The scope of my academic freedom and of your freedom of expression are not coextensive. That is, I can, and regularly do, say all kinds of stupid things in the bar that I would be rightly disciplined for publishing in… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
RECOUNTING THE COST
My apologies to my many millions of followers for my having gone silent for over a month now. Such are the wages – well, at least sometimes – of still having a job. But I promise henceforth to put my… Read More ›
SAFE SPACES (Repost, 26/02/2020)
I’m not sure that academia attracts heresy. Rather I suspect it’s tenure that generates it. In fact since we’re all, by definition, catholic, without the threat of hell – or in our case unemployment – we’d probably all think unclean… Read More ›
COUNTING THE COST
Front-line workers – in healthcare, in law enforcement, and so on – have every right to refuse to be vaccinated. Their employers – hospitals, police departments, and so on – have every right not to let them on the job-site… Read More ›
ANTI-SEMITISM JUST AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
(In my defence, my son handed me this title and then commanded me to write into it. Hence any liability is entirely his.) Growing up Jewish in western Canada, I regularly felt that I was other, but I can’t ever… Read More ›
TRISTAN DA CUNHA
In this brave new world of reversing the onus, you’re a racist just in case someone says you are. After all, how can you prove you’re not a racist? In fact to protest your innocence is to confirm your guilt. … Read More ›
SOME PUZZLES ABOUT SEXUAL ‘INTERFERENCE’
I’d hardly be the first to observe that when a small child falls and scrapes her knee, nine times out of ten she looks to her parent before deciding that it hurts. If the parent doesn’t signal alarm, the child… Read More ›
HUMOUR
There’s an important difference between twisted and sick. Dead baby jokes are twisted, but telling them at a SIDS funeral is sick. It might relieve the tension in the room, but I’d hold off unless you really know your crowd…. Read More ›
SNOW DAYS IN SEPTEMBER
A few years ago, the University of Lethbridge went from thirteen-week semesters to twelve. And then this fall, between Virtue Signalling Day (September 30) and cancelling classes today to perform a completely gratuitous Covid reset, we’re down to eleven. If… Read More ›
ON THIS TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY
All other things being equal – in this case being equally just anybody – some of us will be saints, some of us will be assholes, but most of us will be neither. For example, the likelihood of an American… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 