In the days since Hamas’s violent rampage through southern Israel, one word that keeps popping up is “unprovoked.” A Biden administration official condemned “the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” while Mike Pence urged every American to “condemn the unprovoked and massive attack on Israel by terrorists in
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A Puff of Absurdity: Breathe, Grieve, Love, Repeat
We have very little direct influence over one another but we do affect one another in myriad ways that we often don’t even notice. I had a student once, about 15 years ago who I thought was a delight, as I did almost all my students. He was bright and funny and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Age of Absurdity
We’re skipping gleefully into the most absurd period in history. The philosophical notion of the absurd came from Camus. It grew legs with existentialists after WWII when the youngest and fittest men were sent to be slaughtered in war. The streets of Paris were full of widows and grieving mothers
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Social Disease of Anger
The anger that escalated at a recent Ottawa-Carlton school board meeting when a trustee proposed and lost a motion to mandate masks, in a setting of generally polite discussion, makes it seem like this type of anger is new. But this video of the history of masks, and what we
Continue readingDefend Public Healthcare: Violence is widespread and growing in Ontario health care
Contrary to popular perception, there are more assaults in hospitals than in any other industry. Long-term are facilities are also major site for assaults. Health care as a whole has by far the most assaults that result in lost time injuries – far, far more than any other sector. Assaults in hospitals
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Harrowing Road for Candidates – and the Rest of Us
I’ve recently read two articles on the problem and solution to the current nastiness in elections after hearing first hand about serious issues candidates have had at the door. You never know who you’re going to get when you knock on someone’s door, and most people don’t want to buy
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: The Argument for White Supremacy
It seems that the main argument of the white supremacists is that white western European countries would not have conquered the world if they were not superior societies. Of course conquest and colonization involved looting, pillaging, plundering, murder, and rape. This theory assumes that societies that excel at violent conquest
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Toppling Icons
There are many great problems in late-industrial modern society, and there are many ways these problems can be addressed – some of them more effective than others. In this short essay I will focus on strategies and tactics for real social change – what works, and what does not. And
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Can America Be Saved
I am writing this as a citizen of a world that no matter where we live are strongly impacted by whatever America does and whatever happens in America America is celebrating but it will take a lot more than the end of the Trump presidency to save America. Trump promoted
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ways to Reduce Police Violence
vote This past week saw Americans out on the streets en masse to protest police violence, in particular race-based discrimination practiced by police throughout the nation. Non-white individuals get harassed more, suffer more violence, and are treated worse by the judicial system than white people. This has been proven time
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Gun Control
I’ve been observing many gun control arguments online and in the classroom (also online) recently. I’ve written about this before, once after Sandy Hook and then after a Stoneman Douglas shooting surviver put the onus on school staff to keep kids safe. This one’s closer to home, so I finally
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Hannah Arendt’s On Violence
Unfortunately, this is really timely. Arendt wrote this short book in 1970, but there’s nothing in it that needs to be updated today. Absolutely nothing significant has changed; it’s just more. She was responding to the violence of WWII, Vietnam, the student riots in Paris, and, most specifically, the People’s
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Amber Alert Red Herring
People were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert Thursday night. And now, on social media, people are REALLY upset that people were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert. This is trending: But, instead, we need a #believethem movement to trend for whenever a parent
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Manne’s "Down Girl"
With thorough argumentation and heavily footnoted facts brought to the table, Down Girl, by Kate Manne delineates misogyny from sexism and hopes “to offer a useful toolkit for asking, answering, and debating” (13) issues centred around misogyny. Right off the bat, let’s clarify that it’s not remotely a man-hating thesis.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Entitlement and Unfettered Rage
One of the benefits or downfalls of the internet is that it allows fringe groups to find each other online. When it comes to feeling like nobody in the world knows about climate change or the Myanmar genocide (or philosophy), because nobody in my immediate vicinity is too concerned or
Continue readingScripturient: Prayer isn’t stopping the violence
An acerbic piece in Maclean’s Magazine from June had the title “America’s mass delusion.” The subtitle read, “Surprisingly, the strategy of praying to God is not stopping the mass shootings in the U.S.” That piece was recirculated when the news of the latest and largest mass shooting in the USA
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Most Violence Motivated by Personal Morality.
The idea that spanking is somehow a valid parenting practice is disturbing enough. What is more troubling is that people who practice spanking are likely to justify it within their own moral framework and not change their views on the subject. “To find answers, I looked at violence across
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: For the countless Canadians humiliated by anti-gay policies, healing can finally begin
Svend Robinson was Canada’s first openly gay MP. He is now based in Geneva with The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. Originally published in the Globe & Mail Read more…
Continue readingSlap Upside The Head: Our Progress
The LGBT community is a community of fighters. We may never make sense of the tragedy in Orlando, but look at the reaction; look at the outpouring of love, compassion, and support. Compare it to the widespread indifference after the 1973 UpStairs Lounge attack, which claimed 32 lives. That’s our progress. And that’s what we […]
Continue readingThings Are Good: Holding War Criminals to Account
War is a messy business with the victorious side usually cleaning up how it all looks to outsiders. This is obviously problematic, particularly as we ought to hold people accountable for crimes they commit. When one rogue state let’s their war crimes go unpunished it calls into question the international agreements on how to handle […]
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