Getting ready for school, I was going through files and came across an interview with Noam Chomsky for Teen Talking Circles. In it, Chomsky answers the question, “Do you honestly think there’s much hope for this world as it is?” with a “No.” He maintains hope in order to keep
Continue readingAuthor: Marie Snyder
A Puff of Absurdity: On Glorifying Psychopaths
Murray Dobbin wrote a very provocative article relating our TV viewing of psychopaths to our politics. Owen explored the glorification of psychopaths in a post discussing the article, and I commented there on the difficulty of establishing kindness in our self-absorbed culture. I wrote years ago about the crux of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Titanic and Tolstoy
I’ve heard this before somewhere, but I can’t find it to give due credit: Coping with climate change is like coping with being a passenger on the Titanic. Some won’t notice anything’s amiss until they’re well into the water. Some will notice it’s going down and decide we should continue
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Climate Change
In a Huffington Post interview, Neil deGrasse Tyson says things will change when people lose their wealth. If we lose the ice-caps, the water around NYC will come up to the Statue of Liberty’s elbow. One commenter suggested that the rich will pay attention when their money gets soggy. Tyson’s
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Diamond’s Collapse
A while back, Mound suggested I read Collapse by Jared Diamond, and I finally got to it. It’s a fascinating read particularly for anyone interested in ancient civilizations. Diamond explores what caused the destruction of various civilizations over the past couple millennia. What interested me, of course, is his final
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On That List of Excuses for Not Having Sex Floating Around the Interweb
I wanted to chime in on a facebook discussion about that list (a man made a spreadsheet of his wife’s excuses for refusing sex), but it wasn’t started by an official FB friend, so I couldn’t comment on it. I’m not sure the etiquette on this, so I’ll just keep everyone
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Shaving Minutes Off Your Cycling Time
Or, In Praise of Crappy Bikes I’m in the middle of several books right now, and I’ll write more about them as I finish. But I was thinking about this title on my morning bike ride. I’m often no more than ten minutes into a conversation with a fellow cyclist
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Just Not Ready to Laugh at Climate Change
We had a great end-of-year send off by a few teachers who took the time and effort to make the final day entertaining. Years ago, we had a team that would roast all the teachers. Some audience members were visibly upset and offended by the comments, so it went
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What’s a Mother to Do?
It’s always harder to have something taken away than to never have it in the first place. But still… A local high school is removing a few dozen students from the school bus route because the board realized the kids are within official walking distance to the school – 3.2
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Backyard Studio and Garden Build
Three summers ago, I decided to take over the backyard, get rid of the playhouse that the kids had deserted, and build a big garden and waterfall with a little studio to work in. The next day, my son said all he wanted for his birthday was to take over
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Brief Hiatus
I’ve been busy gardening, and then I took a break to check out NYC. The entire album, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, played in my head on a loop while I was there. It was a nice distraction from the provincial election stuff, and the NDP couldn’t ask me for
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s Possible…
That’s something, then, isn’t it. The IPCC released the final third of their missive today. We can get out alive, and with reasonable economic stability, but only if we dismantle fossil fuel energy and replace it with renewable energy sources. “The era of fossil fuel energy is ending.” Desmond Tutu
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On The Sixth Extinction
Look inside! We’re in the midst of a mass extinction, but Elizabeth Kolbert is actually somewhat hopeful about it all. We are at a truly extraordinary moment of history in which we are cognizant of our own demise (except for those in denial) and, therefore, able to affect how it
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: EQAO, Literacy and Ability
My 9-year-old says that EQAO stands for Evil Questions Attacking Ontario. I think she’s on to something. We just administered the literacy test at our school this week. I’ve always understood administering this standardized test as a means to ensure that nobody graduates high-school without demonstrating an ability to read
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What We Know: We’re Screwed
Addressing the issues of climate change is an issue for policymakers and leaders. It’s important they’re informed by the most accurate data. – Katharine Hayhoe, Atmospheric Scientist, Professor, and director of the Climate Science Center A group of scientists from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Clara Hughes’ Mental Health Tour
h/t CAAWS Our school had the honour of hosting a visit from Clara Hughes yesterday – six time Olympic winner for cycling and speed skating. She’s biking around Canada – ALL around Canada – talking about mental health. She biked through a snow storm in Woodstock on her way to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Do Teachers Want?
I seem to have missed hitting “publish” on this one from a few days ago: I’ve gleaned, from Steve Paikin’s twitter feed, a version of teachers that don’t fit the media stereotype of money-grubbing lazy bums. The quotes are from his tweets, so here they’re thrice removed. Kathleen Wynne just
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Backing for My Views on Education
There’s an article in The Spectator, and a new book out (at your left there), that says everything I’ve been saying about education for a couple years now. It’s actually to the point that, if I weren’t such a D-list blogger, I might actually think she plagiarized from my blog posts!
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Do Women Want?
It can be a goofy question because it sets up an expectation that half the world, 3.5 billion people, can answer it the same way if it’s asked in exasperation because a woman was maybe annoyed at a man for insisting on paying for dinner, or didn’t want to go
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Downloading
I’m a movie-junkie, and I’ll happily pay to watch. That’s why I’m love Netflix. But sometimes there are movies people want to see that aren’t on Netflix. They’re out there, but not in a format that can offer remuneration. So people download. It seems like such a reasonable thing to
Continue reading