Wordwork|play

Atheist Cartoon Illustrating Western Religion's Contribution to Animal Rights/Welfare

2009-12-17T00:18:39-05:00

I stumbled across this cartoon illustrating Christianity's (and to an extent, Judaism's) silence, via their god's supposed word, on one ethical issue humanity is increasingly beginning to grapple with -- the treatment of non-human animals. This cartoon obviously refers to the contribution of Western religions to the issue of 'the ethical treatment of animals' and is slightly inaccurate even there, exaggerating a little (the bible does ask that we not hurt animals for fun), and does not recognise the doctrine of ahimsa (non-harm, or non-violence) propounded in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain scriptures. Ahimsa, as laid out in those traditions, does...

2009-12-16T23:39:56-05:00

Strange how that video about the donkey library overlaps part of the sidebar content... not sure how to change that. Sorry.

Donkey Library to Spread Literacy

2009-12-16T23:36:21-05:00

I stumbled across this video today. Though I feel bad for the poor donkey carrying such a heavy load, it is so inspiring to see someone working so hard (I'm talking about the teacher here, though the donkey should be thanked too) to bring literacy to poor rural kids as a vehicle for the knowledge and self-confidence required to resist war. Take a look at the video and see if you can help out:

Very Clever Ad Promoting Reading and the Book

2009-11-27T06:15:47-05:00

The paper book... Makes me want to read a book right now instead of going to work :-)}}}

Contranyms

2009-11-22T12:46:22-05:00

I just learned a new word for another kind of silliness in the English language. We all know what synonyms and antonyms are, but what about contranyms (also known as antagonyms)? These are homographs (two words spelled the same way) that can be their own antonyms, i.e. left (remaining, departed). For a fuller treatment of the contranym and a list of examples, see the contronym post in the 'Fun With Words' section of rinkworks.com. The ODLT has a good definition of the contranym, along with some etymological remarks and an example of how such words can emerge in a language...

Long time no write...

2009-10-12T21:46:21-04:00

I feel almost embarrassed that my blogs -- all three of them -- have been neglected for so long now. This one especially! Work is still crazy, staffing levels and the consequent demands of the job being such that I am quite exhausted when I get home, so I just don't have the energy to write. So, while I have been doing a little reading again of late, the latest book having been read with the intention of reviewing it this weekend, I just can't seem to get enough head space to organize my thoughts and actually write the review....

Atheist Ads in Toronto

2009-03-06T19:43:56-05:00

I went to Toronto last weekend with one of my brothers and my partner in search of the much anticipated, much covered and strangely controversial atheist ads. We knew from the official Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign website that, beginning February 23rd, 2009, atheist ads would be running in the subway system. We did not know, however, that they would appear only inside subway cars, not on subway station walls. Nor did we know how few ads there would be. We spent a fair bit of time in the subway system looking into numerous cars and, though we rode only in...