Reflections on having a 40-year-old son
Some birthdays are more significant than others. Turning 12 is no big deal, but 13 is huge. Seventeen is just another year, but 18 is cause for legal celebration. Twenty-five…
1984
Creeping Fascism in Alberta
My headline today is a little misleading. There’s nothing “creeping” about the UCP government’s fascism – they’re practically steamrolling the province with it right now. However, in the last 24…
Covid-1984: The Worst Of Both Worlds
With covid-1984, which is a virus that is statistically as dangerous as the common flu, we have taken extreme, draconian, authoritarian measures. In short, we have dangerously and vastly over-reacted,…
Welcome To The Brave New World
Speaking of censorious scrupulosity…. While censorship is rising rapidly, with Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as the major media, controlling and restricting what people can see or read, say…
George Orwell Meets Rudy Giuliani
“Truth isn’t truth,” proclaims the increasingly zany and demented uncle known as Rudy Giuliani. Start at the 1:20 mark to take the full measure of the man, the man he…
Trumpland: 1984 or Brave New World?
It's fashionable to compare to Donald Trump to Big Brother in Orwell's 1984. And there are some disturbing similarities. President Trump on Friday moved to chisel away at the Obama…
A Very Timely Reminder
In 1984, the Enemy of the State was the elusive Emmanuel Goldstein, likely a contrived figure upon whom the masses could hurl their hatred, while Big Brother, the real enemy,…
Winston Smith – Alive And Well At The CBC?
You may recall the protagonist of Orwell’s 1984, the records clerk named Winston Smith whose job it was to continually rewrite history so that it accorded with the constantly-changing imperatives…
Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Nick Kristof writes that the growing gap in income reflects a similarly growing gap in social perception – and that there’s plenty of…
Big Brother’s power is building, warns George Orwell biographer
Mankind, like the proverbial lobster in the pot, is becoming conditioned to losing rights and freedoms at an alarming rate. ‘Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning. He felt that if…
Canada Doublespeak Watch: Kent, environmentalists & “money laundering”
By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive | Mar 7, 2013: The Harper Government is increasingly using doublespeak to stifle the democratic conversation on the issues of our time, including:…
Stephen Harper’s Canada is reminiscent of Orwell’s Nightmarish “1984″ World
By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Feb. 18, 2013: Allan Gregg, a prominent media commentator, chairperson of polling firm Harris/Decima, and strategist for the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney,…
Canadians to Conservative MP Kelly Block: We Disagree With Racism
by Obert Madondo (@Obiemad) In Canada we hardly confront racism by political figures. As a consequence, Prime Minister Stephen Harper‘s government and Conservative MPs are having a field day practicing…
Move along, nothing to see here
And certainly no reason for worry about this afterthought as the Cons decide which immigrants they’d like to throw out of Canada on their respective ears (or prevent from arriving):…
The Assault on Reason
Yesterday I wrote a post on the important role education plays in the development of critical thinking skills, skills that are crucial for anyone who aspires to being something more…
Orthodoxy is unconsciousness
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the…