Learning and understanding

Some years ago, the wife of a friend of mine met my group of friends and said, "How did you meet so many strong women?  I've never seen so many in one place!"  It surprised me, because I'd never met any woman who wasn't, by definition, strong.  The women that I knew, and all the ones in my life, had all been good examples to me.  This started with my own family.  My grandmother raised 3 daughters after being widowed at 38 in a time when women weren't encouraged to work outside of the home.  My great-grandmother helped foster many children apart from her own 9.  My paternal grandmother raised 11 children.  My aunt raised a large family working a low-wage job.  Another aunt went to work as a typist to help support the family.  My mother was one of the first non-white employees in an organization where she stayed for almost 40 years.  The list goes on. When I moved to Canada, the other women that I met were equally strong.  Some...

Winston Churchill, among others, noted that freedom of speech for some people means saying what they  think, but taking offence at others.  In the 70 years since his time, we've had many disputes over what constitutes free speech.  Most recently, we've had debates on "being politically correct" and a huge backlash against "progressivism" and "liberalism." I'm not entering into a discussion on the value of euphemisms or political correctness.  Any initiative taken to an extreme is of no value to anyone.  And we can agree that there are people who don't understand moderation, or who think that their view is the only one that matters.  So I'll leave that there. But on the subject of free speech -- I'm inclined to think that we've become lazy debaters, and rude conversationalists.  Too many times I've heard or seen potential discussions deteriorate into name calling and demands to boycott people, businesses and ideas.  We se...