by Sean Callaghan The Screw It Principle We have gone on at some length on this website about the problems we face today in our economic, social, cultural, political spheres, etc. A few posts ago Mark McConaghy made the astute observation that the fundamental problem tying all our contemporary failures together is simply the absence […]
Read more "Lego Utopia – Building Block 1: Being"By Mark McConaghy For the last couple of years we have heard nothing but glowing news reports about Brazil’s rapid economic growth. This was South America’s answer to China- a regional dominant that was growing into a global economic powerhouse, replete with double digit GDP expansion and a sky rocketing demand for commodities of all […]
Read more "A Politics Without a Name"By Sean Callaghan Marketing The Voice I know all the reasons why I should hate a show like The Voice. As a show premised on the search for singing talent based solely on vocal ability The Voice falls victim too easily to the glittering bedazzlement of televised spectacle. It’s over-produced. It magnifies the cult of […]
Read more "The Voice of Another World"By Mark McConaghy Hundreds of news pundits and editorial columnists declared outrage last week over the revelation that the US government’s National Security Agency has direct access to the servers of the world’s largest internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Skype, Apple, and Microsoft. The government can monitor and track all online communication, even if it is […]
Read more "The Scandal We Knew All Along"By Mark McConaghy I will start by stating an obvious but important fact: the irony of doing political or creative work is that, above all else, one must have the time to engage in it. If you want to go out and raise awareness about an issue, either online or through old fashioned door knocking, […]
Read more "Everything is Fine: Rob Ford and Existential Exhaustion"By Mark McConaghy The Scene Monday Night. 7:30 pm. The pub in the tony part of Toronto, the neighborhood known as Rosedale, was packed with people young and old. They were there to cheer on the Toronto Maple Leafs in a deciding game 7 in their playoff series against the Boston Bruins. After having been […]
Read more "On Watching Game 7 in Toronto"Before we all became riveted on the problem of terrorism over the last 2 weeks, I had planned to write about another story that garnered much national attention here in Canada but has, since Boston, faded from the headlines. While my fellow 14th floorer Sean Callaghan has done an admirable job working through the philosophical complexities […]
Read more "RBC’s Apology and the Limits of Capitalism"By Sean Callaghan After the Event The dust and wreckage have been swept clean from Boylston street, the soiled carpets torn up and replaced in front of Marathon Sports. The memorial at Copley square now fights for its share of quiet reflection amidst the bustle of renewed business and midtown Boston traffic congestion. Meanwhile, news […]
Read more "Acts of Forgetting after Boston"By Mark McConaghy Like many in North America and around the world last Friday, I was riveted by the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. I watched with surreal fascination as the entire city of Boston was locked down into a police state for an entire day. Two young men, pressure cooker bombs, guns, stolen cars, […]
Read more "There is No Batman: On Terrorism in Our Time"By Sean Callaghan Anger. It has a mesmerizing effect. My wife and I fought in the early years of our marriage. We’re both stubborn people, and we were both committed to each other, which meant we were willing to fight because we knew we’d be together for the rest of our lives. During these fights […]
Read more "On Media Coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombings"
The 14th Floor 