Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes ← Page 3

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Aug

21

2017

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson write that equality of opportunity is an illusion if people don’t have the necessary equality of income to make meaningful plans: British social mobility is damaged by the UK’s high income inequality. Economists have argued that young people from low income families are ...

Northern Reflections: The Jury Is Still Out

Aug

21

2017

Today, as the sun is temporarily blotted out over the United States, Barbara Will wonders if her country is in a permanent state of eclipse: Pick up any newspaper and the evidence is clear: most Americans feel pessimistic about the nation’s future. Since 2009, polls consistently show that over 70% of Americans worry that the ...

Things Are Good: Using Drones to Plant Entire Forests

Aug

21

2017

When drones are brought up in the news it’s usually because they are used to kill, here’s a story about drones bringing life. A company, BioCarbon Engineering, has demonstrated how to se drones to plant forests more efficiently than other methods. It’s a rather simple process with incredibly complex software: send one drone to survey ...

Montreal Simon: Donald Trump and the Question Journalists Don’t Dare Ask

Aug

21

2017

It's hard to believe, how time flies. But Donald Trump's "working vacation" is over and he's heading back to Washington.But sadly, although he did little or no work, just played golf, tweeted, and watched a lot of cable TV, his vacation wasn't very relaxing.And I'm afraid we're all going to pay for that, because now ...

Dead Wild Roses: The Focus Group – What I learned about my fellow Canadians

Aug

21

2017

The first rule of focus groups or research groups is quite simply this. If you say yes to one, then you shall forever be on the call list of every research company that has ever existed. And they do call quite often. Extrapolating from the frequency that I receive offers, people who are ...

Babel-on-the-Bay: In Beautiful Barcelona.

Aug

21

2017

Barcelona is one of the finest cities for tourism in Europe. Its excellent hotels, broad boulevards and beautiful buildings also provide an excellent venue for international meetings and conferences. In the time I spent in Spain, the Spanish earned my deep respect for their civility, industriousness and kindness. It is to be regretted though that ...

Warren Kinsella: Empty, inert, cold piece of rock moves closer to blocking out source of all warmth and life

Aug

21

2017

Warren Kinsella: This week’s column: feeling superior after Charlottesville? Don’t.

Aug

21

2017

Pop quiz time. 1. At an election rally, Ku Klux Klan member J. F. Bryant is joined onstage by a confident young lawyer, who rails against those who speak other languages. Who was the young lawyer? 2. A politician travels abroad to meet a murderous, anti-Semitic fascist boss. The politician rhapsodizes about the fascist leader, ...

Alberta Politics: Len Bracko, 74, was St. Albert MLA, city councillor, schoolteacher and respected community builder

Aug

21

2017

PHOTOS: Len Bracko in his days as a St. Albert councillor at the site of the city’s wetland park on the east shore of Big Lake. Below: Mr. Bracko helping to build homes for people in need abroad, and being congratulated for his victory in the 1993 provincial election by PC minister Dick Fowler, the ...

In-Sights: LNG facilities: siting, safety, regulation

Aug

21

2017

An August 19 fire and gas leak at the Tilbury Island LNG facility reminds of the fuel’s inherent dangers. Luckily, Delta’s Firehall No. 7 is only 1,500 meters from the Fortis property and the situation resulted in minimal damages and injuries. However, consider what might result if the proposed Woodfibre LNG plant suffered a fire ...

THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: FRIENDSHIP is in the Heart of Every Caregiver

Aug

20

2017

I’m up at our family cottage on a lake in the mountains of Quebec. Yesterday it rained, so naturally I gravitated to the bookshelf in the corner by the fireplace. I found this 1910 copy of “The Gift of Friendship and Other Verses”. Let me share with you one verse that perfectly captures, for me, ...

Accidental Deliberations: On closing questions

Aug

20

2017

Thus far in my posts about the federal NDP leadership campaign, I haven’t said much about my own preferences as between the candidates. And there’s a reason why I haven’t been pushing for any particular outcome just yet, as I’m still far from sure who I’ll place in each position on my own ballot. But ...

Susan on the Soapbox: A Pop Quiz

Aug

20

2017

Ms Soapbox is shocked. She just returned from the Alberta Teachers’ Association Summer Summit on Public Education and discovered that she knows far less about education and teaching in Alberta than she thought she did. What education looks like today So pop quiz! (Stop grumbling, many politicians are pontificating about the state of education in ...

Scripturient: The symphony of government

Aug

20

2017

A good government in operation is like a symphony: disparate parts, dozens of different instruments and performers, each in their own space and place, all working together under the benign management of a conductor. When working in harmony, they are a delight to hear and see. There’s no “me” in a symphony: it’s the result ...

Anti-Racist Canada: The ARC Collective: Anti-Fascists Confront La Meute in Quebec City.

Aug

20

2017

In one of the opening scenes of the Charlottesville Vice documentary, one individual stated that he had driven 12 hours from Canada to attend the event: Well activists were able to track down information about him and one other Canadian participating in the hate rally. At least one of the men is was a member ...

Warren Kinsella: How the hate movement has changed

Aug

20

2017

Excellent article by my friend Stewart Bell, here. For the past dozen years, the racist far-right has been fractured, without a prominent national leader or organization. But it has survived, and now it’s angry at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, emboldened by President Donald Trump and amplified by social media. “Nowadays, they’ve jettisoned the Klansman’s robes and ...

Warren Kinsella: NAFTA: Brian Clow couldn’t comment. So I did for him.

Aug

20

2017

Here: Clow would not speak for this story. But someone who trained him in working war rooms was happy to share some thoughts about him and the job. It was Warren Kinsella who brought the modern campaign war room to Canada in 1993, modelled on Bill Clinton’s 1992 run, and who also authored, “Kicking Ass ...

Warren Kinsella: Trump: the rule, not the exception

Aug

20

2017

The United States racist? What would give you that idea? Spotted at the antiques fair just down the street in Kennebunkport.

In This Corner: The Return of Stuff Happens, week 31: Isn’t summer supposed to be a quiet time?

Aug

20

2017

The world is truly moving too fast. Or at least it is in the United States of America, the flickering beacon of democracy. It seems like more stuff happened in the States in the past week than we experience in a typical month, or even a year. For simplicity’s sake, I will revert to the ...

cartoon life: At The Kröller Möller

Aug

20

2017

The family has a history no doubt. And if you choose to visit the museum, set aside some travel time, and a good chunk of viewing time. There is a lot to see in this really wonderful collection. Most famously the van Gogh’s, but much much much other stuff you studied in art history, and ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Aug

20

2017

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Amira Elghawaby comments on the loss of empathy in Canadian politics – particularly due to a disproportionate focus on the perceived self-interest of a narrow group of upper-middle-class swing voters, rather than speaking to and about the people with the greatest need for collective voice: A few ...

A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: What Love Is

Aug

20

2017

[Carrie Jenkins. What Love Is: And What it Could Be. New York: Basic Books, 2017.] A philosophical examination of romantic love aimed at a lay audience. Some good stuff, but I didin’t like it as much as I’d hoped. It takes a critical, feminist, queer, non-monogamy-friendly approach, all of which is good; I think I’d ...

Dead Wild Roses: You should’ve asked

Aug

20

2017

Amazing and so relevant. Emma Here is the english version of my now famous “Fallait demander” ! Thanks Una from unadtranslation.com for the translation 🙂 View original post Filed under: Housekeeping

Warren Kinsella: Present view, Sunday morning

Aug

20

2017

Present view. The Bush family are on that distant point. And we’d all give anything for one of them to be President of the United States again. Good times.

Northern Reflections: Leaving All Of Us In Poverty

Aug

20

2017

In this weekend’s Globe and Mail, Amira Elghawaby asks, “Where has all our empathy gone?” That’s a question a lot of us are asking after Charlottesville. Here in Canada, Elghawaby writes, we have no reason to look down our noses at out neighbours to the South: The events in Charlottesville, Va., are only the most ...