RANDALL WHITE, NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK, TORONTO. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2026. While tidying up the office (to escape all the snow still outside), I came across two quotations from eminent Americans, successively posted on my office magazine rack. The first is from Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore. It’s in an article dated December […]

SPECIAL FROM L. FRANK BUNTING, GRAND BEND, ON. AUGUST 10, 2025. It is now more than a year since my last contribution to this august space — “Democracy in America holds Donald Trump to account at last in New York, New York (if not in more rural red states),” May 31st, 2024. As I contemplate […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK. RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO, SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2023. My first encounter with US TV this Sunday morning (with Donald Trump to be arraigned Tuesday in New York) was all about this year’s unusual March Madness — the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s annual quest “to determine the … Division I men’s college […]

RANDALL WHITE, TORONTO. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2022. Now that the slender Republican majority in the House has been confirmed, I can report on our journey to northeastern California for the 2022 US midterm elections. (And Nancy Pelosi’s announcement yesterday of her resignation as leader of the Democrats in the House, while continuing to represent her […]

SPECIAL FROM THE DEMOCRATIC DESKTOP OF CITIZEN X, BUCKHORN, ON. K0L 0C1. 22 FEB 2022. In the midst of all the snow this year — and TV news about the so-called Freedom Convoy 2022 and other current crazy-town antics in Canadian government and politics (and yes also American, and much beyond) — I have taken […]

NORTH AMERICAN NOTEBOOK – RANDALL WHITE, FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. MAY 8, 2021. My treasured daily mail from Rachel Maddow a few days ago included a well-earned slight on the still-all-too-alive top Republican in the US Senate. It read : “This is his vision. It is not a secret. With Biden in the Oval Office, McConnell […]

FROM THE DESKTOPS OF THE COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA. JAN 7, 2021. 4:15 AM ET. We just want to make clear that, like so many others in so many parts of the world today, we are altogether appalled by the happenings at the US Capitol (and various state capitols as well) on Wednesday, January […]

L. FRANK BUNTING : History is written by the winners as the old adage has it. Looking at Donald Trump’s USA halfway through 2020 suggests a corollary : it is also constantly being re-written as the winners change. “America” today is not what it was in 1920, to say nothing of 1820, 1720, or especially […]

GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. MAY 31, 2020. 2:00 AM ET. RANDALL WHITE : I don’t yet know quite what to make of the protests against the Minneapolis police role in the tragic death of George Floyd (and much else) that have dominated cities across the USA for the past few days. (The parallel actions where I live […]

My mind goes back and forth on the impeachment inquiry now launched at last by the Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives (through House Speaker Nancy Pelosi). Two recent opinion pieces within a few days of each other, by the Toronto Globe and Mail’s current man in Washington, DC, Lawrence Martin, almost summarize […]