Free Republic

Mark Steyn: Requiem for the Counterculture - Given the choice between reality and dopey naiveté, our cultural elite remains fatally true to its 'trusting nature' Mark Steyn - February 12, 2007 Given the way the Canadian media write about, say, Alberta's oilpatch as if they're on an anthropological expedition to a remote corner of Papua, it's always interesting to note the things they don't feel the need to explain. Earlier this month, the Globe and Mail ran a front-page lead headlined "Attraction To New Orleans Turns Tragic For Canadians." This was the story of Paul Gailiunas, raised in Edmonton, and...

Mark Steyn T-shirtViva Steyn! Wear the T-shirt that shows you're a true intellectual revolutionary – the Mark Steyn Che Guevara-style T-shirt. Created especially for the Western Standard by Rob Kelly (the same artist who drew the famous Libranos poster). Viva Steyn is not only an expression of your good fashion sense, it's a sign of your good political sense, too. Order this true collector's item today! Made of 100% pre-shrunk cotton. Available in Black only. More info or to order:Ezra Levant, Publisher and Conservative Fashionista, The Western Standard

The Last Youth Standing - What the West and Islam share are elites detached from their own demographic realities Mark Steyn - November 20, 2006 I was watching Mansbridge One on One the other day. Don't ask me why. May have been an "encore presentation." Or more likely an encore presentation of an encore presentation. For a 24/7 news network, there's an eerie timelessness about CBC Newsworld: one would be only mildly surprised to switch on and find Mansbridge One on One with Lester B. Pearson or Sir Charles Tupper. Anyway, this week, the one he was on was the...

Dear Western Standard reader, Our magazine has been sued for publishing the Danish cartoons, and I need your help to fight back! As you know, the Western Standard was the only mainstream media organ in Canada to publish the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed. We did so for a simple reason: the cartoons were the central fact in one of the largest news stories of the year, and we're a news magazine. We publish the facts and we let our readers make up their minds. Advertisers stood with us. Readers loved the fact that we treated them...

Well, it's true that the average 25-year-old does not feel about homosexuality the way his great-grandfather felt at that age. In that sense, there is indeed a "rising tide." But the salient feature of tides is that they go out again. Whatever their appeals to virtue, inevitablist theories of history are always the weakest--the notion that progress is a ratchet effect, moving irreversibly in one direction. On September 10, 2001, for example, not many commentators in North America or Europe paid much attention to the views of Islamic lobby groups. The idea that whether something does or does not cause...

Magazine kept busy after printing controversial imagesIt's been two weeks since the Western Standard published the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. We didn't know what to expect. The worst case scenario was physical violence. That's what happened overseas. But then again, in almost every case, that overseas violence was whipped by up agents provocateurs. By contrast, not a single hostile person presented himself to our office and not a single protest or demonstration was organized. Give credit where it is due -- Canada's Muslim community responded peacefully. In fact, the only ones who were in a frenzy were the rest of...

Even in Canada, not-so-veiled threats Barbara Kay National Post Wednesday, February 22, 2006 Far from the riots, vandalism, church burnings and murders by Muslim mobs in the wake of the Danish cartoons, Canada has so far played the role of concerned onlooker. Like the proverbial country mouse, we peacefully nibble a secure crust in our rural granary, watching with wide-eyed incredulity as the city mice of Europe, the Middle East and Africa snatch bites of Camembert between anxious dashes to safety behind their barricaded mouse holes. That's to say, while real churches burn and real people die abroad in...

A Letter from the only magazine of Canada to reprint the cartoons: Dear Western Standard reader, By now you have probably heard about our decision to publish the Danish cartoons -- those same cartoons that have been the excuse for riots around the world. We believe that reprinting the cartoons is essential to properly telling that news story, which is why we did it. We also published them as a symbol of our freedom of the press, and in defiance of those around the world who would censor us through threats of violence. I've never been more proud of our...

Yesterday, Ezra Levant of the Western Standard became a national news story--it seems he has decided to run the Danish cartoons that have caused so much turmoil in Muslim countries. Levant’s reasoning is that it’s an issue of freedom of the press. He chided a CBC reporter, glibly declaring himself a newsman, not Oprah Winfrey. He made the same points on CTV and of course, he was given the radio airwaves through the talk show hosts. However, there are a few issues that have been left out and need to be considered.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he regrets the publication of controversial editorial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by some media outlets. In his first public statement on the controversy since it broke wide open last week, Harper noted Tuesday that Canadians have a right to free speech. But he added that they "also have the right to voice their opinion on the free speech of others." "I regret the publication of this material in several media outlets," Harper said in a news release. "While we understand this issue is divisive, our government wishes that people be respectful of...

Early this morning, 40,000 copies of the Western Standard magazine, of which I am publisher, rolled off the presses. The cover story is about government lobbyists and corruption. But in the middle of the magazine, we have a two-page discussion about the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. These are the cartoons that caused riots overseas. In our magazine's news judgment, you can't properly report that story without showing the cartoons. So we're publishing eight of the cartoons. As far as I am aware, that makes the Western Standard the first large-circulation publication in the country to reprint them....

Liberal behaviour is, indeed, the best indictment of Liberal crime policy. If you think setting up new after-school programs and community centres is the way to stop Jamaican gun gangs, well, it doesn't seem to work with the Grits. Give career Liberals lavishly funded federal day-care centres to romp around in and exciting skills development programs to retrain them as productive members of Quebec advertising agencies and all kinds of other fun rewarding activities, and they still carry on looting and stealing and terrorizing the neighbourhood. In the end, the only way you can deal with it is to put...

While the Radio Equalizer isn't sure how much liberal talk radio gloating has yet begun over Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's guilty plea on bribery charges and subsequent resignation today, they might first look north. To Canada, that is, where the Liberal Party government has just fallen after losing a punishing, historic no-confidence vote in Ottawa's Parliament. There, an entire collection of rogue characters often called the Librano$, led by Prime Minister Paul Martin, have finally been held accountable for their sleazy "Sponsorship" funding scandal. From the CBC: ...snip...

When Canadian journalism tilts trashy tabloid, it fizzles out. Canadians, by and large, are pointedly polite. Remarkably unassuming, they tend to shy away from newspaper wars and the lives of media celebrities. Circumspect Canadians don’t really care that "George Washington was a woman!" and the "Mother of his country. " (Weekly World News, July 4 Collector’s edition).