After thousands of years of migrations and cullings and displacements and interbreeding, if by the indigenous people of, say, southern Alberta, is meant the people who were first to get here, we have no idea who those people might have been. So presumably we mean the people who were already here when our own ancestors … Continue reading THE DEFINITION OF INDIGENOUS
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Note to self: Be careful how you sell yourself lest someone’s actually buying. Case in point? Fellow blogger Andrew Roman, may his tribe increase, has asked me to draw the distinction, if there is one, between justice and social justice. Don’t you just hate it when someone makes you think about something you haven’t thought … Continue reading SOCIAL JUSTICE
THE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE STORY
Here’s another entry in the ongoing saga of news that isn’t. Some of my followers and even more of my readers live in the United States. Does that mean I’m trying to interfere in their upcoming presidential election? Well, I’m sure I’m not the least bit successful, but that’s certainly my intent. No doubt Russia … Continue reading THE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE STORY
POLICING 101
Poor people don’t have a lot. If they did, they wouldn’t be poor. As a result, their need to protect what little they have is greater than the need of those who have more to protect what they have. This is because those who have more can afford to lose, though they'd rather not, a … Continue reading POLICING 101
THE BOUNTY STORY
During the 1980s, the U.S. financed, armed, and trained the Mujahideen in what proved to be their successful campaign to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. In other words, they paid the Mujahideen to kill Soviet soldiers. The Taliban, which held the country during the 90s, was removed in 2001 by the U.S. and its … Continue reading THE BOUNTY STORY
THE NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE MANTRA
I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to weigh in on the civil unrest sweeping across the U.S., and now across the entire western world. I’d have thought it almost analytic that people who are pissed off, and are taking their pissed off-edness to the streets, have good reasons to be pissed off. So I see … Continue reading THE NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE MANTRA
GENDER DYSPHORIA
A few years back the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia published a paper by Rebecca Tuvel in which she wondered, if one can be trans-gendered, why not trans-racial? So one has to either deny one can be trans-gendered, or else deny that the two cases are analogous. Why? Because if I can be trans-racial, why can’t I … Continue reading GENDER DYSPHORIA
DOGWHISTLING
If I ask whether the blind date you’re setting me up with is good looking, and you answer that she has a wonderful personality, you’re not just saying something about her personality. Likewise, then, no one denies that all lives matter. But to say it, in the present context, is to say that black lives … Continue reading DOGWHISTLING
HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
Let me give you a heads up. Whatever you’re most sensitive about, I’m probably going to be insensitive to it. This is regrettable, by which is meant it’s able to be regretted, but apparently not by me. Here I offer just a representative sampling of my myriad insensitivities. From it, others of my aseninities you can … Continue reading HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
MY PICK FOR VP
If nothing else, you’ve got to admire the consistency of people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. So against a vigorous 73 year old, what do the Dems do? They put up a doddering 77 year old. Against a repulsive but highly skilled demagogue they offer a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal. American … Continue reading MY PICK FOR VP
