Now that the reading diary is over I'm planning to start using this space as a proxy to post news on my FB account. Keep doing the "educate yourself on this issue" stuff I used to do before the news ban, which is my way of getting around the obligation to be politically neutral as a public servant.

I am rarely here but FB is such an absolute shitshow, I am drifting to here as a source of interesting news and such. Mostly just following friends, authors I like and some local (to me) social justice folks.

Rounded out the year at 121 books. When I started, I was hoping I might hit 150, but by mid-year it was pretty obvious that wasn't going to happen. 🤓

I'll choose to believe it's the rink in Victoria Park.

Dammit, I am really falling down on this lately. Okay, here is October. And I am currently on book number 100, recommended by a fabulous friend, which I am very much enjoying ( yes, I know, very mysterious).

September. Better late than never.

The Truth of Reconciliation | The Walrus The TRC report, released in 2015, laid out ninety-four clear Calls to Action. Ten years later, Indigenous writers reflect on what has and hasn’t been achieved

Ten years in, how are we doing?

thewalrus.ca/truth-and-re...

😲

For August, added a bold for poetry. I always intend to read more poetry and almost never do. Sad that it took Andrea Gibson's death to move me from following their work online (mostly through Button Poetry on FB) to actually ordering a book.

Also *cough* hi Annabel! Your book was such a fun read ❤

Not to mention a potential increase in needle-sharing and the spread of blood-borne diseases in an already vulnerable population.

You're not alone! I'm working through the end of August, but then I go hiking.

June. I thought I might crack 60 books for the year so far but had to end the month at 59. It felt like grabbing something short and quick just to make a number was cheating.

May presented the challenge of what to do with a short story that is e-published as a stand alone. So I listed it, but it doesn't get counted. Because I am counting. Should crack 50 this week.

So that's why Winnipeg smells like it does in the summer...🤢

April.

Also on the subject of books. Sorry not sorry.

I don't figure I'll get another full book read before end of day tomorrow, so here's March a bit early.

Neither an academic nor an intellectual, but I usually start with "what genre?" and try to narrow it down from there.

To my mind, equality needs to be built from the ground up, not the top down.

Technocracy is not democracy. It's a model where technocrats lead and everyone else follows.

Rigid social categorization. Little if no movement between the leader class and the masses.

whether they approach it on the basis of "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs" or by creating a populace in which everyone has a roughly consistent level of ability and need, which means the extermination of outliers.

Well, in any situation where equality and what equality means is defined by a small group of people holding themselves external to the larger mass of society, the egalitarian society they build will be predicated on

And, sorry, Musk's grandfather not dad. This is his mother's family.

Eugenics isn't dead—it's thriving in tech A new book takes on the throughline from the rise of 20th-century eugenics to Silicon Valley.

An interesting follow-up article.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Consider the time period though and what popular scientific thought would have led to in terms of a "model" society. Eugenics, for example being a cutting edge movement.

Keep in mind, Musk's dad left Canada because apartheid Sputh Africa was more in keeping with his ideals.

These techno-utopians wanted to put scientists in charge of government In the first half of the 20th century, a group called Technocracy Incorporated wanted to reorganize society by putting scientists in charge. The movement flamed out, but its underlying message still a

An experiment, to see if I can post this back to FB without triggering the news ban.

newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/tec...

Would probably depend on the bylaws of the party but it would still mean having one PM. That's constitutional level change.

Coalition governments are perfectly permissible under our structure. It's only effective disinformation and fear mongering that have kept them from being a viable option in the past. We don't need 2 prime ministers, we just needs parties working together for the common good.