Happy Earth Day
It’s the 48th Earth Day, and it’s the 20th anniversary of Mann’s hockey stick graph made famous in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. So we’ve known, for sure, that climate…
Marie Snyder
On Peterson, Political Correctness, and Postmodernism
Peterson was on Bill Maher last night. They’re both people that have some clever ideas, but also promote a few questionable notions in a way that’s slick enough to just…
On Progressive Education
I recently watched a film, Most Likely to Succeed, which has inspired a lengthy post about educational reform. FIRST, A BIT ON DEWEY AND SKINNER: (If educational theory isn’t your…
On Extra Time and IEP Designations
We administered the literacy test yesterday with one new twist that most teachers weren’t privy to until the previous evening: There would be no specific accommodations for students with IEPs…
On Masculinity
Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger: A History of the Present, wrote an interesting article in The Guardian last Saturday on the rise of a new idea of masculinity…
On the Necessity for a Public Takedown
When, a couple months back, I read Katie Way’s depiction of a date between “Grace” and Aziz Ansari, at first I felt badly for him to be outed as such…
On UW’s Mental Health Recommendations
After another suicide on the campus of the University of Waterloo, the university compiled 36 recommendations to try to alleviate the mental health crisis and held (and taped) a forum…
On Hari’s Lost Connections
“There’s violence to knowing the world isn’t what you thought. . . . Sometimes the world doesn’t make a lot of sense, but how we get through it is, we…
Swimming Lessons
“As for our bodies, there comes a time when no one wants to come near them.” ~ Mr. Perlman speaking one of the saddest line from the lovely film Call…
On Free Meds and Mental Health Care
Perfect timing. My son just finished telling me about his trip to our family doctor in which he tried but failed to get a form filled out that will enable…
On Conflict
We’re raised to understand conflict from the perspective of good guys and bad guys. But it’s rarely so clear. The battle for land and resources can be utterly nonsensical, particularly…
Monbiot’s Out of the Wreckage
The book cover says the book “provides the hope and clarity required to change the world.” Well, he certainly tries. He’s got a plan of action that’s possible, but I…
On School Holidays
If we can’t move or shorten the “winter break” because, let’s face it. we’re running on a Christian calendar with lengthy holidays around Christmas and Easter and no time off…
The Long Wait – A Bandaid for the Emergency Room Crisis
This is just an off-the-cuff comment, but enduring a long wait in a crowded, infection-ridden emergency room just once should be enough to spur people into action – or at…
Oxygen Depletion in the Oceans
This can’t be good: “The oxygen content of the open ocean and coastal waters has been declining for at least the past half-century, largely because of human activities that have…
War is a Terrible Back-Up Plan
Noam Chomsky is certain that the only two things we should be worried about right now are climate change and nuclear war. Adam Ellick and Jonah Kessel’s article in the…
On Fostering Illusions and the Qualitative Leap
What do you do when well-meaning people dear to you advise you to ignore your doctors? (And what if the doctors are wrong?) I generally rally against non-scientifically verifiable medical…
On Shame, Honour, and Vulnerability
I was forwarded this 47 minute podcast with Brené Brown on 1A, and some of the ideas she has are remarkably similar to Timothy Snyder’s views in On Tyranny (e.g.…
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
I finally got to this pocket-sized book, which is full of lessons passed down from my folks that I’ve been saying for decades, and many others that I’m hearing over…
Some Implications of Boycotting Art
And another thing… Here are two more issues I have with implication surrounding how we’re treating the sexual harassment and assault cases further to my concerns previously discussed and further…