Checking In - 3 Jan. 2026

[dewline]

1. I spent some time this morning doing some activist writing about our network of public library branches in Orléans, my particular corner of the city of Ottawa. It's an issue that does not affect me personally and directly, and yet it still makes life more difficult than needed for some of my neighbours. I expect this will "go live" at some point in the next week or two, and I'll let you know when and where as soon as it does.

2. The news about Venezuela this morning is scary as Hell. The Vulgarian has yet again given the middle finger to international law as a whole. Carole Cadwalladr has thoughts about that, and you might want to have a look if you're not already subscribed to her newsletter.

3. The Trek fanfiction collective I've been doing map design with has a new thing out: Jayce's Fighting Ships of Wolf 359. It's a partner-work to We Have Engaged the Borg, which was created as an oral history-style retelling of the events of the Next Generation two-part episode, "The Best of Both Worlds".

4. More later.

Comments

[ioplokon]

Quebec just put out a tourist guide to the province's most interesting libraries. I'd love it if Ontario did something similar.

[blogcutter]

Lorne Bruce wrote Free Books for All, a history of Ontario's public library system from 1850-1930. He also wrote a second volume, initially covering the period 1930-2000, although I believe he issued an update to that a few years back.

For Ottawa's system, Phil Jenkins wrote The Library Book: An Overdue History of the Ottawa Public Library. It describes each individual library branch in some detail although that was before Adisoke (and possibly a couple of newer branches) were in the works.

Is the activist writing about the public library branches limited to Orleans? Whatever the case, I look forward to reading it whenever it goes live!

[dewline]

I do recall Phil Jenkins, and I look forward to getting caught up on his writings.

I was mainly focused on Orléans north of the Queensway and south of Innes. That said, we can talk about other underserved parts of Ottawa.

[warriorsavant]

I love having "Jane's Fighting Ships" manual of fictional battle. This from someone who used to be in the Navy and owned a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships, as in actual paper copy, dinosaur (pleisosaur?) that I am.

Probably some interesting news about Venezuela, but can't take seriously someone talking about the Broigarchy.

[dewline]

Carole Cadwalladr is worth making time for, especially based on her experience with writing about and being targeted by such people for silencing and retaliation.

[cmcmck]

The orange twerp is now talking about running Venezuela!