For the hard-to-buy-for ideas person on your list let me suggest a book that has somehow appeared on my desk: Christmas: Philosophy for Everyone.
Subtitle: Better than a lump of coal.
Who sent it? Christopher Hitchens, or one of his legion of New Atheist supporters? No, I think not.
In Dialogue of the Domestic, University of Alberta graduate student Anna House says she tries to show how, by arranging items in homes, occupants tell stories about themselves and leave out disturbing details they prefer kept out of the spotlight. She says that domestic interior tells a story about relationships and human character.
As we enter the busy holiday travel season, millions will pass through airport scanners. But do they know the risks?
Michael Mehta, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Thompson Rivers University critiques the rise of security measures in the fight against terrorism.
Six decades ago, a malady known as consumption stormed across the Arctic, snuffing hundreds of lives, tearing apart thousands of families, and seeding a deep distrust in a bungling public health-care system.
Now, the pernicious disease written so indelibly upon Inuit history and psychology is making an unwelcome return to the North. This week, Nunavut recorded its 98th case of tuberculosis in 2010, the most logged in the territory’s 11-year history. Continue reading
Globe and Mail journalist Maragaret Wente barely passed the online Immigrantion sample test. An interesting perspective about Canadian citizenship, immigrants and family members. Language requirements for new immigrants and cuts to language programs for new immigrants don’t add up but should we be surprised?
The new citizenship test is not a snap. I took a sample test online, and barely passed. (“You might have to study harder!” scolded the automatic message.) People are grousing because failure rates have soared. In some places, they’re hitting 30 per cent. Yet the questions aren’t really harder than they were when I took the test for real more than 30 years ago. So what’s happened?
High above the downtown clamour, in one of Toronto’s shiny glass towers, modern medicine’s pioneers have put a whole new spin on an old nursery rhyme.
Using stem cells salvaged from the retinas of human cadavers, researchers with the University of Toronto have restored sight to the eyes of, well, three blind mice. The feat, aside from indicating a quirky sense of humour, has been repeated several times over the last year and marks an important step toward the goal of restoring sight in people.
Watch the 3-minute video in the Q13 FOX article below.It says,
Now, four years later, a Seattle based group studying the ethics surrounding “Ashley’s procedure” has decided it is “morally permissible” and has written a report on the subject……
Curt Decker of the National Disability Rights Network spoke out then. “The majority of the disability community is clear. That this kind of procedure is not acceptable at this time in our country’s history.
But times have changed and so have opinions. The Seattle-based group of doctors, ethicists and parents including Sandy looked at and studied the case determining growth-stunting procedures should be “morally permissible” under certain circumstances.
Growth Stunting Procedure For Disabled Children Is “Morally Permissible”
A look at parents rights and their children’s care
Q13FOX.com, December 5, 2010
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Here are some other examples of what is happening.
Physicians’ medical decision-making is to be guided by patient best interests. It is the
foundational principle grounding the trust that is explicit within the fiduciary nature of the
physician/patient relationship. Best interests is meant to be viewed through the patient’s eyes,
and is guided by the experience and knowledge of the attending physician. At the beginning
of life, however, this becomes a problematic concept to practically apply. Continue reading
Today is World AIDS Day and a good time to reflect on many advances, or is it? National Post Journalist, Jonathan Kay presents interesting details about International as well as Canadian homphobic politics in this article, dated November 22, 2010. Apparently “killing someone because they’re gay just isn’t that bad.”
No one expects Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Liberia to start printing gay-marriage licenses any time soon. But would it be too much to ask that these countries at least oppose the targeted murder of homosexuals?
