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TJP
Cosmology of the Ants
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comIt appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
As children, it’s natural for us to believe the world is flat. Everything around us is flat. If we live on a prairie, the world stretching away looks flat; everything just gets smaller in the distance. No mystery there.
Canadian Health Care Horror Story
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comRepublicans today are saying that a flood of Canadians are crossing the border for “superior” American health care.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
America may have the best medical care in the world (e.g. Mayo Clinic) but it’s a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that health care in the U.S. is not rationed.
Sarah Palin Wins over Republican Calgary
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comPalin delivered her standard folksy message including an entreaty for smaller government, lower taxes, private enterprise and “common sense”—which she doesn’t realize is not common.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Sarah Palin was in Calgary to give a speech on March 6, 2010. Calgary, as Republican as many red states, seems to attract the right wing speakers as places like Toronto do not.
Close call for Calgarian in Mexican Shooting
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comMazatlan’s State Attorney has appointed a special prosecutor to the case.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Calgarian Yves Guay, 52, who has traveled to Mexico by RV with his wife Sharon for the last six years was shot during a scuffle at their RV in the evening of March 4th, when two men tried to force their way in. They were staying at the Las Jaibas Trailer Park in Mazatlan.
He was shot in the upper right leg and the bullet just missed the main artery. He is expected to be released from the hospital over the weekend. He and his wife will fly back to Calgary, and a relative will drive the RV.
Hockey: Canada/USA, USA/Canada
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comA Canadian perspective on the big match.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Did you watch the Canada-U.S. gold medal hockey game on Sunday? I didn’t, although I did check updates online from time to time.
Socrates` Gun
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comPerhaps it’s time for pro-gun people to seriously examine why they believe what they believe.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
You may remember Walter Koenig, who played a Russian crew member on the original Star Trek from the 1960s. Last week, during the Olympics, his 41 year-old son Andrew committed suicide in Vancouver. Andrew had played “Boner” in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains.
The Tyranny of the American Mind
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comAmericans are tyrannized by 1776, The Second Amendment, The Bill of Rights, The Constitution and other colonial-era artifacts.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
In 1987 philosopher Allan Bloom published the best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind.
Forget the Tea Parties, Set up Coffee Klatches Instead
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comIt’s now long past the time for ordinary Americans to join together, or die economically.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
If you are an ordinary American you’re in deep trouble. And if you continue to sit on your hands not only will the trouble not go away, it’s going to get worse.
If you’re a conservative and you’re not rich or well off, you’re a sucker. The U.S. is going to hell in a handbasket and, in the old saying, unless you’re part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
Lolita
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comJust as Heller introduced the made up term “catch-22”, into the language, so Nabokov changed the meaning of “nymphet” from classical allusions, to one of down to earth female sexuality in contemporary society.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
The internet will probably go down in history as one of those world-changing inventions (like fire, the wheel, the printing press, the hula hoop) that changed the direction of human progress.
The Philosophy and Efficacy of Health Care
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comThe American ethic is about individualism—which makes the false assumption that the individual is more important than the group.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
The one reliable aspect of democracy is that you can almost always count on people to vote against their own best interests.
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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