Rex Murphy

Rex Murphy (March 1947 – 9 May 2024) was a well known CBC commentator and author of the 'Japes of Wrath' column in the Globe & Mail's Saturday edition. His style can be described as tell-it-like-it-is, deadpan sarcastic, poignant, truthful Newfoundlander synopsis of current events without the brogue. Murphy's commentaries are steadily conservative despite previously running unsuccessfully for provincial office for the Progressive-Conservative and Liberal Party candidacies. He graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1968, and promptly went to the United Kingdom to study at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He did not, however, receive an Oxford degree.

Sourced

 * "Not every article in every magazine or newspaper is meant to be a valentine card addressed to every reader's self-esteem."
 * On a complaint against an "Islamaphobic" article in a Canadian magazine 2008 (http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/rex_murphy/human_rights_gone_awry.html)


 * "Stay away from philosophy, kids: it will ruin your mind."
 * In CBC News's "At Issue", Oct 1, 2009 edition.
 * On a French philosopher's defense of Roman Polanski, following the latter's arrest in Switzerland and extradition to the US.


 * There are ways to get worse publicity than Tom Wappel, the MP who wrote an 81–year–old, a veteran, legally blind and partially deaf, and told him, sneeringly, in effect to get lost– because the old man had not voted Liberal. [...] Here are some:
 * You could nail a five–day–old kitten to the floor and use it as a doorstop.
 * You could cut off the heat to an orphanage in winter, and insist the little ones dance for stale biscuits, and then not give them any.
 * Or you could take a chainsaw to the last redwood that was also the home of the last eagle and have it fall on the last panda. Outside of these cringing options, however Mr. Tom Wappel has more or less cornered the market in the Olympics of obnoxious behaviour.
 * "Tom Wappel," The National, CBC, May 10, 2001