Slurping ramen noodles with a contrarian
historian at Thomas Edison's ol' haunt

Blazing Reader,

Today, my son and I had lunch with Salim Mansur, a retired professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. For over a decade, I have been reading his essays and listening to interviews with him. He always provides an illuminating historical context and contrarian perspective to much of the political theatre playing out across the world.

Here's a photo of us at a local Japanese restaurant where we enjoyed ramen noodles and a conversation which spanned the last two thousand years of human history:

Being that Salim is a historian, I suggested we eat at the Hungry Ninja because of the building's historical significance: In 1863, it was a boarding house where Thomas Edison lived while working as a telegraph operator at the Stratford Railroad station.

Salim Mansur was born in India and immigrated to Canada as a teenager during the Indo-Pakistani War. He's famous for his challenging opinions on the harm of multiculturalism, as outlined in his book, The Delectable Lie (of which he gifted me a signed copy). I've long appreciated Mansur's viewpoint that "the individual is the only minority." He calls himself a "dissident Muslim" and has even been labelled as "Islamophobic" for his criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood. Needless to say, he's a man who thinks for himself.

He's currently reading my novel, Much Ado About Corona and I gifted him a copy of my latest, All the Humans are Sleeping.

Salim is also a prolific writer, as you can see on his Substack where his latest essay gives a detailed criticism of Donald Trump's handling of the Gaza genocide.

I'm glad we finally met in person before I leave Canada for my new home in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.