How to Not Commit a Sex Crime
You participate in a sex crime if you search for or look at revenge porn. It is really that simple. A Richmond, B.C., woman hopes her story of having nude…
Psychology
The Utility Animal
In the July/August edition of Pets Magazine (the Cat Care issue) there are two articles that caused me concern. One is “The Loyalty and Bravery of a Cat” (p.28), the…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Linda McQuaig discusses how a politically-oriented audit of the CCPA fits with the shock-and-awe part of the right’s war against independent (and…
On Ethos – a 2011 Documentary
“Our ethos is all that we currently hold to be true. It is what we act upon. It governs our manners, our business and our politics.” – Howard Zinn Directed…
Tricks of the mind
Reading involves bit of trickery. Mental trickery. It engages the imagination and fools us into thinking we are there within the book: nestled beside the author, or better yet, beside…
Live in the Now, Plan for Your Future Self
There are many things that make one happy, but what if our fundamental approach is wrong? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert looks into other ways of thinking about happiness and the…
Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bert Olivier is the latest to weigh in on Paul Verhaeghe’s work showing that the obsessive pursuit of market fundamentalism harms our…
TFWP: How Racist is Canada?
Here’s one way to tell how racist a person/nation is. Have them read this excerpt and see if they fly into a rage about “those” people, or just come up…
Class Warfare CAUSED Income Inequality, Not the Opposite
Horatio Alger mythology is designed to make us leave the 1% alone and shut the fuck up. If you haven’t yet seen John Oliver’s amazing rant about the perils of…
New column day
Here, on how personal and institutional stress make it more difficult for people to defend their interests – and on the need to respond to political strategies increasingly aimed at…
Elevate the World from Mediocrity to Greatness? Lululemon? GMAFB
GMAFB Capitalism dissociates us from each other. It makes us embrace consumerism and individualism and erodes community and cohesion. Yet, oddly, Lululemon’s mantra of elevating the world from mediocrity to…
When good people do bad things in groups
The headline is taken from a piece on Science Daily on a study about how groups change personal behaviour and morality. The study is reported on the MIT website. I’ve…
Slut Shaming, And Other Idiocy
Welcome to the cusp of spring-summer. Now that the weather is turning, the slut shaming and attacks on women’s clothing choices will ramp up. In Labrador, 28 girls were sent…
The Protest and Popular Assembly (Plenum) Movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Get up to speed with this interview with Politics, Re-Spun contributor Jasmin Mujanovic on the protest and popular assembly (plenum) movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnia’s protest movement is already receiving less…
When Blog Comment Spam Goes Bad
You know you want it! Someone really crossed the line from whoops, to nuclear codes. One of the15,000 weekly blog spam comments that never make it to the human eyes…
Poor Kids, Poor Families and Shame
“When Centennial’s students found out Seymour couldn’t hold a pyjama day because many students didn’t have pyjamas, they fundraised to buy every Seymour student a pair last Christmas.” – When…
Occupying Homelessness?
Homelessness isn’t a policy thing regarding random people. It’s a thing for actual people. It’s not abstract, it’s in our face, yet we live in denial. Clearly, I’m no brain…
Honing In On Friday’s #WaveOfAction
We need to think about two things for this Friday’s Occupy Movement reboot in the Worldwide #WaveOfAction: When thinking about pursuing social, political and economic equality, what is the list…
Random Terrorism From North American Police
Five police beat and kill Luis Rodriguez. You know you’re living in an increasingly terrorized state when the police kill for no good reason. Sure there are extenuating circumstances, but…
Stop. Obeying. The. Rich. NOW!
Once upon a time, we were taught to envy and respect our “betters,” like the rich. No more. They’re taking our money and throwing us under the bus every day.…