The First Day of School, 2013: Beware!
Well, a new school year is about to begin, so it’s time to analyze just how much destruction the 1% will visit upon public education this year. Defunding, corporatization of…
Identity
MexAmeriCanada? We Are Not Thinking Creatively Enough
MexAmeriCanada doesn’t have to be our future. I think I’m guilty of being a bit slow and uncreative. The bogeyman of deep integration, North American Union, the United States-ification of…
Altruism + Community
“It almost hurts me to walk down a road and have people grab my hand and ask for my autograph and not sit and talk. When I’m finished I’m not…
MexAmeriCanada, Version 2013
Welcome to the United States of MexAmeriCanada. Represent! I was just thinking a few days ago how I haven’t used the MexAmeriCanada tag for a while. Did I cause this…
Are You Just Too Tired? We’ve Known Why for Decades
You actually do deserve a break today. What ails us? A large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no…
Why We Must #HonourTheApology to Residential School Survivors [#INM]
I don’t know why we still have to do this kind of thing, but here goes. The federal government “apologized” to survivors of residential schools 5 years ago. It is…
Canada’s Evolving Soft Fascism
Things are bad under Prime Minister Harper. They’re getting worse, even since the last time I wrote about Harper’s soft fascism. But how do we measure it? It’s so…subjective, unless…
What Young People Are Teaching Us About Empathy
Click the chart to see more inspiring charts! Descending/increasing lines indicate less/more concern among different generations of high school graduates for the various ideas. I have so much hope for…
‘Our kids deserve the right to their culture’: Anishinabek Nation
By: Anishinabek Nation | Press Release: TORONTO, June 17, 2013 – Anishinabek Nation leaders have told provincial government officials that their children in care deserve the right to their culture.…
Inconvenient Truths for White Men
Men, especially white men, sleep too easily at night while women earn 70 per cent of what we do. Secretly, I think we’d prefer to not have to talk about…
How Us Settlers Can Be In Solidarity With #IdleNoMore
Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore …. York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk…
“Female Characters Are Still Sidelined, Stereotyped, and Sexualized in Popular Entertainment Content”
If you think popular media is still chauvinist or even misogynist, but you didn’t know about the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, you should look into them. I…
No, Taylor Swift. No.
I’ve been mentally composing this blog for forever and
Encouraging Early Political Engagement: I Have the Right to Be a Child
Early political engagement is a hot button topic for a number of us here at Politics ReSpun. As parents and/or political animals, we spend a lot of time contemplating methods…
Quebec election 2012: Hoping for a minority
In a parliamentary system, we usually hope for a majority for our preferred party because this gives them the power to implement their policies. However, there are several situations where…
Act of Valor, Redux
“Before my father died, he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stop seeing you as dangerous….Dangerousness was sacred.” Last night I watched Act of Valor.…
Government and Human Wretchedness
What is government if not a living reminder of our human wretchedness, of the fall made secular, of the post-lapsarian world and the prison house of procedure and law that…
Women’s Rights in Bosnia: An Interview with Aleksandra Petrić
In the 1990s, Bosnia-Herzegovina became synonymous with the horrific violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide which characterized the country’s experience within the broader dissolution of the Yugoslav state. In particular, the…
Springtime for Hitler in Ottawa
Last week, our favourite sweatervest hoarding Prime Minister made the world’s laziest Nazi/Hitler invocation during Question Period. This is the latest in a string of Hitler references made by sundry…
A Handmaid’s Tale: Intended as Fiction, Not a Guidebook
I have become very weary of being perpetually assaulted, all day long, and being utterly helpless to defend myself from the onslaught. If it isn’t advertisers shoving things I don’t…