Isaiah must have been crazy. The ancient prophet, a Shakespeare of Hebrew literature, predicted that someday the wolf would lay down with the lamb, and men would beat their swords into ploughshares. He wrote that almost 3,000 years ago.
Building a new Middle East Read More »
I’m sitting in a small, dirty room, on the floor, swigging a cola and chatting with a Yemeni I see for Arabic lessons. It’s my first visit to his place, and he’s given the pop — in one of those old, glass bottles from the ’70s — to make me feel welcome.
Give Anees a shot at his dreams Read More »
So where were you on the Sunday when Canada took back a piece of its soul? I heard you danced on that bright afternoon when our boys struck hockey gold for the first time in 50 years. Coast to snowy coast, 10 million of you including Parliament itself, waltzed in the afterglow.
Culture the true measure of a nation’s soul Read More »
One has to admire Pontius Pilot, the Roman procurator who may share responsibility for history’s biggest execution, but who also wouldn’t budge when pressured by his editors wanting him to change his headline.
Freedom of press a paper-thin thing Read More »
Today is Day 8 of my life as a foreigner in Yemen. I’m in a dilapidated cargo office at the international airport in Sanaa, a capital city that sits on a mountain plateau 2,000 metres above sea level. Almost one million souls live here in what is one of the oldest inhabited regions of the world. I think I’m the only one wearing a Team Canada cap.
Adjusting to life as a foreigner Read More »
Among the more comical responses to the tragic attacks of Sept. 11 was from an American who said she would pile up her credit card charges to beat the terrorists, “Just to show I have faith in the economy.”
Giving birth to change Read More »
If you can read this, congratulations — you’re better educated than two billion people.
Navigating life’s spiritual maze Read More »
(The London Free Press – Oct. 28, 2000)
ST. THOMAS, CANADA – Is the human soul just a vast bundle of nerve cells? Francis Crick, the Nobel laureate who set modern biotechnology in motion when he discovered DNA a generation ago, says yes.
In The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul, he suggests our joys and sorrows, memories and ambitions, personal identities and even our cherished notions of free will are nothing more than the biochemical reactions of a neural machine.
Brilliant as Crick is, the idea is more hollow than astonishing. It was the poet William Blake who said scientists, in trying to decipher that which should remain indecipherable, would “turn that which is soul and life into a mill or machine.”
Illuminating the dark world of biotechnology Read More »
