Most commented posts
- Short Men — 64 comments
- Bare Breasts: Objections and Replies — 27 comments
- Why Do Men Spit? (and women don’t) — 26 comments
- Short Men — 19 comments
- Walking Alone in a Park at Night — 11 comments
Peg Tittle
Author's posts
Dec 13 2012
The Waiting-for-the-Elevator Thing
So I’m sure this has happened at least once to every woman. You’re standing in front of an elevator, waiting for it, and a man comes up and presses one of the buttons. Oh is that what those are for? I saw the two buttons, one with an upward-pointing arrow and one with a downward-pointing …
Dec 06 2012
In Praise of Dead Air
People are uncomfortable with silence. On the radio, over the telephone, in person. It’s a curious thing. We are obsessed with filling up the air space. That sounds very male – the need to occupy territory (take a look at how men sit, their legs crossed open and their arms resting on the backs of …
Nov 27 2012
Crossing the Line
I crossed a picket line once. The Ontario Federation of Secondary School Teachers (OSSTF) in the Toronto area was on strike in 1983, and one of their demands was that union members be hired to fill night school and summer school teaching positions. They were concerned about quality of education: they didn’t want these courses …
Nov 22 2012
The Road to Hell
I’ve reconsidered intent-based moralities. They’re bloody irresponsible. I’m giving new meaning to “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” (or maybe I’m just finally understanding it). Intention-based moralities are for people too stupid or too lazy to consider the consequences of their actions. “But I didn’t mean to” is the cry of an …
Nov 15 2012
Business Rules the World. Do we want it to?
One of the most common – and most serious – weaknesses of codes of ethics, and indeed, most ethical theories, is that they don’t prioritize values. They’re fine for many of the simpler ethical questions, but when goods and interests conflict, when virtues and rights collide, they don’t provide a way to determine which interest, …
Nov 06 2012
I’m too drunk. No I’m not.
According to the Canadian Criminal Code, (self-induced) intoxication is no defence against charges of assault (33.1): if you’re drunk, you’re still able to form the general intent to commit said assault. And yet, with regard to the sub-category of sexual assault, belief that someone is consenting is cancelled if that someone is intoxicated (273.1(2)): if …
Oct 29 2012
A Little Less Evolved
Sometimes I wonder whether men have a defective chromosome: the Y was supposed to be an X, but somehow it ended up missing something – a case of stunted growth, or arrested development. This defective chromosome, uniquely characteristic of the human male, causes them to be a little lower on the evolutionary scale, a little …
Oct 22 2012
John Smith and his Biochem Cubes
Suppose John Smith makes biochem cubes – biological-chemical cubes about one metre by one metre with an input for resources required for sustenance and an output for unusable processed resources. Why does John Smith make biochem cubes? Good question. Truth be told, they’re unlikely to make the world a better place. And he doesn’t sell …
Oct 04 2012
Why isn’t being a soldier more like being a mother?
Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, …
Sep 22 2012
What’s Wrong with Selling your Organs?
It seems to be morally acceptable to sell one’s blood, sperm, eggs, and hair. So what’s so unacceptable about selling one’s kidney, for example? And in case people think the forementioned sales are unacceptable, let me make another analogy: it’s okay to get paid to play football — why is using your body as a …
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