Ff course one can’t really be against memes, because it would do no good. It’s not like they can be voted off the internet island. But there are a few reasons to be suspicious. While cats worldwide are no doubt thrilled at the digital attention they always knew they deserved,
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Canadian Dimension | Articles: Challenging Sex Segregation in Sport
When Hank Aaron left the Negro Leagues for major league baseball in the early 1950s, a woman named Toni Stone took his spot on second base. Rejected from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (of A League of Their Own fame) due to the colour of her skin, Stone was
Continue readingChristy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Reasons to NOT Support Operation Christmas Child
Google informs me that there are already people and schools taking advantage of back-to-school sales to gather supplies for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. While I think it is great to try to give extra joy to others, I want to write to urge people not to support this program. Why? Let
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: You Aren’t Sufficiently Critical of the #Media
You need to trust the media less. Almost a year ago, and before the last US presidential election, Gallup determined that there has been a stunning decline in citizens’ mistrust of the media [see below]. It crossed over from mostly trust to not so much trust around 2004-2005. If you
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – Katie McDonough reports on new research showing the devastating effects of poverty on an individual’s ability to plan and function: According to researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia, people living in poverty experience reduced cognitive functioning as a result
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Canada: A Fair Country
I used to be so proud to be Canadian and that’s wavered over this difficult period in our history. I was searching for this book to loan out, and once found, I got totally engrossed in re-reading it. It made me feel so much better. It’s an important book about
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: MexAmeriCanada? We Are Not Thinking Creatively Enough
MexAmeriCanada doesn’t have to be our future. I think I’m guilty of being a bit slow and uncreative. The bogeyman of deep integration, North American Union, the United States-ification of Canada, the United States OF Canada, and Canada becoming states #51-60 plus three more protectorates is just too simplistic. We
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Chris Hedges on The Empire of Illusion
My summer vacation reading was a sunny little book by Nick Turse called Kill Anything That Moves. I finished the other book I was noshing on, the Age of American Unreason, just after returning from Kaslo and now I’ve started Chris Hedges book, the Empire of Illusion. Turse’s book
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: The NHL and the New Canadian Militarism
There was a time when the idea of military pomp at a Canadian sporting event would have seemed absurdly out of place — that was an American thing. Oh, how the times have changed. These days, when you settle in to watch the Jets beat the Leafs on Saturday night,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: From the Empire
As long as there have been organized sports in the United States, they have walked hand-in-hand with empire. From the beginning, the message was that men should be men, girls submissive, and war is good. In the late 19th century, empire was on the march, with the US invading the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: The First Loser
A few summers ago,walking down Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg, I found myself reading a political message blazoned on the T-shirt of a young woman just ahead of me. “Second place is the first loser.” One or other version of this message is so common in both the culture of sport
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Racism and Anti-Racism in Canadian Sport: An Interview with Dr. Janelle Joseph
Janelle Joseph is a Banting Research Fellow at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Her research represents the first national interdisciplinary study to merge theories of youth studies, Afrocentricity, criminology, education, and physical cultural studies. Dr. Joseph’s research and teaching also include studies of transnationalism and sport, with a
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: On Sport
Terry Eagleton has got it wrong. In his 2007 book The Meaning of Life, the literary theorist and doyen of the British Left proclaimed, “It is sport, not religion, which is now the opium of the people.” For Eagleton, the human desire for solidarity and physical immediacy are the raw
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Women As Meat, Volume 874,597
Backlash 101. Every attempt we made to start a serious debate was met with responses such as “feminism and rape are both ridiculously tiring”. via What happened when I started a feminist society at school | Education | theguardian.com. For all the sons and daughters that you know and love,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Is It Really That Hard to Imagine Cities Without Cars?
A blissful infographic of imaginative paradigm mechanics! Probably. That’s why really creative paradigm mechanics are thinking outside the box-y sedans to figure out how we could reorient cities and movement in cities with a changed premise: no cars. Imagine how much parking space we’d free up for human pursuits? Imagine
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why We Must #HonourTheApology to Residential School Survivors [#INM]
I don’t know why we still have to do this kind of thing, but here goes. The federal government “apologized” to survivors of residential schools 5 years ago. It is clearly quite empty, considering how much neglect, abuse, victimization and racism has spewed forth from Stephen Harper’s government since then.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Young People Are Teaching Us About Empathy
Click the chart to see more inspiring charts! Descending/increasing lines indicate less/more concern among different generations of high school graduates for the various ideas. I have so much hope for the future. Sometimes I get bogged down by negativity, but that’s usually just circumstantial. It passes. Much of my hope
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: At The Squamish Nation Powwow This Weekend!
Enrich your understanding at the Squamish Nation Powwow this weekend. In the quest for a better Canada, one that is more democratic, inclusive, consultative and less rejecting of science and climate change realities, it is important to reach out. Sovereignty Summer is part of that movement, coming out of Idle
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Canada Day +1, Our Quiet Genocide
A banner drop during last night’s Canada Day celebration in Toronto’s Mel Lastman Square. (Photo: IdleNoMore.ca) Canadians are so nice. We have such a happy, positive self-concept. This makes it quite hard to address the quiet genocide of first peoples that our nation has conducted for centuries. What is genocide?
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Kathleen Geier makes the case for greater progressive activism at lower levels of government – and the point applies with equal force in Canada: (T)hose of us who want to build a more progressive America would be well-advised to pay relatively less
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