Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

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20

Feb

2023

About those New Year’s resolutions

Author: Jim Taylor
Sunday January 8, 2023

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions last weekend? When I broached that subject informally, a group of friends more or less agreed – they don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Mostly because they knew they’d break those resolutions. Maybe even that same evening, if the resolution involved chocolate or wine.
Or else they knew their good intentions were too idealistic: “Peace to the world.” “End poverty and starvation.” “Cure the climate crisis.”
I share those misgivings. But I also feel it’s worthwhile to make resolutions, periodically. And a New Year seems as good a time as any to make them.
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24

Dec

2022

Unsatisfactory solution for unmasking lies

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 27, 2022 

 

Occasionally, The Guardian lets its hair down and writes about itself. 

            Recently, Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill, The Guardian’s deputy membership editor, wrote in an e-newsletter that Donald Trump's announcement of running for the presidency in 2024 “renewed a debate about how to responsibly cover him without unwittingly providing the coverage he so expertly manipulates.” 

            She likened it to “walking a tightrope.”

            “We will have no hesitation to call a lie a lie, or indeed a liar a liar, even if they are a former US president," said Paul Harris, head of news for The Guardian US.


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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: Trump, lies, truth, Guardian

25

Nov

2022

Mid-term elections all about Trump

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday November 13, 2022 

 

Final results in the U.S. mid-term elections may not be in for some weeks. But the political pundits are having a field day finding things to analyse. 

            I dare suggest that some of them have read the election wrong. This election was not about abortion rights. Or about immigration, racial discrimination, or inflation. 

            It was not even – despite Joe Biden’s and Barrack Obama’s impassioned last-minute pleas – about the survival of democracy. 

            It was about one thing -- Donald Trump.

 

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18

Oct

2022

I rather Jesus be wrong than Trump right

Author: Jim Taylor

unday October 9, 2022 

 

Could Jesus have been wrong? This is not a hypothetical question. It bears strongly on how we can – or should, or might – respond to a variety of current controversies. 

            Could Jesus be wrong? The mind boggles. Christian faith worldwide is founded on the conviction that Jesus must have been right, regardless. 

            Now, there are certainly things that Jesus said and did that stretch our credulity. Walking on water, for example. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work. But we rationalize away that experimental failure, by arguing either that it’s a skill limited to the divine, or that it proves our lack of faith. 

            But then there are those troublesome parables. 


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9

Jan

2021

Putting good and bad in perspective

Author: Jim Taylor

Sunday January 10, 2021

 

Years ago, I started writing a summary of the good things and bad things that had happened that year.

            At first, I had little difficulty separating good from bad. My two lists – good and bad – bore little connection to each other.

            But as time passed, I discovered that different aspects of the same situations were showing up in both lists.

            This year, the overlap is almost total. Bad things occurred, certainly, but part of each parcel included good things. And vice versa. Like Frank Sinatra singing about love and marriage, you can’t have one without the other.

            Take Donald Trump. Please. (A line borrowed from stand-up comedy.)

            How can his behaviour be a ”good thing”?

            Easy -- he proved I was right about him, all along. (I never said that the good and bad had to be equal, only that they were intertwined!)


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