Today’s Globe and Mail contains a letter to the editor from yours truly (second from the bottom) in response to an op-ed criticizing those who take offence at J.K. Rowling’s misguided views on trans people. I discuss one of my pet peeves in the current “free speech” wars — namely,
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Song of the Watermelon: Globe and Mail Letter
Today’s Globe and Mail contains a letter to the editor from yours truly (second from the bottom) in response to an op-ed criticizing those who take offence at J.K. Rowling’s misguided views on trans people. I discuss one of my pet peeves in the current “free speech” wars — namely,
Continue readingNorthern Currents: Two Conservative candidates have transphobic policies. Why is no-one talking about this?
Share this: In the wake of JK Rowling’s most recent twitter debacle in which she (again) spread transphobic slander, it is clear that transphobia is still a pervasive force in our society, and yes, in Canada too. While facing backlash from many in the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, Rowling
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Jonathan Watts reports on new research showing that even existing worst-case scenarios may underestimate the severity of the climate crisis. Anna Kanduth and Justin Leroux write about the need to start developing policy based on carbon stocks or budgets, rather than single-year flows
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Labour Day reading. – Hassan Yussuff discusses what’s at stake for Canadian workers in this fall’s election campaign. And Binyamin Applebaum and Damon Winter rightly point out that while one job can be difficult enough, there are added stresses where workers need to try to satisfy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Michal Rozworski examines the factors which have contributed to Canada’s ongoing housing crisis, including public austerity, consumer debt and undue speculation. Dan Fumano points out how homelessness is growing in Vancouver despite a few preliminary steps being taken to provide long-absent housing,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Trish Garner comments on the need to acknowledge the humanity of people living in poverty – which leads to the inescapable need to use readily-available resources to ensure a reasonable standard of living. And Arindrajit Dube studies the effect of an increased minimum
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Intolerance-inspired effort to defund Pride Toronto thwarted
The City of Toronto just thwarted an attempt by some right-wing councillors to force the city to pull its $260,000 grant to Pride Toronto, the non-profit organizer of the annual Toronto Pride festivals. The post Intolerance-inspired effort to defund Pride Toronto thwarted appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Responding to Orlando
Can we talk about that which cannot be named? On June 12 forty-nine people were massacred at a nightclub in Orlando. Alberta’s political leaders expressed their horror at the senseless slaughter. All but one of the politicians recognized that the … Continue reading →
ezra winton: Fighting Fascism by way of Understanding the Fascists
One of the common criticisms of advocacy films like Bully that I’ve heard and share is that the filmmakers narrowly focus on victims without ever exploring those who perpetrate. These films help along the equivocal knee-jerk reaction to oppression when we have a two-dimensional villain to point to: kids today! But why do kids bully and what are their lives like? Answering, or at least interrogating, these questions would move us in a direction to better understand the complexities of bullying and would likely elicit a more nuanced, thoughtful reaction…read more
Continue readingezra winton: Fighting Fascism by way of Understanding the Fascists
One of the common criticisms of advocacy films like Bully that I’ve heard and share is that the filmmakers narrowly focus on victims without ever exploring those who perpetrate. These films help along the equivocal knee-jerk reaction to oppression when we have a two-dimensional villain to point to: kids today!
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Three days left to support the Pride Tape kickstarter
1,083 backers have stepped up to donate $70.073 in support the Pride Tape kickstarter campaign since it was started in December 2015. Launched by the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta and supported by Ca…
Continue readingJoe Fantauzzi: A Brief Note On #Elxn42 And Moving Toward A New Left
This much is clear: with the NDP’s federal collapse last night, the neoliberal Third Way experiment can clearly be declared a failure. But now what? Now, to build ─ not rebuild on a broken foundation. But also this: pillory me as a post-structuralist if you must, but I’m not here for
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: These are the types of NDP candidates Thomas Mulcair stands behind…
These are the types of NDP candidates Thomas Mulcair stands behind… Intolerance Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie Alexandre Boulerice says the NDP is against the niqab! [VIDEO, en français!] Mégantic—L’Érable Jean-François Delisle says the NDP should reopen Constitution to deal with the niqab. FYI Jean-François Delisle has backed off his initial statement that
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: A timeline of Alberta’s Gay-Straight Alliance debate
TweetIt is sometimes amazing how quickly one political issue can transform and dominate the debate. This week’s raging debate about allowing Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in Alberta schools has twisted and turned so many times, it has become difficult to figure out who is in and out of the closet on this
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Ric McIver Stumbles…the PC Party Falls
“Closed-mindedness or intolerance have no place in the PC [party].” —The PC party’s response to Ric McIver’s participation in the March for Jesus led by anti-gay pastor Artur Pawlowski. Instead of belabouring Ric McIver’s pathetic too-little, too-late apology for participating in last Sunday’s March for Jesus (led by Pastor Pawlowski
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: God as Drag Queen, Big Gay Weddings, and Peeing on Stage for Poverty
God Is A Scottish Drag Queen II Where this God is concerned, nothing is sacred. Essentially an hour of stand-up performed by Mike Delamont in character as a Scottish incarnation of God in a floral power suit with a list of religion-related talking points, God Is A Scottish Drag Queen
Continue readingArt Threat: My Playwright Sister: a play about a play about a transgender sibling
My Playwright Sister, written and performed by James Diamond and Johanna Nutter, is a sequel of sorts to Nutter’s earlier work, My Pregnant Brother. My Pregnant Brother sets Nutter’s struggle to assert herself against her instinct to help her pregnant, transgendered brother. While this autobiographical piece is exquisitely well-performed, it
Continue readingArt Threat: A visceral, jarring work: A review of Children 404
“Children like me simply don’t exist for them.” With these ominous words, spoken over a crackling telephone connection, Children 404 draws to a close; its unsettling conclusion signaled by an image of the Russian landscape fading into obscurity, scrubbed out by a layer of broken cloud seen from above, through
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: It’s Time to Drag Redneck Alberta Out of the Closet
If a government wants to trample the rights of its citizens it can do so in two ways. It can violate our fundamental rights by passing legislation that invokes the “notwithstanding clause”—this allows the government to pass laws that expressly violate the fundamental rights guaranteed to us under the Charter
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