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9
Jan
2021
Most people seem to be complying with the provincial order to wear masks indoors. I see people parking their cars, heading barefaced for their preferred store, and then going back to get a mask to wear. Unwillingly, perhaps, but they’re doing it.
A few people blunder in without a mask, and are given one by a clerk. They may grumble, but they wear it.
And a few refuse. Utterly and totally.
If the authorities can’t make up their minds, the skeptics might say, if their recommendations keep changing day to day, why should we believe them?
I use the word “believe” deliberately. Because at its roots, this is an argument about belief systems, an argument that goes back several hundred years to what historians call “The Enlightenment.”
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: belief systems, science, Masks
8
Sep
2019
There have been more mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year than days in the year. CBS News predicts the U.S. will end 2019 having averaged at least one mass shooting every single day.
It makes reporting fairly easy. Reporters can simply fill in the blanks: “Today in (name of city) a gunman opened fire in (name of church, store, mosque, or synagogue) with a (make or model of gun) killing (number dead), and injuring (number hospitalized) before being shot and killed by police.”
In the wake of the latest mass shooting -- Which one? Does it matter? -- the TV program Fox and Friends called in a pastor to explain what was going wrong with the nation.
Former police officer Tony Perkins, a Southern Baptist minister who heads an organization called the Family Research Council, blamed the rash of mass murders on the teaching of science -- particularly evolution -- in American schools.
He said, “We've taught our kids that they come about by chance through primordial slime and then we're surprised that they treat their fellow Americans like dirt."
Tags: fundamentalism, Evolution, science, mass killings
18
Feb
2018
Somehow, political correctness has morphed into political incorrectness. It has become wrong to be right.
Consider Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. During an open house gathering in Edmonton, early in February, he suggested that a woman refer to “peoplekind” rather than “mankind” -- “because it’s more inclusive,” Trudeau explained.
It was a good-natured exchange. The speaker laughed and agreed. The audience applauded.
But commentators on three continents ridiculed Trudeau for wanting to use “politically correct” language. Among them, of course, was Donald Trump’s favourite network, Fox News.
Don’t we get it yet? “Politically correct” language is not a fad. It’s the way we learn and change. The ideas, the concepts -- and yes, the prejudices -- lodged in our brains do not, will not, change until we learn to use different words to express them.
Tags: politically correct, Justin Trudeau, Julie Payette, science, Governor General