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Norm Farrell

Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.

Now is not the moment to remain silent

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Facebook has plenty of flaws, but as a stopped clock does twice a day, it can provide useful information. It was on Facebook that I saw a quote by American writer and editor Naomi Shulman. That led me to a piece she published ten days after Trump was elected President in 2016. Emboldened by Congressional cowardice and a corrupt Supreme Court, America’s Oligarch-in-Chief is even more dangerous than when Shulman warned her nation eight years ago…

Record growth in European solar photovoltaic, but not in B.C.

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The cost of electricity produced with solar and wind technologies has been declining for 15 years. Because of corporate inertia, BC Hydro has been paying little attention. The company has focused on reliable delivery of energy but has been reluctant to alter its sources of electricity. The company even celebrates the fact, advertising, “We’re powered by water.” That line is still used even though water shortages have required the utility to import electricity from gas-fired generators in Alberta and the USA.

Forest gardens deliberately planted by Indigenous people

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Andrew Currey wrote in SCIENCE about forest gardens that were not recognized as human-created because they did not fit the modern image of agriculture. The journal described work by Simon Fraser University’s ethnoecologist and archaeologist Chelsea Armstrong. Professor Armstrong, with other scientists from SFU, UBC, Stanford, and the New York Botanical Garden concluded that ancient Indigenous management practices were tied to ecosystem health and resilience.

Is Canada broken? It depends…

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Mark Bourrie is a Canadian journalist with an impressive resume. After he earned a BA in history, Ontario universities awarded Bourrie a diploma in public policy and administration, a master’s degree in journalism, a doctorate in Canadian media history, and a law degree. This week, The Walrus published a commentary by Mark Bourrie. He says Pierre Poilievre, the “Canada Is Broken” candidate, faces a changed national mood.

Rule by a dangerous narcissist

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A fundraising group led by Republican Kevin Grantham commissioned a portrait of Donald Trump by Sarah Boardman. The painting was unveiled in August 2019 and hung in Arizona’s rotunda gallery until the President complained about it in 2025. Republican politicians immediately demanded it be removed from the state’s capitol building. A painting that hung on the wall for 68 months was suddenly said to be “purposefully distorted” and part of a plot against the dear leader “never seen before.”

Rule of chaos, not the rule of law

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Conservative J. Michael Luttig, a former U.S. Appeals Court Judge appointed by Republican George H.W. Bush Luttig, wrote in the NY Times about Trump’s “stunning frontal assault” on the rule of law. Luttig says the casualty “could well be the constitutional democracy Americans established 250 years ago.

Kakistocracy again

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I complain about rich people owning important media properties when they use those to benefit holders of extreme wealth. Billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs controls The Atlantic magazine and she allows her journalists to be effective critics of Donald Trump. The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg ought to amaze us. Instead, it is just another illustration of dangerous incompetence among the rulers in Washington DC.

America’s kakistocracy

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I mentioned kakistocracy in the article Impoverishment of thought. The Cambridge Dictionary defines this as “a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.” Peter Navarro is 78-year-old Donald Trump’s 75-year-old counsellor for trade and manufacturing. Navarro provides just part of the evidence that the President’s kakistocracy is now in place.

Impoverishment of thought

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In an age of extreme media coverage and immediacy, the associated defeat of intelligence is worrying. Genuine intellectual debate all too often disappears in favour of ersatz ideas dominated by the one-track thinking and the politics of offence.

Bias

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Almost everything that Musk communicates or amplifies on X—and he posts and reposts a staggering quantity of content to a vast audience—is an outright lie, half-truth, or flagrant propaganda. And, of course, the only reason he can do this is that he inhabits a right-wing ecosystem in America which has wholly abandoned even the pretense of caring about truth, reality, or objectivity. …Musk is the most prolific source of misinformation on his own platform. When confronted with this behavior, the observation that everyone is biased obscures more than it illuminates.

Humanism

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Stephen Fry excels in many forms of entertainment and education. While there seems to be nothing he cannot master, Fry has struggled with bipolar disorder throughout his life. Three years ago, Fry narrated the video ‘What makes something right or wrong?’. It provides a short explanation of humanism.

Be woke!

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Ten symptoms of Woke Mind Virus: 1. You read book, and don’t burn them. 2. You embrace science. 5. You believe in true equality FOR ALL PEOPLE! 8. You resepct others’ rights…

Just because the corruption plays out in public doesn’t mean it’s not corruption

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A week ago, Senator Chris Murphy said the Trump White House was “on its way to being the most corrupt in the history of the country.” That statement is wrong. The White House is not on its way; it has already arrived. Today’s car show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is additional evidence. White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino livestreamed the event on X, the social media app owned by Musk. The Tesla share price increased more than 7% today, so the stunt added $55 billion to the company’s market capitalization. Members of the Trump crime family who knew about the car show likely profited immensely.