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~Truth~
~Justice~
~Peace~
TJP
Rethinking Corporate America
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comI know, I know, Americans believe in individuality, but thoughtful Americans know they’ve been sold a bill of goods.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
This is a heuristic exercise—which my dictionary defines as “encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own”. My job is to give you the information with which to do that.
In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I and a few of her court intimates founded the East India Company. As part of the founding charter she granted the company limited liability for losses on the part of the enterprise’s backers.
Our Electronic Lives
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comAs if the potential disasters weren’t enough, you can now add solar storms to the list of potential disasters you can pretend you don’t know about.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
One clumsy (not enchanted) evening I knocked over a glass of Pepsi, spilling it on my modem, giving it an apparently fatal injury.
While I was waiting for a new modem to arrive, it tried it every day, but to no avail. Pepsi is sticky; beer is not.
My Fear of Plagiarism
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comThe mixed values of a safe and original set of words.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
As a writer I have a deathly fear of plagiarism. It begins immediately with my hyperawareness that every word in my sentences have been published elsewhere, by someone else.
Am I putting myself at risk by reusing them? I think individual words are probably okay. They are in the dictionary which, I hope, makes them public domain.
Alien Abduction in Calgary
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comGo downtown on any weekday and you’ll find it easy to spot the aliens.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
I recently spent a morning as an observer at the provincial criminal court in Calgary. There were the usual run of the mill cases—some individuals were clearly bad news; some individuals were clearly confused about how they got there—when a woman in custody appeared in the prisoner’s box and changed my entire perspective on the proceedings.
She looked used and abused, making it difficult to guess her age, but I would say about 30.
Banks as Legal Thieves (VIDEO)
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comReasons why the banking crisis hit the US so hard.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
In the 1960s Sam Bronfman, who grew the Seagram’s name into a world-wide liquor empire worth billions, was asked what he thought was mankind’s most important invention. His reply, in one word: Interest.
Bill Abram, a retired high school teacher, began by wondering why so many of his students were caught up on drugs, so he started to investigate the money system. It took him into areas no one would have thought of: Privatization gone amok.
Obama: Now Panderer-in-Chief
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comI think it comes down to politics with President Obama. He would rather get re-elected in 2012, than do the right thing now and tell it like it is.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
He had to do some pandering to get elected. But he doesn’t have to pander to stay elected.
Obama inherited problems on a scale that no other president has ever seen: trillion dollar problems—wars, bailouts, health care reform and deficits. His popularity is now sliding because he hasn’t been able, in his first 200 days, to fix everything.
Ground Shifting Under Israel`s Feet (VIDEO)
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comIn her March visit to the area Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out forcefully against the threatened evictions and demolitions in East Jerusalem.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
In the early 1950s, Israel enjoyed much support from around the world because of international guilt over the Holocaust.
Today, sixty years after the nation’s founding, and after decades of Israeli overreaching, increasing numbers of people, even those who support Israel, are getting tired of the two-faced hypocrisy that has become Israeli national policy.
Nick Horner, Just One Victimized Vet
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comProsecutors want to kill a three-tour combat veteran who was prescribed dangerous drugs by the same government that trained him to kill.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Too often, vets come back with their bodies and minds shattered. They’ve risked everything for their country—which means you. You owe them. Don’t walk by and pretend to yourself he is someone else’s problem or obligation.
Nick Horner is a man who should not have gone to Iraq for a third deployment. The reason these men have to go for second and third tours is because too many others are shirking their responsibility.
Money`s Only Something You Need in Case You Don`t Die Tomorrow. (Carl Fox)
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comWhat is this money thing all about?
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
Americans believe, as part of their cultural mythology, that potentially anyone can get rich. Wealth really comes from three basic sources: You can win it, inherit it or be born in the right place at the right time.
None of these things are in your sphere of control, and if you know you are not in line to receive any inheritance, to believe that one of the other two will strike you, is self-delusional.
Freedom`s Just Another Word for, Nothing Left to Lose
Daniel Johnson Salem-News.comWhat is freedom?
(CALGARY, Alberta) - 
In the forty or so years since Kris Kristofferson wrote Me and Bobby McGee I’ve often wondered what his definition of freedom actually means—if anything at all. Musically, it’s a great song (I first heard the Janis Joplin rendition around 1971 or so) but lyrically I see it as another C/W “poor me” song.
(What happens when you play a C/W song backwards? You get your girl back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back.)
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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