Rage farming
J.D. Blackburn is focused on Pierre Poilievre, but lies and demagoguery are part of the right-wing, conservative playbook. With less than ten weeks before BC's provincial election, expect to see…
Prejudice
Simplistic solutions for complex problems — they seldom work
BC Conservatives left a flyer at my door promoting their candidate in a North Vancouver constituency. Were the BC Conservatives to form government, British Columbia would be far different. Not…
A low IQ can be very appealing
A story from Terry O’Reilly about monkeys involved in shooting a TV commercial may explain who cult leaders recruit as followers.
A Disaster Groundhog Day
A few decades ago I watched a video in a class about a Black female musician answering the question how to stop all the racism and sexism in songs at…
For all the Fierce Raindrops: Lessons that Should Have Been Learned
Changing minds on big issues takes a long time and the work never ends. Anti-drinking and driving groups appeared in the early 1980s, like MADD, typically made up of survivors…
Love Wins Over Hate
On social media, my Covid posts have suddenly lost all their troll-drawing capacity. The angry mob has moved on to bombard people’s 2SLGBTQIA+ posts. Just a few months ago, just…
On Parental Rights
It’s not a thing. Well, legally it’s not. There are no “parental rights” section of the charter to defend. It’s a thing as in it’s a dogwhistle to see how…
Extremist Group Criteria
A mom delegated at a school board meeting in the states about the group, Moms for Liberty. Here’s the Tiktok video (but also at the link in case – I…
ASD Assessments
Assessments for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are sometimes a piece of work. I’ll look at two of them here. As a reminder, everyone with ASD is really different from one…
The Charter’s not a Buffet
Trudeau spoke to parents concerned with their right to decide what their children are taught in schools. The group of Muslim parents were very worried about the “gender ideology” being…
Just A Victim Of Circumstances?
Fate can be cruel. It is not unheard of to be going about, minding one’s own business, when a person of unknown provenance accosts you and demands a photo with…
Plus C’est la Même Chose
It’s the 80s all over again. We’ve got a killer virus that people are largely ignoring despite a small group of people continuing to fight for protections and medications. We’ve…
Trans Rights are Human Rights
The trans community isn’t safe in Canada, that’s why Pride month is necessary. And there’s no straight month because nobody has ever been discriminated against for being straight! Last week…
Conformity Experiments
This image comes from a century ago, of course. It’s still very hard to be different, but sometimes it’s vital. When I taught a course called the Challenge of Change,…
On Keeping Kids "Safe" From Pride
Student Trustee Kenzy Soror wrote an excellent, brief thread on the problem with parents keeping their children home because it’s pride day or month: “I take great concern with the…
Transphobia is the New Homophobia
Natalie Wynn, one of my favourite YouTubers, came out with a 2-hour long video, basically a feature-length film, her first in 10 months. This one is on J.K. Rowling, whom…
Leading by Example or What’s Good for the Goose…
This is about the Davos World Economic Forum, ending tomorrow. Social media is all atwitter with the incredible precautions they pulled off. Check out their rules here. It’s three pages…
Problems with IHRA
After receiving literally hundreds of emails on this topic, starting before I was even elected, I watched this excellent panel discussion tonight about IHRA presented by Independent Jewish Voices Canada,…
Teachable Moments: Should Schools Teach About Covid?
I’ve been talking with parents who are trying desperately to keep their kids safe in the classroom. It sounds like most staff and students are unmasked despite higher Covid numbers…
A Really Deep Dive into Anti-CRT Rhetoric
This will be a long one, but I’ll break it into headings (after this preamble) for easier bit-at-a-time reading! There’s a division among school board trustees and some parents around…