Almost every schoolchild reads Lord of the Flies, but as hurricane Katrina proved a few weeks ago, it takes little to turn novelist's dystopias into tragic reality. From Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake to José Saramago's Blindness; the writer's imagination is little exaggeration on reality. Curiously, the illness that overturns world order in Saramago's novel is a "white blindness." In the case of New Orleans, it's difficult not to assess the post-storm debacle as a serious case of "black blindness": the vast majority of those affected by the storm being black (and poor), an indictment of a nation's insistent blindness to the racism that shackles its black population.

Last year, Canada's economy generated about $1.25 trillion dollars. Last year, Canada's economy grew by about $30 billion. Last year, Canada had a federal budget surplus of about $8 billion, the provinces another $4 billion. Last year, federal debt charges declined for the fourth year in a row.

In his award-winning essay on Celtic Christianity (Presbyterian Record, April 2004), Philip Newell writes about "listening within life for the beat of God's presence." Listening is not something we do all that well in Western culture; talking and shouting is more typical. Heckling question periods in Parliament are the quintessential formalization of basketball players trashtalking.

You're getting younger and we're getting better!

Do you ever come away after reading the Record and wonder how you can help people in need who live in some faraway country in South America, Africa or Asia? I don't mean relief aid, such as for the tsunami, but helping to provide long-term solutions. Are you frustrated by stories about corrupt dictators and pillaging businesses that rape the land and pay workers dirt wages? Do you find the arguments for and against globalization give you a headache?

It rests there, survivor of several massive earthquakes, Latin Crusaders and the capture in the 15th century by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror who made it his imperial mosque. Arguably the greatest church in Christendom, Hagia Sophia, representative of Orthodox Christianity and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, dominating the skyline of Istanbul, surrounded by four minarets, is a museum. Ataturk, father of modern Turkey, ordered the designation in 1934.

You can always tell people who are about to become parents: they're the ones buying How to be the Most Fabulous Parent and How to Streetproof Your Infant. There's little jest in that: There is a serious book published on how to keep your children tobacco-free "for parents of children ages 3 to 19." Three? "Starting prevention efforts early is the key," says the publisher's blurb.

When natural disasters strike, such as the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean, many people wonder what role God is playing in these events. It is an age-old question and one not easily answered.

A few weeks ago, a report was released suggesting more than one million children in Canada are living below the poverty line. Campaign 2000, a national watchdog organization, said more than 15 per cent of Canadian children live in low-income families who earn less than two-thirds the national median hourly wage of about $10. Moderator Rick Fee was forthright in his reaction, calling the situation "a real scandal." It is.

A few weeks ago, a report was released suggesting more than one million children in Canada are living below the poverty line. Campaign 2000, a national watchdog organization, said more than 15 per cent of Canadian children live in low-income families who earn less than two-thirds the national median hourly wage of about $10. Moderator Rick Fee was forthright in his reaction, calling the situation “a real scandal.” It is.

The report was issued 15 years after all parties in the House of Commons vowed to fix the problem of child poverty. The rate was about the same then, although three times the rate of most northern European countries, and actually climbed to almost 22 per cent in 1996. In response to the recent news, the federal Social Development Department offered the lame defence that Statistics Canada figures from 2002 indicate the child poverty rate is closer to 10 per cent, or 700,000 children.