Selected Columns

Rootedness
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Rootedness

Land, language, lineage and loved ones: the four L's that underpin our health and gird the loins of hope. As the world warms, we need to (re)learn to love the land on which we live and treat it with the respect it requires. 

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The Handmaid’s Tale Revisited
Fay Martin Fay Martin

The Handmaid’s Tale Revisited

Reproductive rights are once more in the crosshairs of some who don't have wombs, and some who do. Atwood reminds us she always claimed her novel was reflection realism rather than imagination and warns us to remain vigilant. 

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Grasping the wisps
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Grasping the wisps

The authenticity of first-person experience deserves its place on the page, but a failing mind describing how his mind is failing is a sorrowful story. 

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A winter strategy
Fay Martin Fay Martin

A winter strategy

Having a roof over one's head is a matter of survival; acquiring it may require a bit of working the system. O Henry spoofs how it works in an old story but not much is new. 

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Oh Canada?
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Oh Canada?

The collective power of singing together can be used for good or ill. National anthems tend to blood, violence, and exclusionism of all sorts, and yet we sing them as if they somehow represent us.  David Pate finds that only 10 countries in the world have anthems that would be suitable for an elementary school play, and suggests we should do better. 

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Addicted to Grievance
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Addicted to Grievance

There is evidence that mankind as a whole is better off now than ever before, but simultaneously we seem to be embracing nastiness, incivility, hatred. Science explains this trend and literature shows us the way out. 

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Hope, Belonging, Meaning, Purpose
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Hope, Belonging, Meaning, Purpose

Dr. Jane Philpott says Canada has an insurance system, not a health system, and proposes a radically alternative approach parallel to the public education system. She poses spiritual health as fundamental to physical and mental health and shares some wisdom.

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Toronto Star Op Ed: Residents help fight housing crisis
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Toronto Star Op Ed: Residents help fight housing crisis

Our community has recently gained profile for successfully completing a community bond raise in jig time, to support affordable housing. The exposure, which included CBC TV National News, set the table for an invited op ed in the Saturday Star.

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Stuckness
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Stuckness

Pretty much everyone agrees we need to do something about our housing problem. But what's the right move? Depends on what you want to achieve...

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A Tower of Babel
Fay Martin Fay Martin

A Tower of Babel

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, which makes a conversation between a hammer and a wrench -- or between generations -- difficult. But what if we tried to bridge the gap?

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Naming and Claiming
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Naming and Claiming

Celine Dion told Adrienne Arsenault that she would sing again, and she did -- flawlessly, they say, although she looks liminal -- at the opening of the Paris Olympics. This column examines that process through a Freire lens.

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Alice Munro Redux
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Alice Munro Redux

Our literary icon has clay feet! Where to point the finge of blame when sexual assault within the family becomes a secret that must be kept?

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Stuff
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Stuff

The Movie Man mirrors our concern about who will carry on our life work and care for what we love when we are gone -- and will they forgive us for leaving heaps of stuff?

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Trespassers
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Trespassers

Protest encampments on campus are becoming as common as daffodils in spring, but what do they signify? Does the student unrest of the 1960s have anything to teach us?

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Women's Sexuality
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Women's Sexuality

Alice Munroe wrote about proper ladies who didn't behave properly: why might that be?

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Fathering
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Fathering

Patriarchy, the rule of the father, makes mothering difficult and fathering impossible. Except in oases of matriarchy.

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Mothering
Fay Martin Fay Martin

Mothering

Four movies that together give the full monte on mothering. C'mon, Cmon, give it a try.

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