A selection of my articles published in magazines, newspapers, journals, and webzines.
When Our Politicians Disdain Us
I felt like Winston Smith when I found what I was seeking in the newspaper archives. I hung on like to a ring buoy holding me above a tidal wave of lies. And I swore that this election, I would support truth.
In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Smith unearths a tattered article that survived the mass destruction of historical records. It confirms his memory is correct and the all-powerful governing Party is lying. It gives him back sanity, and strength.
Thankfully, Winston’s world is imaginary. Nevertheless, I’m still holding on to what I uncovered.
Last election, Gordon Campbell and numerous Liberal ministers-in-waiting really did unequivocally and repeatedly state there was absolutely no chance they’d sell BC Hydro or BC Rail, reduce healthcare funding, or bring in major public service cuts. Significant promises, which arguably tipped the election 10% from squeaker to landslide.
If I was a Liberal MLA, I’d feel embarrassed. Humiliated. I’d have resigned my riding long ago, showering in apologies. Wouldn’t
Panhandling, Misguided Moralizing and the Bank of Canada
On a downtown streetcorner, a piercing voice disrupted my chat with friends. Across the road, a thin, unkempt woman berated a cabbie for refusing her a free ride, and demanded money from people. We quietly condemned the woman’s rude aggressiveness. But as the taxi departed, we stared aghast as the woman collapsed to the concrete, sobbing violently. In the same instant, one of my friends realized he knew her, and dashed over. It turned out the woman was homeless and had minutes earlier been raped. She was shattered and in shock, and had hoped the passing taxi could take her to the hospital.
My friend called an ambulance. I pondered how, habitually, in the absence of facts and understanding about others, we moralize.
I recalled this when reading a recent editorial in a local newspaper defending BC’s new Safe Streets Act outlawing “aggressive” panhandling. As the writer assailed the unemployed with phrases about “government largesse”, “honest day’s work”, “sucking at the
For Your Own Good
(Originally published in Monday Magazine, June 10-16, 1999)
*
An irritated neighbour, worried sibling or angry landlord could set you up for a mental health check-up. After a visit from “the team”, you could end up with fewer rights than a criminal.
*
*
THEY don’t want you to know that your neighbours, teachers and landlord can send “the team” after you. That the helpline may tip authorities to trace your number. That staff at the shelter to which you flee may help incarcerate you without trial.
They don’t want you to know, because that might hurt their chances of helping you in your time of crisis. So if you read this article, goes the argument of some of Victoria’s mental health professionals, Monday will have done you a grave disservice.
But ever since Frank Kingsley found out, he’s been convinced everyone should know.
As Kingsley tells it (names and certain details in several testimonies have been changed to preserve anonymity), his story began three nights after
For Your Own Good
(Originally published in Monday Magazine, June 10, 1999.)
*
An irritated neighbour, worried sibling or angry landlord could set you up for a mental health check-up. After a visit from “the team”, you could end up with fewer rights than a criminal.
*
*
THEY don’t want you to know that your neighbours, teachers and landlord can send “the team” after you. That the helpline may tip authorities to trace your number. That staff at the shelter to which you flee may help incarcerate you without trial.
They don’t want you to know, because that might hurt their chances of helping you in your time of crisis. So if you read this article, goes the argument of some of Victoria’s mental health professionals, Monday will have done you a grave disservice.
But ever since Frank Kingsley found out, he’s been convinced everyone should know.
As Kingsley tells it (names and certain details in several testimonies have been changed to preserve anonymity), his story began three nights after
Doctor Banned in Ontario, Back at Work in Victoria
Originally published in Monday Magazine, 1998. Connected to 2008 story, “Our Government’s Deliberate Helplessness”.
A FORMER chief of psychiatry at Eric Martin Pavilion psychiatric hospital whose licence was permanently revoked in Ontario after he was found to have drugged and repeatedly sexually assaulted a patient, is currently practising in Victoria.
Dr. Frank Gordon Johnson worked in Ontario during the 1970s before moving to Victoria. He maintained a private psychiatric practice here from 1979-91, was a staff member of the Eric Martin Pavilion during that time, and held the position of EMP chief of psychiatry from 1983-89.
In 1993, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons found Johnson guilty of medical incompetence and sexual impropriety, and declared him “unfit to continue in practice”.
From hospital notes as well as patient and expert testimony, the Ontario tribunal concluded that Johnson had kept Jean Halliwell in a London, Ontario, psychiatric hospital for months at a time during the ’70s, and that he ignored professional
The World is Round (and other Mythologies of Modern Science)
A challenge to the common Humanist argument that science is not like a religion
*
Author’s Note: This article of mine exploring the similarities between science and religion, or rather exploring the ways that science and religion are typically thought of and operate in the world, was published in 1997 in The Humanist, the magazine of the American Humanist Association. The article has been one of the most frequently quoted I’ve ever written, and has been the subject of some rather “interesting” attacks and interpretations around the internet — usually based in some pretty fantastical misinterpretations of my ideas or strange assumptions about who I am and what I believe. There was also an article that was written by a woman who is either my coincidental parallel universe soulmate or simply someone lifting my ideas very generously without deeming fit to cite me or pay me a royalty, in a 2006 Harper’s Magazine review of Dawkins’ book,