The Latest

The No Platforming blog post calls on the Library Board to reconsider its revised room booking policy. The blog refers to TPL as “detouring from its mandate” and the revised policy as “a misguided endeavor”, suggesting TPL’s commitment to intellectual freedom has been undermined.

I was at work last week on a quite different blog for the Ryerson CFE when a jury of Gerald Stanley’s peers (or is it settler clones?), seven women and five men none of whom were “visibly Indigenous,” acquitted Stanley of the murder of Colten Boushie of the Red Pheasant First Nation in August of 2016.

Disinformation can be facilitated by government regulatory structures—leading to deception and betrayals of trust, regardless of the structures’ original purpose. Significant regulatory failures in health and environmental areas are discussed here. A subsequent post will discuss broader influences contributing to the failures and how to overcome such problems.

Toronto Star / January 26 – Writing in the Toronto Star, Sheldon Levy, past-president of Ryerson University, describes the university president’s challenge in defending freedom of expression on campus and why it is essential for universities and beyond. “On many occasions, I gave my administrator’s green light to events featuring speakers whose ideas I personally loathed,” Levy writes. “And I did so because freedom of speech is a core defining value for any free society. Democracy cannot function without it.”

I think I am living in the proverbial “interesting times.”