Many wisdom traditions encourage a path or process orientation rather than a destination or product orientation to living well. Happiness makes for a poor goal. It’s not particularly well-defined. What…
In The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst, I juxtaposed Hayhurst‘s pro baseball journey – which he recounts in his first book,…
In The Bullpen Gospels, author and former professional baseball player, Dirk Hayhurst, takes readers through his lived experience in the cut-throat world of professional baseball. As I read Hayhurst’s story,…
Heavily rumoured all weekend has been an impending trade between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets. In their most recent permutations, rumours have the deal going as…
What is the relationship between mind and matter? Materialism holds that the mental is a product of the physical – the mind is what the brain does. By contrast, dualist…
There are a lot of important moral/political/pragmatic issues. Far too many for one person to even be aware of, let alone be informed on and/or personally active in addressing. I…
Please indulge a bit of educated speculation. Throughout President Obama’s first term many economists have predicted another major economic crisis as big or bigger than 2008 in the not-too-distant future.…
Well hello, there! Have you been waiting long? No? Good. Please, do come inside. (Pro-Tip: Given that this is the blog of a Canadian, social etiquette dictates that you remove…
Death By Trolley gets its name from The Trolley Problem, a philosophical thought experiment within the domain of morality and ethics. There are multiple formulations of The Trolley Problem. One…
I don’t want wealthy, well-connected individuals, corporations and lobbies buying politicians; A large and secure middle class is vital to a democracy; vast wealth inequality creates vast political inequality and…
What is Blog-Bombing? The term is inspired by the concept of Tweet-Bombing, in which many Tweeters engage en masse in tweeting a particular message in order to fill the Tweetosphere…
I recently had the privilege of reading the book and watching the movie, Moneyball. As a stat-headed baseball nerd, I thoroughly enjoyed both. For those unfamiliar with Moneyball, it is…
A non-Buddhist skeptical atheist with background in psychology, scientific research, healthcare and mindfulness meditation shows how many of the central tenets and practices of Buddhism can appeal to other skeptics.
Work on getting past addictions by setting effective, personally-valued goals, exercising discipline but tolerating lapses, accessing support, finding substitutions, distractions and adaptive strategies, and cultivating mindfulness and insight into emotions…
A main focus of this blog is to consider and compare different political and ethical philosophies so as to promote better understanding of one’s own worldview and those of others.…
Are social/political activists at elevated risk for certain mental health conditions and social problems?
This appears to be the premise of an unduly dismissive commenter. For your enjoyment, here is what he/she had to say: Hi Ron, I hope you will forgive me for…
Theologically speaking, where do Jews and Conservative Christians get their values?
Skeptic North, a well-written Canadian team blog advocating for science, skepticism and rationalism, has been a great source of information on the ongoing scientific, intellectual and moral train-wreck that is…
Over the past few weeks I have posted several articles critical of Barack Obama and his clear-cut progressive fakery. For a brief run-through of some of the things that Obama…
