The Coronation of Justin Trudeau, Liberals’ First Post-Political Leader & Facebook Crush
by Laurence Miall on April 8, 2013
In some respects, Justin Trudeau is a lot like Barack Obama. Those that like him like him because they can project their own ideas onto him. Being around him is like breathing in air that is momentarily transubstantiated into stardust, like water into wine. Breathing that rarefied air, you start to believe this handsome devil might have transformational powers. “I want hope.” Zing! Trudeau has hope… “I want change.” Zing! …
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Has film lost the plot? House of Cards proves TV is ideal for complex narrative
by Laurence Miall on February 21, 2013
Having watched all 13 episodes of the Netflix remake of House of Cards, featuring Kevin Spacey at pretty much his most delightfully evil, I’m left wondering if it is to TV, rather than to film, that viewers should look if they want complex narrative. While mainstream film tends ever-more toward the spectacle – do we really need a 3D everything, including Piranhas? – popular television (of the high …
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Hacker Who Betrayed Bradley Manning Betrays Himself
by Laurence Miall on January 4, 2013
Yesterday The Guardian newspaper published a feature on Adrian Lamo, the former computer hacker turned FBI informant who entrapped Private Bradley Manning through a lengthy series of online chats. Manning now sits behind bars, charged with disclosing classified information (via Wikileaks,) and “aiding the enemy” – i.e. The Terrorists. His “crimes” are punishable by death or life in prison.
The War on Terror is the gift that keeps on giving …
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America is addicted to violence
by Laurence Miall on December 15, 2012
Some rather haphazard and purely personal responses to the mass murder yesterday of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The Second Amendment. What is with the worship of the Second Amendment? Surely it’s more important to protect real, living human beings than to protect the unlimited right to bear arms. What kind of fool or zealot thinks that gun ownership actually makes America …
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Perhaps More Than You Wanted to Know About the Leader of Russia’s National Bolshevik Party
by Laurence Miall on August 6, 2012
Shortly before her death, Susan Sontag wrote that narrative “does what lives (the lives that are lived) cannot offer, except after they are over. It confers – and withdraws – meaning or sense upon a life.” This year, France’s most prestigious literary prize went to Limonov, a biography that attempts not only to confer meaning on a life, but on a life that is not yet over. Eduard Limonov, …
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Where Are Our Robot Servants And Other Gizmos, Asks David Graeber
by Laurence Miall on July 16, 2012
Has the spectacle of somebody poking and prodding an iPad or some other iThingy ever left you feeling rather underwhelmed? Do the latest apps that make your cell phone resemble a beer glass leave you cold? World-famous anthropologist, David Graeber, probably shares some of your cynical snarkiness. His new essay, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit,” builds upon a fascinating question: where are the flying cars, Mars …
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Politicians Are Not Allowed to Tell the Truth About the Miserable Economy
by Laurence Miall on July 4, 2012
I would normally leave the economics and world politics to my more capable fellow Sapiens, Matthew Payne and Andrew Loewen, but this little bad-news nugget, harvested from a corner of the Internet where I seldom tread – an investment firm’s website! – was too good to pass up:
“We have no doubt that everyone is tired of bad news, but we are compelled to review the facts: Europe
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Practical Pseudoscience: Toward a neurological understanding of rabid dog attacks
by Laurence Miall on April 27, 2012
Figure 1
When a brain receives input from an external stimulus, such as the sudden approach of a rabid dog, it processes the thought and then conveys it to the message relay centre, which triggers panic signals. But your brain’s ability to add 1+1 or to add a red abstract blob to a blue blob (Figure 1) is unharmed.
Figure 2
Surgeons perform surgery on a dog.…
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Yes, Alberta Really Is Insane Enough to Elect the Wildrose Alliance
by Laurence Miall on April 18, 2012
Eleven years ago, with a fresh BA in Political Science in hand, I started working in the Alberta Legislature on behalf of the Alberta Liberal Party. I will never forget a government member by the name of Ivan Strang, who got to his feet and struggled to read out a question that had been prepared for him by a staffer. I soon found out that in 1999 this same politician …
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Harper Scorns Science and Democracy as Canada’s Chief Oil Executive
by Laurence Miall on March 5, 2012
After six years of rule, the evidence is pretty conclusive: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government will use every trick in the book to help boost corporate power – especially if the corporations happen to be in the business of environmental plunder. Big oil companies are clearly eager to get projects like the highly contentious Keystone Pipeline up and running, but these companies don’t need to fret about spending millions on …
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Vic Toews: Minister of Snooping and Torture
by Laurence Miall on February 22, 2012
Even for a government-gang full of gutter politicians, there are surely few ministers that can better demonstrate Canada’s swift descent into a thuggish Petro-State than Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. When the name Vic Toews pops up in the media, it is invariably connected to something oppressive and regressive – whether it be the torture of civilians or legislation that will permit police to spy on Canadians’ Internet use.
Canada …
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