This and that for your Thursday reading. – Armine Yalnizyan highlights how our failure to put adequate resources into the caring sector stands in the way of both a COVID recovery and sustainable longer-term economic development. – Jessica Wildfire writes that our economy has been set up to be unaffordable
Continue readingTag: Activism
wmtc: roots and icebergs: decolonizing community spaces: a workshop
I recently attended a six-hour workshop called Decolonizing Community Spaces. The workshop was led by two facilitators, one a Native American speaking to us from her traditional territories in Montana, and the other a Filipina-Canadian. About 30 people attended; I believe all were health and service providers in the province
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Noah Ivers writes that people need to take the first COVID-19 vaccine available in support of everybody’s health, rather than assuming that consumerist philosophy applies to vaccinations. Arthur White-Crummey reports on new modelling showing how Saskatchewan is at grave risk of seeing our
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Bruce Arthur discusses how Doug Ford could prevent a third wave of COVID-19 in Ontario, but is choosing not to. John Michael McGrath writes that we need to stay vigilant in doing everything we can to limit the spread of the coronavirus even
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On priorities
For all the commentary Marco Rubio has managed to generate with his threat that Republicans may hate Amazon more than the workers seeking to organize it, nothing reflects the warped priorities of his party (and their Canadian cousins) than this passage: It is no fault of Amazon’s workers if they
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: From Bankers Ruling The World, To The People Ruling The Bankers
(And Rebuilding And Healing The World In The Process) “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson “I pray we shall crush the moneyed aristocracy in its infancy, for already it bids defiance to our laws and seeks a contest
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Seven Virtues To Liberate and Heal The World
The following is a seed thought, a note to myself, for further elaboration in the future, and it is a note I will share with others, because it is a seed thought which is powerful, healing, and liberating. I will not go into any lengthy discussion, meditation or exposition of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The results of Stockton, CA’s experiment with a guaranteed income show a predictable improvement in both well-being and economic success for people with income security. Lorne Calvert makes the case to introduce a guaranteed liveable income in Canada. And Will Wilkinson writes about
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Freedom & Power
I am, for the record, perfectly comfortable with where and how I have positioned myself. I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom, democracy, constitutional rule and human rights; liberty, equality and solidarity; and of course, as a result, I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom of
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Canada In The 21st Century: The Path Ahead
This short essay was written as a response to a YouTube video on the CaspianReport, titled, Geopolitics of Canada. At some point I may re-write it to be more in the form of a stand-alone essay, or a stump speech; but considering I am back-logged with 96 finished essays and
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 readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jerusalem Demsas discusses the strong popular support for affordable social housing even as governments continually fail to provide it. Daphne Bramham rightly asks why we haven’t seen far more of a move toward the Housing First models (including both secure housing and the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Stop the Lucrative Cruelty in Yemen
There was an online rally with some impressive speeches about the war on Yemen today, What Yanis Varoufakis referred as a form of “lucrative cruelty.” Here’s the full video and below are some of the words I found most impactful. Biden was there when it stared in 2015, a unilateral attack by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Elisabeth Rosenthal writes about the need to ensure that our public health messaging includes the graphic details of the severe threat of COVID-19. And Josh Kovensky points out one of the crucial questions still unanswered about the vaccines we’re hoping to rely on
Continue readingwmtc: wondering what to do with all that privilege and surplus good luck? try #write4rights 2020
Here we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and I feel (to paraphrase my favourite baseball player) like the luckiest person on the face of the earth.* I’m healthy, my partner is healthy, and no one in our extended families has gotten covid. Thanks to my union, and
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: beaten down, worked up: the past, present, and future of american labor
Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse is exactly what the subtitle says: a history and analysis of the rise, decline, and re-emergence of the labour movement in the United States. Although the context is American, the lessons in the stories easily
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk discusses how a “COVID zero” strategy has been successfully executed elsewhere – and could be achieved in Canada as well. But in case we needed a reminder as to the numerous ways in which our current governments are falling painfully
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Economist examines how much of Europe has been put into a renewed lockdown due to the second wave of COVID-19. But PressProgress points out how Brian Pallister’s rush to reopen has resulted in Manitoba seeing soaring infection rates rather than a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andre Picard writes about the cost of complacency in dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Matt Lundy examines Canada’s highly unequal recovery, with a stark dividing line between people making more than $22 per hour who have mostly been barely affected by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Mariano Zafra and Javier Salas offer a handy visual aid as to how COVID-19 spreads indoors – showing that masking is a valuable partial solution, but that effective ventilation can significantly reduce community transmission. And Jessica Wong reports on the results of
Continue reading