My mother, Wilhelmina Jansen, passed away April 4. I wanted to write this personal note about what my mother gave me.
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Did I ever tell you about the time my Gram and her neighbour took me for a drive in their small town in the 80s, and we saw a Young Man wearing Very Tight Trousers, and my Gram, who was usually so proper and reserved, said “Gol, if he passed wind, he’d split those trousers [...] After two days of hearings at the US Supreme Court it’s not for certain whether gays and lesbians will finally win their hard fought for right to marriage equality across the States. The transcripts don’t in my opinion give too much of a clue, at least in the first case. But I have a couple of observations. The first day concerned California’s Prop 8, the gay marriage ban that was shockingly What a pleasant surprise to hear that the House of Commons gave third reading to an opposition bill, C-279, that would include gender identity as an aggravating circumstance in determining if a criminal act was motivated by hate and therefore deserved an extended sentence. More astonishing is that 18 Conservatives, including 4 ministers (John Baird, Jim Flaherty, Lisa Raitt and James Moore), First and biggest news of the week was the upset election of 76 year old Jorge Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who interestingly has taken the name Francis I. No sooner was he elected, and leading up to his investiture next week (since 1978, new Popes have refused to take the three tiered crowned during a coronation, preferring to be inaugurated instead like pretty much every A prompt this week to write about something in a health-care context brought out this story which, despite having been told over and over in my head, had heretofore not made it down in writing. It wasn’t quite 5:30 am and Janice was already waiting for me on the main floor of Union Station. Her … … Continue reading → First, I’d like you to go to Netflix and watch a documentary called “Head Games”. It’s about brain damage due to contact sport. It talks about concussions in football, hockey, and boxing. And entertainment wrestling (not greco-roman wrestling). It’s an incredibly interesting and well-done documentary. One of the really good question it raises is why [...] Men, especially white men, sleep too easily at night while women earn 70 per cent of what we do. Secretly, I think we’d prefer to not have to talk about this much. Sure, March 8 and December 6 are days we set aside for reflecting on this, but, most likely, we don’t want to be bothered with it every other day of the year. Plus, the NHL is back. One conversation I have never had, goes like this. I’m in the lunchroom at work with a group of men discussing workplace realities. The topics drifts around to how women in (Read more…) The manager of our restaurant is close personal friends with Joe Paopao, the Throwin’ Samoan. He used to come home at lunch bruised and battered from running patterns for him in the street. Our manager drawls his vowels, and flattens them, like the peaks of things threaten him. He lives on the west coast, where [...] Saturday night, I spent almost two hours discussing the Geography of Emotions with Colin Mills. We explored the ubiquitousness of emotions, the male crisis around emotions, how emotions relate with cognition, and the betweeness of emotions. It was a fascinating conversation about a topic with wide implications for society, culture, human relations, activism, politics as well as relation, local, regional, national and world peace. In the podcast, Colin refers to a couple folks you can read up on here: Jonathan Heidt, a moral psychologist, and Daniel Kahneman, a behavioural economist. And I referred to the counselling technique, EMDR. You . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: The Geography of Emotions, A Conversation with Colin Mills This morning on CTV’s Canada AM Kevin Newman, of Question Period fame, was promoting a very important segment on this weekend’s W5 program (Saturday at 7 p.m. ET) and, in the accompanying online article he wrote, “Coming out is toward the end of the process for our gay children” – when learning to accept it … … Continue reading → This new commercial from Wayne LaPierre of the NRA sets an all-time low. You can be absolutely sure that this ad would not have been made if Obama and his kids were white. I’m showing it here to demonstrate just how low the level of debate has gotten in Washington — and how willing LaPierre is in spitting in the faces of the murdered and the survivors of Sandy Hook. It’s worth remembering Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore …. York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk can stand alongside with the world’s indigenous people seeking redress for generations of racism and discrimination. Solidarity matters! Dialogue matters! Let’s make 2013 a year of reconciliation!
 #idlenomore, A Better World is Needed, Activism, attawapiskat, Canada, Class War, Colonialism, conservative party of canada, Culture, democracy, environment, Equality, Family, Feminism, First Nations, Gaza, Gender Issues, Identity, Imperialism, International Relations, Natural Resources, Neoliberal Economics, Racism, Society, tarsands, Voluntary Simplicity For what I think will be my last post of the year, I wanted to reflect on something I heard about a couple of weeks ago — the 40th anniversary of Free to Be… You and Me and the impact it had on a generation of kids. Including me, who was born the year the record was first released. To this day, it’s unbelievable that a series of stories about encouraging kids to meet their own The thing that the Mayans didn’t realize about this whole end of the world thing tomorrow is that today is my and His Nibs’ seven-year anniversary (N.B. We’ve been together for more like 12 years). So I decree that it is impossible for the world to end without my getting the chance to wear my [...] I have been pooping an awful lot on and around social media lately. The truth of the matter is that I haven’t missed effbook at all since we broke up. We still see each other now and then in the grocery store, and while we may not make eye contact, we at least can say [...] Antonin “Nino” Scalia, the current dean of the US Supreme Court and a very staunch conservative, has always had a way with words especially in the opinions he authors for the majority or in dissent. There is no question he is a champion of free speech and expression — he has often sided with liberals on such issues as flag burning and song parodies. He has also been further to the right than We’re starting to see the fallout from the Con government’s proposed changes to immigration policy. And while I agree that such policies need a reboot every now and then to meet current trends (and to a lesser extent, changes in social morés), what is shaping up to be what we’ll be stuck with for at least the next twenty years is anything but promising. For one thing, I see absolutely no If you think popular media is still chauvinist or even misogynist, but you didn’t know about the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, you should look into them. I found out about their latest research study, Gender Roles & Occupations: A Look at Character Attributes and Job-Related Aspirations in Film and Television, and was not [...] . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: “Female Characters Are Still Sidelined, Stereotyped, and Sexualized in Popular Entertainment Content” [Here is what some of us have been wanting to say about Taylor Swift, but didn't because A. Lynn did it first, and perhaps best, reposted her with her kind permission. Thanks to Jarrah Hodge for pointing us to this piece of brilliance! Enjoy! - seb] I’ve been mentally composing this blog for forever and [...] . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: No, Taylor Swift. No.
Early political engagement is a hot button topic for a number of us here at Politics ReSpun. As parents and/or political animals, we spend a lot of time contemplating methods of public engagement that would draw youth into political culture, and foster both interest and comprehension of sociopolitical events. Apathy and disinterest are rampant in our culture, and the prevailing trend of co-mingling pop culture and celebrity in corporate controlled news media is daunting. Is political engagement and activism a product of nature or nurture? Are those of us who prefer to spend our afternoons yelling at CPAC or . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Encouraging Early Political Engagement: I Have the Right to Be a Child
A Better World is Needed, Activism, Alain Serres, Aurelia Fronty, book, democracy, early engagement, Education, Equality, Family, Gender Issues, Health, I Have the Right to Be a Child, Identity, International Relations, media, Parenting tools, politics, population, Society, Talking politics with children, United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, Youth Billy Graham, who is into his eighth decade as a minister, is one of the very few people in the States who is so famous that the only address you need to write on an envelope is his or her name only, no box number, no state, no ZIP code – in this case, Billy Graham USA. In most respects he certainly does deserve that distinction. Not just for his dynamic style of preaching, one that appeals Pat Neshek of the Oakland Athletics looks to the sky as he touches the patch with the letters “GJN” on it after he recorded the final out of the bottom of the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers during Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Comerica Park on October 6, 2012 in Detroit, Michigan. The patch worn by all the members of the Athletics is in memory of Neshek’s son Gehrig John, who died 23 hours after birth on October 3. In the mid 1980s, WP Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe dragged me back to my childhood love of . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: A Thanksgiving Gift from Baseball by Marian Wang | ProPublica More than a decade after Aurora Almendral first set foot on her dream college campus, she and her mother still shoulder the cost of that choice. Almendral had been accepted to New York University in 1998, but even after adding up scholarships, grants, and the max she could take out in [...] Once a monarchy is to be defended like a Lindsay Lohan, the country that ultimately depends on it for stability will end up in far worse places than rehab. Besides more than enough skin, pictures of a half naked Kate Middleton have revealed why Canada still needs the monarchy. Not so much because of the recent exploits of Prince Harry and Kate Middleton, but because of Canadians’ attempts to excuse them and, by implication, excuse the impacts they have on our country. Canada needs the monarchy because Canadians know more about the Royal family’s mammories than they they do about . . . → Read More: The Scott Ross: Kate Middleton Exposes Canada’s Need For The Monarchy |
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