Category Archives: Politics

Good Morning Vietnam: An “Un-War” War Movie

In my RIP Robin Williams post yesterday, I mentioned that I wrote an essay while a student in England about Williams’ role in “Good Morning Vietnam”. I don’t think I’ve posted any of my undergrad work on this blog ever but given yesterday’s events, now’s as good of time as any.  Oh, and feel free to […]

Friday Fun Link – A Few Links About The World Cup of Soccer

* Jon Oliver on the mixed emotions football fans feel towards a game that’s more like a religion for most of them and the corrupt body that oversees the quadrennial tournament… * Twitter has enabled graphic hashtags of national flags for the World Cup. * Brazil’s inequality summed up in one stark football-related – although […]

Too Many Tabs Tuesday

Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week… What are the best new products nobody knows about? (Quora) How We Die – Then and Now: Comparing Causes of Death, 1900 v. 2010 (Infographic) What Radiohead Song Always Moves You To Tears? (Reddit) How Poverty Taxes The Brain (Infographic) Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” […]

Librarian Privilege?

So the concept of privilege has been on my mind lately. Thanks to the kind (and kind of) folks on my Facebook feed, I’ve been regularly sent articles about “white privilege“, “male privilege“, “heterosexual privilege” (uhm, for anyone keeping count, I get to tick the box for all three…plus most other types of privilege out […]

Solar Panels Could Replace Pavement on Highways and Roads

Yes, please!

2014 Forbes Billionaire Facts & Figures

My Book Themed Interview

I saw an interview with author, Joshua Ferris, in a recent Entertainment Weekly and thought the series of book-themed questions they asked would be fun to answer for myself… Your Favourite Book As a Child “Child” usually means someone quite young  but honestly, the first book to come to mind when I read this question […]

Big Changes at MetaFilter

I don’t hang out there nearly as much as I used to (and worse, a lot of my “community web site” time has shifted to <gasp> Reddit!) so it was a bit of a shock to see a librarian colleague post on Facebook about the big changes happening at MetaFilter. Cash-strapped after a recent downturn […]

Fired University of Saskatchewan Professor Re-Hired After Major Outcry

Professor Robert Buckingham, a long time professor at the University of Saskatchewan, was recently fired for speaking out about some major ongoing budget cuts and restructuring plans at the U of S. The University administration claimed that there was a difference between the freedom of expression tenured professors should expect for expressing controversial or politically incorrect […]

Too Many Tabs Tuesday

Some of the times science fiction led to science fact What Your Country Says About Your Reading Habits What’s the single biggest mistake parents can make? (AskReddit) 40 Ways Kids Ruin Everything Good In This World (very funny!) How The Working Class Was Forgotten 10 Segments That Make Us Ashamed To Be Wrestling Fans And one […]