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Category Archives: Politics
Equality and Equity
I once told a colleague that I didn’t believe in objective marking, and she enthusiastically agreed. “I don’t think it’s possible to be objective,” she said. I told her that I didn’t think we should try to be objective, or … Continue reading
The Choctaw and Irish Nations
Fifty percent of the Choctaw people had only just survived the forced relocation from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana into Oklahoma (the aptly named Trail of Tears), when a member of the tribe heard about An Gorta Mór, the great famine … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, History, Politics
Tagged An Gorta Mór, Choctaw, Covid19, gaza, great famine, hopi, Ireland, navaho, Trail of Tears
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An Island Overrun with Prisoners and Soldiers
When William Golding imagines his feral schoolboys in Lord of the Flies, he thinks that they will inevitably shed the shallow indoctrination of the arbitrary and recently acquired rules of polite society and fall back upon their baser instincts which … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, Culture, Health, News of the World, Politics
Tagged 2003 blackout, boot camp, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, hurricane katrina, Hurricane sandy, Jeremy Bentham, military, panopticon, prison rape, prison system, private prison system, William Golding Lord of the Flies, World Trade Centre bombing of 2001
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Pondering the Media During the 2022 Ottawa Trucker Convoy
The various media systems of the world are overworked, and in the case of many of them, underpaid. This is exposed by the request, below most online news stories, to report any errors. With editors in short supply, the news … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, Environmentalism, Health, News of the World, Police, Politics, Social Media
Tagged 2022 Ottawa Trucker Convoy, activism, Alberta, anti-mandate, anti-vaccine, Black Lives Matter, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Corey Hurren, Coutts, fracking, Indigenous protestors Wet'suwet'en, January 6, Nazi sympathizers, New Brunswick, reconciliation, Rexton, Sammy Yatim, trucker convoy, white supremacist
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Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Covid
News about the Covid 19 virus has become a ubiquitous backdrop in our lives, and the media’s frenzy in our lives has become more ubiquitous than the trappings of the disease itself. More than masks and people side-eying while they … Continue reading
Racist Rob and Corrupt Politicians
I’d only been teaching a few years when I had a student who was so racist that I was forced to confront several of his statements in class. As anyone knows who has dealt with such behaviour, this demands a … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, Ancient Peoples, Culture, Education, History, News of the World, Politics, Teaching, Winnipeg
Tagged Air-bus scandal, Brian Mulroney, Canadian Government, Colonialism, financial accountability, Indian Act, pedagogy, racism, Treaties
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Hatred of Muslims and the Latest Red Scare
I had the pleasure of growing up in North America when the reigning hatred was of communists, although most people didn’t know what a communist was and—because of weak historical understanding—only vaguely associated them with the Soviet Union. Because I … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, Culture, Education, History, Media, News, Politics, Religion, Social Media
Tagged 1984, communism, George Bush, islam, islamophobia, muslim, Osama bin Laden, propaganda, Reagan, war
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Maybe the Algorithms are Working Against Us
Most news, internet search, and social media platforms have optimized their offerings to suit what their viewers most frequently choose to see. That makes sense in terms of ad dollars, for they want to have a targetable demographic, but as … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Education, Internet, Media, News, Politics, Social Media, Teaching
Tagged Corporate responsibility, echo chamber, Education, Facebook, H. G. Wells, mass shootings, media, Religion, right-wing politics, school shootings, Social Media, twitter, white supremacy, World Brain
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The Saltpeter Mines of Northern Atacama, Chile
Saltpeter, or nitrate, was a major export of Chile until artificial production began in Germany in the thirties. Then, like much of the world staggering as a result of the global depression, Chile suffered from the loss of nearly fifty … Continue reading
Posted in Activism, Culture, Development, History, Politics, Post-Apocalyptic, Travel
Tagged American Foreign Policy, atacama, Chacabuco, Chile, nitrate, Pinochet, salitreras, Saltpeter, Salvador Allende
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I Don’t Need to Change, I Need to Change the World Around Me
Although modern urban societies promote tolerance for the most part, there is a vocal minority who insist that they are entitled to more tolerance than others. Those of us who have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm recognize this logic. We … Continue reading