Happy Birthday, Amelia.
Continue readingTag: history
wmtc: rtod: a town without poverty. it happened in canada.
Revolutionary thought of the day: Initially, the Mincome program was conceived as a labour market experiment. The government wanted to know what would happen if everybody in town received a guaranteed income, and specifically, they wanted to know whether people would still work. It turns out they did. Only two
Continue readingwmtc: rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: There are limits to how far a people can be pushed. And if violence continues to be the preferred mechanism for control, if the state refuses to institute rational economic and political reforms to address the growing misery that corporations inflict on the citizens, it
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Google Street View Circa 1907
It seems Google didn’t invent Street View The idea was 100 years old when it first started to become popular on the Internet! Behold Vancouver, street view from 1907 Barcelona, Spain 1908 Look at all the bicycles! Vancouver in 1971, albeit a little shaky camera work. Moose Jaw, circa 2006,
Continue readingwmtc: rotd
Revolutionary thought of the day: Pick up Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or James Jones’s From Here to Eternity. Read Henry IV. Turn to the Iliad. The allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who
Continue readingwmtc: happy 100th, woody guthrie
Thank you, Woody Guthrie. Wish you were here.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Wisconsin v. Yoder Redux? MN Amish Citizens Revolt Against Frac Sand Mining
shutterstock_83010019.jpg "History," the old adage goes, "repeats itself." And this is precisely the reason why we learn it. read more
Continue readingwmtc: jason kenney gets his wish: the anglicising of canadian citizenship
In some of the best work I’ve ever done for this blog, I compared “Discover Canada,” the Harper Government’s new Citizenship Guide, to its predecessor, “A Look at Canada,” which was published by several Liberal governments. The results were eye-opening. Based on my analysis of the booklets, I concluded that
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Canada Day – The Weekend That Was
So, as we all know (unless you’re not from Canada, in which case, learn about other countries already!) this past weekend we celebrated the 145th birthday of our great nation. For those of you who don’t know me very well, I should tell you that I LOVE me some Canada
Continue readingbastard.logic: Has Centralization of Power to the PMO Put Canadian Democracy on Life Support?
Don Lenihan has a must-read column up today, on how centralization of power to the Prime Minister’s office over the past several decades has atrophied the connection Canadians — especially youth — had with our government, and what he believes this could mean for Canada’s system of democracy: In the early 1970s,
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Random Links
Here are some links sitting in the drafts that I never got around to writing background for. Enjoy them, out of context. Fantino dox get no comment from UBS. Speaking of alleged crimes, what ever happened to the Bruce Carson report? #HarperHistory
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Follow Friday – Old Toronto Beer Tour – #FF
Mmmmm…frothy Beer! So, last weekend our esteemed Movie Monday videographer and I got to do something super awesome: we went on the “Old Toronto Beer Tour“. Now, I should start off by telling you that drinking from 11am-9pm was something that I did for all of you, my fair readers.
Continue readingwmtc: every war in history has had resisters, even the war of 1812
It’s the 200th anniversary of The War of 1812, and the government would like us to remember that. Here’s something you might not find in the official story: not everyone was so keen to fight. My friend Jonathon Hodge, a librarian in Toronto, did some research on the war resisters
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Mosaic 2012 #WHYQR
I had an excellent evening out in Regina with my wife, family, and friends. I met some Ward 1 residents too along the way, including Joe and his wife. Joe’s writing a book about Regina, and it may be available by the end of this year. He also had very
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Tar-sands
There are people who insist on calling the monstrous mega-project in northern Alberta the “oilsands”. I insist on the historically used “tarsands” since I try to reject all rebranding efforts (especially for projects that are so detrimental to life). Yes, it’s technically, chemically incorrect to call it tar sands. Even
Continue readingwmtc: and so to bed: thank you, phil gyford and thank you samuel pepys
One of the oldest and most well-respected bloggers has brought his online journal to a close. Since January of 2003 – 18 months before I began wmtc – I have been reading The Diary of Samuel Pepys online. Tonight at about 9:00 UK time, the Diary will end. Samuel Pepys
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Progress
In Grade 10 I read The Chrysalids, a John Wyndham science fiction that starts out describing an agrarian culture where they talk of God-like old people who could move the Earth into walls and hills. There were enough clues in the first chapter that I soon figured out that the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Andrew (Andy) Suknaski of Wood Mountain and Moose Jaw
Andy Suknaski, award winning poet and visual artist, has passed away at age 69. Andy was from my home town of Wood Mountain, and I have some memories of him as I grew up. He lived only a block away (not big odds on that, when the village is only
Continue readingbastard.logic: Reappropriating Mother’s Day
Forget Hallmark and Big Flora — Mother’s Day is (and always has been) for radicals: Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use
Continue readingPaulitical Satire: Rye Whiskey – Lubricating Canadian Politics Since 1769
Political genius in a bottle…or really, genius generally! So, I must admit to something right off the bat: I’m a whiskey on the rocks drinker. For those of you who are purists you’re saying “Paul, the ice waters down the whiskey!”. Others, perhaps non-whiskey drinkers, are saying “dude, there better
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