Libarbarian

A really big tarp in preparation for Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Photo from 2014.

Ready for Folk Fest! See you on the Hill! #EFMF #bigtarp @edmfolkfest.bsky.social

Interesting! So is the line in Little Bones, "Famous last words taken all wrong" referring to Findley's novel?

I am the law and I am the judge.
Completely inappropriate for the Attorney General of the Province.
Time to resign.

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go

Faretheewell, Tom Lehrer, often reluctant musician - whose descendants down one branch include Randy Newman and maybe Lou Reed (viz "The Masochism Tango"), and down the other Weird Al. Ninety-seven years and dozens of whipsmart songs, a pretty good record. Inevitably one thinks of this tune.

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." ~ Frederick Douglass

Opinion | Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

I wrote about how the Everglades experiment fits into the history of concentration camps in the US and abroad, and how it will connect a domestic network of camps to an international one. We’re watching the imposition of a global concentration camp network.

She looks like Eva Marie Saint in "On the Waterfront"
She reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance
~ "Rattlesnakes" - Lloyd Cole (1984)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSc4...

It's a push poll
Nothing but a push poll
Hits you when it's too late
Hits you when you're down
It's a fool's game
Nothing but a fool's game
Standing in the cold rain
Feeling like a clown

* Apologies to Bonnie Tyler

Big Rock Brewery goes all-in on a re-brand for its 40th anniversary, plus a new IPA (Wrangler) as one of their core beers. #craftbeer #abbeer calgaryherald.com/business/loc...

New Walrus Post: Don't tell me we care about Canada when we're too cheap to look after our history. Library and Archives Canada is unusable to historians

New Walrus Post: Don't tell me we care about Canada when we're too cheap to look after our history.
substack.com/@markbourrie...

This story made my day! So inspiring. So delightful and positive a story out of small town Alberta! Thank you Jana, Amber and Maven!

Maven Maurer, first pro football player to come out as trans, tells her story She played on four CFL teams, won two Grey Cups and earned the nickname ‘the Wolverine.’ Now, she embraces her true self

Maven Maurer is the first pro football player to come out as trans.
My profile of a very brave and strong woman, who risked everything to be who she really is.
With beautiful photos by @amberbracken.bsky.social
@mavenmaurer.bsky.social
www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/artic...

In the coming hours, the premier will likely brush this off as "just asking questions."

As Jen Gerson reminded us earlier about this government's flirtations with the far right, though, some questions are simply beyond the pale.

open.substack.com/pub/theline/...

Alberta as we know it today simply would not exist without the millions of immigrants and refugees who built it, who loved it, and who were proud to call it home - including my grandparents and my mum. This bitter xenophobia is as unAlbertan as it’s possible to be. I’m ashamed. I’m disgusted.

The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction Literature is often pushed on allegedly reluctant men as a machine for empathy. I read it for a different reason.

There are many pieces wondering why men don't read fiction, and what it will take to get them back on track. Today I attempted to work in reverse, and wrote about why I — an individual man, beholden to nobody but my wife and conscience — read fiction www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

Become a Progress Report patron Support the Progress Report podcast by becoming a monthly patron

The Progress Report is in a lot of funding trouble this month and at risk of closing shop. If that's all you need to hear, we'll just give you the donation link right up top—it's www.theprogressreport.ca/patrons. But if you'd like to know more about us and the situation, please read this thread 🧵

Windsor is Canada's "Border City". Lloyd is... something else.

What was the program?

"official demonstration" is surely an oxymoron?

I wonder if Starmer will cheer for Florida in another attempt to appease Trump? 😆

A progress pride flag outside of the unused ceremonial entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office building on Wellington Street.

Snapped earlier today: Pride flag outside of PMO.

St. Albert: Update on Provincial Health Legislative Changes and Restructuring

Informative event St. Albert, Wed June 18th - Friends of Medicare's executive director, Chris Gallaway, will be in St. Albert to speak to community members about issues impacting Alberta's public health care RRSP in link
www.friendsofmedicare.org/st_albert_he...

Alberta Teachers Are Not OK | The Tyee They’ve recently voted to strike. And they want the province to hear their requests for support.

“When I left, I had two friends that also left at the same time for exactly the same reasons.” #ablab #abpoli

Oilers bench looking like an 11pm beer league bench. "Just stay on!"

Christian conservative group Action4Canada lobbied for review of books in Alberta schools The Library Association of Alberta believes a Christian lobby group may have played a role in the province's targeting books found in schools.

“The president of the Library Association of Alberta believes a Christian lobby group may have played a role in the province’s targeting of what it calls “sexually explicit” books found in school libraries.”

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

edmontonjournal.com/news/local-n...

The Bureau of Library Tourism I just walked back from the lovely Cookie Bar in Ford City, Ontario, where I was one of the six “fun” speakers at the Bike Windsor Essex AGM. The theme was transportation and the format…

librarian.aedileworks.com/2025/05/28/t...

Alberta government's new zeal for banning books starts with astroturfing "parents" groups like this. Elbows up, people!

Alberta to hold public consultation on which books should be banned from school libraries The province will now require school boards to implement new age-appropriate standards for books by the start of the 2025-26 school year

"Which books should be banned". The Globe gets the headline right. As usual, Alberta racing to the bottom against top book banning jurisdictions Florida, Texas, and Utah.
www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/9908d20...

Exactly. Intellectual freedom experts James Turk and Toni Samek made this point recently: bit.ly/4jp2rIj "...years of inadequate provincial funding in which library resources and staff are not made a priority. To the contrary, they often are seen as where cuts can readily be made."

Get the Knack!