Re: The Martian

Mark Watney didn't know how good he had it...but then, there wasn't a pandemic while he was on Mars, right?

That said, The Martian would be a good book to re-read, and a good movie to re-watch during these next few weeks, I think. It reinforces some of the thinking we're all going to need to practice.

CANADA: E-Petition to Declare Indigenous Languages Official

The story as reported so far is here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-official-languages-petition-1.5494939

I've said it before, and admitting that I'm descended from European immigrants up front alongside that fact, that if I had my way, every Canadian would be fluent in - at mimimum! - four languages: English, French, one Indigenous language, and one more from anywhere else on the planet. Partly as a matter of beefing up our brain-skill-set in general and partly as a matter of ethics.

Jenna Robar's proposal strikes me as perfectly in line with my thoughts, and I am inclined to see it as one more in a set of potential job-creation engines for Canada to power its future with.

And if you want a look at the petition itself?

https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2453&fbclid=IwAR0Drp6vAcTQeDNQWkQ_XqUzjIHubSfkgEayElQKL4a5dO9A6h58sAUjq2w

Yes, I'm signing the petition.

CBC: Indigenous News

CBC News has a section devoted to Indigenous news. It's good as far as it goes, but when you remember that everything at CBC is done on a shoestring budget compared to most public broadcasters aside from the US, you come to see that it's a miracle that CBC gets away with getting anything useful done. And wins awards at home and abroad, too. I want to see them better funded. Maybe this is another area where the priority of responding to COVID-19 can be leveraged to get good changes made in Canada?