Author Archives

I’ve completed all but defence of my thesis for a masters in philosophy. My disciplinary interest has been in the acquisition and maintenance of our beliefs. But I also have a background in the study of rhetoric, linguistics, and philosophy of language. I’m taking a hiatus from the student life, but am intellectually active. For example, I’m a research assistant for my husband, Paul, a social and political philosopher. Paul and I regularly discuss and vet each other’s work. So, while I don’t have a PhD, neither am I simply pulling things out of my derriere.

Paul and I delight in our four pets: Barsi, a Border Collie-Pyrenees cross, Howard, a German Shepherd-Bernese-Pyrenees cross puppy, and two cats, Mr. Tinky and Rorschach. Between us we have three wonderful sons and their three respective equally wonderful partners, and we delight in all. We live in Lethbridge, Alberta and, until covid, we travelled overseas throughout our summers.

• Thoughtlets. xxx.

  By pammentations on January 26, 2021 • ( 0 )

  What some forget is that, like it or not, the military is social. It’s embedded in a polity, and it’s just one of many familiar social and political institutions therein. There exists no impenetrable wall with soldiers on one side… Read More ›

• Thoughtlets. xxix.

  By pammentations on January 26, 2021 • ( 1 )

  Today’s Thoughtlet is a quote on freedom of expression that originates with Tacitus, a Roman historian who lived in the first century CE. This quote, translated as follows, appears in Latin on the title page of the first edition of Hume’s… Read More ›

• Bread and Circuses

  By pammentations on January 25, 2021 • ( 0 )

  (Oct. 24, 2020) Somewhere around the second century CE, the Roman satirist Juvenal coined the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ which has come to mean placating one’s populace with cheap bribes to distract them from their political grievances. Here’s the logic…. Read More ›

• Saturday Morning Pam-toons. What’s Your Sign?

  By pammentations on January 23, 2021 • ( 1 )

  The central image is a pencil sketch modelled on a photo of three children who died of starvation in Russia, 1921.**(see citation) Carnetarian, 20 Jan. – 18 Feb.; Pescatarian 18 Feb. – 20 Mar.; Pollotarian 21 Mar. – 20 Apr.;… Read More ›

• Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Cf. Mao, Be Your Authentic Self.

  By pammentations on January 16, 2021 • ( 1 )

  You’ve nothing to fear. I worry a little that, in this politically charged environment particularly, when someone urges you to ‘be your authentic self’ she means ‘come out here where I can get you’. Addendum, April 11, 2021 as follows:… Read More ›

• ‘Freedom’ is Not a Well-Formed Formula

  By pammentations on January 12, 2021 • ( 0 )

  Freedom! is a common rallying cry that some pledge to fight to the death to defend. And do. So it might be a tad unseemly to point out that ‘freedom’ is not a well-formed formula. By which is meant ‘freedom’… Read More ›

• Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Uncovering An Implicit Bias.

  By pammentations on January 11, 2021 • ( 0 )

  Recommended: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Implicit Bias. Brownstein, Michael, “Implicit Bias”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/implicit-bias/ (*link repaired — P)

• Thoughtlets. xxviii.

  By pammentations on January 7, 2021 • ( 0 )

  It’s no small annoyance whenever an interlocutor stops to evaluate whether what I have just said falls on the political left or the right. In so doing she’s pegging me to a side. And once pegged, in her mind, whether… Read More ›

• Saturday Morning Pam-toons. The University of Backyard Sleepovers.

  By pammentations on January 3, 2021 • ( 0 )

  At U.B.S., 8-year-olds archive banned words for posterity. We honour Children’s Ways of Being and Children’s Ways of Knowing. See, Paranormal Activism And, A Speakeasy in the Age of Prohibition

• Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Paranormal Activism. (scroll past image)

  By pammentations on December 19, 2020 • ( 2 )

  When you deny my ‘lived experience’, you deny my existence! We, the undersigned, petition our flesh and bone (zombies excluded) oppressors to recognize the following, Article 1. We are beings who refer to ourselves as ghosts. All other terms of… Read More ›