After a protracted battle over the issue of whether so called ‘gay-straight clubs’ must be allowed in Catholic schools, many LGBT allies thought a legitimate victory had been attained when Queen’s Park ruled that such groups must be tolerated. Delaying far past the required deadline, an associated Catholic think-tank has
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Canadian Progressive World: New Julian Assange TV Series: The World Tomorrow
Julian Assange will be hosting a series of in-depth conversations with key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world. The theme: the world tomorrow. Upheavals and revolutions in the Middle East have commenced …Read More
Continue readingExponential Book: Education disadvantage
If a cash-strapped province or state had to make painful cuts to public services, the immediately noticeable effect would be the outright elimination of some of them. One would not think of, say, laying off a fraction of all bus drivers and asking the remaining ones to work longer hours,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: On American Societiy – George Carlin
Like the present John Stewart, George Carlin because he was not in power could make the radically anti-establishment pronouncements he so often did with minimal consequences. He was a comedian after all and no one listens to comedians… More people need to listen and act on the ideas of our
Continue readingExponential Book: Double whammy
We all understand that, sometimes, financial hardship is simply a fact of life. And I do believe that most of us are willing to endure painful sacrifices, in the pursuit of a common good. What exasperates people, is the perception of a general lack of vision, of a concrete, well
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Civil Unions vs Full Marriage Equality
Civil unions, as opposed to gay marriage, are often advocated for by the moderate right, and sometimes as a pragmatic solution on the left. The main idea is that civil unions provide a more reasonable approach that lets gay people enjoy the benefits of something close to marriage without upsetting those who do
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: My Canada Does Not Include Militarizing Canada Day
I have a great deal of respect for Canadian Forces personnel. I have generally disagreed with virtually every one of their foreign deployments in my lifetime, but that is a criticism I make of our political leaders who order our forces to go here and there. I support our troops
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Day Three of Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons January 6-8, 2012 Vancouver/Burnaby All panelist biographies are here. Below are some lessons learned and observations from the sessions. Friday: The opening panel is recorded in the Twitter storify here. Saturday: My notes are here. Sunday: Opening Panel Radical Squares: Reflections on
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Day Two of Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons January 6-8, 2012 Vancouver/Burnaby All panelist biographies are here: Below are some lessons learned and observations from the sessions. Friday: The opening panel is recorded in the Twitter storify here. Saturday: Opening Panel A Global Tradition: History of the Commons Silvia Federici
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Opening Panel from the Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
This weekend I attended Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons community gathering in Vancouver and Burnaby, sponsored by these groups and people. The basic premise is not so much that capitalism is broken, and we just need to fix it, but that neoliberal market fundamentalism is inherently broken
Continue readingRandom Ranting Raving and Ratings: The Myth of the Greedy Union Thug
I can’t help but notice how Stephen Harper and his Members of Parliament have been running rough shot over unionized workers lately. There have been several instances of the Federal Government abusing its powers to interfere with collective bargaining. In the case of Canada Post,… ..
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Book Review: Suffled How it Gush: A North American Anarchist in the Balkans
“I think Hannah Arendt did say somewhere in The Origins of Totalitarianism that the thesis of the modern state is: ‘Everyone should die.’” –Suffled How it Gush (pg. 74) I have joked with my partner that I have a certain amount of angst regarding my future as any sort of
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy #Attawapiskat, Phase Two
Clearly, the people living in Attawapiskat are existing in a crisis that represents Canada’s dysfunctional relationship with the first peoples. How can we truly “fix” Attawapiskat? By fixing the underlying broken relationship. Occupying #Attawapiskat in Twitter two weeks ago was a great start to engaging in serious improvements. Phase two
Continue readingExponential Book: Customers
Imagine the following, hypothetical situation: the owner of a small high-tech company needs all of his employees retrained, in view of the adoption of a new, company-wide software system. He decides to send a few of them to a week-long course with a private firm, specialized in offering short courses
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Culture Wars: The Harper Government’s ridiculous ban on the Burqa during the citizenship ceremony
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has just announced plan to ban the use of the burqa or niqab for new Canadians during the Oath of Citizenship. I was very disappointed not just with the decision, but with how the decision was made and the various justifications used to defend it. Let
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Transforming regional representation in democracy
First Past the Post Ballot For reasons purely of pragmatism, our democracies are actually representative democracies where we elect a relatively tiny portion of our population as leaders to represent us in government. In principle, there might be many different ways to go about choosing where these representatives come from
Continue readingTrashy's World: Lots of chest puffing these days…
…about something that is really rather trivial considering all else that is going down in the world right now – e.g. world economy in the crapper, homelessness, climate change… that sort of stuff. This particular “something” comes up every year around this time. A school bans a Christmas play, taxi
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Sisterwives reframes the polygamy debate
It is always easier to dispel some characterization when it is given absolutely; not just as a generalization, not just as something that exists for some people, but as something that is always true. In this case, one merely needs to find a single counterexample to disprove the claim. Polygamy is one of those subjects
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