Category Society

Brexit Sunshine

Did the sun rise this morning? I guess Brexit wasn’t so catastrophic after all. The United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union, though the details of the divorce may not be finalized until the end of 2020. Until then I expect there will be a certain sense of uncertainty. My guess […]

Taking Aim At Gun Crime

One of the big differences between Canada and the United States is the attitude towards personal firearms. I don’t know if two nations with so much in common could be farther apart than on this issue. Americans think it is a constitutional right to “bear arms” and woe betide anyone who tries to take away […]

Integrity Versus Elect-ability

  It was hardly a secret, but it became official on the weekend: Peter MacKay is running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. He seems likely to win – and I can’t think of a worse choice. It appears the party is confronted with a simple choice: integrity or elect-ability. McKay may […]

Revisiting Trump

I’ve been doing some “housecleaning” on my phone and found today’s post, which I had written to post around before Donald Trump’s election in November 2016, then an addendum to go with his January 2017 inauguration. It is a topic I explored in a book review last year, but I figured as Trump enters the […]

Man’s Inhumanity

The first question I thought when visiting the Dachau concentration camp was: “How could they not have known?” Of course, many Germans did know of the concentration camps and bought the lies about what was happening there. It was easier to pretend than to confront the reality. After all, as it said on the gates, […]

American Dreams

It has crept up quickly almost without my noticing – it is a presidential election year in the United States. Four years of Donald Trump has rushed by. Not that it has really been four years. With all the publicity surrounding the Trump impeachment process, it seems no-one is paying much attention to the upcoming […]

The Two Billion Dollar Lemon

  Citizens of Ottawa can be forgiven for thinking their municipal government has squandered a couple of billion taxpayers dollars in exchange for some sour fruit, in this case a large lemon. The train is running in Ottawa again, or at least it was Friday when I wrote this. No guarantees that will continue. When […]

Christmas Passed

There were things I missed by being in Canada last month, especially the Christmas tree in Sulzburg’s town square. For me it is a highlight of the season. The tree is still there, but the lights have been removed. Soon it will be taken down and most of the branches stripped from it, Then it […]

Under The Munster

There are a lot of important people buried in the Basel Munster (Minster in English – the large former Roman Catholic cathedral). Doctors, physicians, politicians and others who obviously had some status in society. I didn’t recognize any names, other than Erasmus. And I had no idea how he got from Rotterdam to Basel – […]

Misleading Numbers

This post, from March 2015, was the most viewed post of 2019 here at Random Thoughts From Lorne. I think its popularity must have something to do with search engines, though I can’t figure out what the trigger is. It seems to be increasing in popularity – more people read it just last month than […]