So the other day I caught a glimpse, by accident, of one of those entertainment shows, on which someone talks about and to actors, rock stars, and so on, and it hit me: we pay people who pretend to be doctors more than we pay people who actually are doctors. H7WV382QQHUR
Category: uncategorized
Aug 16 2012
Cultural Anarchy
Why is it that so many people claim, usually with considerable passion, “I’m an American!” or “I’m Canadian” or what have you? To identify yourself by country is to accept the territorial divisions made by people with economic power eager to retain that power. So why the passion?
Jul 29 2012
Digital Thought
On/off, yes/no, either/or, in/out, for/against, male/female, win/lose, true/false, right/wrong, black/white, all/nothing, 0/1. Preachers do it. Lawyers do it. Why have we become so enamoured with digital thought? What’s the attraction? It’s precise. Precision is good. It’s fast. We like that. It’s easy. We like that even more. But any educator will tell you that T/F …
Jul 09 2012
Speaking in Code
“I just can’t give any more, sorry.” But of course he can. He just doesn’t want to. By saying “can’t” instead of “won’t”, however, he appears powerless and thus absolves himself of responsibility; as a result, we don’t even consider the matter of blame. “That’s not gonna happen.” Okay. So informed, we move on. But …
Jun 29 2012
Every day in every way …
Every day in every way the world is getting better and better. Yeah right. Well why isn’t it? Every day there’s a whole new batch of young adults just chafing at the bit to change the world. What happens? They become parents. So first,
May 17 2012
A New Three-Strike Law
There are over 2 million people in prison. Each week, there’s another thousand. We pay for their housing, food, medical care, education – about $30,000 per year per prisoner. So I propose a new three-strike law: first crime, you get rehab (maybe it was truly an accident; maybe you’ll change your mind about stuff; maybe …
Mar 01 2012
Death for Willy?
I was sort of attacked by a dog a while ago when I was out running. It wasn’t really a severe attack: I was simply taken down, like a deer, in a well-executed stealth manoeuvre by a large German Shepherd; he did not, nor did his companion, come in for the kill, or even the …
Jan 26 2012
Getting Married
When you ‘get married’ you are entering into a legal contract. You might be doing a few other things (promising your love to someone, making a deal with a god), but you are most certainly entering into a legally binding contract with another person. There are rights due to and responsibilities incumbent upon people who …
Jan 05 2012
What Went Wrong with Political Correctness?
My guess is that it started well enough, as sensitivity: people realized that terms such as ‘crippled’ and ‘retarded’ had gathered too many negative connotations, had become insults; so they replaced them with new words such as ‘physically challenged’ and ‘mentally challenged’ – words that, because new, would be free of such slant. This linguistic …
Dec 10 2011
Appropriation or Imagination?
Two poems of mine have been published in a journal dedicated to “the Black experience”. An audio piece of mine has been aired on Native radio programs. I am neither Black nor Native. Had this been known, I suspect some might have accused me of cultural appropriation. It’s an interesting idea, but
fiction
