Rick Salutin

This happens to be a populist moment politically but ours won’t be a particularly Trumpian one, not because Ontarians are smarter than Americans but because there’s a populist alternative.

Philip Roth, an American novelist who was a pre-eminent figure in 20th-century literature, died at age 85 last week.

The only reason for panic is our retrograde, undemocratic electoral system. It would give Doug over 70 per cent of seats with his 40 per cent of the vote.

This must have been a week of cognitive dissonance for Trudeau. He apologized emotionally for Canada's turning away of Holocaust refugees, while slamming the door Nigerian asylum seekers from the U.S.

What I like about the blender model is it still leaves room for change and for wide swings between options, versus being stuck in a static politics of us versus them.

Toronto's van attack tested all of us. And not everyone gets a passing grade.

Starbucks is a really irritating corporate juggernaut. They want moral vindication, not just profit margins.

Lenin said there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. Then there's Trumptime, when every day seems to last a century of cataclysmic moments and tomorrow is another century.

You're not supposed to brag about deficit because it sounds "fiscally irresponsible" and it may be why Delaney has never been beatified into the cabinet.

I tend to see the horrors of manipulation as less striking than the signs of human ability to act independently anyway. How else do you explain unexpected events like Bernie Sanders' surge?

As Trump's America veers closer to entertainment than politics, citizens are the losers.

The U.S. has seen a return to marches, protest, chants and strikes -- necessary acts that are also fun, writes Rick Salutin.

Why don't Americans ever learn from these things? It's a price they pay for their "exceptionalism"-- they have nothing to learn from others.

To such people, newspapers may look like dog turds left by feckless pet owners. There was nothing virtual about them.

Michael Bryant was named executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association recently.

Genuine political anger is an asset in politics but also a rarity. That may be why it’s an asset: it rings true amidst falseness, writes Rick Salutin.

Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld, the Israeli novelist, died last week at 85.