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BLATCHFORD WAS ALL CLASS

Way back when I was a Toronto Police officer, I was off-duty trying to buy two tickets to a Canada Cup hockey game that was being played at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. All the scalpers took one look at me and my brush cut and refused to deal with me fearing that I was working undercover. I spotted Christie Blatchford in the crowd and explained my dilemma. I had never met her before. She laughed and said stay right here and leave it with me. Five minutes later she returned with two tickets. When I asked her how much I owed her, she waved her hand and said, Enjoy the game. Class, pure class.

Tom Newell

Niagara Falls

(There are so many great stories about Blatch. She was a once in a generation person)

GET WELL SOON JORDAN

I hope Jordan Peterson is recovering and will soon be back to enlighten our minds with his vast knowledge. I dont read comments because it makes me mad to hear ignorant peoples opinions. Peterson is a human being, his knowledge doesnt make him a piece of stone. He experienced traumatic events and will come out of it. I send him my love, my admiration and am waiting for him to get to the top. Get well, get strong. Maybe it would be good to experience ibogaine. I wish you the best.

Simone Da Fonseca

Spokane, Wash.

(It was really appalling how the left reacted to him)

ECONOMICS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Re Feds climate change plan could pose significant new risk to economy, says Superintendent (Sun Media, Feb. 12): Your article and the headline about remarks on climate risk made last week by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) may have left the wrong impression with readers. The headline suggests that the Superintendent was commenting specifically on Canadas climate change plan. In this instance, the reference to governments was used in a generic context. The following is what he said about transition risks associated with climate change: Transition risk arises from efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than from the changing climate itself. These risks will result principally from the policies that governments have (or will) put in place to reduce emissions. It is also possible that transition risks will arise from changes in investor or consumer sentiment. In the speech, the Superintendent noted that OSFIs role is to prepare for severe yet plausible economic scenarios. The impact of climate change on the economy remains uncertain, but OSFI is planning for the severe yet plausible. As the Superintendent stated, As the prudential financial regulator, its long been our business to make sure that financial institutions are always prepared to continue functioning through a range of severe yet plausible economic scenarios. So we have already done considerable analysis about how a major economic disruption could impact the financial system.

Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions

(That is helpful to know because we all want that information)

Read the rest here:
Letters to the Editor, Feb. 15 - Toronto Sun

Anyone attending a Washington practice knows exactly where special teams coach Nate Kaczor is. Its impossible to miss the energy he exudes, and so much harder not to hear him during special teams periods. And he has found a way to blend intensity, scheme, simplicity and not taking himself too seriously, all while being respected by his players and peers alike.

He shares those traits with Washingtons running backs coach Randy Jordan, about whom one could say many of the same things. In 2018, when Washington played the New York Giants in the Meadowlands, Adrian Peterson broke off a late-game, 64-yard for a touchdown to give the team a 20-6 lead with 3:06 remaining. As the future Hall of Famer sprinted down the sideline, just escaping the grasp of a would-be tackler at the very end, cameras caught Jordan, the teams longest-tenured coach, running down the sidelineas well, celebrating the score with his player.

Players say what sticks out the most is...

More here:
The holdovers: assistants Randy Jordan and Nate Kaczor were retained by Ron Rivera for a reason - The Athletic

U.S. radio host Rush Limbaugh, seen here on Feb. 04, 2020, is famous for being a radio shock jock.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Christopher Hitchens was dying when he went on tour in 2010 to promote his memoir, Hitch-22, which chronicled his life as a polemicist, an author and a pugnacious critic of religion. He had recently been diagnosed with esophageal cancer when, on one of his stops, a talk-radio host asked him what he thought of people suddenly praying for him, a self-described anti-theist.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They dont do any good, but they dont necessarily do any harm, Mr. Hitchens said. Its touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that Ive got my just desserts.

Those who ascribed to the just desserts hypothesis pointed to the divine as explanation for Mr. Hitchenss cancer: Gods revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme Him, according to one religious writer. Mr. Hitchens countered that if God was indeed meting out cancers as a form of retributive justice, infants with leukemia must have committed some dreadful sins.

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Mr. Hitchens was not one to be wounded by gloating over his misfortune, nor, I suspect, are many other prominent polemicists for whom strangers might delight in a terminal diagnosis. To achieve a level of success or fame such that strangers would even bother to form an opinion about you probably means that one has already endured a good degree of enmity. Ghouls toasting to metastasis is only a slight escalation.

U.S. radio host Rush Limbaugh, recently diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and author Jordan Peterson, currently undergoing treatment for clonazepam dependence, have become two new sources for this particular brand of cultural schadenfreude.

Mr. Limbaugh is famous for being a radio shock jock, whose highlight reel includes calling birth-control advocate Sandra Fluke a slut and prostitute, and playing a song called Barack the Magic Negro, to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon, for his many listeners. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last week, ostensibly because President Donald Trump finds him charming.

Mr. Peterson became famous after he publicly opposed a bill he argued would oblige him to call transgender people by their preferred pronouns. His subsequent book, called 12 Rules for Life, sold millions of copies worldwide. Mr. Peterson developed a dependence on the anti-anxiety medication in the wake of his wifes cancer diagnosis.

As in Mr. Hitchenss case, the perceived karma of both mens diagnoses have provided distinct joy for their online critics. [Mr. Limbaugh] used those lungs to spew hate so this is payback, wrote one. Jordan Peterson, oracle to gullible young men, preacher of macho toughness, and hectoring bully to snowflakes He deserves as much sympathy as he showed others, wrote another (notably, a university professor).

Dead philosophers would have plenty to say about these crude expressions of pleasure. Nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer viewed schadenfreude (the act of deriving pleasure from someone elses misfortune) as an aberration: an infallible sign of a thoroughly bad heart, he declared. To feel envy is human, but to indulge in such malicious joy is fiendish and diabolical.

Friedrich Nietzsche, on the other hand, saw schadenfreude as a universal human trait one rooted in feelings of profound inferiority. And Aristotle attempted to draw a distinction between a malicious type of joy derived from another persons misfortune, and the pleasure one experiences in witnessing deserved hardship or punishment.

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Though they might disagree on its precise nature, few theorists have characterized schadenfreude as a virtuous human trait. It may be useful in terms of catharsis, perhaps, or in satisfying a yearning for justice (or the perception thereof). But it doesnt rank high or at all among righteous human emotions of forgiveness, compassion, or the extension of unreciprocated kindness and empathy (is there a German word for that?).

Thats what makes the ecosystem of online commentary and social media so peculiar: normally exalted attributes of restraint and compassion which take far more effort than succumbing to visceral emotion are scoffed at as weak and conciliatory, and the celebration of misery is actually rewarded. Its where tweets hoping Mr. Limbaughs morphine is withheld and describing Mr. Petersons situation as one of the funniest things to ever happen are liked and shared tens of thousands of times, as if they werent inherently sadistic and cruel.

The effect is a perversion of what it means to rise above. Charity is for losers. Empathy for the spineless. The faithful openly delight in the suffering of the blasphemous, and social-justice advocates proudly boast their inhumanity. In this bizarre arena, schadenfreude is suddenly a virtue.

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Continued here:
In the ghoulish world of online snark, toasting to metastasis is a virtue - The Globe and Mail

Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and anti-political-correctness crusader, has checked himself in to rehab in New York, his daughter has revealed.

The 12 Rules for Life author has sought help trying to get off the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam, his daughter Mikhaila Peterson said in a video posted to her YouTube account Thursday.

Ive never seen my dad like this, the 27-year-old diet blogger said in the eight-and-a-half-minute video. Hes having a miserable time of it. It breaks my heart.

The elder Peterson, 57, began taking the addictive medication to deal with stress from his wifes battle with cancer and other health problems earlier this year, his daughter said.

He tried to quit cold-turkey over the summer after his wife, Tammy Roberts, miraculously recovered from complications with a kidney surgery, Mikhaila said.

But he went through horrific physical withdrawal that has left him looking like a lost puppy, she said.

He decided to check himself into a place because he didnt want to stress mom out, wanted to get off of this as quickly as possible, and honestly needs the medical help, said Mikhaila, who has used her YouTube channel to promote her all-meat Lion Diet.

Peterson is getting weaned off clonazepam at the unidentified rehab facility with other drugs that will help abate the withdrawal, Mikhaila said.

She added that she had a similar withdrawal struggle when she tried to get off Oxycontin as a teenager. At one point it made her feel like ants were crawling upside down under my skin, she recalled.

Peterson has gained international fame for his strident critiques of academic safe spaces and feminism, as well as his refusal to use transgender peoples preferred pronouns.

The controversial University of Toronto professor has been open about his previous struggles with depression, which he has battled since his teen years.

Hes said he beat it back with the meat-heavy diet his daughter encouraged him to adopt. Cutting out greens altogether improved both his mental and physical health, he said in an interview last year.

Im better now probably than Ive ever been in my life, and I havent been taking anti-depressants for a whole year, Peterson said in a July 2018 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

View post:
Jordan Peterson enters rehab after wife's cancer diagnosis

A RELIGIOUS PROBLEM It does not seem reasonable to describe the young man who shot twenty children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 as a religious person. This is equally true for the Colorado theatre gunman and the Columbine High School killers. But these murderous individuals had a problem with reality that existed at a religious depth. As one of the members of the Columbine duo wrote:

"The human race isnt worth fighting for, only worth killing. Give the Earth back to the animals. They deserve it infinitely more than we do. Nothing means anything anymore."

People who think such things view Being itself as inequitable and harsh to the point of corruption, and human Being, in particular, as contemptible. They appoint themselves supreme adjudicators of reality and find it wanting. They are the ultimate critics. The deeply cynical writer continues:

"If you recall your history, the Nazis came up with a 'final solution' to the Jewish problem. . . . Kill them all. Well, in case you havent figured it out, I say 'KILL MANKIND.' No one should survive."For such individuals, the world of experience is insufficient and evilso to hell with everything!

What is happening when someone comes to think in this manner? A great German play, Faust: A Tragedy, written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, addresses that issue. The plays main character, a scholar named Heinrich Faust, trades his immortal soul to the devil, Mephistopheles. In return, he receives whatever he desires while still alive on Earth. In Goethes play, Mephistopheles is the eternal adversary of Being. He has a central, defining credo:

"I am the spirit who negatesand rightly so, for all that comes to bedeserves to perish, wretchedly.It were better nothing would begin!Thus everything that your terms sin,destruction, evil representthat is my proper element."

Goethe considered this hateful sentiment so importantso key to the central element of vengeful human destructivenessthat he had Mephistopheles say it a second time, phrased somewhat differently, in Part II of the play, written many years later.

People think often in the Mephistophelean manner, although they seldom act upon their thoughts as brutally as the mass murderers of school, college and theatre. Whenever we experience injustice, real or imagined; whenever we encounter tragedy or fall prey to the machinations of others; whenever we experience the horror and pain of our own apparently arbitrary limitationsthe temptation to question Being and then to curse it rises foully from the darkness. Why must innocent people suffer so terribly? What kind of bloody, horrible planet is this, anyway?

Life is in truth very hard. Everyone is destined for pain and slated for destruction. Sometimes suffering is clearly the result of a personal fault such as willful blindness, poor decision-making or malevolence. In such cases, when it appears to be self-inflicted, it may even seem just. People get what they deserve, you might contend. Thats cold comfort, however, even when true. Sometimes, if those who are suffering changed their behaviour, then their lives would unfold less tragically. But human control is limited. Susceptibility to despair, disease, aging and death is universal. In the final analysis, we do not appear to be the architects of our own fragility. Whose fault is it, then?

People who are very ill (or, worse, who have a sick child) will inevitably find themselves asking this question, whether they are religious believers or not. The same is true of someone who finds his shirtsleeve caught in the gears of a giant bureaucracywho is suffering through a tax audit, or fighting an interminable lawsuit or divorce. And its not only the obviously suffering who are tormented by the need to blame someone or something for the intolerable state of their Being. At the height of his fame, influence and creative power, for example, the towering Leo Tolstoy himself began to question the value of human existence. He reasoned in this way:

"My position was terrible. I knew that I could find nothing in the way of rational knowledge except a denial of life; and in faith I could find nothing except a denial of reason, and this was even more impossible than a denial of life. According to rational knowledge, it followed that life is evil, and people know it. They do not have to live, yet they have lived and they do live, just as I myself had lived, even though I had known for a long time that life is meaningless and evil."

Try as he might, Tolstoy could identify only four means of escaping from such thoughts. One was retreating into childlike ignorance of the problem. Another was pursuing mindless pleasure. The third was "continuing to drag out a life that is evil and meaningless, knowing beforehand that nothing can come of it." He identified that particular form of escape with weakness: "The people in this category know that death is better than life, but they do not have the strength to act rationally and quickly put an end to the delusion by killing themselves. . . ."

Only the fourth and final mode of escape involved "strength and energy. It consists of destroying life, once one has realized that life is evil and meaningless." Tolstoy relentlessly followed his thoughts:

"Only unusually strong and logically consistent people act in this manner. Having realized all the stupidity of the joke that is being played on us and seeing that the blessings of the dead are greater than those of the living and that it is better not to exist, they act and put an end to this stupid joke; and they use any means of doing it: a rope around the neck, water, a knife in the heart, a train."

Tolstoy wasnt pessimistic enough. The stupidity of the joke being played on us does not merely motivate suicide. It motivates murdermass murder, often followed by suicide. That is a far more effective existential protest. By June of 2016, unbelievable as it may seem, there had been one thousand mass killings (defined as four or more people shot in a single incident, excluding the shooter) in the US in twelve hundred and sixty days. Thats one such event on five of every six days for more than three years. Everyone says, "We dont understand." How can we still pretend that? Tolstoy understood, more than a century ago. The ancient authors of the biblical story of Cain and Abel understood, as well, more than twenty centuries ago. They described murder as the first act of post-Edenic history: and not just murder, but fratricidal murdermurder not only of someone innocent but of someone ideal and good, and murder done consciously to spite the creator of the universe. Todays killers tell us the same thing, in their own words. Who would dare say that this is not the worm at the core of the apple? But we will not listen, because the truth cuts too close to the bone. Even for a mind as profound as that of the celebrated Russian author, there was no way out. How can the rest of us manage, when a man of Tolstoys stature admits defeat? For years, he hid his guns from himself and would not walk with a rope in hand, in case he hanged himself.

How can a person who is awake avoid outrage at the world?

Originally posted here:
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: Jordan B. Peterson ...