Nul meilleur temps que le mois de février pour plonger dans l'une des œuvres phares du thème de l'amour. Ovide, poète antique, s'amuse en offrant un manuel de l'amour et des règles de base de la séduction. Reçue à l'époque comme un ouvrage subversif, cette prose est une représentation joyeuse et même drôle d'un thème vieux comme la terre.
It is widely said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. While this should be obvious to any modern society, these times require us to never take for granted some of the most basic assumptions. As we seek answers to understand the increasingly divided, unequal, and unpredictable world we live in, going back in time and space is a good place to start. It seems more appropriate than ever to revisit great classics of literature, to soak in the world order that once was in order to understand the context and conflicts of today.
Special contribution by Mike Fancie: Fortunately for progressive organizers, the Liberal government has racked up a remarkable rap sheet of broken promises in just over a year of power. Aside from recent electoral reform and Syrian immigration backpedaling, the Liberals have failed to fund First Nations education, they haven't repealed a word of Bill C-51, and they're following the same emissions targets set by Stephen Harper. Heck, even Katimavik is publicly begging Trudeau to follow through on his promise to re-fund its youth leadership programming.
A cautionary tale about political grandstanding; Book Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue; Citizens' Press revisits great works of literature; Left noise; What we shared last week.
Emma Donoghue was born in Ireland and now lives in London, Ontario. Her last book, Room, was a hit and made into a film for which she also wrote the screenplay. It was the story of a woman and her son being held captive in a man's shed: not the most uplifting subject and yet told with lightness and might. Her most recent book, The Wonder, builds on a different theme: an eleven-year-old girl in the Ireland of the 1850's stops eating for religious and spiritual reasons. Here too, Emma Donoghue treats a dark topic with so much grace.
Reports have come through that the US government will be renaming and redirecting its efforts to address violent extremists away from all violent extremism unless they are 'Islamic Extremists'.
Are you wondering what you can do to fight Donald's Trump travel ban on members of the Muslim community and refugees? Do you want to do something to combat Islamophobia and racism here in Canada? You can start by writing a letter to your Member of Parliament to urge them to repeal the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement and publicly condemn the travel ban.
In this issue: Why refugees are welcome here and what Canada must do to make it so. Davos speeches and inequality. Organized opposition to Trump still comes from the same places. Left noise: Making racists afraid again. What we are reading.
The 'far-right' is really just the politics of division. The liberal press call it 'populism', but in reality it is the opposite of that. Trump is an expression of power of the elite social minority. In many ways, in the US and other countries where the far-right has won, we are witnessing the replacement of the liberal elite minority with the another elite minority: those who are unconstrained in their use of social aggression and violence. It is for this reason that socialists are the ones who will be leading the battle against the rise of the far-right.
