It has been on my mind, and on my to-do list, to write more about the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association Conference*, which I was fortunate to attend in May of this year. In my post twelve reasons i loved the pacific northwest labor history association conference, I listed: The
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Dead Wild Roses: Where do we stop? – The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade
Have you ever been bullied by someone from the reparations crowd? Perhaps there are a few possible answers in here.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Looking For New Maxims – Freedom, Exchange of Ideas, and Rights
I’m tired of being lied to by the Left and the Right. It’s been a rough couple of years for me as I’ve been riding a bit of a roller-coaster when it comes to demarcating my political position and adopting a cognitive frame in which to reasonably process the world.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Current Incarnation of “Pride” Explained
The first cropped photo is what activists would like you to see. The unedited version of the same photo is what pride is at the moment and what they do not want you to see. There is no pride in ‘liberating’ activities that do not belong in the public sphere.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: A Thirty Minute Explanation of Marxism – James Lindsay
Potentially illuminating. Worth a watch IMHO.
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the story of jane: the legendary underground feminist abortion service
When I first got involved in pro-choice activism, way back in 1981*, I heard about a group called Jane. Or maybe the Jane Collective. Or maybe Call Jane. No one knew for certain what they were called, only what they did. The women of Jane learned how to perform abortions,
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: The Thing About Religious Fundamentalists
The thing About religious fundamentalists is that they expect you to base your life and your belief system and morality on religious texts written three thousand years ago, before: – The Renaissance (15th and 16th Centuries CE)- The Scientific Revolution (1543-1687 CE)- The Enlightenment/Age of Reason (17th & 18th Centuries CE)-
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: On “Vernacular Architecture” – The Cultural Tutor
Do you ever feel that older cities are just more interesting than new ones? Well, it isn’t just because they’re old. It’s because of something called “vernacular architecture”… What makes the cobbled streets of York so charming? Or the jettied houses of Plovdiv? Or the terraced villages of Bhutan? Or
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: madame restell (nonfiction version)
In March, I wrote about My Notorious Life, historical fiction by Kate Manning, based on the life of a woman known as Madame Restell. I loved the book. Then, by beautiful coincidence, I stumbled on this book while in Powell’s City of Books in Portland: Madame Restell: the Life, Death
Continue readingwmtc: twelve reasons i loved the pacific northwest labour history association conference
I mentioned here that I recently enjoyed two back-to-back opportunities, one for work and one for union. Through my union, I was extremely fortunate to attend the annual conference of the Pacific Northwest Labour History Association, this year held in Tacoma, Washington. This was amazing timing for me, both logistically and
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Time for A Queer Revolution is Never (RPOJ) – Counterpunch Unhinged
The RPOJ comes for thee “Nicky”. Counterpunch needs to rein in the crazy, or at least find an editor that will actually edit for truth and veracity as opposed to the shout festival screed titled “The Time for Queer Revolution is Now” by Nicky Reid. How this ‘article’ got
Continue readingwmtc: the canoe family: reconciliation retreat
I’m in the middle of two amazing opportunities, one through my work, and one through my union. The work thing is complex — and important. Decolonizing the library: walking in two worlds Circle of Life, Trevor Hunt I am part of a small team that is creating a framework of
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: god’s bits of wood + labour book club update
My BCGEU Vancouver Island Labour Book Club is happening! 25 people expressed interest, 18 people registered, and about 5-7 people have been attending. A few other folks are following the reading but not attending the discussions. I take all of this as wins. The fact that it’s happening at all
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: bread & roses: mills, migrants, and the struggle for the american dream
I’d be willing to bet my paycheque that Bruce Watson, author of Bread & Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream, did not want his book to have that title. The 1912 millworker strike in the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts is now referred to as “the Bread
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mammoth Ideas For Past, Present, and Future – Sweetish Meatballs
Bread, beef and milk will be artificially produced pic.twitter.com/4AYs2kHe3N — Paul Fairie (@paulisci) March 27, 2023 Not now, meatball created from long exti wait what? pic.twitter.com/gXbcHg4aGU — tern (@1goodtern) March 28, 2023 They took extinct mammoth DNA, repaired it with elephant DNA, used sheep stem cells for replication, and created
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: my notorious life by kate manning (madame restell, fictional version, nonfiction to follow)
I read this book last year, and have been recommending it nonstop, so it’s about time to commit it to wmtc. My Notorious Life was an obvious book for me to love — or to hate. Much historical fiction feels contrived to me. An author takes a period of history, writes
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: empire of pain, the secret history of the sackler family
Buried on page 364 of the hardcover edition of Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty — almost two-thirds into the book — is one sentence that, for me, defines the most important piece of this urgent story. The opioid crisis is, among other things, a parable about
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Into Wokism’s Raging Maw: Frances Widdowson at the University of Lethbridge – C2C Journal
We must guard against this sort of degenerate mob justice. See the entire article here. “When talking to people about the state of universities in Canada, many deny the negative impact of “woke-ism.” My current “lived experience” in a province with a reputation for supporting free speech, however, indicates otherwise.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Hidden History
Ideally, history teaches us about the past so that we can gain perspective on what came before and learn some lessons so that we don’t make the same mistakes made over and over again, ad infinitum. While recent history underscores the fact that we are not apt students, even the
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Idea of Precolonial Africa is Vacuous and Wrong – Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
This is a lens shattering essay by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò who asks us to put aside our current demarcations of African history – Precolonial, Colonial, and Post-Colonial because they obfuscate the rich tapestry that is the history of Africa. “When ‘precolonial’ is used for describing African ideas, processes, institutions
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