The first of three selected passages from author Morris Dickstein’s cultural history of the Great Depression. By: Morris Dickstein | Posted: August 31, 2009 at 6:41 AM Source: ROOTS  “There is something about poverty that smells like death,” Zora Neale Hurston wrote in her 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. “Dead dreams dropping [...]

Two Different Days Okay okay, I went to meet a friend for coffee at a little restaurant/bar on Queen Street. A few people were eating lunch and most of the rest were drinking beer. Gazing about the room I noticed that most people were talking to each other in reasonable and even jovial tones and [...]

Mindfulness and Resilience Silence, Solitude and Mindfulness in a Driven World The value of silence and solitude has recently been better recognized for its purely psychological worth partly due to the work of British psychiatrist Anthony Storr. In his classic work On Solitude he notes “Modern psychotherapists, including myself have taken as their criterion of [...]

Fall marks the launch of our latest Vibrant Communities tele-learning seminar series ‘Foundation.’ This two-part series explores two concepts that have proven useful in understanding the nature of poverty and the phases of multi-year efforts to reduce poverty.  In the first call of the series, ‘Framing Poverty as a Complex Issue & Why that Matters,’ [...]

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The following notice is from First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Although provincial child welfare laws apply on reserve, the provinces expect the federal government to pay it.  The problem is the federal government provides about 22% less child welfare funding for First Nations children on reserve than what other children and [...]

by David Meagher
In the September edition of “Streams of Consciousness” Dave ponders the significance of the fact that Socrates, one of the West’s greatest thinkers, lived in poverty through much of his life. Indeed, in Plato’s “Apology” Socrates actually discusses his own poverty, which situates him along side the contributors of this website, namely those with lived experience with poverty.

The question then remains… why don’t Children’s Aid Societes let former foster children obtain copies of all of their files once they leave foster care? Are they trying to protect themselves from successful court actions because the files in their highly secure archives contain so much evidence of abuse and neglect while in foster care that the actions would be quite successful?

Chef Ramsey kicked you outta his kitchen I don’t wanna hear any more of you bitchin! All those food allergies they got you itchin’ Wishin you had more than a pot to put fish in. Oh my gosh you got a Bounty on your head With the Dog after you you’re better off dead It [...]

Arowhon, Algonquin (The Centre for Social Justice Retreat, 2009) Warning: This is not a  Political Essay I’ll always remember if you never forget. It felt like the mere continuation of a struggle just to be able to secure my spot on this retreat for workers of social justice. Little did I know of the grand [...]