A few months ago I was listening to a radio program where an anthropologist was interviewed about a West African village where children were killed on a regular basis. These kids were believed to be inhabited by evil spirits. One had been born with a withered arm. Another was a child whose mother died during [...]
Category Archives: Life
More, more, more
Why would a person drive a Hummer? It seems that the more we have, the more we want. It never ceases to amaze me how demand quickly outstrips supply. Any time we desire something that is beyond our reach we think we will be satisfied with “just the basic necessities.” How many people without personal [...]
Long-term pain for short-term gain
“Stimulus-driven.” That’s how I used to describe my son Tommy when he was young. Having spent seven years in a Vietnamese orphanage, his arrival in Canada introduced him to an entirely new set of stimuli, especially at the dinner table. Whenever he liked something he would pile more helpings of it on his plate even [...]
The value of the pursuit
My first car was a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle. I bought it in 1981 when I was a student. I had no money in my budget for repairs so I bought a book called; How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Instructions for the Complete Idiot. It worked. I was indeed a complete [...]
Hidden shame
A woman without hair, a man with a diseased penis, a teenager with psoriasis all over his back, a woman with severe varicose veins, a manager with a record of a sexual infraction… If I extended this list, I might eventually get to something that you identified with yourselves. We almost all have shames or [...]
The depths of cruelty
In yesterday’s Montreal Gazette, former editor Norman Webster wrote about Tuol Sleng, the former high school that became S-21, the Khmer Rouge’s primary prison and torture center. Tuol Sleng and the Khmer Rouge regime represent everything that is wrong with human nature. And it is merely a single chapter in the long history of man’s [...]
Segregation
Us versus Them… From time to time you will notice how themes keep coming back again throughout my posts. That’s because I believe we are not very complicated creatures. We just appear so. In reality, human nature appears complex because there are an infinite number of combinations and permutations that can manifest themselves as a result of [...]
Memories: True or false?
Memory, more specifically false memory, is a topic I wrote about for a column a few months ago. I kept the final product on the back burner before finally deciding to publish it last week. I hesitated because of the trauma that sexual abuse causes. Research into false memories has had a major impact on [...]
A century and a half
September 26, 1958; a day that will live in infamy. This future goofball was born! 50 years, huh! How did that happen? Well, I suppose that since I’m here, I might as well celebrate. I know that we use years as milestones because they’re easy to count. Still, I always thought it would be much [...]
