Jeffrey Loewen

I search in vain for the Thin Men. My partner Wendy and I are currently luxuriating in the sun and surf of Ixtapa, Mexico. It’s a wonderful interruption to our lives as wage slaves in “el Norte” where we scrimp and save for occasions like our glorious Now. And yet it´s disconcerting to a Thin...

Are you Charlie Hebdo? Are you Charlie Hebdo? And what about you? Are you Charlie too? What about your Wednesday morning monologist? Am I Charlie? There’s been a lot of sanctimonious shite shed about what we in the pampered-puss West consider sacred “freedoms.” Freedom of speech, freedom of the Press: the words roll off the...

Despite the fact that ours is a consumption-driven society madly obsessed with the peccadilloes of our gorgeous pantheon of celebrities, I propose that we talk a bit about politics. That’s right, politics. Canadian politics. “Show business for ugly people,” some call it. And they may be right. After all, scan the benches of our House...

Your scribe is happy to bid adieu to 2014. It’s been an interesting year, to say the least; but it is with ever hopeful eyes that I look forward to 2015 as the year in which we say “so long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye” to the calumnies and deceits of the current government. There’s an...

Family gatherings can be marvelous measures of familial love and support. The crackle and spark from a well-stoked hearth, the mellow numbing of mind after a few cocktails shared in the proper spirit of the season, the laid-back luxuriating in one’s favourite chair with the soft chatter of folks well-fed -- all of these aspects...

We marked the 34th anniversary of John Lennon’s murder on Monday the eighth of December. The failure to neutralize an unsettling agent in America's midst by the paranoid Nixon administration and the machinations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was carried out, eventually, by Mark David Chapman,...

For those of us able still to remember a Canada lacking endless opportunities for distraction as a result of a seemingly limitless selection of “TV channels” on a dizzying array of media platforms, and an even greater number of traditional and internet-based radio stations, there was always the presence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. At...

As the polar vortex shifts the seasons into a wintery overdrive, even the ordinarily balmy and frivolous Thompson-Okanagan has taken on a grey pall. The mercury is heading south and the frost-tipped ears after a morning walk suggest that it’s time to think about booking some time down south again. For years now my partner...

In the southern Ontario of my youth in the Seventies, we were surrounded by reminders of war. Every little town, every larger city, had its monuments and memorials erected to commemorate the fallen, usually young men of British descent whose names, borne in stone, stared back at us, muted reminders of mass suffering too horrible...

Against my better judgement, I found myself hankering for a breakfast sandwich last month. The handful of vitamins and Ibuprofen that normally steady a guy’s nerves weren’t cutting it, so I decided to chance a stroke and snag something breakfast-like from the offerings off a fast-food menu board. Entering the plastic environment of the place...

All of us would like to think of ourselves, even our country, as “good” people. We want to believe that we are fair-minded, welcoming of the views and aspirations of our brothers and sisters, champions of peace and reconciliation. Those people and countries out there that don’t share our views are, of course, “bad” people,...

Kelowna is no longer a city. Neither is the Okanagan Valley a community these days, it would seem. The concept of Kelowna and the Okanagan as livable communities has been hijacked by the jackals of the Public Relations and Communications industries. In turn, local Business Bobs and Bettys, even candidates running for local city councils,...

Historically speaking, I am probably one of the luckiest men alive; and I should be immensely thankful. I assure you: I am thankful. Even immensely so. Some would say that I have won the “birth lottery,” simply by being born Caucasian to an upwardly mobile family and during one of history’s eras of relative plenty...

In popular Canadian song, Randy Bachman suggests that “any loving’s good loving.” And in a similar vein, some lone voice in the wilderness came up with the oft-repeated cliché that “any publicity is good publicity.” Now, while there may be some iota of conflicted-truth to the former sentiment – especially if you’re extremely desperate –...

Sinister and serpentine Prime Minister Stephen Harper and our own plucky pedagogue Premier Christy Clark have been the unwitting tutors of their respective federal and provincial electorates for some time now. The lesson they have been teaching us all is: It’s time that an activist electorate rises up to hold them accountable. My thoughts today...

In the pedagogical moshpit that is Academia these days, it is not uncommon for universities to bestow honourary doctorates upon well-known movers-and-shakers. You will see these august figures addressing graduates at convocations the world over, conferring upon those matriculating a variety of bon mots and occasionally suitable words of inspiration to carry the kids into...

As I write today’s column, I am grateful that the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and the Province have come to a tentative agreement that may result in our kids returning to their respective schools fairly soon now. It would seem that the good ship Christy Clark and Co. has averted the proverbial iceberg and will...

British Columbians have front-row seats for one of the bloodiest political contests to ever unfold in our province. It’s a shame that it’s over one of the few values that our nation and province holds sacrosanct: the necessity for provincial governments to provide a high-quality of public education. Children require schooling. It’s their constitutionally-enshrined right....

Christy Clark is a high-stakes gambler. It’s breath-taking to witness. It’s time for an intervention, folks. And, frankly, we’d better get on board this interventionist’s couch with Ms. Clark before she ruins her own life along with the future prospects of the families of British Columbia whom she is mandated to serve. Christy Clark’s gamble...

What was once a weekly source of spiritual succour and a place for meditative reflection has been hi-jacked and turned into a turd. The church of my childhood has disappeared and returned as a big box store. Casting back the old eye-glass on the last half century, I understand the rot to have begun even...

It’s not easy being a rationalist in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. On one side of the imaginary equation you have the incalculable preponderance of churches large and small petitioning for your heart and soul (not to mention a healthy percentage of your take-home pay); on the other side one meets incalculable members of various New Ageist cliques vying for your brain.