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Jamal Khashoggi speaks at an event hosted by Middle East Monitor in London on Sept. 29, 2018. The Saudi journalist is believed to have been murdered by men with close ties to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Handout ./Reuters

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2018, going on 1170

Recent events in Turkey remind me of events in the Middle Ages (The Last Column Of Jamal Khashoggi – Folio, Oct. 19).

The King of England was having trouble with one of his political appointees, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and allegedly spoke in a rage, but loudly enough to be overheard: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Four knights in Henry II’s court – “rogue killers” – rode to Canterbury and slaughtered Thomas in his cathedral, a place that was supposed to be sacred. The King was terribly shocked, and said, of course, that he had meant no real harm, wore sackcloth and covered his head with ashes.

In England, Thomas became a saint within three years of his death. And almost 200 years later, Geoffrey Chaucer began writing The Canterbury Tales.

Let’s see what happens next in the Middle East …

Richard Lock, Westmount, Que.

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In T.S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral, which he wrote, oddly enough, at a time of rising fascism in Europe, Thomas Becket is murdered in a church (where one might think one was safe) by four knights. This was after their king, Henry II, is supposed to have said something like “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

But that was 1170.

Times are different now, right?

Not so very different, I think.

We have a crown prince ruling a country and a meddlesome reporter who was murdered – brutally – in a “safe” location, his own country’s consulate, by a specialist team with links to the prince.

The difference between then and now is that Henry II was sort of held accountable and eventually had to perform public penance for his “sins.” We are now seeing that the world (a.k.a the United States) will not hold the Saudi prince accountable for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. Because U.S. President Donald Trump sees the prince’s actions as “just business”? He and his son-in-law are thick as thieves with the Saudis.

And, as we know, Mr. Trump, too, hates criticism. Or maybe it’s just in line with his love of dictatorial men – Vladimir Putin, that guy in North Korea and now the prince. Sad.

S.M. Rawley, Toronto

AI, basic income

Re Basic Income Isn’t The Answer To The AI Job Crisis (Opinion, Oct. 13): Undoubtedly, some of the jobs that AI creates will be creative, and fulfilling.

Others (maybe most) will be dull, tedious, and precarious. For those whose only options are in the second category, a basic income would provide them more choice about how to spend their time meaningfully.

If you ask those who were part of Ontario’s now cancelled Basic Income Pilot Project – many of whom were in the workforce holding multiple part-time or poorly paid jobs – about the impacts of a guaranteed income floor, they will tell you that it allowed them to participate more fully in society.

Even in a short time, the Basic Income Pilot allowed recipients to become physically and mentally healthier, make plans for the future, volunteer, and reconnect with family and friends. Far from “paying them to disappear,” the income security provided allowed recipients to come out of hiding and generate hope for their futures. The cruelty of the Ford government in ripping all this away from recipients is despicable.

AI is introducing massive upheaval and uncertainty, along with the disruption that climate change is already wreaking. The cost of basic income may well be worth the social and political stability it could bring as we face an increasingly uncertain future.

Elaine Power, co-founder, Kingston Action Group for a Basic Income Guarantee

Pope’s risky move

Re Is The Vatican’s Agreement With China A Deal With The Devil? (Opinion, Oct. 13): David Mulroney is justifiably skeptical of the Vatican’s new agreement with China regarding the recognition of bishops and the practise of the Catholic religion in China, but there is another side of the story that merits consideration.

In my diplomatic career, I, too, was posted three times to China in two quite different eras of modern Chinese history. One of my most memorable encounters, also in Shanghai, was with Bishop Aloysius Jin, then running the Catholic church in Shanghai. Jin, a Jesuit priest ordained in pre-Communist China, refused to renounce his faith and was jailed or under house arrest for 27 years until the reopening to religion in the Deng Xiaoping years.

It was remarkable to see what Jin had been able to achieve in revivifying the church in Shanghai, assuring places of worship, teaching converts, publishing vernacular bibles, missals and religious works, training young priests in collaboration with Catholic seminaries in the U.S., providing homes for abandoned old persons and generally administering a growing flock that had been isolated or hidden since 1955.

So while Mr. Mulroney wisely warns of the dangers of trusting religion to the current Chinese regime, one must applaud Pope Francis for risking this agreement in order to bring the possibly millions of Chinese Catholics into contact with the international community, and ensure the sacraments to new generations of Chinese Catholics.

Richard Belliveau, former consul-general in Shanghai, Ottawa

Cannabis-law nightmare

Re Law Firms Embrace Cannabis As Legalization Brings New Clients (Oct. 17): Your article focused on new cannabis clients for corporate law firms, but don’t forget about us criminal-law lawyers.

Before Oct. 17, there were essentially four cannabis-related criminal offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA): production, trafficking, possession for the purpose and possession. As of Oct. 17, those CDSA cannabis offences remain in place if they are committed without legal authorization. In addition, the Criminal Code now prescribes a number of different sets of procedural and regulatory changes that relate to the offence of Impaired Operation by Drug (i.e. cannabis).

But also, the new Ontario Cannabis Act prescribes about 25 (yes, twenty-five) cannabis-related offences.

For corporate lawyers, it may be that cannabis legalization is “a lawyer’s dream,” as your article’s expert asserts. Sadly, as concerns criminal law and Ontario offences law, it is more likely to be a nightmare.

Henry Van Drunen, lawyer, criminal law, Stratford, Ont.

‘Tiny’ Trump

Ahh, a new low this week in the POTUS-stripper Twitter discourse (One Thing Underscores All That Trump Does: Money – Oct. 18).

Just as we think Donald Trump has reached the bottom of the barrel with his misogynistic stream of consciousness jibes, his “horseface” insult-nickname for Stormy Daniels, and her counterpunch “Game on, Tiny,” pushed the bar through the bottom of the barrel right into the slimy gutter.

Mr. Trump’s latest fire-and-fury attack may come back to haunt him when he starts being referred to as America’s Tiny The First.

Monica Kucharski, Mississauga

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