Critical Perspectives and Reflections

  I suspect I am not alone in remembering that I was taught in high school English class that Shakespeare’s great tragedy, Hamlet, was about a man who simply could not make up his mind to take action and get vengeance for the murder of his father. The lesson that Shakespeare was laying down for us, we were told, was that Hamlet dithered, was indecisive, and that his failure to act decisively led to his own downfall and the death of others. But that was, and is, a superficial reading of the play. I had the opportunity while at university in Houston, of studying under, and knowing, a very perceptive English professor and my mentor, who helped his students understand the real tragedy. It is one that has never left me and a teaching that I urge all of us to think about. What we learned in that English class was that the real tragedy of Hamlet was more social and political than personal. It was not simply that he was indecisive but that, more importantly, he refused to acknowledge and u...

  There is a quiet campaign circulating, on social and traditional media, pleading the case for delaying the advertising of Christmas events until after November 11th. This day has long been set aside for the observance of Remembrance for the price many men and women have paid over the years, as members of Canada’s armed services, who have either died, or been injured, whether physically, mentally or emotionally, from their involvement in one or the other of our military engagements. I’m not a big fan of the military (I came back to Canada to avoid the USA Draft in the 1960s) nor am I always happy with the way in which Observance Days have been shaped and presented. At the same time however, I understand the logic and need for a day to focus on the men and women who have suffered from their time in the services. They deserve some serious thought and consideration. Having the juggernaut, that is the Christmas season, intrude on that one special day seems needlessly thoughtless and h...

I have come to believe more firmly over the years that a history of family wealth and privilege results in the production of people, mostly men, who are a pretty unfit lot to have their hands on the levers of power. Anne Applebaum (2020) has outlined the rank corruption and incompetence of a number of leaders from the monied classes that, she believes, are part of the gradual destruction of democracy in various parts of Europe1. From Boris Johnson in Great Britain to Victor Orban in Hungary she paints a dismal picture of their self-absorbed personalities and their ripping and tearing at the fabric of democratic life in their respective countries. She mentions the poster boy for anti-democratic leaders, D.J. Trump of course, but her focus is much wider. I would like to briefly discuss examples much closer to home, of how the rich and privileged seem unfit to govern a democracy. Here in Canada, there was a rather funny and very truthful cartoon making the rounds which represents the cont...

It’s not surprising that not many people know that October is Dyslexia Awareness Month. While a lot of people have heard about dyslexia not very many have much understanding of it and may in fact possess some misunderstanding. This little piece is based on a brief comment that I posted on Facebook. It was to recognize those of us who wrestle with the condition of dyslexia, but even more, for those who don’t and are unaware of the problems it causes and the ways people deal with them. Dyslexia is usually referred to as a learning disorder. It is more complex than that and if we stop at that it can be misleading. Scientific research shows that children and adults, who have dyslexia, process information differently from non-dyslexics. It involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). Called a reading disability, it can involve writing and doing math as well. Very simply put, dyslexia effects areas of the ...

"The police are the public and the public are the police." – Robert Peel While reports of improper actions are not as front and centre, at the moment, the failure of society to take seriously the problem of the dysfunctional sense of privilege and impunity that is so apparent in policing is still a real problem. As well, there is an unfortunate deference to the institution (with the exception of the calls to “Defund Police”) that has existed in our society which hampers our ability to critically examine and act to get a hold of the problem. The deference seems to be centered on a mythology that has grown and that must be confronted and countered. Last year (September of 2020) on CBC Radio's Sunday Edition the then host, Michael Enright, made a few cogent comments about the myths surrounding policing in Canada. Dangerous Work He noted that one of the myths is that police have a particularly dangerous work environment and stated that in reality it is not a dangerous occupat...

We are reposting this poem by Peter Shepherd. There were two errors in the editing process regarding the Introduction that sneaked by so we are now republishing the work. Apologies to Peter and the readers. - The Editor. "This is heavy truth," Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir said on July 15, 2021. When I wrote the poem below in early July, it was days after the Tk'emlups revelation. I immediately thought 'this is just the tip of the iceberg’ and I was clear that we would hear about more, and more. I was 100% convinced that 'thousands of small voices' were yet to be heard. This horror resonates with the killing fields of Cambodia, the genocide of the Armenians, the holocaust of the Jews, the genocide of the Tutsis (perhaps I sense more the anguish of General Romeo Dallaire), the eradication of the Beothuk in Newfoundland, and on and on. As a person with white privilege, I know I am pretty blind to how my status has blinded me. But this...

Toxic masculine and feminine traits are related back to the Patriarchal system1 in which those that possess them are reared. It is caused by the difficulty in this system of being able to develop the ability to nurture and be nurtured. This in turn results in a certain insufficient level of trust and/or feelings of safety. Men over compensate their masculinity because they haven't been given the opportunity to be truly in touch with their emotions. Raised by emotionally unavailable or absentee fathers, they were not allowed to show emotion. And when they do release emotion, there is a tendency to use those emotions to manipulate, usually related as a survival mechanism. Emotionally unavailable mothers start their journey towards mixed feelings about other women in their lives because they attach, either through chasing someone else who is emotionally unavailable or not trusting when love is present. They also have a hard time accepting love because they feel they themselves are n...

  The Peoples Party of Canada is troublesome, and repugnant; it stands for everything I find appalling and un-Canadian. While many may take post election liberties and poke fun at this “Purple Wave” that was supposed to happen. Before you make fun of them, start drilling deep on this site by province, by riding. Naturally the PPC had a strong showing in the Prairies, one guy polled 20%, with some others in double digits. Indeed, reasonably strong in BC. Of concern is their strength in Ontario particularly rural ridings, however some strength in the smaller urban centres.  Thank God for the sane people of Quebec and the Maritimes, the PPC was not so popular with these folks. Though Maxine Bernier polled 20% in the Beauce, he’s a local boy so there is no doubt some loyalty on a pers level. And his father was the MP in the very same riding.  Nationally, the PPC polled higher by and large than the Greens at the riding level other than where sane Canadians live. The Conservati...

The unnecessary Canadian election is now over. One of its many issues was the pandemic and the virulently negative attitudes and resistance to vaccination of a noisy minority of the population. It is obvious that it will remain a front burner problem for the foreseeable future. I’ve noted a lot of comments by anti-vaxxers on Facebook and in letters to the editor as well as the odd op ed columns of our daily papers, that those refusing the small jab in the arm should not be criticized for refusing to be vaccinated to protect “themselves” against covid. They maintain that it is a simple human right. I even saw one which claimed that any vaccine mandate is a negation of charter rights. Leaving aside that we have yet to hear of any court challenge based on charter rights being brought to any court, I take the position that this is an uninformed, even “selfish” position. My attitude, shared by many by the way, not surprisingly, and invariably raises the ire of the anti-vax crowd. Can’t We A...

  For Canada, the issue of the residential school horror is part of one of the two equally important/vital/fundamental issues facing this country. The one, is the existential crisis of climate change of course. The other, of which the issue of the unmarked graves of innocent children forms an important part, is ending Canada’s colonial relationship with Indigenous people. This is issue is being foregrounded1 and has been in the news for some months. There is increasing concern, even fear, among a good deal of the caring public that the issue of the many unmarked graves of residential school students is falling out of the attention of the general public. The fear is that what occurred to those interred, thyoung victims of Canadian colonialism, is that it is in danger of going under the rug. The first is dismaying but to a certain extent understandable. Our contemporary society has a notoriously short attention span, the news cycle is a short one, and there is an array of genuinely i...