Bully

The difference between the American and Canadian ratings for the movie Bully is a strong indicator of what sets the two countries and cultures apart. In the U.S. countless young people are bullied every year for a variety of reasons.  Not all of them have to do with sexual orientation, but sometimes it is the [...]

Religion, Secular Humanism and Morality

A question pops up frequently on the forums that often discuss religion and atheism.  It’s about whether morality is inevitably tied to religion and the word of God, or whether morality can exist within secular humanism.  Religious people often argue that morality cannot be separated from religion and so a secular world is devoid of [...]

SHADOWS, SEX & DRUGS

I’ve spent a lot of time recently looking at the psychological issue of “Shadow Work”.  The main idea here is that we all bury and disown parts of ourselves that we don’t want to deal with.   It is nicely related to Hal and Sidra Stone’s Voice Dialogue theories and also the Big Mind work directed [...]

Pre- and Trans- Rational

I came across a great little story in an article a few days ago.  It was an interview with a Native American elder down in the South-West.  When asked about the danger of uranium he responded by saying that the uranium did not want to be brought up from under the Earth.  It wanted to [...]

Tolerance within the Left and Right

I saw an interesting poll today on CNN which answered something that I’ve wondered about for a while.  The question was “Do you feel that your way of life is superior and right to the exclusion of others?”  There was a very clear pattern in the answer.  The question was answered “yes” by 63% of [...]

What’s a Liberal?

In the recent Canadian federal election the Liberal Party suffered a major implosion, losing more than 50% or their already weak number of seats in the House of Commons.  While much of the reason behind this failure can be attributed to the crucifixion of their leader, Michael Ignatieff, much of it also came from weak [...]

American and Canadian Political Parties and the Nature of Democracy

What would the American political landscape look like if, like most countries in the world, it had more than two political parties.  Ken Wilber has commented before that there are at least four real parties.  There are extreme and moderate liberals in the Democratic party and, similarly, extreme and moderate conservatives in the Republican party.  [...]

Deaf and Blind

Wish I had this when I was writing Chapter Three of my Philosophical Autobiography.

Look on the bright side.

Last week I read an article in Macleans titled American Idiots.  No, it wasn’t about Green Day.  I’m sure you can guess that it was a summary of the joke that the Republican party is calling a nomination campaign.  From Cain to Palin to Bachmann to Perry to Trump, it is really hard not to [...]

A Few Words On Conspiracy Theories & THRIVE

A few weeks ago when I put up a post about my favorite web sites, I mentioned a new site that I’d just found and which looked very interesting.  I said I’d get back to you on it, so… THRIVE, is a website up up by Foster Gamble (of the famous Proctor and Gamble family).  [...]

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving in Canada is in October, but with the recent Thanksgiving in the U.S. there has been a lot of discussion about giving thanks in a variety of forums. The most interesting comment, which was part of an interview I heard but is corroborated in several news articles, was that some sort of daily act [...]

Favorite Web Sites

One of the benefits of retirement is a more leisurely schedule and the ability to explore information on the Internet.  There are a number of web sites that I’ve come to visit regularly because they offer an opportunity for me to learn new things and read interesting points of view.  I’d like to summarize a [...]