Sonja Boon

Mamdani: "I speak of Renee Good, whose final words to the man who murdered her were, 'I'm not mad at you.' I speak of Alex Pretti who died as he lived, caring for the stranger. ICE shot him bc he did something they could never fathom ... let us offer a new path: one of defiance through compassion."

Headline from September 26, 2024 by Lyndsay Armstrong for The Canadian Press “Andy Fillmore says Halifax attracts unhoused people, advocates say that's untrue” “A candidate for Halifax mayor says the municipality's approach to homeless encampments has encouraged unhoused people from across the country to move to the city to live in tents — a claim housing advocates and city councillors say is untrue.”

Headline from today Feb 04, 2026 by Josh Hoffman for CBC News Nova Scotia “Some people in rural N.S. believe shelters attract more homelessness. These numbers suggest otherwise” “Staff at Open Arms in Kentville say most people they find permanent housing for move away”

Should politicians be held accountable for the lies they spread? What are the ripple effects of those lies?

A Winter of Anguish for Minneapolis Children

Gift link. My kid reports that only 10 or 15% of her school is showing up anymore. We are under siege. I talked to someone in restaurants last night who said she heard from a hotel worker that ICE hotel reservations are extended through May. They are strangling us.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

could it actually be that we'll finally have a family doctor? Of course, the clinic is an hour away by public transit (including 20 minutes of walking), so not the most convenient ... but a start?

Tonight at 7 pm!

I love these letters so so much - and they're such a vital part of Newfoundland and Labrador's social and political history.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FRITZ EMMANUEL LESLY MIOT, et al., Plaintiffs, Case No. 25-cv-02471 (ACR) V. DONALD J. TRUMP, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: "America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions." More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington's vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a (TPS statute). It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually. See Part VI. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take.? eSec Noem I just met with the President. I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies. Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom-not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS. WE DON'T WANT THEM. NOT ONE. 6:52 PM - Dec 1, 2025 - 13.2M Views ' Letter from George Washington to Joshua Holmes (December 2, 1783). 2 Dkt. 90 (Second Am. Compl.) 1110 n.91. But see supra n.l.

So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program. And one of those (her word) "damn" countries is Haiti. Relevant here, three days before making the above post, Secretary Noem announced she would terminate Haiti's TPS designation as of February 3, 2026. See 90 Fed. Reg. 54733 (Nov. 28, 2025) (Termination). Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges, "killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies." They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer's disease, Dkt. 90 (Second Am. Compl. (SAC)) 1 1; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank, id. 1 2; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department, id. | 3; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major, id. 9| 4; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse, id. 9|5. They claim that Secretary Noem's decision violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Government counters that the Court does not have jurisdiction, and, in any case, the Secretary did not violate the law. Plaintiffs seek to stay the Secretary's decision under 5 U.S.C. § 705 pending the outcome of this litigation. See Dkt. 81 (§ 705 Mot.). To decide their motion, the Court considers first whether it has jurisdiction. It does. See Part II. It then considers: whether Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; whether they will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; and whether a merged balance of the equities and public interest analysis favors a stay. See Part III. Each element favors Plaintiffs. See Parts IV, V, and VI.

Finally, the balance of equities and public interest favor a stay. The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things— in the public interest is not one of them. For the reasons below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs' Renewed Motion for a Stay Under 5 U.S.C. § 705, Dkt. 81.

BREAKING: Judge Ana Reyes, in DC, issues a stay of DHS Sec. Noem’s decision to end Haiti’s temporary protected status (TPS) designation, a decision that was to go into effect on Tuesday and could have ended legal status for up to 350,000 people overnight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

In between all the fascism, it's also a MASSIVE crime wave.

(We knew that)

Ethnic Cleansing in Ohio? Nazi Lies in Vance's America

In Springfield, Ohio, people are preparing in advance of a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, the city is 2 or 3 days from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis.
snyder.substack.com/p/ethnic-cle...

straight up.

Land trust founder pushes Halifax for piece of Cogswell 'to settle a debt' to displaced African Nova Scotians Halifax residents speak out on workers’ wages, unaffordability of tax bill increase at the first public hearing on the budget

“They inherited the conditions that led to violence, he said, along with the consequences of urban renewal and disinvestment.”

Halifax has been forcing some residents who have less, to subsidize other, usually wealthier residents for longer than I’ve been alive. And it has not stopped this practice

Earlier this afternoon, Memorial University announced that the Board of Regents approved the plans to sell the U.K. based Harlow Campus, the Signal Hill Campus, the Johnson Geo Centre and the Ingstad building.

themuse.ca/memorial-to-...

@memorialup.bsky.social

While independent bookstores are giving out free whistles, hosting protest sign making events, and donating proceeds to mutual aid, Amazon is *checks notes* providing technology that assists ICE in their terrorizing of communities.

Independent bookstores deserve your support. Amazon does not.

A poster with a blue background that features a photo of the Halifax Central Library. Superimposed on it is a red book, with the title Dear Mr. Smallwood: Confederation in the words of those who lived it. A white circle with the text: Open to the Public. Below this, text reads: MFA Author Talks Sonja Boon on Dear Mr. Smallwood. February 3, 2026, Halifax Central Library, BMO Room.

Looking forward to next week's chat about letters to Joey Smallwood, and this time, in Halifax!

MFA AUTHOR TALKS
Tuesday, February 3 at 7 pm
Halifax Central Library

Open to the public and free!

from A Wichita Mountains Ontology (DocuPoetics) – SETH COPELAND Notes Photographs on pages 1 and 5 by the author.Photograph on page 4 from Art Halloran’s The Nature Man’s Stories of the Wichita Mountains, independently published in 1972. Text from the House Sub…

Today Seth Copeland is up at our PROCESS series with a remarkable suite from a longer #docupoem (in process).
American colonial history, sports, indigenous rights, ecological concerns, geologies and geographies are deftly explored in #image #text #poetry #vispo

icefloepress.net/2026/01/23/f...

In a few years, this will all look as stupid as NFTs and MOOCs, but by then, a whole generation will have forgotten how to learn anything.

Weaving the Colonial Archive: A Basket to Lighten the Load Archival-poetics is an active, embodied reckoning with history and the violence of the colonial archive, particularly South Australia’s Aboriginal records. Family records at the heart of this work ...

And (not Americas) Natalie Harkin, "Weaving the colonial archive: a basket to lighten the load"

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Older, now, but still important: Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, "Decolonization is not a metaphor." jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/de...

Ah, this is lovely. Thanks for sharing it.

Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem. Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…

lithub.com/renee-nicole...

Women and the Sea Workshop — SWAAN SWAAN will host the Woman and the Sea Workship on 29 April to 1 May 2026 at Memorial University's Maritime History Archive in St. John's NL. To imagine a future for women in maritime industries, we mu...

www.swaan.org/workshop

keep thinking of a vocally anti-woke reporter who insisted that the term "environmental racism" was nonsense

Poster text reads: HSS ON OUR WORLDS. Friday Jan 9th 12:00-1:15 Newfoundland Standard Time SN4022 and online. Politics, (Best) Practices, Pitfalls and Pleasures at the MUNL Archives. A roundtable discussion with the editors and contributors to Dear Mr. Smallwood: Confederation int he Words of Those who Lived it (Memorial UP, 2025). There are photos of five participants: Sonja Boon, Heidi Cooms, Vicki Hallett, Daze Jefferies, and Amy Sheppard, and on the right hand side of the page, an image of the book cover, which is red with white text. Along the left side of the book are two pairs of glasses.

A roundtable discussion on Politics, (Best) Practices, Pitfalls, and Pleasures at the MUNL Archives, with the editors and some contributors to Dear Mr. Smallwood

🗓 Friday, Jan 9, 2026
⏰ 12:00–1:15 pm NST
📍 SN4022, MUN St. John‘s + Online
🔗 Zoom reg: shorturl.at/pnGh8

@memorialup.bsky.social

what glorious and sensuous year of travel and community! Looking forward to reading your memoir.

chilling.

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

ESTHER HWANG in her own words

The Vancouver Symphony has *a lot* of explaining to do. And also? Get rid of NDA's. They only protect perpetrators and institutions.

katherineneedlemanoboist.substack.com/p/esther-hwa...

while i am not an academic i did see this coming and post about it on bluesky, which is why i am quoted in this article