Unhate
This image has been pulled from Bennetton’s latest ad campaign after protests from the Vatican. It’s considered to be “disrespectful” of Herr Ratzinger. In two hundred years or even less,…
Dr.Dawg
Party animals
After the good Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton dissed Canada’s national animal, the beaver, as a “dentally defective rat” and extolled the virtues of the polar bear, readers may remember that…
#Occupy takedowns: capital lashes back
There are (at least) two sides in class warfare, and over the past few hours the servants of the “1%”—what we used to call the “ruling class”—have savagely retaliated against…
Harper’s Aboriginal enemies list
Don’t speak up for the rights of Aboriginal children in Canada, or you will pay the price. Just ask Cindy Blackstock. Blackstock, a University of Alberta academic and well-respected social…
The Tory Centipede
The allusion will be familiar to cinephiles: the rest of you will have to look it up. I thought I’d track a sample Conservative talking-point through the shared digestive system…
Resident evil at Penn State
I’ve been watching the unfolding of events at Pennsylvania State University out of the corner of my eye for a few days now. There’s something of the perfect moral storm…
More Speech Warriors™ unmasked
The far-right Free Dominion bunch has led the charge against human rights commissions, claiming that they represent a profound threat to freedom of speech. The FD crew has gone to…
We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence
The Harper government’s war on data continues. This time it’s permitting a large baby food company to make unproven claims to market and sell its products. Never mind new mothers,…
America 2, Amerika 0
Two clean hits down South this week: In Ohio, a legislative union-busting measure was overwhelmingly overturned by voters. And in Arizona, a Teabaggin’ racist was hoofed out of the Senate…
Charles Dickens and Service Canada
I make no comment: I but juxtapose. he Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion. Because…
#OccupyCanada
Never mind the bad press, snotty media commentators and opportunistic municipal politicians: Canadians are stubbornly refusing to abandon the #Occupy movement. It’s almost enjoyable to see how that brute fact…
Is criticizing Israel "anti-Semitic"?
I shall be watching the progress of this libel trial with considerable interest. For all sorts of reasons....
Hold the applause for Daniel Ortega
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega will undoubtedly win a third term in office next week. Despite gasps of horror on the Right, that’s nothing for any progressive to celebrate. Once upon…
Political opportunism in Vancouver
Gregor Robertson, the mayor of Vancouver, has found just the excuse he needs to put down the #Occupy movement in his town with violence. It’s a election year. The unfortunate…
Mark Bourrie and the curious silence of the Speech Warriors™
Deliciously ironic: Big City Lib is all over the story of Mark Bourrie, an Ottawa author who has written a book on censorship, and has now been effectively censored himself…
Harper’s apology to Aboriginals revisited
How does one measure the worth of Stephen Harper’s apology to Canada’s Aboriginal peoples for Canada’s shameful residential school episode? Genuine apologies are followed by positive attempts to undo or…
Crime and punishment
Harper’s bulging crime bill, it would seem, has more ugly wrinkles than a prune. It’s a bill so bizarrely retrograde that even conservative Texans think it’s over the top. Homicide…
Zucchinissimo!
Revealed as I peeled away the undergrowth in my little backyard patch. Note the ruler at midsection—this mutant zucchino is nearly a metre long. It was the only fruit the…
At least it wasn’t Jesus
Reminds me a bit of Shrek, actually....
Immigration follies
They beat their children for not submitting to the divine law. To death, if their God wills it. They make ordinary contraception a criminal offence. A woman’s place as defined…