Alberta Diary: Budget crisis? Civil service raises? Go pop a Valium, Smith!
Hey Marge! Danielle Smith says there’s a budget crisis and this is no time to be giving raises to civil servants! Marge? Typical Albertans may not be exactly as illustrated this summer. Below: Danielle...
View ArticleChadwick's Blog & Commentary: The Municipal Machiavelli is online
I’ve spent much of the past few days putting online my book in which I assess and rewrite Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous (or infamous) work, The Prince, in a WordPress format. I wrote this book earlier...
View ArticleChadwick's Blog & Commentary: The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Published in 1637, The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a collection of 300 aphorisms about life, behaviour, politics, morality, faith, philosophy and society. One comment, on Amazon.ca called it, somewhat...
View ArticleChadwick's Blog & Commentary: Not the expected blog post, I’m afraid
Sorry to disappoint those readers who expected this to be a blog post on ukuleles, tequila or our beautiful Mexican Sister City, Zihuatanejo (“Zee-hwa” for those in the know). I refer, of course, to...
View ArticleSusan on the Soapbox: The Alberta Energy Board: What the PC Government...
On the same day that the Health Minister unceremoniously fired the Alberta Health Services board for refusing to revoke $3.2 million in bonuses, the Energy Minister announced the appointment of the...
View ArticleScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Machiavelli and the Elizabethans
In 1555, Bishop Stephen Gardiner wrote a treatise to King Phillip II of Spain, in which he borrowed (aka plagiarized) extensively from Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses. Gardiner did not...
View ArticleScripturient: Blog & Commentary: New post on the Municipal Machiavelli
I’ve written a short post that I trust will serve as an introduction to a longer piece I plan to write. It’s on the letter of Quintus Tullius Cicero to his brother on how to win an election (written...
View ArticleScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Montaigne and Machiavelli
Michel de Montaigne mentioned Machiavelli only twice in his Essays, both in Book Two. This tells us he was aware of the latter, but not whether he was intimately familiar with his works. Nor does it...
View ArticleScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Soviet Machiavelli
I’ve written a new piece for my Municipal Machiavelli blog about the late (1982) Mikhail Suslov, the “Soviet Machiavelli.” You can read it here: www.ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/the-soviet-machiavelli/...
View ArticleScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Reward or Punishment?
Which works best in compelling behaviour of your subordinates: the carrot or the stick? Science has come up with the answer in a new study about how to get results from people. Here’s a little piece I...
View ArticleScripturient: Two New Posts on the Municipal Machiavelli
I added two posts today to my blog about Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th century political philosopher. These are: Machiavelli: The Graphic Novel – a short piece about the recent publication of Don...
View ArticleScripturient: Fortuna: Why Plans Fail
Niccolo Machiavelli used two words in his book, The Prince, to describe the factors that influenced events. In English these are virtue or character (virtu), fortune or chance (fortuna). Only virtue is...
View ArticleWritings of J. Todd Ring: Empiricism and Dogmatism
Or, Evidence-based opinion versus ideological fundamentalism There is a major difference between evidence-based opinion and opinion-based evidence. The former is empirical, and sane, the latter,...
View ArticleWritings of J. Todd Ring: Empiricism and Dogmatism
Or, Evidence-based opinion versus ideological fundamentalism There is a major difference between evidence-based opinion and opinion-based evidence. The former is empirical, and sane, the latter,...
View ArticleScripturient: Lessons from History
It is common practice to look back and conflate the events of the past with those of the present, seeking parallels, resonance, and answers from previous events that help explain today’s. We learn from...
View ArticleScripturient: A Meeting of the Minds?
Niccolo Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne never met, nor could they have — Machiavelli died six years before Montaigne was born, and they lived about 1,200 km (800 miles) apart — but imagine the...
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