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~Truth~
~Justice~
~Peace~
TJP
Spit
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comPeople would be amazed/shocked/traumatized if they knew what goes on behind the scenes at eateries.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Clark County Sheriff's Deputy Edward Bylsma went into a Burger King in Vancouver, WA early one morning in March 2009. He ordered a hamburger and, after getting it, had an uneasy feeling about a couple of the workers.
He checked the burger and found a gob of spit. A DNA check revealed that it came from one of the workers.
Oscar the Cat
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comAn amazing story about a feline with phenomenal abilities.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
“There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” said Hamlet after the ghost of his father had come and gone on the battlements.
Oscar the cat lives on the third floor of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. When he arrived there in 2005, he appeared to be a typical, playful kitten. But he has turned out to be much more, mysteriously more.
Age of American Unreason: Chapter 1
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comThose who believe that America and its Constitution are the greatest things in the Galaxy, are living in a world of denial and fantasy.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
There is no kind or easy way to state the simple fact that America is a society of unremittingly ignorant people.
I started Susan Jacoby’s book The Age of American Unreason (2008) and she hit my pet peeve immediately on the first page.
Sex
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comSex is not going to go away.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
There’s a storm of righteousness brewing across Canada right now over a convicted pedophile named Graham James.
James was a junior hockey coach who abused some of the young players in his charge. He was convicted in 1997 of abusing the young men from 1984 to 1995 and sentenced to three and half years in jail.
The Antonov
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comA complete disassembled Boeing 737 can be fitted in the hold.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
The world’s largest aircraft, the Antonov An-225 (Americans, eat your hearts out) flew out of (Alberta) Edmonton International Airport, last Wednesday evening headed for Afghanistan with three helicopters and 40 tonnes of supplies on board.
On this trip it carried one Sikorsky S-61N and two Bell 212 helicopters for “non-military use” to the U.S. military—primarily to transport people and freight.
American Joke
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comThe U.S. Canada border used to be the longest undefended border in the world.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
A man dies and goes to heaven, where he is being shown around by Saint Peter. As they are strolling, he notices a high wall with a faint murmur of voice coming from the other side.
What’s that? he asks.
The Sickness in the American Soul
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comDaniel Johnson's 100th article on Salem-News.com.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
“There is a great tendency in this country to refuse to see what is right in front of everybody’s eyes.”[1] says Bob Herbert in a recent New York Times column.
Not Economically Viable
Faux Freedom Part 2
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comYou can prove you are free if you can find one decision you can make that is not influenced, directly or indirectly, by your social background.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
We experience the world through the five senses of sight, sound, touch (tactile), taste and smell (olfactory).
Faux Freedom Part 1
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comOur entire lives are formed by “choices” we make that we are not really free to make.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
We all believe we’re free. But here’s a simple test to find out if we really are. The next time you’re at a mall or some open public space with lots of people around, move into a corner or against a wall and begin a full-throated rendition of one of your favorite songs. Don’t hold anything back. You’re free, right?
Cosmology of the Ants 2
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.com“If the history of the human race teaches any plain lessons, this is one of them: Man cannot be trusted with absolutes.” - Philosopher Lewis Mumford
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
My friend and faithful reader, Vic Pittman, began his comment to the first episode:
Daniel Johnson - Canada
Deputy Executive Editor, Salem-News.com
Email: omnisavant@shaw.ca
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, as a teenager, Daniel Johnson aspired to be a writer. Always a voracious reader, he reads more books in a month than many people read in a lifetime. He knew early that in order to be a writer, you have to be a reader.
Another early bit of self-knowledge was that writers need experience. So, in the first seven years after high school he worked at 42 different jobs ranging from management trainee in a bank (four branches in three cities), inside and outside jobs at a railroad (in two cities), then A & W, factories and assembly lines, driving cabs (three different companies), collection agent, a variety of office jobs, John Howard Society, crisis counsellor at an emergency shelter, salesman in a variety of industries (building supplies, used cars, photocopy machines)and on and on. You get the picture.
In 1968, he was between jobs and eligible for unemployment benefits, so he decided to take the winter off and just write. The epiphany there, he said, was that after about two weeks, “I realized I had nothing to say.” So back to regular work.
He has always been concerned about fairness in the world and the plight of the underprivileged/underdog. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that he understood where that motivation came from. Diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) he researched the topic and, among others, read a book Scattered Minds by Dr. Gabor Maté, an ADD person himself. Maté wrote: "[A] feeling of duty toward the whole world is not limited to ADD but is typical of it. No one with ADD is without it."
That explains his motivation. Hard-wired.
As a professional writer he sold his first paid article in 1974 and, while employed at other jobs, started selling a few pieces in assorted places. He created his first journalism gig. In the late 1970s, when the world was recovering from a recession, the Canadian federal government had a job creation program where, if an employer created a new job, the government would pay part of the wage for the first year or two. The local weekly paper was growing, so he approached the publisher and said this was an opportunity for him to hire a new reporter. The publisher had been thinking along those lines but cost was a factor. No longer.
Over the next 15 years, Daniel eked out a living as a writer doing, among other things, national writing and both radio and TV broadcasting for the CBC, Maclean’s (the national newsmagazine) and a host of smaller publications. Interweaved throughout this period was soul-killing corporate and public relations writing.
It was through the 1960s and 1970s that he got his university experience. In his first year at the University of Calgary, he majored in psychology/mathematics; in his second year he switched to physics/mathematics. He then learned of an independent study program at the University of Lethbridge where he attended the next two years, studying philosophy and economics. In the end he attended university over nine years (four full time) but never qualified for a degree because he didn't have the right number of courses in any particular field.
In 1990 he published his first (and so far, only) book: Practical History: A guide to Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” (Polymath Press, Calgary)
Newly appointed as the Deputy Executive Editor in August 2011, he has been writing exclusively for Salem-News.com since March 2009 and, as of summer 2011, has published more than 160 stories.
He continues to work on a second book which he began in 1998 with the working title Cosmology of the Ants.
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