As a postmodern Jane Austen might observe: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a middle-aged parent in possession of married children must be in need of a grandchild.
I am e...
National Post
National Post
I used to sing in a school choir. Invitations to entertain outsiders were exciting. I can imagine how thrilled we would have been to perform a song in a film. Here is a story of a ch...
Pre-emptive self-mockery has long been a Jewish specialty. This past weekend, I cracked up at an especially hilarious recent specimen: The Hebrew Hammer. Written and dire...
A week ago, if you had asked me if I was an avid reader, I would have unthinkingly replied that of course I was. But, according to a recently released U.S. government study titled Re...
Recently I crossed paths with an old friend from university days, who as a law student assisted in the defence for Ron Turpin, the last Canadian to be executed before the abolition o...
A bout of stomach flu took me out of commission last week, and for 36 hours I could think of nothing but the impossibility of ever eating another thing. In fact, I wondered how I had...
This week marks pivotal religious holidays celebrated even by otherwise secular Christians and Jews. Mel Gibson's film, The Passion, will doubtless be discussed at length over the br...
MONTREAL - Retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, veteran of the Rwanda genocide of 1994, during which Hutu teens hacked Tutsis to death with machetes, recently spoke to high school ...
Halle Berry wants a baby, but intends to wait until she is 40. That's a foolish decision: The odds of conceiving at 40 are low. Indeed, her attitude is telling of the general ignoran...
Dec. 27 marks the 100th anniversary of Peter Pan's opening to instant success at London's Duke of York theatre. I well remember my own Christmastime childhood introduction to its mag...
Today's column is in part an amateur poll on intellectual harassment in our universities. I'm asking Canada's future educators and lawmakers -- students in, or recent grads from, the...
Happy Valentine’s Day. Seen or read any good love stories lately? No, I mean where no one was naked, and where your heart swelled and you got goose bumps because you were...
Martha Stewart is guilty. She may go to jail. It isn't quite the kick in the stomach it was when I watched the O.J. Simpson verdict come in, but that was murder.
The mechanics of he...
When you love a friend, however imperfect she is, it’s a shock to overhear, “She’s a loser. Almost everyone hates her.” You’re angry on her behalf, but you only s...
MONTREAL - One hears that the scourge of political correctness has peaked, and is even on the wane. But an unsettling episode in my Montreal synagogue around the subject of gay marriage has ...
What public officials say when bad leaders die is revealing. Their words reflect what they assume the constituencies they represent believe, or what they assume will be tolerated bei...
Naming the animals was Adam's first task, so we know that the act of naming is a grave responsibility. My father-in-law understood this. When my husband was born, "Steven" was the an...
Several commentators have noted that Canada spends far less on sports than many other nations. Rather than spending more, as is generally suggested, we might be better served by simp...
As the Summer Olympics unfold in generally disappointing fashion, many Canadian hands are being wrung over the meagre funding of our athletes. But elite athletes are trees in a sport...
How much intellect is necessary -- or even desirable -- in a world leader? How about in the people who choose him?
According to a CNN poll taken shortly after the first presidential d...