I was watching C-Span recently, and the writer Barry Lopez came on pumping his latest collection of snores. Lopez is a writer who has capitalized hugely on his decision to sit on the Willamette River for the last 35 years and write unreadable essays about the Importance of the Natural World for magazines like Harper's. Lopez was complaining bitterly about the lack of community in America. The kind of community he means, I suspect, is the community that sits by docile, while he (and other extremely smart people like him), makes all the decisions, then his "community" applauds him while he postures on stage and reads from his Very Significant works. Because there's lots of community out here, outside the inner cores of the mega-cities.

This page changed editorial hands last week. And the chocolate- voiced [Natasha Hassan], who ran the most exclusive club in Canada for five years, moved onto the front page and news section. Natasha's dry, confident, no-nonsense manner, her well-founded intelligence and her courage to get right out there on a limb, and start sawing, was essential in the creation of the Post's voice. She made it into the conservative paper that smokes dope, as one friend said recently.

(Copyright National Post 2004)

SALT SPRING ISLAND - I just put another box of reader snail mail in the basement. For some reason, I can't throw it out -- I think it's because when I'm 90, and don't have anything else to do, I plan to re-live past adrenaline rushes. All of it is unanswered. As are the 7,000 or so e-mails I've received since I flamed out on saying thanks (or bugger off), despite my good intentions, so this is just a "thanks" to all of you, really. I'm grateful.

I read every e-mail, I do, even the horrible ones, and I learn from them. Really, I do. I particularly like the little handwritten note cards, from retired Christian ladies, a position to which I will, no doubt, eventually aspire. And your appreciation is treasured during the weekly attack by the most recent Statist pseud.

"Elizabeth Nickson is WRONG ..." starts every letter from an overpaid bureaucrat who then descends into convoluted, impenetrable reasoning. Really, the Liberals should be fired just for what they have done to the language.

However, we need a few boundaries here. Like, could you not put me on your friends and family lists anymore? One of the reasons I don't answer is because when I do, I can suddenly become subject to a great deal of bewildering and useless information. Truckloads of it. And I don't have an assistant to spend five hours a week clearing my inbox. Nor can I send you past columns. And though I try to provide citations if you're nice, I can't do it on command. If you all felt you could chip in together and buy me a secretary for 10 hours a week, I could. Mark Steyn told me a few months ago he has five assistants. Five! An unimaginable luxury. Course he lives in the States, where there is a working economy. There's only one of me up here on this mountain, and as some of you have pointed out so cleverly, I am only half there.

Also, I am not a local attraction, so driving into my driveway and getting out of your car with a smile on your face does not predispose me to be anything but incredibly rude. That is because I am terrified. Strangers phoning me? Essentially, I hate it. But mostly, the people who write me are smart, literate and funny, and I simply love them to bits. My world is much much bigger because of you.

And because of Natasha Hassan.

This page changed editorial hands last week. And the chocolate- voiced Natasha, who ran the most exclusive club in Canada for five years, moved onto the front page and news section. Natasha's dry, confident, no-nonsense manner, her well-founded intelligence and her courage to get right out there on a limb, and start sawing, was essential in the creation of the Post's voice. She made it into the conservative paper that smokes dope, as one friend said recently.

She is replaced by Jonathan Kay and John Turley-Ewart, the latter of whom often calls to check a fact or two (they do that), and underneath his cultivated, careful, quiet voice often runs this suppressed excitement: We can really print this?

Apparently, we can. The Post can exist, we can say these things, and the Canadian sky will not fall down. You do not need to be patronized and bored witless to find out what is going on in the world. I've quite lost patience with the (usually elderly) people I meet who say things like "I am sorry to say that we've always taken The Globe." In fact, I recently found myself snapping to a just-met distinguished retired psychologist from Toronto: "Well then you're a fool. If you don't read the Post, you don't know what's happening in Canada."

That is true. And that's because we're mirroring you. The action is where you live, where people think for themselves and are making real community.

I was watching C-Span recently, and the writer Barry Lopez came on pumping his latest collection of snores. Lopez is a writer who has capitalized hugely on his decision to sit on the Willamette River for the last 35 years and write unreadable essays about the Importance of the Natural World for magazines like Harper's. Lopez was complaining bitterly about the lack of community in America. The kind of community he means, I suspect, is the community that sits by docile, while he (and other extremely smart people like him), makes all the decisions, then his "community" applauds him while he postures on stage and reads from his Very Significant works. Because there's lots of community out here, outside the inner cores of the mega-cities.

Practically too much, I think some days. People are busy with school boards and water boards and the Rotary and a thousand thousand other clubs, associations, choirs, little theatre groups, bake sales, House and Garden tours, and churches. It is as it ever was. The only difference is that now, people are consciously choosing this way of life. They've seen the alternative, decided it sucks and gone back home. Then they write newspaper columnists.