Author Archives: Dave Pollard

Dogs in the Stands

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Dave Pollard

cartoon by hugh macleod OK, so now what’s holding you back? You know that nothing you do makes any enduring difference, to the state of the world or civilization, or in fact to anything, since there is no ‘you’ to … Continue reading →

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What Underlies Oppression

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Dave Pollard

Pride Vancouver Festival image from Daily Hive attributed to Public Disco/Facebook This past week was Pride Week in Vancouver. It’s a great parade and festival, and a celebration of the growing and hard-fought freedom of non-straight (LGBTQ+) folks to be open … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 3 Comments

Kompa: World Music 101

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Dave Pollard

What if you could take the best parts of a good song and amplify, loop, remix and riff off them? Would you end up with a better song? And whose song would it be then? This is an issue that … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

Shortz Subject

Posted on August 3, 2019 by Dave Pollard

If you’ve ever done crosswords, you probably enjoy the wordplay (and new knowledge) in some of the clues (often denoted by an appended “?”) as much as solving the puzzle. So, for some recent examples from NYT/New Yorker puzzles: • … Continue reading →

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Aphorisms

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Dave Pollard

photo by Allen Ishibashi, from Twitter In this week’s New Yorker, Adam Gopnik muses on the value, appeal and history of aphorisms. He differentiates the aphorism (wise) from its cousin, the epigram (witty). He touches on Twitter, the latest vehicle … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

Conservatism as Trauma Response

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Dave Pollard

comic by Reza Farazmand “It’s entirely up to us. If we fail — if we blow up or degrade the biosphere so it can no longer sustain us — nature will merely shrug and conclude that letting apes run the … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 5 Comments

Playing Apart

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Dave Pollard

image from the collection of Nick Smith, “possibly by John Wareham” All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 5 Comments

Conversations That Matter: What It Takes to Have Them

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Dave Pollard

photo by Maren Yumi on flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Ironically, despite the fact that I engage in fewer conversations than I used to (maybe because since I’m retired I don’t have to, and because I find few conversations valuable anyway), I’ve started … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 4 Comments

Being Adaptable: A Reminder List

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Dave Pollard

image from PXHERE, CC0 It’s been about four years since I produced an updated version of my rather complicated Community-Based Resilience Framework. The revisions I made then had already begun to acknowledge how little we can actually do to prepare ourselves … Continue reading →

Posted in Preparing for Civilization's End | 2 Comments

Did Early Humans Have Selves?

Posted on June 22, 2019 by Dave Pollard

image by Neil Howard on flickr CC-BY-NC2.0 Ontology is “a gathering of or speaking (-logy) about ‘what is, what exists’ (onto-)”. The suffix -logy has come to mean a study or science, but originally it just referred to something said … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 7 Comments