Articles by Joshua Freedman

Everyone who gets into an elite university, including our own, probably feels at one time or another that they were deserving of meriting acceptance into the school, and that the admissions committee did not reach this decision lightly.  A highly revealing article published by Ron Unz in The American Conservative[Read More…]

Perhaps the most important factor in considering a university education is that it equips one with a set of facts and knowledge that would otherwise be hard to come by. Indeed, we enter class expecting to be bombarded by a wealth of ideas, and we expect that the information we[Read More…]

In an Academy Award season mostly bereft of controversy, Zero Dark Thirty has filled the void with its brutal and frank depiction of torture. The film, a dramatization of the American military operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, was written based on conversations with people who had first hand knowledge[Read More…]

Now that the American election is finally over, we can once again set our sights closer to home, where an interesting leadership battle is brewing in the Liberal caucus between Martha Hall-Findlay, Justin Trudeau, and more recently, Marc Garneau—who is expected to declare his candidacy very soon. As things stand[Read More…]

In Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan, the author confidently assures his readers that, to learn anything, one must “minimize time spent reading newspapers,” and “ignore the blogs.” He argues that these outlets always try to apply narratives to what simply may be disparate facts, usually report the same sets[Read More…]

It’s easy to understand why Mitt Romney must be feeling frustrated right now. The four-day Republican National Convention was first hijacked by a hurricane, and then by an old man talking to a chair.  Meanwhile, the majority of the media met the Democratic National Convention with plaudits, and Obama has[Read More…]

In a US presidential campaign full of unremitting stupidity, the ‘fact-check’ has claimed the crown of the most tedious journalistic device used during this news cycle. Instead of raising the tone of the presidential debate by defending the truth, the fact-check has become another cudgel to be used in the[Read More…]

The voting options in Quebec’s election yesterday were akin to the choice between being punched in the gut and being punched in the face; both are extremely painful or something to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, the responsibility of an active citizen, especially in an election this important, forced[Read More…]