I have written previously about the botched drug raid by the Hamilton Police resulting in serious injury to Burmese immigrant Po La Hay, who suffered facial lacerations, three broken ribs and a fractured vertebra at the hands of police. While the co…
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Politics and its Discontents: Michael Moore and Dead Peasant Insurance
Long overdue, I finally got around to watching Michael Moore’s latest documentary Capitalism: A Love Story last evening, having borrowed the disc from my local library. (Happily, not being a resident of Toronto, I don’t at present have to worry about…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: G20 Police Abuse Reaches The Stage
Like so many other innocent people who fell victim to the madness that engulfed the police during last year’s G20 Summit in Toronto, Tommy Taylor experienced an unwarranted arrest and almost 24 hours of incarceration. His crime? Exercising his Charter…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: An Incisive Analysis Of Broken U.S. Tax Policy
Although readily dismissed as a socialist by the right-wing, Linda McQuiag offers a fine analysis of the failings of U.S. tax policy in an article entitled Tycoons Laughing All the Way to the Bank. In it, she gives the example of hedge fund managers, t…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Failure of Political Leadership – Part 2
The other day I wrote a brief post called The Failure of Political Leadership, inspired by what is quickly becoming a national embarrassment for the City of Toronto in its choice of Rob Ford as mayor. Now quite openly betraying his promise not to gut …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Unmediated Passion For Libraries – A Cure For Cynicism
I defy anyone to remain untouched after reading this story and watching the accompanying video in which 14-year-old Anika Tabovaradan makes a passionate plea to Mayor Rob Ford not to cut library services in Toronto. As the spokesperson for a large segm…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Failure of Political Leasdership
It is perhaps to state the obvious in asserting that our elected officials rarely represent our interests very well. Examples, far too numerous to list, abound. Probably the most obvious failure currently in the news is that of Rob Ford, who became t…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Something To Start The Long Weekend
While driving to get my hair cut, and tuned to Canada’s Premium Jazz Station this morning, I heard a song from long ago sung by the late Phoebe Snow, a woman possessed of such a lovely voice but who probably wasn’t nearly as well-known as others of her…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More Evidence Of The American Right’s Intellectual ‘Limitations’
I have phrased this post’s title as tactfully as I can, but I think if you watch the following video, you will be tempted to use other, more obvious ways to describe right-wing American cognitive abilities. You will notice that as soon as the Fox host…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Revelations Of Further Charter Rights’ Violation At G20 Summit
In what has become almost a routine posting to my blog, the Toronto Star has revealed yet another violation of rights arising from last year’s federally and provincially supported G20 Summit. An article entitled Police wrong to question man with crossb…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Such An Eloquent Letter
I have several times made reference to the enjoyment we derive in subscribing to The Toronto Star, a progressive paper with an official agenda that includes issues of social justice. Like the journalists in their employ, The Star’s letter-writers tend …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Barbarians’ Threat
Libraries have been a vital part of my life since I first learned to read. When I married and had children, my wife and I made sure to inculcate a love of reading in our children, and again, libraries were a vital part of that process. Even today, I wi…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Cowardice Of Anonymous Online Commentary
Over the decades I have written many letters to the editor and articles that have appeared in both local and national publications; never once have I hesitated to use my complete name, as required by almost all publications, my logic being that I am no…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: How Useful Are Food Banks In The Longterm?
As a volunteer at one of the local foodbanks for the past few years, I have often felt ambivalent about their existence. While there is no question that they are heavily, even exhaustively used, they were never intended as a long-term solution to the …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Star Readers ‘Weigh In’ On Rob Ford’s Performance
Although not a resident of Toronto, I always find it difficult not to pay attention to the goings-on in ‘The Big Smoke,’ as its citizens are found of calling their city. Much has already been written by bloggers evaluating the disparity between the rh…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Stephen Harper: Pay No Attention To The Stats Can Man Behind The Curtain
The other day I wrote about the fact that statistic show serious crime in Canada to be at a 40-year-low. Despite this, of course, the Harper Government is marching headlong in its pursuit of measures to combat crime, including, of course, the building …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Star: Police Strip Searches On The Rise
As reported in today’s Toronto Star, “Toronto police strip searched roughly 60 per cent of the people they arrested in 2010, compared to 32 per cent 10 years ago, according to police statistics.”Given recent high profile incidents of this practice, som…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Canada’s crime rate at lowest level in almost 40 years: StatsCan
Thus reads the headline in a story posted online by The Globe and Mail.Amongst the latest Statistics Canada findings, the following facts are worth noting:There were 554 homicides in 2010, down 56 from the year before. The decline in the homicide rate …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Police Facial Recognition Skills Continue To Decline
Whether it is a food, air, or water-borne virus, or a strange and hitherto undocumented brain condition, there is no question that police facial recognition skills are declining, calling into question their ability to accurately testify in criminal cas…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Thought On A Hot Evening
Confined as I have been to the house today and tonight thanks to the heat and humidity, I thought I would make a brief posting. I’ve been writing recently about the importance of critical thinking skills. Following is a link to a National Post piece …
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