March 31, 2008

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FAITH

THE JESUS PROBLEM

"Whom do men say that I am?” Jesus’s own query to his disciples, asked in the oldest Gospel (Mark 8:27), has always been the ultimate question of the faith founded in his name. The answer has determined everything from core doctrine to the authority of the clergy. By BRIAN BETHUNE

MAIL BAG

INSOMNIA: A CULTURAL HISTORY author Eluned Summers-Bremner is a prime example of a person drawing unwarranted conclusions from precious little data (Interview, March 17). In this article, Summers-Bremner spouts off about saints in the Middle Ages, Protestant sermons, and Calvinism in general as having a negative influence on people’s sleep patterns.

WORLD

Iraq 2013

In Washington’s eyes, a lot of things have been going right in Iraq five years after George W. Bush first ordered troops to invade. In the one year since the U.S. military revamped its strategy and sent in 30,000 additional troops on top of the 130,000 already there, the violence has dropped significantly. By LUIZA CH. SAVAGE

BUSINESS

Absolving green guilt

Guilt is a powerful tool. Any mother knows that. And so, too, do those in the business of fighting global warming. Almost daily we’re bombarded with evidence of our contribution to climate change. Flown lately? You unleashed more than a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. By JASON KIRBY

HISTORY

PRESS BARON, ALLEY FIGHTER

Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, raised in a modest home in Newcasde, N.B., in the 1880s, was a preternaturally gifted entrepreneur and politico, and a notorious womanizer and gadfly, destined to become his era’s most powerful newspaper tycoon. By DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS

THE BACK PAGES

THE TIPPING PLAGUE

It is the same way every time. I get up from the chair, thank the lady who Cuts my hair, run my hand appreciatively over myhead, turn, and walk, churning with dread, toward the cashier. The girl behind the counter cheerily rings up the bill, then nods toward my stylist, now mercifully out of earshot. By ANDREW COYNE

INTERVIEW

First of all, congratulations. You are now one of the only women leaders of a provincial party in Canada. Yes. Thank you. And congratulations for getting elected the head of the Parti Québécois on the third try. In English, we have an expression: third time’s a charm. By MARTIN PATRIQUIN

THE BACK PAGES

Is that the Prostitootin' Choo-Choo?

The governor of New York gave an interview this week. Not the governor of New York who resigned over the five-grand-an-hour hooker he had waiting for him in room 871 of the Mayflower in Washington. That was last week’s governor of New York—“Client #9,” Mister Sleaze, Mister I-transport-women-across-state-lines-for-immoral-purposes, Mister If-I-pay-extra-can-we-do-something-“unsafe”? By MARK STEYN

SPORTS

Kyle Shewfelt ROUGH AND TUMBLING

The memory of the good landing, the one that clinched the floor exercise gold that Sunday night in Athens, is still so vivid that Kyle Shewfelt can summon the sensations at will. That pregnant pause before the final tumble, to draw a breath and slow down lest the adrenalin rush of an Olympic gymnastics final carry him away. By JONATHON GATEHOUSE

NATIONAL

WHO’S FOOTING THE BILL?

Had the policy been aimed at Newfoundland, Danny Williams would have suffered an aneurysm of unmitigated fury. But when federal Environment Minister John Baird unveiled new regulations that will eventually force Alberta’s oil sands developers to pump carbon dioxide emissions deep underground—at a cost of untold billions but with little indication of who will pay—Premier Ed Stelmach merely thanked Baird for his trouble.

March 242008