Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Monday, 25 July 2011
Summertime
...and I haven't had a serious thought in a month. So here's a photo of moonlight on the beautiful St. Lawrence River to tie me over.
Monday, 27 June 2011
Saturday, 25 June 2011
In The Blog Colony
I just finished re-reading Franz Kafka's short story 'In The Penal Colony'. I thought the description of a prisoner tortured by an apparatus that slowly writes out the guilty sentence on his body and who, once he becomes aware of what is being written on him, then dies would be an apt analogy to the experience of those who have taken the time to read this blog. So, before I go on with the random thoughts of a middle-aged man more concerned with the mind in middle age than with EKGs, PSAs & EDs, and without ever pronouncing his verdict, here's a photo of my recent birthday dinner in Ottawa; to show that I actually get out and have fun quite often.
Monday, 13 June 2011
What's To Become Of The Boy?
Today I was at a luncheon featuring, as guest speaker, the current principal of my university alma mater. During lunch, before he spoke, there was some discussion at my table about the recently emerging phenomenon of disproportionate enrolment and achievement of young women in post-secondary institutions; and the emergence of women in the work world generally. I found it interesting that issues that I've recently been trying to sort out in my mind and get into this blog have registered with others (of both genders). So, I'm going to press on and try to get some things down here. My biggest problem is how to approach these issues without coming across as chauvinistic or anti-girl power or a defender of underachieving boys. BTW, the title of this entry is the translated title of a Heinrich Boll memoir.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Stale Male Pale
Disclaimer: I am a white male and may have received unequal treatment and unearned advantages from my society as a result.
In a teaser clip for a story coming up later in a broadcast of CBC News - The National one evening last week, a female headhunter announced something to the effect that "no one is interested in stale male pale". The story was about men who were, by circumstance of their unemployment, at home running the household. I didn't watch the story until the next day because I didn't want to get riled up right before bedtime. Turns out the HR woman was referring to senior management positions; and turns out the out-of-work men were enjoying their new roles. The effects on society of the 'mancession' and the 'decline of men' was also covered recently (and with much comic effect) in an article in the New York Observer. I want to explore these issues in the next few entries, as I think they tie in with previous posts regarding the inevitability of change, the lure of nostalgia, and the subtle nature of changing relationships. To my children, hang in there - I'm going some place with all this.
In a teaser clip for a story coming up later in a broadcast of CBC News - The National one evening last week, a female headhunter announced something to the effect that "no one is interested in stale male pale". The story was about men who were, by circumstance of their unemployment, at home running the household. I didn't watch the story until the next day because I didn't want to get riled up right before bedtime. Turns out the HR woman was referring to senior management positions; and turns out the out-of-work men were enjoying their new roles. The effects on society of the 'mancession' and the 'decline of men' was also covered recently (and with much comic effect) in an article in the New York Observer. I want to explore these issues in the next few entries, as I think they tie in with previous posts regarding the inevitability of change, the lure of nostalgia, and the subtle nature of changing relationships. To my children, hang in there - I'm going some place with all this.
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