wells

“I’ll take substance with nastiness over civil emptiness, anytime…”

A weekly politics podcast with columnists Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells

Our columnists talk between stops on the campaign trail

Why the Liberals are worried and how Layton became the man to watch (VIDEO)

Federal budget analysis from inside the press lock-up in Ottawa

“In Canadian politics, there is no duty, there is no honour, no requirement of logical consistency…”

Should western leaders have dealt with Gadhafi in the past? Also: why the Tories have pulled ahead in the polls

Spend long enough studying philosophy, and eventually someone — most likely a member of your family — is going to ask, “what are you going to do with that?” It’s a tough question to answer, since philosophy isn’t really something you do something with, like a screwdriver. It’s more like something you just do — like fly fishing. But academic philosophy, like every other department in the university, is in the selling game, trying to attract customers and the money they bring, money that enables you and your colleagues to keep doing philosophy.

The new LRC is out, of course!

Run don’t walk to your nearest newsstand. Can you really afford to be the person at BlogCentral who hasn’t read Paul Wells’ review of John English’s much-palavered new Trudeau bio? Oh, you want timeliness? Then check out David Dunne’s review of The Age of Persuasion, the O’Reilly/Tennant book that launched on Tuesday. It’s smarts you are looking for? Then dig in to Daniel Weinstock’s review of the two volumes of James Tully’s collected essays, Public Philosophy in a New Key.

Read those three and you’ve already got your $6.50 worth, and we haven’t even looked at Kate Taylor’s review of Sarah Jennings’ history of the National Arts Centre, Janice G. Stein’s essay on animal spirits in the global economy, or the always fun letters.

 

I spent the better part of yesterday morning trying — fruitlessly — to make a minor change to my cellphone plan. My carrier of choice offered two ways of doing it, in theory: I could make the change in my account online, or call their handy 1800 number. Online quickly ran into a dead-end, since the plans that were advertised on the main Choose a Plan page bore absolutely no relation to the plans I was given the option of switching to. So I called the 1800 number, and got bounced around through voice mail hell until an agent finally answered, only to tell me that I had reached residential service, not wireless. So he transferred me, and after 10 minutes more on hold I was disconnected. This happened three more times until I finally gave up, but only after swearing profusely at a miserable and innocent young man named Brett. (Sorry Brett!). 

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