29 January 2007

Two Quick Things

First, go buy Jack Granatstein's new book, Whose War Is It? How Canada Can Survive in the Post-9/11 World. Granatstein's a thorough realist, and I do disagree with his assessment of Bush 43 as the worst POTUS since Harding, but this book is a very sobering appraisal of Canadian foreign policy five years after 9/11. I've been reading this man's works for years now, and he has yet to put out a poor book (hear that, Jimmy Carter?), and this book is certainly no exception. I realize that the environment is four times as important to Canadians than terrorism, but for those of us who take our foreign and defence policy seriously, we have a lot of work to do, and Granatstein helps point the way. Perhaps after I'm done reading all of the book, I'll do a mini-review.

Second, tonight the Habs will honour and retire the jersey of Ken Dryden. He may have gone to the Maple Leafs and the Liberals (hmmm, both are only popular in Toronto), and he may have brushed off myself and the other young folks in Kelowna in 2004, but this guy gave a lot to the Habs in the 70s. Stanley Cups, backstopped Canada in the Summit Series against the pinkos, and that was when he wasn't preoccupied with law school. Truly, #29 is one of the team's all-time greats, and tonight he takes his rightful place among the other Habs legends. It's a shame that it happens in the shadow of the death of Gump Worsley.

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