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August 26, 2021

The Fine Art of Thumb Twiddling (poem)

I wrote the following poem at least a decade ago. I’d forgotten until this evening when I unearthed a CD from a dresser drawer and had a look. I help my mother ease into the passenger seat, guiding her by her elbow with one hand and balancing her canes with the other, I tuck her Continue reading

Arts and Leisure

aging, care, elderly, generation, impatience, mom, morbidity, mother, mum, old, patience, poem, sandwich generation, thumb twiddling
August 20, 2021

Small house in a big world. The power of perspective.

I don’t know how old I was when I first heard I live in a very small house, but my windows look out on a very big world. But as one of my dad’s favourite quotes, I’ve known it as long as I can remember. Up until recently, I’ve attributed the quote to Thoreau. But Continue reading

Catch-All

adapt, adversity, advice, change, Confucius, contemplation, curiousity, inspiration, learning, life, perspective, social, survival, thought, transitions, travel
July 16, 2021

Thoughtlets. XLVI. Observing patterns of human behaviour.

Some find Tacitus’ Annals tedious. Some of it is. But his work keeps me riveted. I’m not so interested in history, per se. Rather I’m interested in identifying patterns of human behaviour, events that repeat over millennia, and asking why they repeat themselves. But then, so was Tacitus, “Perhaps there is a sort of cycle Continue reading

Thoughtlets

ambiguity, ambiguous, Annals, behaviour, control, Darwin, hard sciences, hisotry, meme, memes, memic slection, occurences, patterns, Philosophy, political, prediction, social, social and political, Tactitus
July 3, 2021

Thoughtlets. XLV. Theodicy revisited.

News media characteristically brings us one story after another about the kinds of things humans to do each other which are broadly characterized as ‘evil.’ And these stories tend to generate accusations of ‘evil-doers’ which are then dispatched with the speed and clamour of emergency vehicles headed to a five alarm fire. I’m not here Continue reading

Thoughtlets

discourse, emotion, evil, Mackie, media, Philosophy, politics, problem of evil, rhetoric, theodicy
June 29, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-Toons. A Speakeasy in the Age of Prohibition. (Repost, 2020/09/14)

Hey Sweetheart. Are you here to have a drink or to speak your mind? Continue reading

Pam-Toons

academic, cancel culture, cartoon, censorship, compelled, first amendment, freedom, hiding, Marranos, moriscos, Orwell, political, politically correct, prohibited, prohibition, secret, speech, underground
June 26, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Pursuant to Its Commitment to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, the University Students’ Union Welcomes the Neo-Knotsies Macrame Revival Club.

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Pam-Toons, Social and Political Commentary

academic freedom, commitment, DEI, diversity, drawing, EDI, elect, equity, exclusion, free speech, freedom of expression, graphic, humor, humour, inclusion, office, pencil, perspective, photo, sketch, student, university
June 12, 2021

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Psychic Surgery Removes Hatred.

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Pam-Toons, Social and Political Commentary

academic freedom, education, fad, freedom of expression, hate, hate studies, hatred, implicit bias, magical thinking, McCarthyism, ordeal, political, pseudo, pseudoscience, psychic, psychic surgery, religion, research, SJW, snake oil, social, spiritual, surgeon, test, thought, university, witch hunt
April 30, 2021

The Lesser Known Logical Fallacies.

If you’ve ever taken a logic and critical thinking course, you’ll have learned about logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are patterns of bad reasoning that occur so often they’re given their own special names. Ad hominem arguments are directed at the person holding a position rather than at the position she holds. Ad populum or ‘bandwagon’ Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

argument, behaviour, critical thinking, fallacy, logic, logical fallacies, logicians, Philosophy, psychology, reasoning, rhetoric, social, strategy
April 30, 2021

Thought experiment: the last humans. (Thoughtlets. XL.)

Thought experiment. Imagine some cosmic event renders all humans sterile. After a number of decades pass, humankind literally enters a Golden Age, with an exclusively senior population. Although, ‘senior’ might lose its current meaning when the youngest among us is 64. I wonder if those in good health will resent the burden of care imposed Continue reading

Philosophy, Thoughtlets

ageing, childhood, death, end of world, end times, environment, existential, human, meaning, population, rhetoric, senior, survival, sustainable, thought experiment
April 28, 2021

Thoughlets. XLIV.

Do you ever wonder what future generations will look like? Look in a mirror. You are the future generations of those who lived before you. And do you ever wonder what future future generations will think of you and your ilk? Well, since you are a future generation, and since, cf Hume, the future resembles Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Thoughtlets

children, descendents, empathy, environment, fore-bearers, future, future generations, generations, hypothetical, imagination, inference, judge, life, material conditions, mirror, myth, past, Philosophy, political, politics, prediction, present, relfection, rhetoric, subsist, sustainability