Editor’s Notes

Once upon a time there was a minor philosopher, by the name of Marshall something or other, who was a fad in universities for about a decade. I write with slight disparagement because when I paid him some attention at the time, I concluded that all he was trying to do was update his faith. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was just that there wasn’t enough substance there to feed my ravenous mind, and so I traveled on. Years later I was truly impressed when I learned that there was one thing about Marshall’s meandering that put him, for a single moment at least, in league with the great minds of the past 10,000 years. Marshall is alleged to have predicted that when coloured television became universal, society would take to eating spice-hot food. And so it came to pass! If he did so predict, it is worthy of marvel. Coloured television is universal and everyone — young and old — is consuming spice-hot food as if their taste buds have died.

This thought came to mind as I filed first in order (not importance) the story about Campbell Soup planning to open up shop big time in Russia and China. This and Marshall’s alleged contention prompted a recollection of a Canadian university student in Russian-Canadian studies who roomed for a brief time in my home. She went west for a ten-day visit with a Russian-Canadian family farming in the mountain country of southern British Columbia hard by the United States border. She returned with a recipe for that delicious Russian soup, borscht. She told me to help myself. At about three o’clock in the morning I went down to the kitchen, and the borscht. Yum! I spooned a bowel and took a sip. Luckily I was only a step away from the sink. The borscht I drank at my grandmother’s and my mother’s table was sweet with or without cream. This one, laced with pepper, burned my mouth. I blamed Marshall, not the young lady chef. Coloured television had destroyed my appetite.

My advice to Campbell: leave the pepper on the shelf. Otherwise first time Russians will be last time Russians. Or has coloured television become universal there too?

Meanwhile, two top Cold War spies, Putin and Gates have been lamenting about the good old days. A Yale historian reminds us that the good old days were downright scary.

Then there’s Lindsay Goldwert of Slate Magazine telling us why Iranian bombs have English Labels.

That dictator Hugo Chavez, who was elected with 69 per cent of the vote, is causing more trouble by burdening Venezuelans with a 5 point decrease in sales tax and monetary reform.

Loopy Republican Representative Connie Mack is losing sleep because Joseph P. Kennedy 11, nephew of John, is engaged in a charity to get heating oil at bargain prices to poor Americans. Mack accuses Kennedy of playing footsies with Chavez. Kennedy plays hardball in response. Read Kennedy’s letter to Mack.

Take it easy, but take it. Looking forward.

Carl Dow

Editor and Publisher.