Rick Salutin

I'm not saying this is what Jody Wilson-Raybould was thinking, or even that it's what she might've been thinking, or that it could've affected her decisions. But it's a useful thought experiment.

What's that crisis in Venezuela about -- in which Canada has meddled so unbecomingly? It's hard to say, because our policy is more hypocritical than principled.

I've developed a new respect for hypocrisy in light of B.C.'s Burnaby South byelection. Not long-lived I hope, but special to this cruddy moment.

Brexit is hard to take your eyes off, and not just in a slo-mo train wreck way. The issues are difficult, and the more you try to position yourself, the spikier they get.

Comedian Louis C.K.'s unsettling comeback prompts reflections on motives for withdrawing from the spotlight -- and the temptation to return. In this regard, could C.K. learn from pianist Glen Gould?

I'm not saying China is a mensch and we aren't. Yet it feels like Fu Manchu and the Yellow Peril are back. Where did they go, like Joe DiMaggio, so it seemed they'd vanished forever?

Those of us who mostly observe and comment on the current crisis, or suite of crises, owe a debt to France's gilets jaunes, the yellow vests. They're clarifiers.

What term could you use to replace, say, socialism? How about -- socialism?

Electoral politics is still basically about aggregating people, not dividing them -- which the Democratic establishment does in a freakily similar way to what they accuse Trump of.

I think it's largely arbitrary whether you choose to be amazed that people don't learn solidarity from viole catastrophes or that they do.