So Preston turned tail and ran. Frankly, I don't blame him.

The House of Commons has shown over the past few weeks how pathetically juvenile and useless our representatives are. Have they spent time hammering out legislation or trying to advance the interests of national security or business? No. They've been calling each other names, asking anyone who isn't part of their party to quit and sulking, pouting and plugging their ears when things don't go as planned.

Drunk on power and high on his horse, Ralph Klein blissfully strode to the podium. As he spoke, all class and dignity people may have accorded him vanished in a flurry of slurs and insults.

Forget Nostradamus, William Shakespeare is the true prognosticator of times long ago. His character of Lady Macbeth was more than a simple literary creation, it was a glimpse forward to the current provincial election.

"That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold."

-Macbeth (Act 2 Scene 2 Line 1)

Against a jungle backdrop with a pipe and a ski mask, a lone ranger stands poised to write a new chapter in Mexico's history.

Due to the efforts of Sub-comandante Marcos, two weeks of armed conflict seven years ago has become a "revolution" poised to achieve historic gains for Mexico's native population. Through brilliant political posturing and an uncanny ability to manipulate and control the media, Marcos fashioned an internationally-known revolutionary force, the Zapatistas of the Mexican state of Chiapas.

"He is a man of war. He is a man of expansion. He is a man of occupation."

The words of Ziad Abu-Zayyad, a minister of the Palestinian Authority, capture the sentiments of the Palestinian people and many sympathetic Israelis as they survey the aftermath of the Israeli election. Former military strongman, minister of defence and leader of the right-wing opposition Ariel Sharon was swept into the office of Prime Minister by the largest electoral margin of victory in Israel's brief history.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

This is the opening of the First Amendment of the American Constitution. In 1791, the American people altered their constitution to entrench the separation of Church and State. Now, in 2001, a bumbling baseball tycoon from Texas has the gall to see himself as larger than that revered document. American President George W. Bush may as well turn the Oval Office into a Methodist Church for the morally superior on Capitol Hill.

Is one individual justified in deciding that another's life is too unbearable to continue? Thankfully, the Supreme Court of Canada recently answered the preceding question with a resounding and unanimous "No."

Robert Latimer was sentenced to life in prison after more than seven years of appeals and legal battles. It will be 10 years before he will even get the chance to see the light of day and, while the world is no safer, I am sleeping better at night.

Joe to Kevin, Elaine to Anne and Lizzy of Westminster sending her regards (via our journalist turned monarch overseas, Adrienne Clarkson). Reverend Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto recently took the progressive step that no one else seemed to have the balls to take--he presided over the first two legally legitimate gay marriages in Canada.

While we all line up to worship at the altar of almighty Science, perhaps we should put more consideration into what we stand to lose. In a time of scientific and technological progress there are questions we dismiss as childish or inconsequential that once formed the core of our thoughts, work and actions as humans. The blind ferocity with which we, as a society, are rushing towards the ultimate truth of Science is frightening and bordering on fanaticism.

When does ignorant hypocrisy become indiscriminate genocide? As a nation, Canada prides itself as a defender of human rights, as an upholder of sacred freedoms and as the innovators and torchbearers of the peacekeeping mantle. Why then do we not practice what we preach?