Big Shiny Takes

It's been an incredible run and we've read some truly terrible columns, but the time has come to say goodbye. 

After five years of covering the worst opinions Canadian media has to offer, Eric, Marino and Jeremy are moving on to greener pastures – hopefully there aren't any copies of the National Post lying around. 

Thanks to all of our guests, listeners and supporters. You made this show so much fun to do over the years.

We're not going to read a column this episode, which makes this the first and only episode where we won't suffer through someone else's terrible writing. It's actually pretty nice. 

Make sure to stay in touch and follow us on social media to see what we're working on. 

Eric

Read Eric's work for PressProgress
Follow Eric on BlueSky
Follow Eric on TikTok

Jeremy

Subscribe to The Orchard, Jeremy's Substack
Read Jeremy's work in The Progress Report
Follow Jeremy on BlueSky
Follow Jeremy on TikTok

Marino

Follow Marino on BlueSky
Follow Marino on TikTok

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Are Canada's universities being feminized? It's a topic that's been consuming Leigh Revers – so much so that he wrote about it at length in the bad takes newspaper of record, the National Post

Men are foregoing higher education and instead chopping wood in the forest and spending all their money on beard oil. This leads to an imbalance in education levels, which fuels the ongoing birth rate epidemic. Or something like that.

Edmonton-based writer and educator Dani Paradis (@DaniParadis) joins us to uncover the depth of this pressing crisis.

Plugs and Recs

Edmonton Edge – MacEwan students confront president over refusal to address Palestine, financial disclosures

Edmonton Edge – MacEwan University considers removing fall reading break in 2025-26

National Observer – Alberta's ruling party votes to dump emissions reduction plans and embrace carbon dioxide

Family Ties: How a Ukrainian Nazi and a living witness link Canada to Ukraine today by Peter Mcfarlane

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro

ALSO

Subscribe to The Orchard
Check out Unrigged
The Hoser's Grocery Tracker
Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

At this time of increased antisemitism, who better to give Jews free advice than Dr. Order and Chaos himself, Jordan Peterson?

The problem is his piece, published in the Spectator (London), is riddled with antisemitic tropes and basic misunderstandings of Jewish liturgy.

Polite Conversations host Eiynah (@nicemangos) joins us to talk about why Peterson might want to sit this one out.

Plugs and Recs

Polite Conversations - “The Gaza Ghetto Uprising w/Rev and Reve”

Polite Conversations - “Pinker’s Pernicious Politeness”

The North State - “One Year of October”

Tech Won’t Save Us - “Data Vampires”

ALSO

Check out Unrigged
The Hoser's Grocery Tracker
Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

For more Big Shiny Takes, sign up to our bonus feed here.

If you enjoyed this episode make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

For more Big Shiny Takes, sign up to our bonus feed here.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Jews are under attack on campuses! Actually, Zionism is, but that's good enough for Michael Geist to write about an apparent scourge of antisemitism at Canada's universities.

We're joined by University of Alberta English and film professor Mike Litwack (@mikeylitwack) to take a look at a piece that purports that nobody who supports Israel can feel bad about things, ever.

Plugs and Recs

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd
Get Ghassan Kanafani: Selected political writings, OUT NOW!
Keep an eye out for Muna Saleh's study on anti-Palestinian racism in the Edmonton school system

ALSO

Check out Unrigged
The Hoser's Grocery Tracker
Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

For more Big Shiny Takes, sign up to our bonus feed here.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Fancying himself some sort of Judge Dredd of protecting Canadian culture, Christopher Dummitt writes in a special to the National Post how such actions as land acknowledgments or taking a plaque down in an art gallery are giving China an edge.

Canadian patriot Nora Loreto joins us to explain why having a deep-seated sense of national pride probably doesn't matter that much.

Plugs and Recs

Nora Loreto | Substack

A political podcast. Just Listen. | Sandy & Nora Talk Politics (sandyandnora.com)

Reserve The Social Safety Net – Canada in Decline Book One by Nora Loreto

Pathways Alliance knows it can’t back up its claims | Canada's National Observer: Climate News by Jeremy Appel

UK ‘tried to suppress criticism’ of alleged UAE role in arming Sudan’s RSF militia | The Guardian

As Revue Cinema faces closure, the fight to save Toronto culture reaches crisis point | The Globe and Mail

ALSO

Check out Unrigged

The Hoser's Grocery Tracker

Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

"Are all these bisexuals for real? Or is this 'el gee bee tee cue' stuff just a fashionable trend? I'm just asking questions." That is about the extent of the analysis in this week's column from the Phoebe Maltz Bovy in Globe and Mail.

Nevertheless, we torture ourselves and writer/pal Sarah Rieger by unpacking it. Join us for yet another incoherent boomer moment.

Plugs and Recs

Listen to Expats & Allies | A Podcast on Nazi Refugees
The Hoser | Taking On a Grocery Empire: Understanding the Loblaw Boycott
Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed
Diddy’s Ex-Friends, Bad Boy Artists Detail Alleged Abuse, Violence
Watch I Saw the TV Glow
Go volunteer! If nothing else, there's likely free pizza.

ALSO

Check out Unrigged
The Hoser's Grocery Tracker
Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Oakville Town Hall is under siege from a red scourge and Sun journalist Joe Warmington is on the case after a hot tip. Can the People's Champion make sense of the situation? Will anyone talk some sense into these misguided youngsters?

Freelance journalist Scott Martin (@YouCaughtScott) helps us unpack what really went on that day, since Joe failed to notice that he was actually just at the Fightback table at a pro-Palestine rally.

Plugs and Recs

Scott Martin - The Catch (readthecatch.ca)
Read Resisting Eviction by Andrew Crosby
Read Blackshirts And Reds by Michael Parenti
New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity - The Atlantic
Spacing | Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Spacing
Watch Trailer Park Boys

ALSO

Check out Unrigged
The Hoser's Grocery Tracker
Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Stop being mean to grocer oligarchs. Stop it! We're warning you. You should be thanking them, they stock your treats and only gouge you a to a moderate degree. Everybody's gotta make a living, and besides, they're probably creating your job anyway.

Toronto-based writer Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) joins us to take in the view from the National Post and be properly tut-tutted as we learn about the success story that is Galen Weston being born at the right time.

Plugs & Recs (The Rinse)

Buy The Dead Center by Luke Savage from your local bookseller

Watch Eric talk Loblaw boycott on This is Vancolour

Is a previously unheard-of First Nation just Canada’s latest Pretendian case? | The Guardian

Check out Unrigged

The Hoser's Grocery Tracker

Buy Jeremy's book

Luke says read War and Peace, Marino says read One Piece. Go to your library!

Rex Murphy, sharp-witted intellectual and columnist, dies of cancer | National Post (lol)

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

American icon Noah Kulwin (@nkulw) joins the pod to talk about one of the most obnoxious Twitter personalities of the past several months, Joe Roberts.

Roberts, co-founder of the Democratic Socialists of America - Canada and former co-host of New Left Radio, has gone full neocon since Oct. 7. So much so that he wrote a column for the National Post, where he's now a regular contributor, waxing nostalgic about George W. Bush, the guy everyone famously loves. Oh, and Sarah Palin too, because he's trying that hard. 

Plugs & Recs (The Rinse)

Anatomy of a Moral Panic - Jewish Currents

Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare - Phillip Short

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron

Bound (1996), dir. Wachowskis

University Of Toronto Encampment Organizers Call For Community Support Thursday Eve: "We Will Not Leave" - The Hoser

Check out Unrigged

The Hoser's Grocery Tracker

Buy Jeremy's book

If you enjoyed this episode make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

For more Big Shiny Takes, sign up to our bonus feed here.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

We love whinging about the fertility rate, don't we folks? The implications are grave, lowered birth rates could mean fewer DoorDash employees to bring columnists treats.

BST Institute fellow Stephen @Magusiak of @pressprogress returns to pick apart a Globe and Mail opinion piece by John Ibbitson. According to Ibby, the ever-dwindling number of babies Canada produces threatens to tear the country apart. Scary stuff!

Plugs & Recs (The Rinse)

Get news coverage from PressProgress: Sign up for the ShiftWork newsletter and listen to the Sources Podcast

Columbia Professor Shai Davidai's Family Tied to Weapons Manufacturing - CounterPunch.org

Violent Crackdown at Land Day March - The Grind Magazine

Dozens of International Students Are Dying in Canada. The Federal Government Isn’t Doing Anything. (pressprogress.ca)

Check out Unrigged

The Hoser's Grocery Tracker

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.