The power and the glory: Graham Greene (1941)

Extraordinary to find Terry Eagleton featuring in a book chapter about the long lost debates of the Catholic Sixties and to reflect that he is still at it, gamely doing his LRB essays &c

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

The McLeods 'spend a hundred dollars to get thirty percent off' challenge - never tricky.

Before the last elections, I wrote a Jacobin essay arguing that it was time for Vancouver to rediscover the promise of its past and talking up @onecityvan.bsky.social. The moment was missed, but delighted to vote for @wazaroff.bsky.social as its mayoral candidate today. jacobin.com/2022/10/vanc...

Azaroff imho

I mainly know Brenda Bailey as my MLA: elected in 2020 to build an elementary school that my kid should have attended that is still stuck in planning.

Was Matt Goodwin radicalized in Western Ontario?

Christopher Dawson (1920) on Augustine after the Western Front.

Ronald Knox on why Catholicism is a novelist's religion.

Fry is a nice man from Strathcona with bad views on housing - a shame to see him running when a nice man from Strathcona with good views on housing is already in the field.

"Mitch Sylvestre" is a perfect name for an Alberta super villain who wants to break up Canada, 10/10.

First Nations Chiefs are calling on Alberta’s premier to resign, accusing Danielle Smith of conspiring with separatists and violating Treaty rights “I hope you have your bags packed. When this referendum is defeated, I will gladly walk you to the border.” #fyp

Devastating article - especially given the prominence of some American and British army vets, who have argued that what the IDF did was sort of fine.

'Uh...ah...pivot from' Mildly stunning that you can be mayor of Vancouver and unable - even in a sympathetic setting - to frame or articulate a single thought clearly.

What the premier said

Telegraph's rants are now so baroque that they come with asterisked explanations (though as its readers are meant to be devout Scrutonians this one ought to be unnecessary).

Carney's Davos speech was great, but if I counted every time I've heard someone say "nostalgia is not a strategy" to me over the last week... it would almost equal the number of people who presented to me, as a strategy, their nostalgia. 😬😆

One article of the King's faith ought to be: don't use Amazon.

Strolls down to Jericho Beach, yells in despair

I can't help read the opening of this in the voice of Adam Curtis (praise).

Woodfinden is a PhD student turned lobbyist, but still: how laughable to see Poilievre presented as a philosopher prince. Canadian papers can be so mid. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Do Not Save On Foods, BC.

The most absurd thing about this is that Bessent and Carney are both neatly made banker men, who should be quipping over balance sheets, not prepping for war over Voltaire's quelques arpents de neige vers le Canada.

Perhaps Carney should have quoted Victor Orban rather than Vaclav Havel

American efforts to encourage the break up Canada are a much bigger concern than invasion, though the two of course could go together (Ukraine 2014 being the model).

‘Tens of thousands of lives hang on trending patterns and the small print of crowdfunding platforms that are increasingly blocking the transfer of funds to Palestinian territories.’ New on the blog: @selmadabbagh on the situation on the ground in Gaza. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...

Heated rivalry, chilly hugs, the meme-ish soft power triumphs continue.

Not the point of Mr P's vid, but as I watch this abroad, I find the grimy but thick and layered streetscape so evocative of England.

Markron

Excellent reflections from Toronto

Gavin sounds like Sam Moyn.

Reposting a thing of mine from last year on the longish history of PMs framing American hegemony as a 'problem Canada shares with the European nations'. engelsbergideas.com/essays/canad...

As we all praise Canadian Good Sense today, let us remember that the leader of the opposition would not go to Davos when he forms a government, because he subscribes to theories about its omnipotent wickedness that are drenched in anti-Semitism. www.cbc.ca/news/politic....

Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.

I give myself to sin I gave myself to providence And I've been there and back again The state that I am in

Tag yourself

How your email finds me

Why Life Might be Worth Living - I wrote on Lamorna Ash and William James for the Met Review open.substack.com/pub/metropol...

Troubled by how much I still enjoy DJT's syntax.

Sorry, not sorry

Good

Two days after having this discussion about the danger oversized vehicles post to pedestrians, we are very sad to learn about a pedestrian killed by a pickup truck driver in North Van www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

Vancouver's memorial to Edward VII as originally installed.

Tour de force - even by Meaney's standards. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Britain: stop aggression towards Denmark on specious grounds of national security!

The True North, About to Flee

Time to recall Voltaire's Candide - pretty foolish to go to war pour quelques arpents de neige vers le Canada.