Forgetting One’s Manners
“We’ve all been asked ‘So, what’s new?’ many times in our lives, but it’s almost never that you get to answer, ‘I am going to China.’ I am more likely to respond, ‘Frig all. It’s not like I’m going to China or anything.’” These sentiments of Canadian humourist Dave Bidini are quite in line with the way I felt before embarking on a year abroad to teach English.
Where is Home?
Following a coup d’état in 1980, Samuel Doe murdered and subsequently replaced Liberia’s President, William R. Tolbert. Doe reigned for the following 10 years until the notorious Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) attacked Liberia on Christmas Eve, 1989. Civil war ensued for the next 14 years.
Stay in School
What I had planned here was a little half-page, light-hearted article in which I talked about the comparative ease of life in university relative to the post-university world. The first line was going to be, “I remember back when I was your age.”
Learning
The expression on Brad’s face quickly turned into one of sadness and pain. The wrinkles on face and the look in his eyes showed that Brad had been through more than his fair share of rejection and pain in his life, and the question I had just asked was making him relive hard memories.
Our Toxic Hazards
Recent water tests in California showed that 60 percent of the rivers and streams in that state contain Prozac, Ritalin and antibiotics. How did they get there? Individuals either threw excess prescription pills in the water or flushed them down the toilet. The chemicals could then make their way into groundwater where they are absorbed by the fatty tissues of fish and end up on dinner plates.
Values of Today
Was there ever an age when people spoke what they felt and felt what they spoke?
Throughout history, humanity has sought truth. Without truth, this world of ours would be unbearable. History would be meaningless and the future would be unpredictable. The present would be something like a blind gambler’s experience in a casino.
Forgetting Hegemony
It is my educated guess that this is not the first time you are reading Blueprint Magazine. In fact, in all likelihood this is not the second, or third, or maybe even fourth time you are reading it. You keep coming back to this magazine because it prides itself on challenging oppressive power structures and you feel comfortable; at home in your belief that there are always
Embrace The Shadow To See The Light
A shadow is a visible shape on a surface caused by the blockage of light. In the language of symbols the shadow is often analogous to evil and the light to good. Is it any wonder then that upon hearing this phrase – The Shadow – most of us will think of darkness or something hidden, invoking curiosity and in some cases even fear? Are shadows really something to be afraid of?
Who Am I Forgetting?
As much as places, words, stories, and times are forgotten, so are people. So many people walk the world unnoticed. Ignored. Silenced.
Some people are deliberate in their silencing of other people. Some people say or do things to shut people up. To shut people out.
Some people have no clue they’re silencing others. They don’t question or try to become aware of their assumptions or privileges.
Chivalry: Lost or Forgotten
Long gone are the days of chivalry where men on the prowl for heroism would gallop into the sunset with a damsel in tow – only neither of them were in distress, and they each lived happily ever after. We saw chivalry slowly diminish through the ages, but the question is, how much of it is still alive today?
Truly Love Must Never End
truly love
must never end
just gets
damaged
broken
discarded
while you never forget
Stillborn
My baby is newborn and white, plump; luscious in an innocent way like white off a new-painted wall. Like if I pasted it to the wall its new baby-fat skin would stick and peel to the wall.
I’m thinking I could never let go of something so precious. My baby so beautiful; my baby so pure, so white, so perfectly portrait. I’m thinking everyone should have a baby.
Homage to Yeats
The bones pile up all around. We walk on the dead: we eat their ashes, we drink their dust. But we are deaf. Deaf to the strangled cry of their thousand throats- in anguish and despair, “You are going the wrong way!!” “We love you” (and) “You hate yourselves, children, just as we did too.” “Us not you.”
and a tiny whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Canada’s Forgotten
There isn’t a day when I flip through the television channels and don’t come across some sort of placement by United Way, or some other humanitarian organization. We are given a view into a world of despair and hopelessness. These people (seemingly only women and children) are made to live in unbelievable poverty, hungry and dying.
Dialogue of the Forgotten Victims
2,974 dead from 9/11 – appropriated for purposes of propaganda says:
Hey, we have a question for everyone…
Why has the world gone so insane over our relatively small number of deaths yet seems to be incapacitated when it comes to the daily deaths from hunger?
Forgotten
Our daily experience is of a local world viewed through many expectations, and for good reason; it would be overwhelming to approach every social situation as totally new, without an ability to make predictive use of dispositions attributed to others. It is this ability to consistently form accurate expectations of the behaviour of others which allows us to find comfort in a home community.
