On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

1. Mikmaq keyboard to be available for Apple products. I first heard of this via CBC Weekend World Report on the radio.

https://www.kinu.ca/stories/mikmaw-keyboard-available-in-apple-products

2. Anti-trans laws in the US getting support from a Canadian researcher. CW: anti-trans rhetoric quoted at some length, with "protest"-march posters to match.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/james-cantor-gender-affirming-care-bans-1.6979356

3. The argument for off-planet mining is gaining strength in some quarters.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/10/space-is-starting-to-look-like-the-better-mining-operation/

4. The political state of "British Columbia", from one perspective:

https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/10/20/BC-New-Political-Map-Right-Split-Kevin-Falcon-Conservative-Surge/

5. An argument for Pharmacare in Canada:

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/10/19/Pharmacare-Big-Moment-Political-Will-Trudeau-Liberals/

If you live out that way, please check in, okay?

I found myself inspired to go digging for one book yesterday, and in the process of finding it, rediscovered another.

1. I was looking for A Stó:lō-Coast Salish Historical Atlas yesterday, inspired by the news that a guest starship on Star Trek: Lower Decks would be named USS Vancouver. I half-remembered that this book would have that Indigenous nation's name for the larger region including Vancouver, the one I was taught to call the "Fraser River Valley": S'ólh Téméxw.

(Which I dearly want to learn how to pronounce properly!)

It occurs to me that, before I die, I'd like to see that name, S'ólh Téméxw - accents and all - on the hull of a Starfleet ship, preferably one more prominent than a DS9-style runabout. They can name a runabout "Fraser" if need be. With the people running Star Trek as a while these days, I'm thinking that it might happen, provided the Trek people reach out properly to the Stó:lō. There seems to be at least one Trek fan amongst that nation living in the metro Vancouver region going by anecdotal evidence on Twitter.

(Note: Titmouse Animation, the company handling the actual animation work on Lower Decks, has a branch studio in Vancouver, BC. This might be at the heart of the shout-out to the city.)

2. In the process of trying to find the first book, I accidentally rediscovered my copy of the second one, Ikonica: A Field Guide to Canada's Brandscape by Jeannette Hanna and Alan Middleton. Which contains a number of historical overviews of some two dozen Canadian brands of note and longstanding in our memories. I don't know if it's still in print. My copy became mine thanks to an airplane ride out to PEI back in 2008. It was a family trip, and my mother and I were travelling together by plane for the occasion, everyone else taking their families' respective cars. I think I posted some of the pix from that trip on my Flickr account...?

Noting these items within a day of each other:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/6-2-magnitude-earthquake-felt-on-northern-vancouver-island-1.5199448

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/southern-california-earthquake-1.5200182

Finding myself irrationally worrying a bit more than I should about the timing, I suspect.

Update: Checking out the USGS Earthquake home page, I spotted this:

http://www.scsn.org/index.php/2019/06/03/glen-avon-earthquake-swarm-5-25-2019/

So this is growing ever more horrific. I say again: we should not have to endure living in a world where Global Evil Conspiracy Theories are actual facts proven/provable by credible journalists.

And there's a Canadian connection, in Victoria, BC. AggregateIQ by corporate name.

The people who try to organize such conspiracies ought to be serving time. Though, for what and under whose jail system...?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

A further note: I would count the Guardian's people uncovering this info as a good thing. It's now out in the public realm, where we can figure out what useful things can be done about it.

Don't let the date fool you. I took it while I was out west this past summer. I just didn't get around to uploading it until this weekend. Anyway...that question you're asking?

Yep. That name. In a subsection of Nanaimo's downtown known as the China Steps. Not quite sure how it happened, although I'm sure it did so before Siegel and Shuster happened upon National Periodical Publications.

As for the bookstore/coffeehouse off to the side, Clifford's Wake...I hope it's still in business. I'd like to drop in again some day.

Seems like the last couple of months were full of travel and visuals...

( Read more... )

I just posted some of my photos from my travels over at my Flickr account. Go click on the sidebar link.