The Municipal Voting Debacle
On voting day, Oct. 24, Collingwood’s online voting system suffered serious problems that prevented residents from voting. This happened not once, but twice in the same day. Voting had been…
communication
Heritage District Rules Need Repair
A November story in CollingwoodToday about a new homeowner who got caught in the quagmire of our heritage district rules underscores the need for a thorough overhaul of the rules,…
Video Calls: Communication In A Hyper-Connected & Deeply Dissociated Society
Thoughtful commentators to the Smithsonian and BBC recently “recommended limiting video calls to only those that are necessary. Petriglieri adds that positioning the video screen to your side may make…
Rules For Good Communication – Both In Writing, and Verbally, and In The Arts (Along with core points on the philosophy of language, knowledge, perception, consciousness, ontology and epistemology, and the nature of being and reality – and lessons on how not to be long-winded!)
Here are a few thoughts on writing and verbal communication, and all forms of communication. As an author, writer, reader, lover of books, and philosopher, I believe I have some…
We can do that ourselves, thank you.
This ongoing concern for foreign countries interfering with our federal election is more of a joke than a threat. It is not that it could not happen, but why bother?…
Can We, Should We, Will We Live Forever Online
When typing for this blog I have often wished I could just think my thoughts at the computer and have them type out on the screen. This, no doubt, has…
Lies, hyperbole and alt truths.
What has happened to politics? And what has happened to the decency that it used to have? We all know that U.S. president Donald Trump creates his own truths but…
Trump can: You can’t.
Social media are a trap just waiting for the unwary politician. While I have tested some of the major social media apps, I try to stay away from them like…
Pushing mediocrity to prove what?
If I learned one thing as a political organizer of many years, it is that you never leave the smallest detail to chance. The same rule applied in business when…
“You don’t say, Mr. Spicer!”
On the wall above our computer is an old framed black and white Frank & Ernest cartoon with four characters in the wigs and knee-britches of the colonial period. One…
3 Things I’ve Learned as a Law Clerk
BY RACHEL SPENCE, LAW CLERK Upon entering the legal field I was excited and eager to see if I had what it took to keep up in the real world,…
Email, Productivity, And How You Feel
Dealing with an endless stream of emails is challenge in any office environment – even just socially it can be rather taxing. The solution to email always seems to be…
GMOs and politicians: how do we know what is true or not?
I had a really good facebook conversation yesterday, in a public page about politics. The topic was one GMOs and I was taking a position that would have been inconceivable…
Propaganda?
Last term, when council sent out community newsletters to keep residents informed, the illiterati screamed these were ‘propaganda’ and a waste of tax dollars.* Now this council has done the…
The Candidate: That pre-writ lit.
Part 2 of our series for Canada’s federal candidates. There are many arguments about the literature required by candidates in the pre-writ period (the time between being chosen as the…
Emotional Intelligence? Can you tell the expression just by their eyes? QUIZ!
It is remarkable how humans can understand emotions. Many of you know that the way to tell a person’s emotions is within their eyes. Forget the smile on their face-
The Decline in Media Credibility and Profitability
Last August the Pew research Center released the results of its latest study on how much the American public trusts the media. This has been part of an ongoing study…
But is it news?
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford seems to get more than his fair share of headlines these days, most of them negative. The stories that follow are full of allegation, innuendo and…
Why Justin Trudeau can not ‘stay positive’
In the world of politics the fight can really only stay as clean as your dirtiest player and the Conservative Party of Canada could not be a dirtier player. They…
Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender
Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender This weekend I had the privilege of participating in a conference on Disability and Ableism at Ryerson University. Let me just say first…