This is outrageous: Toronto Police, seemingly on their own initiative, tried to interrupt a normal screening of PALESTINE 36 at TIFF Lightbox. To intimidate audiences? TIFF staff told them to leave. The cops claimed they were on a regular foot patrol?Sure.
www.thegrindmag.ca/cops-keep-sh...
Israeli genocide scholar Omer Bartov will have his book on Zionism and genocide translated into 9-10 languages, but not Hebrew. He even offered to translate it himself, but not a single Israeli publisher would go near it. Not even the ‘leftwing’ ones.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
Toronto: What we’re seeing now is that (police) are not even distinguishing between protests, academic events or cultural events. Any time there are Palestinians speaking about Palestine, they are viewed as potentially anti-semitic or promoting violence.” www.thegrindmag.ca/cops-keep-sh...
If Mayor Olivia Chow @mayoroliviachow.bsky.social & City Council want to lead, want to open safe multimodal transportation options for Toronto, they will create them. They will take the initiative. If Ford and the province want to destroy those initiatives, let them take the responsibility and blame
@mayoroliviachow.bsky.social in Toronto should be doing *exactly* this. Rather than anticipating what Premier Ford will irrationally disallow and obeying *in advance*, Chow + Council should proceed full speed with safety-enhancing bike lane building. Let Ford then take the heat for ripping them out.
@mayoroliviachow.bsky.social in Toronto should be doing *exactly* this. Rather than anticipating what Premier Ford will irrationally disallow and obeying *in advance*, Chow + Council should proceed full speed with safety-enhancing bike lane building. Let Ford then take the heat for ripping them out.
Never expected to cheer so hard for the Baudrillard Papacy
My re-introduction to narrative Godard, via Nathalie Baye’s grace.
Bye bye Vancouver! (Great blue heron at Third Beach, Stanley Park).
Ford forcing Ontario taxpayers to buy him a private jet + Ford forcing Torontonians to put up with jets at the Island Airport are the same thing. He wants to fly his jet in and out of Billy Bishop. Simple. cf Ford insisting on removing bicycle lanes from his commuting route from home to Queens Park.
As it should be. A bit of friction learning First Nations’ actual names for their places that we occupy is entirely proper.
A challenge for Google and Apple Maps in Vancouver.
Today in Vancouver: 3 hours walking in magnificent Pacific Spirit Park. Why don’t i live in Vancouver?
Based on the consultation for the circulation study I attended last month, the plan appears to be to simply pave over a bunch of new areas to accomodate the trucks destroying the park rather than do anything about them.
www.toronto.ca/city-governm...
Full quote, to be fair: "That image has been shaken by the city’s rapid democratic backsliding in recent years, but compared with much of the Middle East, and even Singapore, Hong Kong remains freer by most measures."
I was recently talking to a journalist who lives in HK and asked how they feel re freedom and they said no problems at all, with the caveat, "but I don't write about HK"
"Compared with ... even Singapore, Hong Kong remains freer by most measures." I'm not so sure about this statement in today's Globe and Mail, on how HK is trying to position itself as the newly attractive, safer version of Dubai for foreign millionaires. www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...
Vancouver is beautiful in so many ways. But its homeowners’ insane devotion to the highest possible defensive moat hedges is a bit … weird.
The McLaughlin Planetarium, Ontario Science Centre, Ontario Place, and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
Buildings are not neutral. They can be arguments about who a city is for, what it values, and what it thinks is worth keeping.
Even Peter Baker The New York Times is finally today now calling the president dangerously deranged. Within the borders of the style guidelines of the New York Times, of course, but he is. This is how a would-be tyrant’s power collapses.
As if to prove my point, RAI Radio 3 Classica is playing Rameau (Pièces de clavecin), Brahms (Ophelia Lieder), Poulenc (Fêtes gallantes) and Korngold (Viel Lärmen um Nichts) this morning. Amazingly sharp & fresh. Is this machine-driven? The "announcers" seem spookily AI-voice-like, though.
We seem to be watching the slow implosion of the US regime, as its would-be autocratic Leader degenerates into self mockery & incoherence. This thing will mercifully totter and collapse on its own, even if its repugnant, cowardly Republican Party supporters refuse to give it a push. #naiveOptimism?
This is an excellent (and gently cynical -- far more gentle than 魯迅先生 himself) NYT article on the de-naturing of the great Chinese critic-writer in Xi Jinping's "empire of tedium" (as Geremie Barme calls it).
I have been listening to lots of online classical music radio stations lately (BBC3, France Musique, Radio Swiss Classic, RBB, MDR, BRClassic, NPO...) and RAI Radio 3 Classica from Italy is consistently the best. Their programming is fascinating, rich, and deep...
www.raiplaysound.it/radio3classica
RAI plays lots of pieces I don't know or have rarely heard. they play entire works (they just finished *ALL* 6 Bach Cello Suites, for example); not snippets. Some BBC3 programmes reach this level; France Musique has interesting specialty channels (e.g. Baroque): RAI is consistently excellent.
I have been listening to lots of online classical music radio stations lately (BBC3, France Musique, Radio Swiss Classic, RBB, MDR, BRClassic, NPO...) and RAI Radio 3 Classica from Italy is consistently the best. Their programming is fascinating, rich, and deep...
www.raiplaysound.it/radio3classica
Hungarians showing how to win big in an unfair election: organize AND protest AND vote AND demand profound change.
Let's feel good. This is the latest in a string of victories against fascism around the globe. I'm thinking of Koreans thwarting the autogolpe and convicting Yoon Suk Yeol, and Brazilians convicting Bolsonaro. And in the US, we are very well positioned for November midterms.
😬
@mollycrabapple.bsky.social is absolutely right in The Guardian today on pro -AI propaganda and how it tries to silence criticism and dissent. as it steals exploits and monetizes, without compensation, human-created works of value.
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...