…and I still look for, and still cannot find, the mythical picture/trophy/plaque containing one Stephen Harper’s name. Anyone know where it is, in this drafty old barn? If I find it, I’ll post a photo.

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Suddenly, I am moderating an NDP leadership debate. Just as suddenly, I am struck by narcolepsy.

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My father would have been 80 last week, so that got me to thinking about Justin Trudeau.

Let me explain. When my dad was dying eight years ago — felled, too soon and too fast, by lung cancer — Justin got in touch with me. I was drowning in grief in those dark days and Justin gave me some advice that I relied upon, and which helped me get through my father’s death.

Tell him the things you never said to him before, Justin said. Be with him as much as you can, and just be his son, he said. So I did those things. It helped.

Justin and I were friendly in those days, but not close friends. In the intervening years, we have lost touch. He has become an MP, and I’ve become a critic of (and perhaps part of) the Liberal Party’s ongoing existential crisis. So we don’t communicate much anymore.

But, like everyone else, I pay attention to what Justin is doing. 

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Read this:

Something strange is going on in the world today. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the ongoing crisis of the euro are both products of the model of lightly regulated financial capitalism that emerged over the past three decades. Yet despite widespread anger at Wall Street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing American populism in response. It is conceivable that the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the right-wing Tea Party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in Europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move.

There are several reasons for this lack of left-wing mobilization, but chief among them is a failure in the realm of ideas. For the past generation, the ideological high ground on economic issues has been held by a libertarian right. The left has not been able to make a plausible case for an agenda other than a return to an unaffordable form of old-fashioned social democracy. This absence of a plausible progressive counter­narrative is unhealthy, because competition is good for intellectual ­debate just as it is for economic activity. And serious intellectual debate is urgently needed, since the current form of globalized capitalism is eroding the middle-class social base on which liberal democracy rests.

Watch this:

 

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For years, I’ve been arguing that liberals and progressives need to get tougher when fighting conservatives. Way tougher.

But l’affaire Toews suggests that (a) liberals and progressives agree and (b) they’re eager to get even dirtier than the Cons.

Listen to an old man, kids (or, better yet, buy and read my books). Go after your opponent’s public record. Not his or her private life.

(That said, I am blown away about how visceral is the hatred for Vic Toews. Never seen anything like it.)

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Is anyone else as sick of that as me? Enough, already.

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As everyone knows by now, ESPN did the right thing:

“The headline — “Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-stopping Loss to Hornets” — appeared on ESPN’s mobile website at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday and was removed by 3:05 a.m. Battling to contain a furor, the sports network fired Federico and suspended anchor Max Bretos for 30 days.”

So, have Maclean’s and the National Post done likewise with Mark Steyn, who wrote for both media outlets for years, and who has also called Chinese “chinks”? Um, no.

“Mark Steyn has a penchant for using ethnic slurs, including “chinks” and “japs” (Spectator, 3/24/01), but he is at his most prolific and poisonous on the subject of Muslims…this is the man who calls Chinese people “Chinks” and Japanese people “Japs.” He calls Indians “wogs.”

How will Maclean’s and the National Post cover the ESPN/Lin story? I can’t wait to see the oleaginous Selley on this dilemma: it’ll be interesting, but likely not inspiring.

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Dangerous!

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Read it, Geoff and Jordan.

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Being Irish and Catholic, I am a sucker for well-written obituaries. This one, along with being near-pitch-perfect, benefits from some wonderful subject matter.

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