Show of hands – who here remembers 1999? What a year it was. I remember it. I was living in Toronto – as I am now – and was busy trying to be a Mennonite SuperMom. Sort of. I was still on hiatus from the Mennonite Church but baked zwieback from time to time. I … More Acting Normal
I don’t know a lot of Mennonites who enthusiastically follow college basketball. That could be because of my bias towards Canadian Mennonites. But I suspect that a lot of Mennonites just disapprove of the frivolity of grown-ups sitting around and obsessing about a bunch of college kids running up and down a basketball court. Not … More Menno March Madness
Yesterday I participated in the Bechtel Panel at Conrad Grebel University College on Mennonites in the Media. The organizers asked us to talk about what it is like to be a creator of Mennonite content on the media today, to comment on our audience and challenges etc. Several of the other participants followed their instructions … More Bechtel panel: Making Schputt of Mennonites on the Internet
Last week, the esteemed Mennonite satire web magazine, The Daily Bonnet,* posted a quiz: How Many of These Typical Mennonite Things Have You Done? Because Mennonites still think of internet quizzes as new and exciting, this quickly soared through the Mennoverse and sent Mennonites and ex-Mennonites around the internet into a tizzy questioning, bragging about, … More Quiz: Are You a Disaffected Mennonite?
A couple of years ago, the city of Toronto adopted the nickname “The Six.” Not officially, of course. It’s a nickname. Nicknames are unofficial things. Lots of people speculate about its origin and meaning. Some say “The Six” represents the convergence of two area codes (416 and 647). Others claim it’s about the six boroughs … More Life in the #6ix-oh-#6ix
What with everything else happening in 2017, it is easy to forget all the momentous events that happened within the Mennosphere this past year. As a public service, I spent the better part of this afternoon perusing old tweets and headlines from the Mennonite media to come up with the highlights of the year. I … More 2017 Mennonite Roundup
Mennonites naturally had a problem when people started talking about a War on Christmas. We love Christmas. We love the singing, the Christmas trees, the oddly inappropriate nativity figurines, the pfeffernusse. Sure, some of us are grumpy about aspects of the season. But still. We’re pretty big fans of Christmas. So, it’s a cause to … More Noncombatant Roles in the War on Christmas
We are a joke on the internet. A bad joke. “I’m betting Mennonite.” That’s the joke. I see it and variations of it in fits and bursts on Twitter, depending on the news. It’s not just a bad internet joke like a pun’s a bad joke or like so-called “Dad jokes” are bad jokes. It’s … More Mennonites, Muslims and a Bad Internet Joke
A note for readers who do not receive the Canadian Mennonite news magazine (or who throw it away without reading it): The September 25th edition of the Canadian Mennonite included a paid advertising supplement in the centerfold from Maple View Mennonite Church. Paid supplements are not unheard of but usually they come from Church schools … More Sex Talk with Maple View Mennonite Church
Here we are once again – Thanksgiving, that special time of the year when the whole country becomes almost as passive aggressive as we Mennonites are all the time. It’s really heartwarming. The people I have spoken to seem to think that passive aggressive behaviour often emerges at family Thanksgiving events simply because of the … More Happy Passive Aggressive Thanksgiving!
