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…
Psychology
Why Do They Want Us To Shut Up?
If we were harmless, the riot cops would stay home. It’s Friday. It’s been a long week. Like most weeks. We are taught to fit in and obey. We are…
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…
Stephen Harper Visits Lac Megantic
Mourning the senseless tragedy. Today I was very impressed when Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, broke with his almost long-held position of not visiting Lac Megantic. While he and…
Zimmerman and Alexander: Racism and Sexism in America
Can you handle the contradictions? I’ve been seen things in twitter for the last few days that puts some grotesque perspective on the American culture. I’m actually quite speechless: Two…
Fearing Kate MacEachern: The Latest Canadian Military Blunder
Kate MacEachern and helping others: not on the DND agenda, yet. Canada’s continued neglect and abuse of our military personnel and veterans continues to enrage me. An epidemic of untreated…
Believing is Seeing
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once,” wrote Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, from Paris, France, 1785), “finds it much easier to do…
Climate Change Denial Affirmations
The sky is not falling. It’s just the end of this ice age. Extreme weather events are not related to each other. The climate is not a global system of…
What Do We Do About Those Pesky, Apathetic Non-Voters?
I have heard lots of people blaming the following people for why we didn’t get a positive change in government in BC three weeks ago: apathetic, nihilistic young people apathetic…
Be Optimistic by Learning About It
The book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Dr. Martin Seligman is not new, but it is to me. For others who have not heard…
Free Speech and the Privatization of Public Space
Donald Smith was protesting a sign at Glenmore Landing in Calgary’s southwest Sunday that bans political demonstrations. The privately owned parking lot near the prime minister’s constituency office asserts that…
The Geography of Emotions, A Conversation with Colin Mills
Saturday night, I spent almost two hours discussing the Geography of Emotions with Colin Mills. We explored the ubiquitousness of emotions, the male crisis around emotions, how emotions relate with…
How are Psychology PhDs doing on the job market?
I am a reformed and rehabilitated ex-academic. In my previous life, I aspired to be a professor of Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science. I described my experiences in the academic…
Don’t We All Hear Voices? A Mindfulness-Informed View of Schizophrenia and the “Normal” Mind
The hallmark of schizophrenia is perceiving things that are not there. Auditory hallucinations, including “hearing voices”, is particularly common. What if this clinically distinguishing feature of schizophrenia differs from the…
The Grad School Gospels – Part 4: On Grad School Goggles and the Cult-Like Nature of Grad School
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional…
The Grad School Gospels – Part 3: Academe Can’t Be Your Everything
The Grad School Gospels is a series of posts inspired by Dirk Hayhurst‘s The Bullpen Gospels. In the Bullpen Gospels, Hayhurst tells stories from his struggle to self-actualize through professional…
The Grad School Gospels – Part 2: Passion, Fear and Indifference
In The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst, I juxtaposed Hayhurst‘s pro baseball journey – which he recounts in his first book,…
The Grad School Gospels: On Professional Baseball, Academia, and My Shared Experience with Dirk Hayhurst
In The Bullpen Gospels, author and former professional baseball player, Dirk Hayhurst, takes readers through his lived experience in the cut-throat world of professional baseball. As I read Hayhurst’s story,…