In a land far away and a time long ago, the NHL merged with the World Hockey Association, ending a protracted and costly struggle for supremacy. As part of the 1980 deal, the NHL would accept a certain number of the WHA teams. 

Empathy. 

It’s a hard word to find in today’s constant turmoil over gun violence, psychotic white 20-somethings and the parade of virtue signallers on both sides of the debate.

Apparently the prime minister of Canada is not sold on Canada’s system of trial by jury. He’s not alone. Members of his cabinet also seem to think there’s a better way to dispense justice.

Watching the film All The Presidents Men back in 1975 made me want to be a reporter. Seeing  Richard Nixon hoisted by his own petard— and a couple of unheralded reporters— was thrilling.

n politics it’s the coin of the realm, the currency that keeps the wheels of the state spinning. The lubricant that allows journalism to function smoothly.

It’s rare that a single story can capture the tortured vanity of the modern-day Canada ruling class. But “Who cut my hijab?” will do until something better comes along.

Our distraction du jour is the sudden revelation that Oprah Winfrey, the self-made billionaire conduit of moist feelings and product placement, may challenge Donald Trump, huckster suprème, for the presidency he won in 2016. Winfrey’s letter-perfect job application dropped last Sunday night at, appropriately, the Golden Globe Awards. 

Everyone has their goals for 2018. A cursory twirl around the internet will reveal any number of scribblers who’ve ventured a list calling for world peace and freedom to the oppressed masses.

My list is somewhat less ambitious. Here are simple requests that would make (my) world a better place in the next 12 months.

As the Chinese will readily tell you, Canada’s prime minister has no self-esteem issues. Justin Trudeau parades his moral certainty the way Charlton Heston brandished the Ten Commandments in the movies. It was Trudeau’s insistence on playing to his base on social issues rather than engaging the reality of Chinese diplomacy that scuttled the promised trade deals with the regime in Beijing.

After the Alabama senatorial election, the prevailing media opinion is that the state is Yahoo Central, a boiling cauldron of humanity’s worst instincts. The highly regrettable candidacy of Roy Moore, 40-year-old charges of sexual indiscretion, six-shooters, confederate statues… the special election had all the clichés beloved of the coastal elites.

The Donald Trump/ Russia collusion case has only one certainty: Anyone who gets too close will get hurt. Ten months since Trump’s inauguration, the attempt by the stunned liberal left to negate his election has spun a web of deceit and confusion.

Now appearing in a hell near you: Matt Lauer. The uber-successful NBC host of the Today Show has become the latest news notable to be removed from his job for sexual indiscretions. An unnamed NBC colleague accused Lauer of inappropriate sexual behaviour. The network also hinted at other unsavoury stuff in its press release announcing his abrupt firing.

The lame tweet said it all for Mainstreet, the polling firm hired by PostNews to monitor the 2017 Calgary civic election

I am re-reading the diaries of satirist David Sedaris, who is a very sly funny man. Hearing to his trenchant observations on people from the 1990s and 2000s reminded me that social critics never saw themselves at the centre of the culture. While, like Michaelangelo, artists worked for popes and princes, the artistic class revelled in having their best friends in low places.