I’ve started contributing to 3 Quarks Daily once each month. Here’s my first: Tossing the Canon in a Cannon – about choosing philosophers to read that aren’t posthumously tainted by racist, sexist, or homophobic commons mixed in with more useful arguments.
Continue readingTag: Prejudice
A Puff of Absurdity: Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist
Nearing the end of my two-week long prep period at the END of a year that slayed me with back-to-back senior courses, and I’m finally getting caught up on my reading! Just on Friday, Vancouver police were looking for a 40-year-old suspect, and arrested an 81-year-old Black man who happened
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Simple Life Lesson
It is often said that with age comes wisdom. While that may be true in some instances, perhaps it is more accurate to say that with age comes context. Within the frame of years lived is a wide canvas, one that often provokes, at least on my part, more bemusement
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Critical Race Theory
Conservative British MP, Kemi Badenoch, insisted that Critical Race Theory is somehow illegal, so I’m just going to save this rebuttal here: This is a Twitter thread from Kojo Koram – @KojoKoram – professor of law Birkbeck: “A thread on the new bogeyman of “critical race theory”: Kemi Badenoch. Watching
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Learning History
I made a little history quiz, just for fun, for people to see how much they know about Canada’s history of horrific treatment of Indigenous Peoples as well as our history of slavery and internment camps. I mixed in facts about America at many points just to give people context. Because
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: But Thinking is So Much Work!
Misinformation and misunderstanding and misreporting are going to be the death of us. From news sources reporting who was in the plane with Kobe Bryant before details were released to the families to an old article about Ebola resurfacing as if it’s about Coronovirus, it’s now up to Joe Public
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Sinatra’s birthday today: We remember when “Old Blue Eyes” was red
December 12, 2019 1:19 PM CST BY GERALD MEYER Frank Sinatra | AP This article first appeared in Science and Society in the Fall of 2002 and was run later in Political Read more…
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Paul Gorski on Education and Inequity
For the first time in 28 years of teaching, I approve of the new guru being brought to the masses from on high. Immediately, from just the first few seconds of the video we were compelled to watch for some force-fed professional development, I knew this guy was different. The sound was
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Bigotry and Violence in K-W
I stayed in the small town I was born in, and it got big around me. Like parents of young kids, who fall into the trap of continuing to see them as they were so many years ago, I still think of K-W as a really safe, little city. But
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Covington Catholic School Incident
The best part of this issue, if there can be a good part, where a bunch of high school boys surrounded Nathan Phillips to get a little kick from exercising their power over another human being, is that they’re being skewered on social media. Their action has precedence. It’s easy
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Things We Would Like To Forget
One of the benefits of receiving the print edition of the Toronto Star seven days a week is the Sunday edition. While not necessarily replete with news, the Sunday paper frequently embraces the opportunity to explore issues in depth. Today, Mitch Potter looks at an aspect of Canada’s bigoted past,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Arguing Facts
It never ceases to amaze me how often I’ll be writing or thinking about something, and then the perfect articles drop in my lap. It might help that I’ve been scrolling through social media endlessly on my days off! In my prior post, I discussed the need for teachers to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Can We Turn This Corner?
September is always a busy month for me, and typically I don’t get the luxury of reading the new significantly, but this time was different. It’s been a car crash that I just can’t stop looking at. When the Charter was first developed in Canada, largely a spin off of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Manne’s "Down Girl"
With thorough argumentation and heavily footnoted facts brought to the table, Down Girl, by Kate Manne delineates misogyny from sexism and hopes “to offer a useful toolkit for asking, answering, and debating” (13) issues centred around misogyny. Right off the bat, let’s clarify that it’s not remotely a man-hating thesis.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Bit More on Free Speech
You’re free to say the earth is flat and say it all day long on a wide variety of media platforms, and even write a book about it if you’ve got the time. You might not get much notice, but, if you persist, then some people will likely try to
Continue readingA. Picazo: Confronting prejudice and changing minds
For Maclean’s on August 31, 2017 One year ago on C-SPAN, Heather McGhee—an African-American woman and the president of Demos, an equality-focused public policy organization—was the featured guest of a call-in program in Washington. Half an hour into the broadcast, a caller introduced himself as Garry from North Carolina, and made a
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Fascist Movements and Free Speech
Some people are upset because Ryerson cancelled a panel discussion featuring Faith Goldy, of Rebel Media, who openly expresses the belief that Muslims are a problem in our country. A Ryerson spokesperson said, “After a thorough security review, the University has concluded that Ryerson is not equipped to provide the
Continue readingAgainst the Grain: Vocabulary’s got nothin’ to do with it
Content Notice: Victim blaming, trans-antagonism, reclamation of t-word slur Perhaps it was good fortune that I caught a bug and started drowning in my lungs. I recognized earlier this week that I was very tense from working back-to-back for such a protracted period of time and even though I earmarked
Continue readingLeft Over: Teach All the Children Well…..
http://www.vintag.es/2015/12/children-with-dolls-15-vintage-photos.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-pics+%28vintage+everyday%29 There is a blog that I go to eagerly, one of few words but many images…the link is above.. This blog is one I visit on a daily basis and I have provided a link to today’s offering..it is … Continue reading →
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Being an Ally
I’m not sure how to say this without being blasted, but I’ll try: I might understand a little piece affecting Rachal Dolezal decision to present as black rather than be a white ally. I just have one story. It was about ten years ago. I had just finished reading The
Continue reading