GREETINGS, Comrades. Today we’re chatting about Grayson Bruce, the nine year-old North Carolina fan of My Little Pony who was bullied by schoolmates when he brought a rainbow-colored backpack to his Buncombe County elementary school.
Tag Archives: News
We Are Better than Blockades
GREETINGS, PEOPLE. This is one of my regularly scheduled posts in which I address something happening in Indian Country. I encourage all of you to stick around, but let me be clear: I’m speaking to Onkwehonwe here, and only Onkwehonwe, and only on my own behalf. More specifically, I’m talking to Kanien’keha:ka, the People of the Flint, better known by some of you as the Mohawks. I am Kanien’keha:ka, of the Haudenosaunee – the People of the Longhouse, aka Iroquois, the name given to us by our longtime Huron enemies.
I Don’t Look Forward to Fred Phelps Rotting in Hell
ACCORDING TO A Facebook post of his estranged son, Nathan, Fred Phelps Sr, the founder of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, is dying. There’s an undeniable aesthetic appeal in the prospect of Mr. Phelps soon meeting his Maker, but this indulgence presumes far more than I can manage. My own view, if you care to know, is that Phelps will die and dissolve and remain forever in a condition of no condition whatsoever.
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• Week of 09.03.2014
Ukraine says progress made on Crimea mediation plan | New warrant issued in Mayor Rob Ford police investigation | Islamic Leaders Issue Fatwa Prohibiting One-Way Trips to Mars | Lev Tahor members stopped in Trinidad return to Canada Sunday night | New Music: Little Simz, “Mandarin Oranges Part 2” | Is Mississauga ready for a new mayor after 36 years of Hazel McCallion? | Parti Québécois election platform highlights values charter and French language | Nebraska shocked to learn it has Parti Quebecois-style religion law | Mandy Gives Online Dating Tips
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If you were a store, what kind of a store would you be?
WHAT’S TRENDY and current and cool? What’s everyone watching and doing and talking and thinking and listening to right now. Do you know, and do you care?
The Roundtable Podcast 62
• Week of 23.02.2014
“It is what is is”: Patrick Brazeau Has a New Job | Yulia Tymoshenko freed; Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich impeached | Pa. couple sent to prison for 2nd prayer death of child | Blondie Bennett, Barbie-Obsessed Woman, Uses Hypnotherapy To Make Herself ‘Brainless’ | New Music: Lake Street Dive, “Bad Self Portraits” | Blue Tooth Toothbrush | WhatsApp | Viral Drinking Game, NekNomination | Tim Hortons cuts back menu, drops Cold Stone Creamery | Harper Goes to Mexico | Federal research shows oil sands tailings ponds are leaking | The government wants to hear your views about prostitution
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Even Tobacco is Better than Stephen Harper’s Law and Order
Much of the Indian Country coffee-shop chat in southern Ontario these days concerns Ottawa’s Bill C-10, “Tackling Contraband Tobacco Act,” introduced by the Canadian Government in November 2013. Vocal champions of this bill (apart from the government) include the Canadian Convenience Stores Association and the Retail Council of Canada. So a more plainly descriptive title for this legislation might be “A Bill to Prevent the Mohawks from Cutting Into Our Business.”
Updates and Such
GREETINGS, friends and comrades. Work continues apace on the book that Larry Loyie, Constance Brissenden and I are, for now, calling “Residential School: A Children’s History.” I am also putting the finishing touches to another book about the Indian Residential School System called Full Circle: a story of the Indian residential school legacy, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and reflections on the work of hope, healing, reconciliation and change. (That title may still change also. These things are not certain in the book trade until it’s in print and on the shelves.)
The Roundtable Podcast 58
• Week of 28.12.2013
Thousands across eastern Canada still in the dark | Stephen Harper thanks ‘brave men and women in uniform’ in annual Christmas message | Canada departs Afghanistan in 100 days | Featured Article: The Corporate “Free Speech” Racket – How corporations are using the First Amendment to destroy government regulation | Associated Press announces Top 10 stories of 2013 | Music: Ian and Sylvia, “Got No More Home Than A Dog” | Edward Snowden says government surveillance now far worse than George Orwell’s 1984 envisioned | Activists clear to come home after Russian charges dropped | Wisconsin Has So Much Cheese They’re Using it to De-Ice the Roads | Botched circumcision allegations against Quebec doctor grow | 27 Things to Leave Behind in 2014
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The Roundtable Podcast 57
• Week of 14.12.2013
Nelson Mandela: July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013 | Josh Matlow urges council to hit pause on Scarborough subway | Top Ten List: How to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017 | Game: Finish the Headline | Beyoncé | Featured Article: The End of the College Essay, An essay | Police In Thailand Lay Down Vests and Barricades In Solidarity With Protestors | Music: Greg Ashley, “True Love Leaves No Traces” | Google is now funding numerous Tea Party groups | Bots now ‘account for 61% of web traffic’ | Public-health advocates pushing for graphic, cigarette-style health warnings on wine, beer and liquor containers
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The Roundtable Podcast 54
• Week of 03.11.2013 | “THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING” 
How one video dragged Rob Ford into the dangerous world of gangsters | Conservatives condemn sex-selective abortion, assisted suicide as party convention winds down | Fifteen Tory motions to know about from the convention (and the Top Ten Conservative Motions that Didn’t Make it to the Floor) | New galaxy ‘most distant’ yet discovered | Recommended Article: Ben Franklin’s Daylight Saving Time Proposal Was Written as a Joke | Jailed Pussy Riot Member Missing Following Prison Transfer: Nadya Tolokonnikova’s relatives have had no contact with the jailed punk rocker for 10 days | 10-Year-Old Boy Discovers a 600 Million Year-Old Supernova | Music: Arcade Fire – “Flashbulb Eyes,” from the Album Reflektor | Hakimullah Mehsud, charismatic and ruthless leader of the Pakistani Taliban, killed by U.S. drone strike
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The Roundtable Podcast 53
• Week of 13.10.2013 | “SEND IN THE CLOWNS”
Christian delusions are driving the GOP insane | Quebec physicians ordered to stop performing virginity tests | Vatican withdraws Pope Francis medals after spelling Jesus’ name wrong | Mike Duffy billed Senate $65,000 to pay friend for ‘no tangible work,’ RCMP alleges | Recommended Article: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss | This Comedian Hijacks a TED Talk And Basically Makes A Fool Out of Every “Thought Leader” Ever | Daniel Noehl Calls Police After Being Stiffed In Drug Deal | Music: Paul McCartney “New” | Charges that Canada spied on Brazil unveil CSEC’s inner workings | Scarborough residents report receiving robocalls after Toronto municipal Councillor Ainslie steps down | Giorgio Mammoliti is Back on the Toronto Executive Committee
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Reflections on the Random Mass Killing
WILLIAM MARSDEN observes today, in a Postmedia article “A touch of socialism might tame America’s killer psyche,” that
Murderous rampages have become so commonplace in America they have reached a level of banality that has earned them their own massive, militaristic and bureaucratic response system. The shooter opens fire. Police “active shooter” squads — on call 24/7 — are deployed. The shooter either commits suicide or is shot dead. The police are declared heroes. The victims are mourned and become “patriots.” Their family photos drift ghost-like across TV screens. Friends of the shooter struggle to comprehend why such a good-natured guy would do such a terrible thing. Blame inevitably falls on, as the Chicago Tribune ruled in an editorial Tuesday, “a lethal grudge and a gun.”
There is no repudiating that the mass killing of strangers in crowded public places is a template act, from beginning to end scripted and carried out along known and predictable lines. For years the question Why? has necessarily occurred, under the assumption that a coherent explanation is available.
The Roundtable Podcast 47
• Week of 23.06.2013
The National Research Centre for Residential Schools | The GOP’s Jaw Dropping “Scientific” Theories | Half of First Nations Children Live in Poverty, Says New Study | Recommended Article: Diary of Second World War German teenager reveals young lives untroubled by Nazi Holocaust in wartime Berlin | The Sovereignty Summer | Canadian Tire: Taking Over the World | Quiz Time
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The Roundtable Podcast 42
• Week of 19.05.2013 — Is Rob Ford’s New Low His New High? | A Lashing For Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | Retired NFL Players Endure A Lifetime Of Hurt | Kim Jong Un Knows Turf | Drunk Man Cuts Off His Penis, Flushes It Down The Toilet | Hot In Japan: Human Doll Cloning | The Canadian Senate’s Growing Independent Party | Building the Starship Enterprise
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Journalism, Essays, Broadcasting, Books 