Community Building, Media, Personal Development

Portrait Photography: Stroking The Ego or Immortalising Memories?

At a recent playdate, the conversation turned towards portrait photography.  Many of the babies at the playdate were turning one within the next few months, and their mothers were eager to capture this milestone by booking a family portrait session with their preferred local photographer. Portrait Photography: Immortalising the Evolution of a Family Who doesn’t… Read More Portrait Photography: Stroking The Ego or Immortalising Memories?

Media

Learning to Love and Live The Banality of Good

Most people are good and yet, when it comes to the news, books, television shows, and movies, the emphasis is on the bad.  Now while bad makes for great plots, what are the underlying assumptions of bad being more worthy than good as the focus of media content creation? Good Doesn’t Make For a Good… Read More Learning to Love and Live The Banality of Good

Media

Violence in the Media We Consume: Is it worth the risk?

Rape scenes in the Game of Thrones series served as potent forms of fuel for an ongoing debate: does exposure to violence in the media we consume cause behavioral problems or not?  Does it do so for only an at-risk segment of the population?  Would limiting the creation of violent media solve the problem of… Read More Violence in the Media We Consume: Is it worth the risk?

Media

Fake News and The Search For Truth: No, Really, It’s Still Out There

I have to admit that, since I started blogging back in 2008, the online landscape has changed quite a lot.  The principle of independently investigating the truth has become even more difficult than it already inherently is because of the glut of information so easily available now; making things murkier are false pieces of information… Read More Fake News and The Search For Truth: No, Really, It’s Still Out There

Beauty, Media

Understanding Beauty. (Or Not.)

It’s very natural to want to create beauty in every aspect of our lives.  We do, after all, have an instinctive attraction to beauty that stirs our very souls.  Of course, there are, currently, quite a lot of forces at work in our society that push us towards unrealistic standards of beauty, be it impossibly… Read More Understanding Beauty. (Or Not.)

Media

The Contextual Meaning of a Movie: It Isn’t The Same To All

I’ve been thinking a lot about context lately.  More specifically, the meaning that things have within a certain context. For example, a knife in itself isn’t a bad thing.  But, say, in the hands of a baby or a killer, well…  Enough said. I wish the question of context was as easy when it came… Read More The Contextual Meaning of a Movie: It Isn’t The Same To All

Media

So About That Echo Chamber We’re Stuck In…

There has been a lot in the news about fake news, which could get one caught in a vicious cycle about wondering if the news about fake news is fake which I guess would prove the whole point of the concern in the first place. Well this blog post is off to quite a start…… Read More So About That Echo Chamber We’re Stuck In…

Media, Personal Development

Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy Consumption of Unhealthy Media?

Up until really recently (like, last week), I thought that an audience can consume a lot of media without it having a negative effect on it, as long as members of said audience are media literate, take the time to reflect on the message actually contained in the media they are consuming, and analysing how… Read More Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy Consumption of Unhealthy Media?

Family, Media

Social Media: Sharing Joy instead of Stroking Envy

Social media is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good…  Or not so good. In the context of family life, I have been reading on various discussion boards and forums about the effects of social media on family life. On the one hand, it can be quite inspiring to see… Read More Social Media: Sharing Joy instead of Stroking Envy

Community, Community Building, Community Development, Governance

Eeny-meeny-mino-mo, catch a leader by the toe…

It’s election season in North America! Just like Thanksgiving, Canada went first, and soon the US will follow. These elections are being touted as being of particular importance; after watching the markets go up and down in the last couple of weeks, I have come to the brilliantly original conclusion that it’s because things aren’t… Read More Eeny-meeny-mino-mo, catch a leader by the toe…