Remembrance Day, 2012

Yet again I am struck with the quiet hypocrisy going on around Remembrance Day. I had to watch a grandstand being erected, local politicians standing atop it and giving cliché speeches about Canada's war veterans. I wonder how many of them believe the old lines; have they heard them so many times over the years as to believe them, or have they long since decided that we, civilians, can't truly understand their sacrifices and trials? I wonder if they can see how we try to see their lives, and if so, do they forgive us our weaknesses?

An open letter to Mitt Romney

Dear Governor Romney,

As a foreign observer who, like many outside of your country, followed this year’s presidential election with great trepidation, let me offer my condolences to you. I regret that you weren’t born 20 years earlier or 20 years later, because you came to power in a Republican party that wasn’t prepared to govern in any serious way. The result, as you saw on Tuesday, was that your country rejected your platform - and yourself, atop it. But don’t despair, for I do not necessarily think this has everything to do with you, Governor. It has to do with the politics of losing.