What Albertans Can Learn From Barack Obama
To paraphrase that old E.F. Hutton commercial, when Barack Obama talks, people listen. Last week Obama spoke at the University of Illinois. He broke with the tradition of ex-presidents stepping…
Education
France Has The Right Idea
I am a member of an increasingly endangered and probably peculiarly-regarded minority. I do not have a smartphone. While I am an avid user of the Internet via my laptop…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Melissa Benn discusses how private schools entrench a class divide within a generation – and argues that they should be eliminated in favour…
Success with Succession (Part Four)
The New Brunswick election currently underway has methinking about voting. And while voting might seem like oneof those things that has nothing to do with monarchy, you’dbe wrong. Many monarchies…
My new initiative
Today I announced my candidacy in the District of North Vancouver for election to SD44. The website normfarrell.ca provides details. Thanks to the many people who’ve already expressed support.
A BC family’s 15-year struggle for justice
Despite the Moore case, the parent was forced to move their their son to a private school offering specialized instruction and supervision. The family is financially crippled by the $2,400…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Matt Bruenig points out that public ownership of businesses produces a number of beneficial incidental effects, including by ensuring that knowledge and…
Relevant poetry
I was standing in a bookstore in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back, and opened The Essential Ginsberg, a collection of poems, songs and other writing by the late…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Don Reisinger reports on Capgemini’s latest research into the continued concentration of wealth at the extreme top end. And James Galbraith comments on…
The Fight Against Neoliberal Fascism is Anchored in Memory
Fascism today doesn’t look exactly as it did when it spread through Germany and Italy in the 30s but the foundational elements are alive and well around the world today,…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ann Pettifor discusses the trend toward financialization which has led to regular economic disasters – and suggests the public is well aware it’s…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Matthew Yglesias examines the direct effects of social programs, and finds there’s every reason to invest more in them: Mercury emissions (mostly…
The Attack on Gay-Straight Alliances Continues
Last week the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) brought a court application challenging the constitutionality of changes to the School Act which are intended to support the establishment of…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Amy Remeikis reports on new research showing how educational inequality translates into an even wider economic gap. – Hannah Johnston and Chris…
Ten proposals from the 2018 Alberta Alternative Budget
The 2018 Alberta Alternative Budget (AAB) was released yesterday—it can be downloaded here. An opinion piece I wrote about the AAB appeared yesterday in both the Calgary Herald and the…
“Defend Lives, Reform Laws.”
We need artists, geniuses, radicals and random brilliance to disarm society and its pathologies. Normal doesn’t work anymore. “Some of the negative comments claim what we did was insensitive, but…
Amarillo Police Shoot the “Good Guy With A Gun”
This is pretty much how you could imagine things would go wrong if you were caught disarming a crazed gunman before or as police arrive on the scene. Garces and…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Rick Smith writes about the Filthy Five loopholes taking the most money out of Canada’s public coffers for the least benefit to anybody…
Panel discussion at federal NDP policy convention
Yesterday I spoke on a panel discussion on economic inequality, along with Andrew Jackson and Armine Yalnizyan. We were guests at the federal NDP’s policy convention in Ottawa. The panel…
New column day
Here, expanding on this post as to how the promises which won Scott Moe the Saskatchewan Party’s leadership will leave him with some difficult decisions to make in a hurry.…