Eli Lake: fan of Arab Autocrats?

    I very much liked Eli Lake the one time I met him (at a party organized by our mutual friend Laura Rozen). He’s a terrific reporter, much better than the rather dubious publications that often pay his wages (the now departed print version of New York Sun, the Washington Times). He really should be working [...]

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Compare and Contrast, part II

But [Ron] Unz does not stop there. He goes on to report that nearly 20 percent of the Harvard College student body is Asian-American, and 25 percent to 33 percent is Jewish, though Asian-Americans make up only 3 percent of the U.S. population and Jewish-Americans even less than 3 percent. Thus, 50 percent of Harvard’s [...]

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Once More into the Trenches

There’s diminishing return, I recognize, in minutely critiquing every article produced by the “‘Too Asian?’” controversy. Tony Keller, the former managing editor of Maclean’s has written a very sprightly but wrong-headed article for the National Post on the issue. It takes a slightly different angle to the issue than that of Maclean’s, but not totally [...]

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Maclean’s Re-Writes History

  Maclean’s has finally issued an editorial comment on their “‘Too Asian?’” article. Before taking issue with what is problematic in their editorial, I do want to praise this paragraph: Through hard work, talent and ambition, Asian students have been highly successful in earning places in Canada’s institutions of higher learning. They, like all of [...]

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Compare and Contrast

  “Vicious anti-Semitism was (and is again) a widespread scourge; no comparable, sustained phenomenon — ‘anti-Asianism’ — exists.” – Barbara Kay, National Post, November 23, 2010. *** Although I was Jewish and poor as well, I benefited from the American education system at its best and attended one of its finest universities; I wondered, how [...]

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Strippers Literature

  The new Canadian Notes and Queries is out and anyone interested keeping abreast of contemporary literarture should read it. As I’ve said more than once, it is my favourite literary magazine, and one I’m honoured to write for. The latest issue has a long essay I wrote about Russell Smith’s new novel Girl Crazy. [...]

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A Twice-Told Tale

  Here’s a story that appeared in the Business Review Weekly in 1994:   After overthrowing the Batista regime in 1958, Castro had to set up a new administration in haste. The story goes that at a meeting of the revolutionary leaders, Castro asked: “Is anyone here an economist?” Che Guevara, the Argentinian firebrand, put [...]

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“Too Asian” — the Podcast

Over on the CBC radio program Q, I was interviewed by Jian Ghomeshi about Maclean’s “Too Asian” article. You can listen to the show here.  Interestingly, Maclean’s was asked if they wanted to appear on the show and debate the issue. They not only declined the request, they refused to make a statement on this [...]

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Two Cheers for Maclean’s (Coyne & Wells)

I’ve been very critical of Maclean’s in the past and expect to be so again in the future, but I would be amiss and unfair if I didn’t note the magazine houses the two best analysts of Canadian politics, Andew Coyne and Paul Wells. I was particularly taken with Coyne’s recent analysis of Canadian conservativism [...]

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Too Asian? Too Whyte?

  Maclean’s magazine has raised the issue of whether Canadian universities are too Asian. (The link is to website that preserved the original version of the article, which has since been scrubbed and replaced by a slightly less offensive piece by Maclean’s). In a fit of irritation, I wrote a response in the National Post asking if Maclean’s is [...]

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