Stuff I Learned This Week, no.2: Winter Olympics edition
Enjoying the Winter Olympics, or, to give it its due, the Games of the XXIII Winter Olympics? I’m not. Well, not much. Always happy when a Canadian snags a medal,…
February 2018
On Political Prostitution
As the spectacle of political prostitution plays out in the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race (Carbon tax? Absolutely not!) (New efficiencies – not new taxes!) Star letter writer Norah Downey…
It was my party, and I’ll destroy it if I want to
I fixed today’s Toronto Sun cover. #onpoli pic.twitter.com/UEEPhbGhCh — Lisa Kinsella (@lisakinsella) February 18, 2018
Panel discussion at federal NDP policy convention
Yesterday I spoke on a panel discussion on economic inequality, along with Andrew Jackson and Armine Yalnizyan. We were guests at the federal NDP’s policy convention in Ottawa. The panel…
Pipeline Politcs
Pipeline Politics have haunted this country since the end of the Second World War. Robin Sears reviews the history: Every major pipeline we have built in Canada since the Second…
Is This New Tar Sands Technology a Game Changer for Exporting Canada’s Bitumen?
A new technology has the potential to transform the transportation of tars sands oil. Right now, the already thick and slow-flowing oil, known as bitumen, has to be diluted with…
Why Donald Trump Can No Longer Fire Robert Mueller
Donald Trump can rant and rave about Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian trollsHe can claim the indictments shows there was no collusion.He can try to discredit the FBI. As…
The Parkland Massacre and the Revolt of the Young
Most school massacres in the United States follow a depressing and predictable pattern.First there is the horror and the shock. Then there are tears and teddy bears, and candles, and…
A tag day for journalism.
It should be admitted up front that this writer is a news junky. With a career in public relations and politics, I believe in the independence of CBC/Radio Canada and…
The Tyranny of the Click
A new study has found that overwhelming majority of Canadians believe in the critical role of journalism to democracy, and support more policies to defend the industry. “Financial pressures have…
Organizing the lumpenproletariat: Cliques and communists in Berlin during the Weimar Republic – Eve Rosenhaft (repost)
During the Weimar Republic, popular anxieties about the state of society became focused on a field of problems in which youth, political radicalism and a general brutalisation of social and…
Meanwhile, Less Than an Hour Drive from the Bloodstained Halls of a Parkland High School..
What would Presidents’ Day Weekend be without a three-day gunshow? Wall to wall “black guns,” assault rifles, AR-15s the weapon of choice for every school massacre. Instruments of mass carnage…
Yet MORE Far-Right "Patriot" Infighting: Sandra Solomon, Ryan Dean, and Sons of Odin
It has been a while since ARC has spoken about Sandra Solomon, or whatever name she's going with now on her multiple Facebook profiles. She was at an event in…
Canada Is Replacing Coal With Natural Gas — And That’s A Huge Problem
On Friday, the federal government released its long-awaited draft regulations for the phase-out of coal-fired power in Canada. It was a huge move — the first step to fulfilling a…
Feb. 17: How we miss the news we need to know.
http://theantimedia.org/playboy-model-details-9-month-affair-with-trump/ So Trump had a long affair with a model. Lucky him. And his wife doesn’t like to hold hands with him. But what does this have to do with…
Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Edsall discusses the difficulties in trying to address wealth inequality through a money-infused electoral system: Five years ago, for example, Adam Bonica,…
Want to See How Easy It Is for Russia (or Anyone) to Manipulate Ordinary People?
And Trump has denied this, denounced it as a “hoax,” for so long that experts say it’s already too late to take meaningful action to safeguard American democracy in this…
This Australian Paper May Have the Answer to America’s Gun Problem
I read the headline, “American gun obsession is based on a historical misunderstanding,” and I thought to myself, okay, here we go again. Arguments along this line are not uncommon.…
The revolution you ask for
When I was in high school studying European history we studied revolutions and explored the age-old hypotheses of whether they are brought on by rising or declining expectations. Did people…
Are Things Not As Bad As We Think?
This morning, The Guardian has published an excerpt from Steven Pinker’s latest book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Pinker is not an eternal optimist. But…