Obligatory "About Me" Post

Though it risks being perceived as narcissistic, this post is just a bit of blog housekeeping: The piece of text I've used for "About Me" purposes on this blog since I started it is one I've never really liked, notwithstanding that I've edited it a time or two over that period. It was written for another purpose, resides on another site, and has always chafed. I am finally getting around to replacing it...so here's a little bit about me:

Son of the white settler middle class in southern Ontario, Canada; spiced with early intervals in Scotland; raised in an apolitical liberal (puritan) home in a conservative small town. Has lived in industrial cities in Ontario most of his adult life, barring eight months in Ottawa and fifteen months in Los Angeles. Earned a piece of paper from a university saying he knows a little bit about biochemistry and worked in a few research labs. Turned to activism and writing in the midst of all of that, and hasn't looked back.

As a politicizing student, quickly arrived at an instinctive, book-based anarchism. Has been on a journey -- to unlearn the faux-objective, overly intellectualized, and disembodied place from which he saw social change at the start; to undo the deep training to ignore the political nature and relevance of his own everyday/everynight; to escape the false certainty and begin to heal the stunted humanity that come with privilege; to learn to see that his self exists in particular ways that were created by the social relations into which he was born and through which he travels; and to fully internalize that it is from there that all politics must start. Is an autodidact -- that is, almost none of his political learning has been in institutional settings with pieces of paper at the end, but it has still been very much social, through formal and informal listening, reading texts penned by other people on other journeys, participating in struggles for change, screwing up, and participating some more. He shies away from political labels, but is informed by diverse streams of anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarianism, opposition to the colonial past and present of the canadian state, and a commitment to lifelong exploration of anti-oppression politics. His earliest involvement had an environmental focus, and over the years has been involved in social movement spaces that were responding to student issues, right-wing governments, poverty, homelessness, racism, war, occupation, colonization, media issues, and more. Currently active with Sudbury Against War and Occupation and a member of the national advisory board of the radical political journal Upping The Anti.

Has been paid to pump gas, to enter data, to lift textbooks, to sell magazines, to wash dishes, to write articles, to write research reports, to develop community, and to teach. Has organized, facilitated, leafleted, written, researched, interviewed, spoken, listened, outreached, accompanied, broadcast, trained, occupied, blockaded, supported, copied, processed, recorded, picketed. Hosted and produced political spoken-word radio for three years. Has published over a hundred magazine-style news articles, a couple of poems, some op-ed pieces, a bunch of book reviews, a number of community-based research reports, and various and sundry other things. And tons o' blog posts. Became his son's stay-at-home parent starting at age nine months. Writing a book that uses oral history interviews with long-time Canadian activists from a broad range of eras, movements, locations, and identities to enter pieces of Canadian history that are usually erased -- work on this project is ongoing, as are efforts to find a publisher. Other work that is likely to appear in print in the next little while include a book review and a book chapter.