Patricia Sutherland

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.

The wait is over! #RunLikeAGirl is available in bookstores and online today! This isn’t just about politics—it’s about possibility. From aspiring Olympian to Canada’s environment minister, my journey has been anything but linear.

🔗 Learn more: catherinemckenna.ca
#WomenLeadingOnClimate

Autumn's Garland
Tom Thomson
1915-16

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

Everything is bad, but books are good. Get a book. Read the book. Cherish the book. Finish the book. Tell your friends about the book, and leave a review of the book. Hold the book close. Listen to what it tells you. Do as it commands. Place it on the dread altar and let it guide your every choice.

I was reflecting recently on the fact that over the course of 50 years, Carnegie funded the building of 2500 public libraries (1800 in the US).

Imagine a national project that would build 2000 new 21st century public libraries in 25 years. That's something that would rally a lot of people.

Them: “Cities are all rotting hellscapes!”

Cities:

CORRECTION.

The UCP has not banned just over 100 books from Edmonton Schools.

If this list is accurate, they have banned over 200.

Here is the list we have been provided.

1/2

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

New rule. A parent may only propose removing a book from the school library only after reading it in its entirety and delivering a book report to the librarian. Until then no discussion shall be entered into.

A graphic for the "New Horizons for Seniors Program," which is now open. Key details include: project duration of up to 52 weeks, up to $25,000 in grants, and program priorities such as healthy aging, preventing elder abuse, diversity & inclusion, and financial security. A yellow "Apply Now" button is shown at the bottom, with a deadline of September 17, 2025. The name "Mark Gerretsen" appears at the bottom of the image.

New Horizons for Seniors Program is now open!
The federal government is accepting applications for grants of up to $25,000 to support local projects that empower seniors.

🔗 More info: bit.ly/3UQFUdm
🗓️ Apply by: September 17, 2025

Opinion: In Alberta schools, books aren’t the threat — censorship is The Alberta government should not be eroding the fundamental rights and freedoms of some of its most vulnerable community members.

“Alberta’s order is precisely about banning books, as its direct effect is to force school authorities across the province to remove from their libraries a host of books deemed inappropriate by the state.”

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...

New period drama branded "must-watch" praised by viewers - Canada News Beep Sterling K Brown's new period drama Washington Black has been branded a "must-watch" by viewers.

New period drama branded “must-watch” praised by viewers

https://www.newsbeep.com/ca/28354/

Sterling K Brown‘s new period drama Washington Black has been branded a “must-watch” by viewers. Set in the…

‘It’s so boring’: gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids – and educators are worried Screen time has increasingly replaced story time, and experts warn this could lead to children falling behind

if there's any truth to this, it's worth remembering that Gen Z grew up with leveled reading "benchmarks" and ELA assessments and and were for years asked to produce answers about "the main idea"/conflict/resolution/etc. instead of being encouraged to engage with & love literature on their own terms

Conflict and child suffering escalate in Sudan The bloody conflict between rival military factions in Sudan has generated an ever worsening child protection crisis.

www.thewhig.com/opinion/conf...

According to UNICEF, approximately 270 children are admitted for treatment of severe acute malnutrition every day in Sudan’s North Darfur state.
#Sudan #FoodInsecurity #SAM

Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain Google’s AI Overview, which is easy to fool into stating nonsense as fact, is stopping people from finding and supporting small businesses and credible sources.

Google's AI summaries are
- killing traffic to legitimate sites
- producing summaries that can be wrong
- in the long run probably making you a dumbass

www.404media.co/googles-ai-i...

Photograph of an antique map titled "The Province of Canada" by James Wyld, published in London circa 1856. Hand-colored in outline, it depicts Upper and Lower Canada, the St. Lawrence River, Great Lakes region, county structures, towns, and hydrography, extending into parts of New England, New York, Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

On this day in 1841, Upper Canada and Lower Canada were united into The Province of Canada through the Act of Union by the British Parliament. The capital of the province moved between Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City and Ottawa until Canadian Confederation in 1867.

That was my point, yep.

They just described a literature course, a library science course, a liberal arts program — all things that exist and that AI hollows out. Parasitic.

Bad People Ban Books

'Albertans'

Why do Alberta's put up with their politicians infantalizing them?

You should 💯% take a free fact-checking tutorial. Here are a few good ones:

1) story-maker.org/library/fact...

2) teacherscollegesj.edu/courses/eval...

3) digitalcourses.afp.com/collections/...

4) newslit.org/educators/re...

5) libguides.sdsu.edu/Factchecking

Despatches from the Ottawa IKEA, perhaps the only IKEA in the world where a fake computer monitor in an imaginary home office displays the Library of Parliament's "Historical Information about Parliament" page. Is @parlcharlie.bsky.social moonlighting on the staging team? #cdnhist

The government of Canada has launched a website to help combat news disinformation!

You can learn why disinformation affects you, how to spot it & ways to counter it. 👏

Check out their new ad below and the website here: canada.ca/disinformation

If you haven’t read it, this post by Brian Klaas is excellent and differentiates between language as output (LLMs) & understanding language as the basis for critical thinking (cognitive process): bsky.app/profile/bria...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Thinking of writing a mystery/thriller novel? This Guide is full of practical tips for how to write compelling dialogue, interesting characters, and develop great plots plus marketing and other helpful advice for the aspiring author! Order exclusively from reboundpress.com!

The mainstream media has enabled Trump’s war on universities | Jason Stanley For the past decade, the US press has fueled a moral panic over leftists on campus while failing to report on the right’s assault

Yup.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

why is it so hard for people to understand that the work of the reader is fundamentally different than the work of the writer? that's what makes it art?

Yes, it's official, I am thrilled to announce that my first ever novel will be published by Rebound Press in the near future! You may have seen me mention a working title before, but the actual title and perhaps cover art will be revealed soon! Thank you so much to Peggy for taking a chance on me!