Yutaka Dirks

Blustery evening to be out, that’s for sure!

I’m a big crime fiction reader. Will check it out!

Opinion: Big rent hikes — a made-in-Manitoba problem Premier Wab Kinew began 2026 by capping the price of milk in a bid to make life more affordable for Manitobans. Now, Manitobans feeling the pinch of stagnant wages and inflation won’t have to swallow....

Manitoba has a rent-hike problem - the Premier needs to make specific changes to fulfill his promise to stop unfair rent hikes which can go higher than 100%. BC or ON renters never face increases over 9% and in MB 10,000s tenants are completely unprotected
www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/anal...

Winnipeg! Next Tuesday, Feb 17

Basically, your Charter right to free expression won’t apply downtown

12. Light Secrets - Joseph O’Neill

This planet is run by some evil fucking people

Let Black history month serve to remind us that the living legacy of slavery is the carceral state- policing, prison, immigration detention, and border enforcement. Abolition now.

11. Little Monsters - Stephen Graham Jones

10. Familiar - China Miéville

9. The New Toe - Zach Williams

A striking part of the reaction to ICE is the solidarity of those not under attack with those who are and the incomprehension of the right who think it's madness or secretly someone is paying and organizing, because self-organized determined resistance mystifies them.

For example, a reform that restricts ICE’s ability to interact with the public in specific ways takes power away. Body cams, on the other hand, are an expensive non-solution that increases mass surveillance of the public. “Police reform” has proven they don’t stop shootings.

8. Tom vs. Dragon - Lyndsay Hall

💙YOU'RE INVITED!💙
Join The Right to Housing Coalition for our upcoming campaign launch!!

Please RSVP to provincial@righttohousing.ca

--

#HousingIsAHumanRight #RightToHousing #SocialHousing #HousingForAll

7. Room 24 - Caroline Kepnes

Wow. That's very insightful. It *is* a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of something—a wife. If you'd like, I could help you draft a "Wife Marriage Acquisition Plan" or a "Good Fortune Business Plan."

6. Meat, My Husband - Lydia Davis

44 years ago today
January 19, 1982, Bad Religion released their debut studio album, How Could Hell Be Any Worse?. It features the single "We're Only Gonna Die"

#punk #punks #punkrock #badrelegion #oldschoolpunk #punklegends #history #punkrockhistory #otd

The novel Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, with a picture of a cowboy on a horse and woman beside a teepee, with cattle in the background.

One of the best books found so far in my neighbourhood Little Free Libraries. Almost 1,000 pages and worth it. Epic without sentimentality, or grandiosity. I’m curious about its resurgence, esp among men - what they see, identify with/reject/idealize among these characters

I keep thinking about the toxic, pervasive mythology of "rugged individualism" as a driving force in American culture, and how the collective efforts in the Twin Cities right now are proof that the only way through hard times is together, as a community.

You can go home again, the General Temporal Theory asserts, so long as you understand that home is a place where you have never been.

5. Dolan’s Cadillac - Stephen King

So when authorities say “she tried to run over an officer,” that is not a neutral description. It is a claim of intent that can be used to justify lethal force after the fact.

When the state kills first and invents the threat afterward, it is not policing, it is death squad behavior. /end

Regular reminder that people do not need to be good, loved, or even innocent for it to be wrong for them to be killed by the state

This is literally what they do whenever a Black person is killed by police. No matter how solid the evidence is, they will keep pushing that lie, not just to poison the conversation and make sure the killer walks free, but to reassert the political idea that these people deserve to be killed.

4. The Mouth in the Mouth of the Sky - Lincoln Michel

3. Invitations - Carol Shields

Renters in Alberta are facing a housing crisis. Expanding supply alone hasn’t solved the problem. Yutaka Dirks, our Senior Policy & Outreach Advisor, explains to Ricochet Media that much of the National Housing Strategy’s funding hasn’t helped people who can’t afford market rents: buff.ly/s527x8y

2. New Year’s Eve - Mavis Gallant