On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Steve Lieber mentioned on BlueSky recently that the comics artform and industry alike can benefit from an updating of this page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150415200242/http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/lists/lists_and_links/30269/

I mentioned in reply that I could probably make some time to update the Ottawa-Gatineau section. Sadly, we lost Suzanne Marsden three years ago, and the Ottawa Comix Jam sessions were her Big Project of keeping the community connected to itself and the larger city and comics creators' community of North America.

Writers, artists of all branch-disciplines, and so on...

More on this to come, I think.

I just finished watching a re-run of Man of Steel. Before that, I was rereading David Brin's novel Earth and reading an opinion piece in today's Globe and Mail by Sue Gardner (once of CBC and Wikimedia) on Bill C-10.

I think Prof. Michael Geist has fair criticisms of C-10 as presently promoted by the Trudeau team, particularly Heritage minister Steven Guilbeault. I share those concerns. Sue Gardner pointed out other issues, issues that C-10 might still be refashioned to address better. Issues about the business model of the major internet giants, including Facebook, Twitter, Alphabet/Google, etc.. The model that requires pushing engagement over education...rather than both in tandem.

It also speaks to some concerns that Dr. Brin put forward in the course of writing Earth: oligarchy trying to hold onto the power it used to have by keeping humanity more divided than absolutely necessary. Those companies risk being more entrenched as an oligarchy itself or as part of an existing structure's newer components.

In case any of you are able to get around the paywall because you're subscribed or otherwise legally able to look at it directly:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-crackdown-on-big-tech-targets-symptoms-rather-than-the-disease/

Also, my local public library provides ProQuest access to the article. Your own public libraries - wherever you are - may be able to provide similar access.

Continuing the job search this afternoon.

Also: revisiting the history of the Declaration of the Independence of the Mind via Ideas. If you're interested in the text of that original declaration from 1919, here's a link.

(I wonder if Leslie Charteris might have read that Declaration. Some of the stuff in those Saint stories of his gets me thinking now about the possibility. Certainly, if he had, he'd have put it aside for the needs of World War 2 and the battle against fascism as it presented itself to our world back then.)

On a related note: Ideas, the CBC Radio series, is devoting some time over this past broadcast season of 2020-'21 to the theme of The Common Good. Other instalments of that series of broadcasts may be accessed here.

More on other topics as today goes by...

So this is a thing that's getting noticed too, perhaps under "at long last!"?

Assistance aversion, explained via cartoon posted by someone else to Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Schnumn/status/1382672019154685952

This could be both useful and helpful.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/good-vibrations-bladeless-turbines-could-bring-wind-power-to-your-home

I'm looking at op-ed cartoonist Michael de Adder's latest illustration for the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting: Facebook as a Borg "cube" ship, Australia as the TMP version of the Enterprise...and I am starting to wonder if IDW - the current comics license-holders - and CBS Studios ought to get in touch with Mr. de Adder about...whatever he might have a mind to do.

To make it plain:

Hire this guy, people.

An acquaintance of mine just uploaded the results of a font design project near and dear to his heart. Some of you might have an interest in it as it focuses on one of the scripts of the African nations. The Twitter thread that starts with this posting explains more of the context...

https://twitter.com/Sebastiangary1/status/1362791871202869250

I was hoping for a response along these lines, but am pleasantly surprised at the speed of it.

Details in the Twitter thread starting here:

https://twitter.com/ruperto1023/status/1334184780192223232

It's not fast enough, not yet. But it's more than we had this time last year, right?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/03/more-coal-power-generation-closed-than-opened-around-the-world-this-year-research-finds

And it occurs to me in the midst of my angst and sturm und drang and other crap and nonsense: I actually have things to contribute to common_nature now.