One of the greatest and most influential classical composers died in Vienna 200 years ago today. Among his many achievements, Franz Joseph Haydn was the first to compose four-part music for two violins, a viola and a cello on a regular basis, making him the “Father of the String Quartet”. He was [...]

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit [...]

The claim that Hinduism is a uniquely pacific and tolerant religion is dangerous bunk, says (UK) Guardian columnist Rahila Gupta.
There is a profoundly disquieting myth about Hinduism which has been put about by its adherents so often and so successfully that it is in danger of crystallising into a truth – that of its essentially [...]

A Singapore court has convicted a Christian couple for handing out a particular brand of religious tracts to Muslims.  The pair could be fined or even imprisoned.
A Singapore court Thursday has found a Christian couple guilty for distributing seditious and objectionable publications to Muslims, media reports said. Between March and December 2007, Ong Kian Cheong, [...]

Prince Edward Island’s Human Rights Commission may have nine staff members to police a population of 140,000, making it, as Ezra Levant pointed out, proportionately over ten times larger than the Canadian Human Rights Commission, but it’s not busy enough for at least one Islander. After PEI’s HRC rejected her claim of discrimination in [...]

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean’s trip to Nunavut has made a monarchist of former republican and Halifax Chronicle-Herald columnist Steve Maher.
THE SIGHT — beautiful beyond words — of Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean holding a bloody piece of raw seal heart in her viceregal mouth has convinced me to abandon my long-held republican beliefs and half-heartedly embrace [...]

The Green Party lives up to its usual standards of organisation in the Nova Scotia election campaign.
You can be forgiven if you can’t keep track of who’s running for the Green party.
The party has been grappling with candidates pulling out at the last minute in many ridings. These include:
•Guysborough-Sheet Harbour. The party’s website recently listed [...]

The collect for today, the Feast of The Venerable Bede (673-735), Monk, Historian, Doctor of the Church (source):
Almighty God, maker of all things,
whose Son Jesus Christ gave to thy servant Bede
grace to drink in with joy
the word which leadeth us to know thee and to love thee:
in thy goodness
grant that we also may come at [...]

“‘Extreme’ College Drinking And A Sensation-seeking Disposition Lead To Injury” — Science Daily, 25 May

Cry me a river.
Alexander Beers is charged with impaired driving causing death in connection with the death of a 14-year-old Moncton girl in July 2007. He has told a judge that the RCMP violated his rights on the night he was arrested, but the RCMP rejects his version of events.
James Fowler, Beers’s lawyer, said [...]

Speaking in Israel last Sunday, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney (at right) condemned the new anti-Semitism arising from an alliance between Western leftists and Islamic extremists, calling it even worse than the “old European” anti-Semitism.
“The existential threat faced by Israel on a daily basis is ultimately a threat to the broader Western civilization,” said [...]

A man charged with criminal negligence causing death following a street-racing incident was supposed to be under house arrest at the time.
One of the men charged after a woman died in a racing incident in eastern Newfoundland earlier this month had been instructed to stay at home under house arrest, CBC News has learned.
Ryan Watkins, [...]

Sikhism officially rejects India’s caste system, but the murder of a Sikh religious leader at a Vienna temple is believed to have been motivated by caste-based prejudice. The mayhem in Vienna sparked rioting in Punjab state, northwest India.
Dalits in Vancouver have denounced the killing, calling it an act of terrorism.
Outraged by the killing of [...]

The collect for today, the Feast of St Augustine (d. c. 605), first Archbishop of Canterbury (source):
O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose [...]

Government aid to victims of the 6 April earthquake that hit L’Aquila, Italy, has been held up by a small problem. The city and surrounding area have 70,000 registered residents, but 100,000 people have applied for a grant.
The local authority’s chief executive, Massimiliano Cordeschi, has noted an “incongruity” in the total numbers of residents [...]