A Grave Danger – Police and the U.S. Grand Jury Process
December 12th, 2014
I have worked as a Senior Crown prosecutor in Toronto, and also as a Defence lawyer, for nearly two decades. Recently, given my background, people have asked my opinion on the recent decisions of Grand Juries not to put police officers on trial in the Ferguson and now the Staten Island cases. Of course, not… [Read More]
A life Well-Lived Book Review – Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop
October 16th, 2009
Globe & Mail One cold midwinter night, with heavy steps, I visited my local bookshop. A ridiculously bright orange book, How Fiction Works, caught my eye. In it, critic James Wood dissects bad writing and good writing both, as he sees them. After demolishing many celebrated authors, he pronounces the final pages of Willa Cather’s 1927… [Read More]
Us and the Earth: A Faustian Bargian
January 9th, 2008
Globe & Mail Thomas Homer-Dixon recently advised Globe and Mail readers how to use technology to tame the rising oceans. A man named Faust had a similar idea in 1832. The real Faust was a shadowy figure. The Faust we know, who has entered Western myth, was created by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe…. [Read More]