Imagine the embarrassment of being a teenager again, except now your source of torment is not limited to forced school interaction with ruthless bullies, but now occurs at home and around the WWW too. Sexual attitudes need to quickly change, and treatment of bullies needs to radically evolve if we’re
Continue readingTag: Education
Dead Wild Roses: Rape Culture: We’re In It
It doesn’t get made any simpler than this. Yes these are US stats, but do you think it’s really all that different here in Canada? Ya, neither did I. This information is put together by Laura Bassett at The Enliven Project. Data was pulled by the FBI. Go over to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Does Adbusters Ask of You in 2013?
From the people who suggested the modest idea of occupying Wall Street, Adbusters has sent out a new half dozen suggestions to fix the economic cancers of capitalism. Here’s my favourite, and it’s a little policy wonky:
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Meet the “Nice Guys” of Okcupid
But gosh and wow, all at once. There is a sociology paper to be written about this phenomena, the great mystery of why… oh why… ‘nice guys’ cannot get with women. Actually wait, it needs to be feminist paper…or actually a feminist sentence. If women aren’t into you it is
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Thought for the New Year – Let’s end Prostitution
The words are Susan Brownmiller’s. Her noble goal, to end the exploitation of women – “But my horror at the idea of legalize prostitution is not that it doesn’t work as a rape deterrent, but that it institutionalizes the concept that it is a man’s monetary right, if not his
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Privatization Via Blackmail
If you want to see why there isn’t much of a real left wing in the USA, this graph of those seeking the White House in 2008 pretty much covers it. 2008 US presidential candidates show little actual left wing juice. If you want proof of how the neoliberal US
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Noam Chomsky Reflects on Contemporary Education
Despite the fact that it was fraught with a marking load I would not wish on anyone, my career as an English teacher offered many satisfactions, not the least of which was the opportunity to explore issues that are increasingly considered off-limits in the classroom: contemporary politics, the use and
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 4: On Grad School Goggles and the Cult-Like Nature of Grad School
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional baseball. Inspired by Hayhurst and the many commonalities I noticed between the minor league track to the Majors, as he
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: The Grad School Gospels – Part 3: Academe Can’t Be Your Everything
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional baseball. Inspired by Hayhurst and the many commonalities I noticed between the minor league track to the Majors, as he
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: "Free to Be" — 40 years on
For what I think will be my last post of the year, I wanted to reflect on something I heard about a couple of weeks ago — the 40th anniversary of Free to Be… You and Me and the impact it had on a generation of kids. Including me, who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Christmas reading. – Naomi Klein comments on what we should take from the Idle No More movement: Chief Spence’s hunger is not just speaking to Mr. Harper. It is also speaking to all of us, telling us that the time for bitching and moaning is over.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is Canadian Progressivism a Farce?
The topic came up recently in a discussion I had with a prolific and thoroughly progressive blogger who will go unnamed. He lamented that he had become fed up with Canadian prog bloggers who seemed not terribly interested in progressivism at all and, by contrast, far less interesting than their
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: President Harper of Electoral (Fraud) Democracy
Democracy is eroded in Canada. The media shows glimmers of understanding the threat to democracy, but then let up and treat everything as normal, so Canadians calm down and go about their daily chores pleased to kick a reckoning down the road. If a scandal on F-35 scale – total
Continue readingTrashy's World: School bus cancellations…
… are serious decisions that impact thousands of familites. The decision to cancel should not be made lightly and should keep the chidrens’ safety first and foremost. BUT, erring on the side of caution can be taken a bit too far. Take the last two Mondays, for example, last Monday
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Workin’ For The Money
I always find it so interesting to see people making well in excess of $100,000/year. I really have to stretch to find ways to spend it all in my imagination. Feels a bit like Brewster’s Millions. There are some jobs where I think it’s acceptable to make well more than
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: "Sousa sounded and looked very much like a man who would be comfortable as the next premier of the province."
Like the Sousa campaign on Facebook!Follow Charles on Twitter! This article is a couple days old now, but I wanted to post it to show the extremely positive reception Charles received talking to local business leaders in Mississauga, while also outlining his vision to create jobs and grow the economy to
Continue readingTrashy's World: To all those decrying…
… the ONE day walkout by elementary teachers today. Suck it up. This is democracy in action, regardless of whether or not you believe that teachers (or anyone else for that matter) should have the right to strike. Under the current law, they DO have that right. This. Is. A.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Racism and the Walking Dead
Interesting article over at alter.net on the contexts and subtext of the TV show The Walking Dead. I suggest you read it. As I was linking running I came across the comments section of a different article by the same author. The exchange that will be reproduced here is instructive
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: #skndpldr Roundup
News and notes from Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign… – I wasn’t sure whether Ryan Meili’s reddit appearance would result in much difference from other forms of candidate interaction. But the outcome looks to have been a noteworthy discussion – both in a range of creative questions (indeed more than Meili
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Ontario students to walkout in support of teachers’ Bill 115 protest (VIDEO)
Please share this video and make our voices heard! We have the power to make a difference in our education! On Monday, December 10th, 2012 at 10:00 am, we are walking out from our school. We are not walking out on our teachers, we are walking out to support out teachers. We are
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