Rick Salutin
Rick Salutin returned home to Canada, following ten years of university study in the United States, in October, 1970. He has been a writer ever since. His many plays include 1837, on the movement for independence from the British Empire; and Les Canadiens, about the famed hockey team and its relation to the spirit of Quebec nationalism, which received the Chalmers award for best Canadian play in 1977. His TV work includes Maria, about union organizing in the textile industry. He has written biography and history, as well as three novels, one of which, A Man of Little Faith, won the Books in Canada best first novel prize. He received the Toronto Arts Award in writing and publishing in 1991 and the National Newspaper Award for best columnist, for his Globe and Mail column on media, in 1993. He held the Maclean Hunter chair in ethics in communication at Ryerson University from 1993 to 1995 and has taught in the Canadian Studies program of University College, the University of Toronto, since 1978 . He has written columns for Canadian Business, Toronto Life, TV Times, the Globe and Mail Broadcast Week and This Magazine, of which he is a founding editor. He was Globe and Mail media columnist from 1991 to 1999 and is now an op-ed columnist. His most recent book is The Womanizer, a novel.
Making do with tarnished spectacles – so enjoy the Olympics
One thing that moves us in sports is that those with merit tend to win. This is unlike the rest of life
Deficit hysteria bogeyman
The call to panic serves many uses
Is it already over for Obama?
The change he brought was the election of a black man as president, full stop
We all fail the failed state test
The notion that human societies are governable is an amiable delusion. Success is always relative, and Haiti hardly comes out worst
Grit plan: Let Harper be Harper
Most Canadians want Parliament to be there, just to prove democracy exists
Evasion of the body scanners
Security requires talking foreign policy, not airport screening
In praise of words, not books
Page nostalgia is fine, but there's something to be gained in certain losses
Thomas the Tank Engine goes to Copenhagen
The Wilton critique doesn't really jibe with my own sense of the tales
Climategate's not evil. It's just unhinged
Politics often involves fantasy and delusion, along with moral passion
Or you can play the Jewish card
This government has a meanness problem. Or, as they say in politics, a perception of meanness problem