Here, on how RBC’s survey about continued parental funding for adult children demonstrates the need for improved social supports to assist young adults who lack the same family resources. For further reading…– George Lakoff set out the distinction between “strict father” and “nurturant parent” worldviews in the context of the
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that it’s possible to stop climate change in its tracks – but only by beginning to phase out fossil fuel infrastructure immediately. And Ryan Cooper comments on the problems in responding to an immediate crisis with
Continue readingCuriosityCat: How to Frame the electoral reform referendum in BC, Canada
Mark Mitchell has a post in Facebook in which he writes: Apparently, those of us who support ProRep are wrong to use facts and logic in our argument, when the opposition is using emotion and lies. Any suggestions as to how to change this? Good (Read more…) and a valid
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Book Review: Politics Without Stories
David Ricci’s Politics Without Stories was released in the midst of an election campaign which upended many assumptions about U.S. politics. But it nonetheless offers a plausible explanation for much of the U.S.’ political environment as it’s continued to evolve – while leaving open what strike me as interesting questions
Continue readingCuriosityCat: UK June 8 Election and How Framing might destroy PM May
Remember Don’t think of an elephant? Does the name George Lakoff ring a bell? Does the concept of framing a debate in political discourse remind you of something? If your answer is Yes, step this way and consider the article I quote below. If your answer is No, then step
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nick Falvo lists ten things to know about social programs in Canada. And Mike Crawley offers a painful example of Ontario’s social safety net and employment law both falling short, as injured workers are forced to go to work even when ill or
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Branko Milanovic offers his take on how the U.S.’ version of liberalism paved the way for Donald Trump and his ilk both by buying into corporatist assumptions about success, and by treating electoralism as the basis for political organization: In economics, liberalism
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Will McMartin highlights the fact that constant corporate tax slashing has done nothing other than hand ever-larger piles of money to businesses who have no idea what to do with it. But Josh Wingrove reports that Justin Trudeau is looking for excuses
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Michael Kraus, Shai Davidai and A. David Nussbaum discuss the myth of social mobility in the U.S. And Nicholas Kristof writes that inequality is a choice rather than an inevitability: Yet while we broadly lament inequality, we treat it as some natural
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna takes a look at how the Cons are pushing serious liabilities onto future generations in order to hand out short-term tax baubles within a supposedly-balanced budget, while Jennifer Robson highlights the complete lack of policy merit behind those giveaways. And Ian
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jeffrey Simpson lambastes the Cons’ determination to slash taxes and hand out baubles to the rich for the sole purpose of undermining the fiscal capacity of government to help Canadians. And Jeremy Nuttall highlights how a cuts to the CRA are allowing tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Daniel Tencer reports on a couple of important recent warnings that Canada is in danger of following the U.S. down the path of extreme corporatism and inequality: Speaking at a fundraiser for the left-leaning Broadbent Institute, Reich said Canada is facing the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Zoe Williams interviews George Lakoff about the need for progressive activists and parties to work on changing minds rather than merely pursuing an elusive (and illusory) middle ground: (T)he left, he argues, is losing the political argument – every year, it cedes more ground
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Alberta Floods: Will this be Stephen Harper’s Katrina Moment?
Remember PM Harper’s response to the 2007 Financial Meltdown? His seeming inability to understand that when crises hit, Canadians expect their federal government to help them? His discussion of the implosion of share prices as being a good time to buy stocks (while many Canadians watched in disbelief their dreams
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought
I am currently reading Philosophy in the Flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. Authored by Cognitive Scientists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, this book asks 1) What do major lines of Western philosophical thought assume about the mind? 2) What has cognitive science learned about the
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Do Canada’s rightwingers swoon over Policy Wonks, Pretty Faces or Daddy Figures?
Sarah Hampson We seem to have a conflict between three theories of what motivates conservatives to vote. On the one hand, we have the school of thought that says there is a beauty premium reaped by the more beautiful people in life, business and politics. The second school believes that
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Justin Trudeau & The Ibbitson Question: Lessons from George Lakoff
John Ibbitson questions whether Canadians will follow the values that Justin Trudeau represents, and concludes that there is much mushiness which bodes ill for the Liberal Party under the younger Trudeau: The Ibbitson Question Both political strategist Warren Kinsella (Fight the Right) and former journalist Paul Adams (Power Trap) have
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Carbon Tax, Cap & Trade, Framing: When will Thomas Mulcair learn?
Stephen Harper, the one party leader who probably reads a chapter from George Lakoff’s magnificent work Don’t Think of an Elephant each night before he switches off the light, dragged an elephant into the House this week, and smiled contentedly as the man who wants his job kept flailing away
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Health Care in the US – Retaking Political Discourse – George Lakoff
Why does the progressive movement keep on suffering set backs when they are quantifably right on the issues. George Lakoff suggests it has much to do with framing and how human cognition works. A great lecture, well worth the 60 minutes of your time. Filed under: Politics, Science Tagged: Cognitivie
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Carol Goar comments on the CEP/CAW plan to merge and work toward a far more active type of unionism: Both the CAW and the CEP — of which I am a member — gobbled up smaller unions to reach their current size.
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