What is a manIf his chief good and market of his timeBe but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.– Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4. Some of the greatest foes of ignorance are knowledge, awareness and critical thinking. Key tools in the cultivation of our humanity, without them we
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Eclectic Lip: How Trinity Western University (unintentionally) promotes divorce
Trinity Western University has been in the news recently, as law societies in Ontario and Nova Scotia voted to not recognize lawyers trained at the religious university’s soon-to-open law school. These two law societies – like your blogger and the vast majority of Canadians – recoiled in horror at the
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Paging Dr. Freud…
Logged on to desktop-Facebook recently. Was greeted by these ads. They were… disturbing. I don’t even want to know what photos they used for the female or gay audience! Perhaps this is some sort of bizarre homage to Renaissance painter Guiseppe Arcimbolo, colloquially known as “that crazy artist who painted
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The Black Swan’s Thanksgiving Turkey
(originally written Nov 24, 2011. Part of Great Upload of 2013.) It came to my attention that Naseem Nicholas Taleb, who authored The Black Swan (surprisingly, not about a ballet dancer, but about financial crises) discussed other avians in his book, among them the Thanksgiving turkey. Per the Wikipedia page,
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Sniffs from a Schiff…
(Originally written March 7, 2012. Part of Great Upload of 2013.) A colleague once showed me a book by Peter Schiff, in which the author and investment-house CEO purported to explain how the US got into the muddle they’re in. Like so many textbooks I left it unread, but according
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, 2012 (via GreenCarReports)
My new adventures as a Canadian correspondent for GreenCarReports.com begin with this post. Readers are encouraged to show them some love. 🙂 My ongoing efforts to track Canadian EV sales figures (and those of a few other countries) remain visible here.
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Homer (not Simpson) and the Kaopectate Kid
The doctor diagnosed young son Leo recently with the stomach flu — which is colloquial shorthand for a condition which isn’t the flu, per se. (The most recent editor of the relevant article on the almighty Wiki agrees!) The Kaopectate Kid Our medical professional then suggested we give Leo some
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Lana Wachowski, Joe Simpson and our evolving social mores
The recent release of Cloud Atlas, piqued my interest in writing some thoughts about sexual identity. As has been fairly well publicized leading to the movie’s opening, Lana Wachowski (born Larry) underwent a gender transition (“sex change”) a few years ago; and from all accounts, seems the happier for it. The
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