history ← Progressive Bloggers // Blogues progressistes

Dead Wild Roses: Noam Chomsky on the Erosion of Democracy

Oct

18

2017

If I were to have just one wish to come true, it would be that people would take the time to think about the world they live in. I realize that reflection and critical something is not always possible, but if we’re in the wish zone I think it could happen. Noam Chomsky, prescient as ...

Dead Wild Roses: Vietnam Tone Prose – Quiet Time by Marc Levy

Oct

3

2017

Quiet Time, by Marc Levy. “Imagine this: after a blistering hot day marching up and down mud slicked hills, or tramping wide open fields, or steamy jungle, imagine setting out booby traps on enemy trails, laying in wait, then ever so carefully, breaking them down. At dusk, after planting trips and claymores round the ...

wmtc: ancient tv history: a gay cop on barney miller

Sep

17

2017

Watching my comedy-before-bed daily dose of Barney Miller last night, I was surprised and pleased to see an episode about a gay cop. This remembered this post — turns out it was 10 years ago! — about a gay character on Dallas. Both episodes aired in 1979. Officer Zatelli, played by Dino Natali At the time I ...

wmtc: what i’m reading: the radium girls by kate moore

Sep

16

2017

Readers of a certain age might remember clocks and watches with glowing green dials. The dials were painted with radium, the radioactive element discovered by Marie Curie. We had clocks like this when I was growing up. I have a distinct memory of my mother saying, “The women who worked in the factories where these ...

PostArctica: That 9/11 Picture

Sep

11

2017

People who worked at Open City at the time might recall Vladimir doing a lot of work with this image, yea, it was iconic, too real, way out there…because it is us barenaked with everything reduced to the pure moments before death, a trajectory of beauty and crippling fear, a kind of new Ecstasy for ...

Things Are Good: Saving Knowledge From Going Extinct

Sep

11

2017

Ultimology is a new field of thought which may help is in the future when we need it the most and don’t realize it. It’s the study of of extinct or endangered subjects, theories, and tools of learning. The Department of Ultimology is an art project that has set out to interpret what the study ...

wmtc: labour day 2017: demand more

Sep

4

2017

CUPE Ontario’s striking new graphic urges us to be brave, to be bold, and to demand more. Those two words — demand more — deserve our attention. Every single law or regulation that protects us at work is a product of the labour movement. The right to days off. The right to a meal break. ...

wmtc: what i’m reading: the attention merchants by tim wu

Sep

2

2017

Everywhere we look, every available space is filled with advertising. The Toronto skyline is a sea corporate logos. The due-date receipt from my library book features an ad on the back. I once tracked all the ads shown during a major league baseball game — during play, not between innings — and the results were ...

Dead Wild Roses: Cold War Latin America, The ‘Gulag’ of the United States – John W. Dower

Aug

8

2017

The crimes humans commit against each other have numerous justifications and rationalizations, to most of us in North America, we hear more about the atrocities of our enemies, that we do of the ones we commit in our name. John Dower examines the Cold War period in history and concludes that our hands were just ...

wmtc: what i’m reading: city on fire

Aug

4

2017

I finished City on Fire, Garth Risk Hallberg’s astonishing debut novel, a few days ago, but stories from the book are still playing in mind. I initially didn’t want to commit to reading a 900-page tome, but as I savoured the last scene, I was sorry to put it down. City on Fire brings you to ...

PostArctica: Ellis D. Kropotechev and Zeus, This marvelous time-sharing system. 1967

Jul

24

2017

Stumbled on to this interesting little 16mm film made by a couple of Standford grad students in 1967. Some computer history and plenty of innuendo. Enjoy!

The Canadian Progressive: Can peaceful grassroots activism stop the white supremacist movement’s embrace of violence?

Jul

24

2017

The threat of white supremacist terrorism is a constant in U.S. history, writes Shane Burley, author of the forthcoming book, Fascism Today: What It Is and How We End It. The post Can peaceful grassroots activism stop the white supremacist movement’s embrace of violence? appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.

wmtc: why do we need to say black lives matter? a brief and partial history lesson

Jul

23

2017

The African American experience in Los Angeles County, California: a brief and selected timeline of sorts.* From 1940-1960, thousands of African Americans migrated from Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, and other southern states to California, hoping to find decent jobs, affordable housing, and equality of opportunity. California was not quite as welcoming as advertised. Housing was strictly ...

The Sir Robert Bond Papers: Heretics and Believers

Jul

11

2017

Peter Marshall’s Heretics and believers: a history of the English Reformation from Yale University Press (2017) arrived as a belated birthday present on Friday past. It’s proven to be well worth the wait. As the official blurb describes it, “Peter Marshall’s sweeping new history—the first major overview for general readers in a generation—argues that sixteenth-century England ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Roman Concrete

Jul

7

2017

I remember some about this story a few years ago. I don’t think the formula for the Roman mix was well understood at that time. Portland Cement doesn’t cut it. Glad they made this breakthrough, it should help build more durable structures.

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: A Look Back At Moose Jaw High Street

Jul

3

2017

This mural was destroyed by a fire.

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: STC Bus Shut Down By Callous SaskParty

May

31

2017

Today is a terrible day in Saskatchewan history. The Brad Wall government has ended public transportation to most Saskatchewan communities. There is tomorrow no bus service between Saskatoon and Regina, a sort of event you’d expect after a major natural disaster, not an incompetent government decision poised to directly harm thousands of people, and inconvenience ...

wmtc: what i’m reading: leaving lucy pear

May

26

2017

The year is 1917. A teenage girl from a wealthy family is pregnant, the result of rape — by a man who her mother pushed her to pursue for marriage. Now the girl is being forced to surrender her baby to an orphanage. She has met the person who runs the orphanage, and she cannot ...

Dead Wild Roses: Break the Social Contract – Break the State, and the People.

May

25

2017

This excerpt features Dr. Gus Abu-Sitta and Andre Vltchek discussing the Ecology of war and its effects on people living in war conditions. One of their digressions from the main topic was the idea that sanctions, and other Western initiatives are designed to denude the State of its non-coercive powers i.e utilities, education, and medical ...

centre of the universe: Acting Your Age

May

24

2017

Here’s the thing. We live in a society that values youth over experience, wisdom, ability and knowledge. I’m not sure why we do that, but children are more valuable to us than non-children, which also translates into vilifying people who opt not to breed. There’s a whole bunch going on in this statement, and I…

wmtc: arun gupta’s perfect takedown of food-as-cultural-appropriation

May

22

2017

I read this on Facebook and absolutely love it. The author, Arun Gupta, understands and acknowledges cultural appropriation as a fact and a legitimate concern (as do I). But he also believes the “reactionary left” spreading lists of ethnic restaurants run by white people …essentializes the notion of culture as rooted in the very soil ...

The Political Road Map: Politics in Cinema

May

4

2017

May the fourth be with you and May you enjoy this post and share it throughout the galaxy! To say that cinema has become a favorite past time of people is to greatly under appreciate its impact on our society and our lives. I always find it interesting how the political process is represented in ...

wmtc: what i’m reading: giovanni’s room by james baldwin

Apr

22

2017

James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, a landmark in LGBT literature, is one of our library’s current “Raves & Faves”. The 1956 novel takes place in Paris, narrated by a young American man who is trying to come to terms with his sexuality. In the past, this was said to be a “gay novel;” now it is ...

Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff: CBC Interviewed a Gunman?

Mar

28

2017

This is a wee bit outrageous. On March 21, 1977, Robert McLagan held 11 employees at Toronto’s Banque Canadienne Nationale hostage for nearly 12 hours. Frum and her producers were able to get McLagan, one of his hostages and a police officer on the line as the situation was unfolding — even giving CBC Radio listeners the chance to hear the beginning of a negotiation that ...

Dead Wild Roses: People Centred Human Rights – Malcolm X

Mar

14

2017

I consider this text a long form of the very basic radical assumption – the Masters’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s house’. That is, working within the bounds of any oppressive system, one can only do so much and the chance of affecting meaningful structural change approaches zero. The People Centred Human rights approach ...