Fighting Fanaticism
“Fanaticism is bred by hopelessness and despair. It is not the product of religion, although religion often becomes the sacral veneer for violence. The more desperate people become, the more…
Marie Snyder
Dear Orli
You wrote about the education system ruining your health because you started having panic attacks when you realized your future would be based on a set of criteria created by…
On So Much Anger
Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one’s…
Economics of Happiness
The 60 min. documentary, Economics of Happiness, is being offered free to watch online for the month of August. It’s a thoughtful look at how we could be living if…
One Neat Trick to Lose Weight Fast
I just lost 10 pounds without even trying!! So I was ready to give away some clothes to charity because it was time to resign myself to my middle-age body.…
On Teaching Philosophy to Children
There are several articles and discussions being reported about teaching philosophy to children. They largely focus on the question should we, why, and how? Britain has a program, Philosophy for…
On Marriage and Divorce and Trolls and Haters
I moderate my comments because I once got 67 comments about carpet cleaning on one post. I rarely get comments at all, so I hate to block any I do…
On Rape on Campus
Since I saw Into the Wild and started reading Krakauer, I haven’t stopped. But this last one took a while to open. It’s about rape on college campuses, specifically in…
Peace or Apathy
I found this piece on Medium, yet another on-line time suck! You can’t read it without joining, so I copied and pasted the bits I like below. This piece says…
Supporting Bare Boobs
It’s not about this: the Braza Bra It’s about arguing in favour of a woman’s right to take off her shirt. How stupid, right? I mean, it’s stupid that we…
Child Poverty Worse than During the Depression
The article is about the states, but Canada isn’t far behind. Children growing up in poor households are likely to lag in their brain development and thereby perform poorly in…
Harpoon 2015
If you haven’t seen it yet, this is a great site full of all the reasons we need to vote Harper out of office. It’s got categories such as democracy,…
Finnish Schools: What Do They Have That We Don’t Have?
Everyone’s a buzz about schools in Finland being awesome, so I read a book and some articles and their curriculum documents to figure out what’s so special. In a nutshell,…
On Guilt and Responsibility
I grew up in a family with a strong work ethic. You couldn’t read the comics until you finished the world news first. Sitting to do anything other than read…
Hedges on Education
Yesterday Hedges wrote on a profound relationship he had with a teacher who passed in December, and he had much of value to say about education: Education is not only…
The Smell of Your Moral Judgment
“If you’re going to tell people the truth, make it funny or people will kill you.” – Billy Wilder I just watched a series of videos (65 minutes if you…
On ASD and Labels and Being Weird
I wrote about this two years ago, and coming across this site on autism stories inspired me to revisit why labels can sometimes be helpful. Sort of. Here’s the relevant…
On the Courage to Care
It’s snowing in Australia and Alaska is on fire, but what really worries me is some police overstepping the bounds of their authority. Just on my facebook feed today, they’ve…
In the Realm of Terrifying
CBC has a brief (7 min.) podcast up about the rise in anxiety in the population being reported by psychologists over the past couple of years due to climate change.…
On Thigh Gap
My daughter is worried about it. She just turned 11. She’s been sick from the heat a couple times because she wears jeans everywhere. It’s a problem. I told a…