The religious far right is growing and getting more powerful and unnerving, and we know the fights happening in schools board meetings. This 25 min. BBC video from earlier this year is instructive. It’s telling that Patriot Mobile put millions of dollars behind school board elections, taking over politics from the
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A Puff of Absurdity: The Role of Public Health under Neoliberalism
The air quality is bad again today, but public health hasn’t issued any warnings, and it’s not on the Weather Network website. A few people were commenting on their eyes burning and asthma being triggered. Sure enough, the air particulate numbers are up. So, it looks like we’re on our
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Canadian Politics on Twitter
It’s been weird over in twitterland regarding Canadian politics as of late. The amount of furor and nasty partisan attacks going both ways seem to have intensified – people are doubling and tripling down on their hills to die on. I’m not sure as to exactly why, but here’s an
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Changing the Atmosphere
A.R. Moxon wrote about an interaction with an old friend, he calls Stove Minivan, who became a MAGA guy. At first Moxon tried to explain reality to him, but soon became frustrated: “Minivan was not somebody whose intentions could be trusted. He was not operating in good faith, and I believe
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Charter’s not a Buffet
Trudeau spoke to parents concerned with their right to decide what their children are taught in schools. The group of Muslim parents were very worried about the “gender ideology” being forced on their children. The reporter called his answer evasive. Listen for yourself; here’s what he said in full, “I’ve heard
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: What Do We Tell the Kids?
A couple weeks ago, Obama, interviewed by Hasan Minaj, explained his thoughts on climate change (at 5:37 and 10:25, and 15:29): “If you’re not stressed about climate change at a time when we’re seeing record forest fires and haze floating right here in DC coming from the north and flooding
Continue readingThings Are Good: Snowflakes Important to Political Organizing
vote You’re likely thinking “oh no, not another political thing about snowflakes”, but I assure you this one is different. These snowflakes are conceptual and not the stereotype of a right winger getting mad because they saw a beer commercial. When it comes to organizing people to get a political
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Harper’s Handshake
Recently former prime minister Stephen Harper tweeted about the “importance of centre-right parties strengthening their collaboration” The tweet was accompanied by a photo of Harper shaking hands with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, The “centre-right” party Harper was referring to was Orbán’s Fidesz. Think about that for a moment.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Emperor’s New Clothes 2.0
Paul Krugman wrote about how someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becomes such “a crank”: “One sad but true fact of life is that most of the time conventional wisdom and expert opinion are right; yet there can be big personal and social payoffs to finding the places where they’re
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Could This Be You?
So, you’re at the grocery store on Saturday morning, in the check-out line, and perusing the gossipy mags and debating a chocolate bar, and the air you exhale is quietly raining down on a little boy standing in line a foot in front of you. But you’re fine, so what’s
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Counterpunch Unhinged – The TQ+ Voice You Need Hear
Did you want to see an article that uses almost every activist Left trope? Well of course you don’t, it’s an unpleasant venture no matter how you happen to slice it. Yet here we are, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Any article that bears the nom de plume “Nicky
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Difficulty of Knowing
The main character from Camus’ The Plague, a medical doctor spending his days and nights helping the sick, said, “A man can’t cure and know at the same time. So let’s cure as quickly as we can. That’s the more urgent job.” This hit me as particularly poignant as we’re
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Google on C-18
It’s a bill, not a virus. The gist of it is that it requires American tech companies to pay Canadian news organizations for content that appears on their platforms. The hope is that the law will help Canadian news agencies. But Google and Meta responded that they’re just going to block
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Trans “Existence” – The Motte & Bailey Tactic Illustrated.
Know it when you see it. “A very common (and newly-named) informal rhetorical trick I’ve been observing, both online and in real life, is this one right here. The motte-and-bailey fallacy (also known as the ‘motte-and-bailey doctrine’). Although it is often found in arguments made by supporters of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Teaching in the Face of a Bleak Future
I can’t imagine teaching right now. This post is a mishmash of thought around teaching at such a momentous time in history. Well, momentous for us. I’ve only been retired a year, but the world has gotten so much worse in that time with climate change hitting some serious tipping
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We’re Back to Rhetoric of Welfare Cheaters
An old one, but the agenda still fits! According to Queen’s Park reporter Jack Hauen, on Monday Premier Ford said: “What drives me crazy, is people on Ontario Works–probably 3,400,000–that are healthy. . . . It really bothers me that we have healthy people sitting at home collecting your hard-earned
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Symbols of Class
The Titan submersible hasn’t been found yet, and the supply of oxygen is gone. Some think they perished days ago from pressure or another type of malfunction, all horrific to think about. That likely won’t stop anyone from looking for the vessel in order to recover the bodies. It’s my
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s Hard to Emigrate to New Zealand. I Checked
This one minute video is the type of thing the government of New Zealand posts: a virologist explaining that every Covid infection significantly increases the risk of getting diabetes, mental health issues, blood clots, breathlessness, chronic fatigue… so we need to do everything possible to protect ourselves. Yup, Covid will
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