Saturday July 19, 2008
COLUMNISTS 
That's it, Silvio, give 'em a taste of the old Petawawa
To Silvio BerlusconiPalazzo del QuirinaleRome, ItalyCiao, Silvio,I see you are doing something about those troublesome ethnic minorities. As a Canadian, I can only commiserate: We have been through this before, decades ago, and one ethnic group in particular gave us a lot of trouble. I hope our history can offer you some lessons.
CHESS
No. 32: Black to play.Vassily Ivanchuk is the most enigmatic and uneven of the world's top players. That he is capable of beating anybody was proven by his victory in the Rapid Chess (about 30 minutes per player for the game) event at Leon, Spain. He eliminated Alexei Shirov, and then took care of Viswanathan Anand in the final. Mr. Anand is not only the world champion, he is also considered far and away the best Rapid Chess player in the world.
You mean the swastika-drawing mother wasn't just some columnist's fantasy?
When columnists want to make a point about the dangers of ignoring a troubling behaviour, we generally all resort to the same example: When we want to give an instance of an unlikely, outrageous and extreme version of any behaviour, we write about Nazis. We ''Nazi out,'' as I call it, in a heartbeat. We assume that most readers will stay with us because they, too, dislike Nazis.
EDITORIALS
Toward a single labour market
The premiers' agreement to cut some of the barriers that block the interprovincial movement of workers is a solid step forward, although long overdue. The deal, announced this week at the premiers' conference in Quebec City and set to be fully implemented within a year, will see provinces and territories accept most workers from other parts of the county. That means nurses, welders, teachers and any other professionals who get accredited by a regulator in one province will have their professional qualifications automatically accepted in another.
Not just furniture
As the animal-rights movement gains momentum, some clear and broad-minded thinking is called for. In The Globe's Life section on Tuesday, the conspicuous Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby told Rebecca Dube, ''It's much like gay rights were 25 years ago.'' The apparent comparison between the status of non-human animals and that of homosexual human beings is bizarre. Gays fought long and hard for their legal rights to pensions and marriage, for instance. Twenty-five years from now, animals will not be celebrating on the steps of courthouses.
Banner year
Today is Canada's Parks Day, a relatively obscure event that takes place on the third Saturday of July, but one that is certainly worth celebrating this year. There will be special events and activities in hundreds of national, provincial and local parks, and at historical sites.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We can work it out
I agree wholeheartedly with The Globe's editorial (The Plains Of Paul - July 18) about some sovereigntists' negative reaction to the concert Paul McCartney will give tomorrow in Quebec City. Except for one word, ''xenophobia.'' Although I do not share the separatists' views, I know for a fact the huge majority of them are not xenophobes. Some separatists are intolerant toward strangers, some are downright racists. But that can also be said of some federalists.
Something about something
The carbon tariff proposed by Thomas Courchene and John Allan must be viewed in terms of two harsh realities (The Carbon Footprint Belongs To ... - July 17). Any solution to the climate problem will require a workable consensus between the
No legal coup d'état here
Turkey's constitutional court is just as much a democratic institution as its government. So the court's rejection of the AKP government's attempt this year to lift a head-scarf ban, similar to that of France and upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, is no more a ''legal coup d'etat'' than when Canada's Supreme Court rules against our government (Dumb And Dumber: Crushing Turkey's AKP - July 18).
Drugs: another set of facts
Margaret Wente's selective use of examples from various nation-states and academic literature does a disservice to those of us who have been working in this area for decades, irrespective of the positions that we take (Europe's Approach To Drugs Is More Enlightened ... It's Tougher - July 17). There are more than 40 legally sanctioned injection sites in the countries of Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Norway; these countries do not experience rates of illicit drug use and abuse that are fundamentally different from other countries in Europe, taken as a group.
A politics so modest
Rick Salutin's column on the politics of fear is timely, especially the last paragraph linking fear with the illusory nature of a fight (or an enemy - e.g. ''Islamic fundamentalism'').
Marine protection area
Thanks for another excellent article by Martin Mittelstaedt (Canada Expanding Parkland At Extraordinary Pace - July 18). Please give him a pay raise and a corner office.I applaud the expansion of our park system but the time has come for serious, bold and extraordinary moves in protecting our marine ecosystems. For starters, let's set aside one million square kilometres of protected, patrolled marine waters in Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific Canada. The unprecedented, massive degradation and destruction of the Canadian and global oceans calls for such a measure. It's not too late.
We can work it out
I'm bemused by the irony of the Paul McCartney flap. I'd expected Quebeckers to get up in arms about his total nonsense of protesting the seal hunt, but not a peep.
3 Down, Across to bear
Imagine my chagrin as a Saturday Crossword enthusiast to discover that your ''cruciverbalist'' actually erred in a clue (July 12). The idea was to sort out an expression using one of the terms ''True or False.'' In 3 Down, the correct answer
We can work it out
Regarding the controversy sparked over the visit of Paul McCartney to Quebec City, does it help if I point out that Abraham Martin (1589-1664) was an early inhabitant of Quebec City, and the Plains of Abraham were his originally?
Drugs: another set of facts
Switzerland, Germany and Spain have years of experience with harm-reduction programs such as needle exchanges in prisons. Studies of these programs have been uniformly positive, reporting no negative consequences, a finding confirmed by the Public Health Agency of Canada when it reviewed the scientific literature and supported by the Canadian and Ontario Medical Associations. We would indeed do well to emulate this European approach.
A politics so modest
We had a saying in the bad old days of Brooklyn: A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet (Khadr And The Politics Of Fear - July 18). If 9/11 or anything like it had happened in Toronto, I suspect we'd never have seen Rick Salutin's smug dismissal of Americans' concerns about terrorism as ''false and exaggerated fears.''
We can work it out
After reading Sir Paul To ''Quebeckians': Smoke ''The Pipes Of Peace' (July 18), I'm proposing a deal that might be offered to Quebec nationalists who are objecting to Paul McCartney's visit: We in the rest of Canada will do our best to keep Sir Paul out of Quebec, if you will do your best to keep Celine Dion in it.
We can work it out
My goodness but our country can be embarrassing at times, what with a timid Prime Minister unwilling to challenge Omar Khadr's questionable imprisonment and now a Parti Quebecois culture critic pooh-poohing a visit by the remarkable Paul McCartney.
We can work it out
Only music can solve Sir Paul McCartney's controversy. How about a love declaration like: Quebec, ma belle, sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble, tres bien ensemble?
