Here’s a fascinating statistical anomaly. Every Canadian soldier killed during the twenty year occupation of Afghanistan was eulogized as the finest human being who ever walked the Earth. Not a single asshole among them! Oh, and don’t forget that “He… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
INDIGENOUS SCIENCE
Some academics argue that, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas aside, the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere were at a pre-scientific level of development, and so there’s really no such thing as indigenous science. I think this mischaracterizes the case. … Read More ›
A BEGRUDGING DEFENCE OF THE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SYSTEM
I claim no conversance, let alone any expertise, in the residential school question, but I do know enough ethics to note that it’s feckless to condemn what was done in fact without offering what could have been done instead. From… Read More ›
WELL OF COURSE ACADEMIC FREEDOM IS POLITICAL
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 ›
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 ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 