What does Trump really know about Mexican culture and the Muslim faith?
An online article in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspaper reported the anguished reflections on the La Loche school shootings of an Ottawa-based psychiatrist who travels regularly to provide clinical services in northern Saskatchewan. Several comments in the online threads criticized the author for daring to have opinions on what was wrong, given that she didn’t…
There were drug addicts on the street in 1976, but somehow many of the interactions seemed to involve mentally ill people
For four months in 1976, I was a pretend cop in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. I was really a UBC Law student who had just finished first year, and had landed a summer job as a ride-along with the Vancouver Police Department. The program was geared towards students who were interested in criminal law, and its day-to-day…
Vancouver has to begin catering less to the needs of the international elites and more to its own citizens
Vancouver is a case study in catering to newcomers and abiding old problems. The downtown core juxtaposes two neighbourhoods, Yaletown and the Downtown Eastside (called Skid Row in the logging era), enabling casual observers to pass through two solitudes in a matter of minutes. I do it every day when I walk to work down…
Many politicians spend most their time responding to constituents who get their information from bloggers with axes to grind
What’s bugging Bubba, and the old school, Republican and Conservative base in the U.S. and Canada? A superb Ryan Lizza article in the Dec. 14, 2015, New Yorker hits the nail on the head. The piece focuses on the radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress, and their relentless push of the far right political agenda.…
The power of intuition flies in the face of western society's current fascination with mathematical algorithms
What works better: emotion or logic? Revelation or rationality? Intuition or algorithms? I started thinking seriously about these different ways of living in the world after reading Catherine Mayers’ new book, Charles: the Heart of a King. Her painstakingly detailed biography about the heir to the throne of the House of Windsor reveals a whimsical…
Many of the potlatch masks on view were never intended to be hung on wall as objets d’art, but to be worn ceremonially
There is a good chance that if you had attended the opening of The Box of Treasures: Gifts from the Supernatural during the period 1885 to 1951, anywhere in Canada, you could have been arrested for attending an event that resembled a potlatch (literally a gift-giving feast). Potlatches were the cornerstone of the powerful Kwakwaka’wakw…