Years ago I heard David Suzuki speak in Halifax. He was on book tour for his, then recent publication, The Sacred Balance. He told many stories that night and he spoke for several hours about the fundamental connectedness of life.…
The study that inspired the racist comments, and this post, is interesting because it helps folks who have a hard time seeing racism understand that it's rampant in Canadian culture. The researchers sent off over 6000 resumes to potential employers…
Okay. I've been very critical of journalists and newspapers that are getting it wrong on climate change: here and here and here. But you should know that I have moments of being more, well, sympathetic with the modern journalist. I…
This is a story about one of my moments of glory. Some of you know that some years ago I was fundraising for Greenpeace. One particularly cold winter day, I engaged a passerby in a conversation about global warming. The…
Here's a fun thing that you can try at home. It's a simple form of media analysis. The result of this particular analysis leads me to think bad thoughts about Canwest. But that's just me. Here's what I did. First…
It seems like yesterday that I was writing my thesis and exploring my love of cognitive maps and mental models. I was doing this as a way of making peace with my competing sympathies for scientific realism and linguistic or…
I was at my local coffee shop yesterday, and Alison (sp? sorry) was wearing this cool shirt with a cool design on the front. When I noted that it was rather awesome she asked me if I recognized it. I…
It is entirely possible for the meanings we create to be beyond our intent and within our responsibility. I've said this before, here. You have to read down a ways to get to it, and it's so fascinating, that I…
Today is a good day to think about our life support system. Our life support is our earth. It's a delicate mixture of gravity, various nuclear forces that hold our subatomic and atomic particles together, solar energy, some electrical forces…
One of the challenges of branding and marketing is working with and relying on the many subtle, implicit and subconscious layers of meanings that are formed in people's minds. This can be particularly difficult for people who tend toward the…
So last week I wrote about a bus ad that I photographed and posted claiming that it was racist. But I didn't really speak to how or why it was racist. And it's important to be able to say why.…