There’s a new bully in town, and he’s not going after fat kids in the school cafeteria. He’s a corporate bully, and he’s gunning for you, his dissatisfied customer. An…
Baseball season was painfully short for Red Sox fans this year. When your team wins a grand total of 71 games it’s a chore to watch, and I gave up…
Revolutionary thought of the day: …if there is a reason for social movements to exist, it is not to accept dominant values as fixed and unchangeable but to offer other…
I’ve been thinking a lot about Kevin Vickers. By now the world knows Vickers’ name: he is the sergeant-at-arms of the Parliament of Canada, and his quick thinking and courage…
We woke up this morning in a country blessed by love, diversity and peace, and tomorrow we will do the same. These acts were driven by hatred, but also designed…
Continuing on the young-adult fiction theme, it’s been about six months since I blathered about my absolute favourite part of my job: teen book club. Our monthly gathering is still…
In June of this year, Slate ran a now-infamous piece called “Against YA,” in which Ruth Graham argued that adults shouldn’t read young-adult fiction, and should be embarrassed if they…
A U.S. war resister in Canada writes in this NOW Magazine. Very soon you will begin to hear about Canadian planes sending “humanitarian aid” of food and medical supplies to…
The War Resisters Support Campaign is facing an unprecedented crisis. Since war resister Kimberly Rivera was forced out of the country in September 2012, there had been no movement on…
In September my mother was here for her annual visit. I always plan some art or cultural attraction for us to take in. This time she was recovering from some…
When I blogged about him a few years back, he was called Kanellos, the Greek rebel dog. Somewhere along the way, English-language media dubbed him Riot Dog. He was also…
Today I feel so much better about living in Canada. Once again, we have a political party that says no to war. A political party that says no to letting…
Last year, I wrote about an excellent, unusual youth novel called There Is No Dog, by Meg Rosoff. I recently read the author’s 2004 debut novel, How I Live Now,…
We’re having a historic election here in Mississauga: it will be the first time in the city’s existence that Hazel McCallion is not running, the first mayor other than McCallion…
Unlike most people I know, I have little or no interest in my family’s genealogy. I know the general outlines of my family background – where some of my forebears…
The biggest surprise of the 2014 baseball postseason isn’t the absence of both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. It isn’t the Baltimore Orioles, making the postseason…
Dog, I am a glad this baseball season is over. And not only because the Red Sox finished in last place.
For those who want the question with no context: Do you love a cult show or movie? What movie and why? List at least 10 reasons. (I wish everyone would…
When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Canadians protested in huge numbers, adding their voices to the unprecedented global outcry against the “pre-emptive” war. It was that massive public support…
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to…
