamas documents from 2018-2022 period, and seized by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, according to NGO Monitor. The document

Exactly 100 days after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, I was asked to speak at a rally at Toronto’s city hall, to call for the release of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. I appeared before a crowd of a couple hundred people, tops. My colleague Brian Lilley was there, too, covering the event . It was bitterly cold, so Brian and I headed a few blocks East towards Yonge Street, to warm up. Almost immediately, we could hear lots of chants and noise.  The clamour w

Mass shootings happen often in the United States, so - naturally - there are people who collect data about the subject . More than 95 per cent of the killers are male.  More than half of them are white. About a third of the mass-murders happen in workplaces, and about a quarter of them in schools. Handguns are used 75 per cent of the time, followed by rifles (33 per cent) then shotguns (15 per cent). The killers tend to be 35 years of age, on average. In that troubled country

In October 2017, someone calling themselves “Q” posted on the 4chan message board. Q, who claimed to be a government official with a top security clearance, wrote that a secretive cabal of powerful pedophiles were trafficking in children.  QAnon, as it came to be known, was (and arguably still is) the most influential conspiracy theory in this Century. It would go on to acquire millions of members worldwide, spur multiple crimes, and play a considerable role in Rightist, popu

That's how Erik-Lars Nelson, a former columnist for the New York Daily News, describes the Internet. He once wrote a wonderfully tart piece for the Shorenstein Centre at Harvard University. In it, the newspaper columnist (echoing the view of a lot of newspaper columnists, one suspects) made short work of the Net -- and, by extension, the "blogger" culture now pervading it. Wrote Nelson: "Any newspaper person who has logged onto an Internet news group will recognize many of th

WHO IS FAITH GOLDY? Good question. I remember her. She’s tallish, slouching near the doors at Sun News Network, chain-smoking. Smirking. “Troll with a tan,” someone at the erstwhile network said about her. Uncharitably, but not inaccurately. That indeed seemed to be the whole package: a suspiciously deep, orange-ish tan, and the sleeveless Fox News mien. That’s it. When she first appeared on Sun News, they’d hand her a microphone and tell her to go stand somewhere and pretend