Two great souls departed this world this week. One, Howard Zinn, had a deep and lasting influence on me, and the other, J.D. Salinger, missed me by a decade or two – if only I had discovered him in my youth when I was too much of a nice boy for my own good. These two men shared the greater part of the last century but it is interesting how different, even contrasting, their narratives are. Read more ›

It was February 15, 2003. In Toronto it was freezing cold. But the world was running a high fever of protest against the impending U.S. attack on Iraq. These were heady times, hundreds of thousands of people around the world poured out into the streets with one voice, one intention: to stop the war. It was as if the whole humanity had become one creature, speaking with one conscience. How could one not to feel the pulse of the zeitgeist, not to be part of this collective heartbeat? Read more ›