In July of this year, I began hosting monthly Fireside Film Nights, a free monthly online series featuring progressive films and panel discussions. My goal was to attract 100 viewers by July 2022. By two months later in September, the viewing audience had increased slightly faster than I had hoped to approximately 50, but still…
Category: racism
The legacy of residential schools is not history
Content warning: This story has disturbing details about Indian residential schools. Survivors and their families can call the toll-free National Indian Residential School Crisis Hotline at 1-866-925-4419. On Thursday, May 27, Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation announced that they had located the unmarked burial sites of 215 children on the site…
NPA Board: Let’s make a deal!
On April 21, three of the four NPA city councillors, Lisa Dominato, Colleen Hardwick, and Sarah Kirby-Yung, left the NPA. If you were an NPA member you might have thought that things could not get any worse. Now they have! On April 23, every single one of the three NPA school trustees, Carmen Cho, Oliver…
More cracks in the NPA Titanic
If previous revelations of infiltration by the alt-right into the NPA board of directors weren’t enough to sink the ship, this week two more icebergs closed in on it — one small, the other larger and much more destructive. COVID-19 has been a public health crisis for over a year. Now, unfortunately, things are taking…
Lessons in humanity — and inhumanity
The other night my partner, Penny, and I watched “The Mauritanian” — a new film that’s getting a lot of buzz, and for good reason. I don’t normally blog about movies, but this exceptional movie is worth making an exception for. Most of us have at least heard about the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in…
Soon, the NPA will be put out of its misery
The Non-Partisan Association saga continues with yet another chapter that illustrates how the oldest and, some would say, most venerable municipal party in Vancouver has been taken over by a bunch of right-wing amateurs. The NPA’s elected caucus has continued to demand that their party’s board of directors call an annual general meeting. Normally, this…
This is not justice for Dr. Hassan Diab!
Just a few days ago, the French court of appeal directed Dr. Hassan Diab, (not to be confused with Lebanon’s prime minister of the same name) — a sociology professor in Ottawa who’s been a Canadian citizen since 1993 — to be committed to trial yet again. I’m outraged, and here’s why. Dr. Diab is…