All entries by this author

Happy Canada Day 2015 .. when there’s “a weird fin-de-siècle glow in the air, a sense of things coming unstuck .. ”

Jul 1st, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

One thing we’ve done to celebrate Canada Day 2015 is post C.M.W. Marcel’s long awaited report on the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s visit to what is now Ontario in the summer of 1615.  ( See “Huronia/Wendake 2015” above and/or CLICK HERE.) Meanwhile, Happy Canada Day 2015 – a year when there “has never […]



Ontario’s flag flap 2015 .. and its own burden of history from just before (and after) the War of 1812

Jun 22nd, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

Questions have been raised about the Confederate flag still flying over the South Carolina state capitol, even after the appalling terrorist prayer-meeting murders in Charleston this past Wednesday night. They may remind some of us north of the Great Lakes that a few much milder questions were raised about the current Ontario provincial flag last […]



Parizeau and Truth and Reconciliation Commission : where are “Canada’s French and Indian peoples” today?

Jun 3rd, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

It seems only somewhat odd that the two big Canadian news events of yesterday – Tuesday, June 2, 2015 – should at least vaguely recall the earliest origins of the modern country of Canada, back in the 16th, 17th, and (first half of the) 18th centuries. In any case, in the old pays d’en haut […]



Canada – peacemaker or powder monkey today .. and three 18th century wars that made two countries

May 16th, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

Freeman Dyson’s recent interesting note on Albert Einstein and the old  “dualistic philosophy” of quantum mechanics – masquerading as a New York review of Stephen Gimbel’s Einstein: His Space and Times – has also made some of us think about what ought to be another big issue in this year’s Canadian federal election. (Believe it […]



Week of May 3—9 full of conceivably instructive democratic elections for Ontario political junkies

Apr 24th, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

Not much more than a week from now, political junkies in Canada’s most populous province of Ontario will be able to wend their arrogant ways through a maze of conceivably instructive local, regional, and international democratic elections : (1) At least a local prelude to the wider excitement will start on Sunday, May 3, when […]



Harold Innis’s case for Canadian Senate reform in the 1940s

Apr 10th, 2015 | By | Category: Key Current Issues

The ongoing trial of suspended Canadian Senator Mike Duffy has reminded some of us that back in the late spring of 2013 Randall White posted a note on this site about Harold Innis’s “more or less random observations on the Senate, and the related issue of Canadian regionalism” – which, taken together, “add up to […]



Citizen X on Canada and the Great Golden State .. as observed from the north end of Monterey Bay

Mar 30th, 2015 | By | Category: USA Today

We are now back in this cold northern country, happy to see that L. Frank Bunting has been keeping the office furniture at least slightly warm. We tasked the irrepressible Citizen X with preparing this season’s report on the seminar series with our Bay Area technical advisors and consultants, with special reference to the more […]



In California again .. East Bay Area and Santa Cruz, rememberin’ how relaxin’ it was at Camarillo in 1946 (and 1947)

Mar 16th, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

Everyone in the office here except Bunting will be off to California this coming March 17, 2015, for another hard-working seminar series with our Bay Area technical advisors and consultants. We will be back in Toronto for the weekend of March 28—29. The next counterweights posting will appear during the week that begins on Monday, […]



Anti-petroleum, Justin Trudeau, Louis Riel, and First Quest for the Northwest

Feb 20th, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

You know you are living in strange times when you read headlines like “‘Anti-petroleum’ movement a growing security threat to Canada, RCMP say.” Really? Our lives and property are at risk from an “anti-petroleum” movement? Is Franz Kafka working for the RCMP now? Will we soon have crimes like anti-petroleum activities? Will purchasing a Tesla […]



France in Canada‘s past – and its own future in the 21st century ..

Jan 10th, 2015 | By | Category: In Brief

We are glad to hear that the French flag has been “flying outside Toronto’s city hall … in solidarity with the people of France.” And we were pleased to read about how “Toronto’s French community gathers for Charlie Hebdo vigil … Facebook group summons demonstrators to consulate Wednesday to declare ‘Je suis Charlie’ after massacre […]