And Speaking of Lofty Ideals That Failed to Gain Altitude

Louise Arbour, who used to front one of the most detestable bodies on the planet, the grotesquely misnamed UN Human Rights Council, recieved an honourary doctrate from Ryerson University (my alma mater). She told graduates that "the exercise of power has to be earned" and shared with them "a few propositions" to which she is "deeply committed":

That all people are born free and equal in rights and dignity, and that most of them have to spend the rest of their lives fighting to remain so.

That fundamental rights don't have to be earned. But that the exercise of power does.

That we are only as safe and as free as everybody else is.

Très inspirational. Rather like a "human rights" Hallmark card. Laughably, however, Loulou's former bailiwick, the UNHRC, is in the grip of the latter day Caliphate and other odious rights-trashing lands (have they "earned the right" to wield power there?; or have they seized it as their, er, "right"?). So so much for that.