April, the cruellest month
April, wrote T.S. Eliot in his remarkable poem, The Waste Land, is the “cruellest month.”* And not merely because of the inclement and unsettling weather that seems to mix winter…
history
Peter Kent Didn’t Age Well
Kent looks the same… but his mind has left him. Amazing CBC coverage of climate change from the early 1980s. Bob McDonald, Peter Kent, and others make appearances: Attention Washington:…
Culloden and the Family Tree, 267 Years Later
It doesn’t begin with Culloden. History is seldom so neat and precise that a single event can be identified as the start or end of a thing. Rather, Culloden was…
homeschooling history
Wow. A letter to the editor in the Nanaimo Times reminds me why teaching history properly is so important. The letter has been removed but a screen shot of it…
Teaching history to my homeschooled kids
Wow. A letter to the editor in the Nanaimo Times reminds me why teaching history properly is so important. The letter has been removed but a screen shot of it…
religion and politics
I want to write some more thoughts about Christianity, but not assume that everyone is Christian. This isn’t an effort to convert anyone, just an attempt to explore some more…
religion and politics
I want to write some more thoughts about Christianity, but not assume that everyone is Christian. This isn’t an effort to convert anyone, just an attempt to explore some more…
Forward Together #UofR: Buffy St. Marie – Live Blog
Buffy St. Marie tackled the subject of Aboriginal peoples’ self image. What has been the basis for it? In many cases in popular culture, it’s from philosophers in Europe who…
Nixon Was Scum
Win at any cost. That seems to have been Nixon’s election campaign strategy, and it worked. Had LBJ notified the public of information the FBI illegally gathered from an ambassador…
Homeschooling Topic of the Week: Afghanistan
I noticed the book The Sky of Afghanistan, by Ana A. de Eulate and Sonja Wimmer, with the library’s collection of new kids’ books. The title of the book brought…
Homeschooling Topic of the Week: Afghanistan
I noticed the book The Sky of Afghanistan, by Ana A. de Eulate and Sonja Wimmer, with the library’s collection of new kids’ books. The title of the book brought…
and one great read from harper’s: nicholson baker on "why i’m a pacifist: the dangerous myth of the good war"
After finally getting Jill Lepore’s “Lie Factory” posted on this blog, I will go back even further, to something I’ve wanted to post for nearly two years. No matter the…
two great reads from the new yorker, part 2: jill lepore on political advertising
The current New Yorker stories by Joseph Mitchell has given me an opportunity to post something I’ve been meaning to share for ages. Last September, Jill Lepore unearthed an incredible…
ten years ago today, the world said no to war. say no to obama’s wars, too.
Ten years ago today, my partner and I took the day off work, dressed in many layers of clothing, and joined nearly a million people in the streets of New…
Bones of Kings
The discovery of Richard III’s grave is pretty awesome. Bonus, he was still inside it! It’s really hard to get the motivation to leave a grave though, it doesn’t happen…
marxism 2012 program notes: from each according to their ability: the role of socialists in disability movement
This is the final post of my notes from the 2012 Marxism Conference. This was the first Marxism conference to include a talk on disability, an exciting development full of…
Don’t Care About Penny Salami Slicing
There’s a bit of hand wringing going on around Facebook amongst typically the anti-Harper crowd. Normally I’d join in, because it’s worth wringing hands over practically everything our Prime Minister…
A Short History of the Death of Culture (a cartoon)
Related: Selected Media Fads Through the Ages. Alltop is doing its part too!
25 years since morgentaler: celebrate and re-commit to action
Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the federal abortion law in the Morgentaler decision, making Canada one of the few countries in the world without criminal restrictions…