The Globe and Mail - Rick Salutin Columns

Ten touchy minutes on Gaza

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00 EDT

All issues of group identity are fraught. That's why they make good drama

Ten touchy minutes on Gaza

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00 EDT

rsalutin@globeandmailcomBritish playwright Caryl Churchill's 10-minute play on Gaza is in Toronto this weekend. It played in Montreal two weeks ago. The Quebec Jewish Congress called it ''anti-Semitic and full of hatred.'' B'nai Brith says it is ''clearly aimed at maligning Jews'' and asked Toronto's mayor to cancel the show. If someone says ''clearly'' about a thing, it's usually a sign that it's wide open to interpretation. It's the equivalent of ''frankly.''

Sid, Alex and Michael: the Canada-Russia nexus

Fri, 8 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Flip us over at the top and there's Russia. It has always given Canadians palpitations

Sid, Alex and Michael: the Canada-Russia nexus

Fri, 8 May 2009 00:00 EDT

rsalutin@globeandmailcomThere's more to those Crosby-Ovechkin, Sid the Kid vs. Alex the Great duels in the Pittsburgh-Washington playoff series than hockey.The Russia-Canada nexus has a long backstory. We tend to focus on our imperial-colonial history, our relations with France, Britain and the U.S. But Russia has a formidable place too, because it's a northern country, like us. Though we're keenly aware of the U.S. border, Russia is our other neighbour and rival. It is our obverse. Flip us over at the top and there's Russia. It has always given Canadians palpitations. Those hockey cataclysms in 1956 and 1972 weren't the first times we were shaken by comparing ourselves with Russia.

The real pandemic is economic, with no vaccine

Fri, 1 May 2009 00:00 EDT

rsalutin@globeandmail.comI got a chuckle from Margaret Wente's saying yesterday that the pandemic story exploded in the mass (or mass hysteria) media because it was time to change the subject from the economy. Then I gasped: OMG - what if it shifted not from tedium but paralysis? Right now, there's far more reason to panic about the economy than over a new flu. This recession emerged from a recent strain that's mutating, contagious and has no known cure. What if EGD (economic globalization disease) is the real pandemic?

Those torture memos

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

rsalutin@globeandmail.com***There is something precious and virginal about the torture debate in the United States. As if that nation never knew torture before the shock of 9/11, and had to play catch-up, stumbling understandably as it felt its way.

The best of times, worst of times

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

rsalutin@globeandmail.comAt newspapers, it is the best of times - journalistically. For instance: During the G20 economic summit in London, I noticed a piece on protests on The Guardian's website by senior correspondent Duncan Campbell. I knew he'd covered the police/crime beat, so I read his critique - with due respect for police viewpoints - of their ''kettling'' strategy, i.e. bottling up protesters, most of them peaceful. Then came word that a London news vendor, Ian Tomlinson, had died of a heart attack during a protest. Police said protesters hindered their efforts to help him. But news followed that he'd only been passing, and police assaulted him from behind, unprovoked. He fell and demonstrators came to his aid.

Attention, education shoppers

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

Listen up, Ontario (and NATO leaders)

Attention, education shoppers

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

Capitalism's last stand? Ontario's Education Ministry put up a website for parents this week comparing schools based on standardized test results, socio-economic status etc. It included a shopping cart. The ministry removed the cart in response to some fury but maintained the site.