My father, who is a retired social worker (and a phenomenal photographer) used to have this book on his bookshelf called “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (and it’s All Small Stuff)“. I never read it, but you can pretty much infer the contents from the title. There are real, honest-to-spaghetti-monster problems in our lives, and …
Monthly Archive: October 2011
Oct 10 2011
Who am I talking to?
So this morning I took a pretty strong stance, despite the pseudo-reversal of my previous stance, when it comes to reaching out to religious believers. While I had previously stated that I don’t see the value in breaking my neck to find language that won’t bruise the feelings of religious folks, I realize that this …
Oct 10 2011
Do we care? Reflections on tone, intent, and my audience
People who know me, know that I am an intractable grouch. I am highly intolerant of other people’s opinions, and staunchly refuse to listen to people who have a different perspective on issues than I do. People who know me well know that this isn’t even close to being true. I am perfectly happy to …
Oct 09 2011
Hangin’ with Hitchens
I don’t have a lot of ‘favourites’ – I usually find such rankings to be overly reductive. I like many different kinds of things for different reasons, and any single one that I rank as #1 will be an inaccurate label. From the list of writers that I most admire and try to emulate, however, …
Oct 08 2011
‘Couv team… ASSEMBLE! (Oct 7th, 2011)
I just wanted to drop a couple of news items in front of your eyes for those of you who live in the Vancouver area. I’m going to try to do these at least once a week, because I think there are some people out there who are under the impression that Vancouver is not …
Oct 07 2011
Movie Friday: Keep it Clean
For new readers: every Friday, in honour of it being the weekend, I put up a movie instead of a long post. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re serious, sometimes they’re weird. It’s whatever crosses my desk as I wander around the internet, and it’s all for you on a Friday! As you may know, I …
Oct 06 2011
Colourism: the sweet juice of racism
One of my favourite authors of all time is a Canadian named Lawrence Hill. He, like me, is of mixed racial heritage. He, like me, struggled with crafting an identity in an era where ‘biracial’ or ‘mixed’ wasn’t really an option. I found his writing a major source of both inspiration and comfort in my …
Oct 06 2011
I hate your god
Many new readers may not know that I am a guest author over at Canadian Atheist. This is a blogging collective of atheist authors of a wide variety of stances from across the country, offering perspective on news items and national developments. While I do most of my blogging here, I do represent the ‘extreme anti-theist’ …
Oct 06 2011
Dressing the part
Since I began scrutinizing race and race issues closely, I’ve found myself returning repeatedly to my (admittedly cursory) knowledge of psychology. I have found the concepts that are described in the scientific literature to be incredibly apt in discussions of racism. Additionally, the often creative study designs used by psychological researchers are readily adaptable in …
Oct 05 2011
¿Ustedes tambien, Mexico?
In 18 months of blogging, I’ve only brought up abortion a handful of times (usually in service of a larger point). Today, for some reason, I’ve got two posts about it. Let’s hope there’s nothing Freudian about that… I agree with Kavita Ramdas that empowering women is the key to making progress in society. I am …
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