Tag Archives: Cultural

5 Major Issues that Contributed to the Burnaby Mountain Protest

Canadians have a really bad habit of patting ourselves on the back. We see violent clashes between citizens and the state, like what is continuing to unfold in Ferguson, and we tell ourselves that would never happen here in Canada.

In light of the recent Grand Jury decision in the Ferguson case, I would encourage you to check out what Gordon, our resident American, has to say on the topic.

While the dispute in Ferguson may be drawing our attention, here in British Columbia we are actually experiencing our own clash between citizens and the state.

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Shame Day: Your Fave Is Problematic

Writing “Shame Days” is harder than it looks. You gotta find a subject that’s extensive enough to merit an entire post of ranting without it being so reprehensible as to leave you speechless (Scott Lively, you satanic **********er, I’m looking at you). With that in mind, and as it’s rapidly approaching 9:00 PM as I write these words, we’re going to revisit an old subject that I personally don’t think got the lashing they deserve.

So who’s being drawn and quartered today?

It was in the title of this piece, so I guess the question’s pretty dang redundant.

“Your Fave is Problematic” is a Tumblr blog devoted, much like these Shame Day posts, to calling out celebrities and artists who the authors view as having committed bigotry in some form or another. Evan and I have both briefly touched on these guys, with us generally concluding that while noble in intent, they tend to be a bit extreme in their measures of what is and isn’t acceptable. Evan specifically stated that “I truly believe that Your Fave Is Problematic is doing a good thing”, however, after myself digging through their blog a bit more, I really just can’t say the same.

These guys are *******es.

Let me break it down here. Continue reading

Culture War Correspondence: Cultural Sensitivity

GORDON: Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening. Our topic for tonight comes to us from the distant country of Sri Lanka, where a British woman has been deported for transgressing local standards of cultural and religious sensitivity… as a result of having a tattoo of Buddha on her arm…


KAT: Wow. Remind me to get my tattoo removed.

GORDON: You sport the Buddha on yourself?

KAT: Nah, it’s all just wishful thinking. I’m far too broke to have any ink.

(On textbooks)

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Evan and Gordon Talk: TCKs and Other Cultural Stuff

GORDON: Well people, we did, at long last and after many a tearful plea, get suggestions for this week’s topic.

It was all of a whoppin’ two, but hey- progress is progress.

EVAN: That being said, today we are going to turn our sights on a topic presented by Hannah, one that all three of us in particular can relate to:

I’d like to hear your take on what it’s like to be a TCK, whether it’s possible to really be a “global citizen”, and how you make judgements (if you can) across cultures.

For those of you who didn’t know, “TCK” stands for “third culture kid,” a little something we know about seeing as a) we were from one culture before b) being implanted into another culture and c) not finding ourselves fitting fully into either created a third.

That’s sort of the dictionary definition of things, anyway.

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