Everybody’s sick (again). Hospitals are buckling (again). But Albertans aren’t getting the shots that could change the game. Why not? #abhealth #abpoli #influenza #vaccination #covid #sociology

These out-of-context slightly-manic snips are lowkey mesmerizing - like if mansplaining and beat poetry had a baby.

This is a #yeg complaint abt juxtaposition of bloated affluence & crappy public services in #edmonton. Sitting in stalled bus stuck behind delivery truck for high-end furniture which is wedged in snow. Another bus stuck in front of us. Giant SUVs zooming past, passengers gawking at plebs on buses.

how can we exist in a world ran by people who don’t think this shit is a problem

now this is how you write a simile by golly! #protoindoeuropean @lauraspinney.bsky.social

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

This is the most pusillanimous and craven thing I’ve ever seen in Jeff Bezos’ @washingtonpost.com, and that’s quite the high bar. Glad my subscription expires next month. @nytimes.com all the way.

Okay this is even more ominous than usual: an unnamed “private donor” gave Trump $130 million to pay the military. So who do the soldiers who work for now?

Good reminder, relevant to #abpoli, that the right doesn’t have much of a track record on “compromising” on their aversion to trans people existing (unless you count “they should not exist” as a compromise position). Centrist and left can’t just cede a little bit of ground and hope for detente.

@aircanada.bsky.social Here I am complaining on X and Facebook bc you cancelled my flight on Aug 17, promised to refund me in 5-7 business days, & deflected/ghosted me when I tried the normal customer support channels. You own this problem, you need to make it right. x.com/amykaler/sta...

Many things to recoil from following Kirk shooting, including the (apparent) expectation in some quarters that Americans in public eye shd perform grief at Kirk's death - which is v different from just not being a gleeful jerk. Coercive theatre of emotion = bad news for democracy & public sphere.

#Edmonton #yegdt needs many things (safe transit, public toilets, any signs of life downtown) & a giant sports playpen for the wealthy is none of them. Why did #yegcc throw >$100 million at it? @AshleyASalvador just lost my municipal vote for supporting this giveaway. globalnews.ca/news/1135140...

The anti #transgender nonsense in #alberta just keeps pounding away. Here’s why I think the latest gender-verification requirements for girls are #Handmaid’sTale bad. It’s a grand time to be a sociologist. #abpoli #bill29 #schools northofhere1.wordpress.com/2025/08/31/y...

Half-Light is one of four finalists for @abbookpub.bsky.social’s Regional Book of the Year! Winner announced at big fancy gala on September 18.

Today @mmaroto.bsky.social @amykaler.bsky.social and I are featured in the @thetyee.ca to discuss the mistake employers are making by mandating workers back to the office.

The #AirCanada strike puts Canadian workers’ rights into focus - we show how everyone benefits when workers have the right to take sick leave & access workplace flexibility policies. Mandatory back-to-office rules create more problems than they solve.

🧵Why are seasonal childhood vaccination rates falling after the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic despite a mass increase of viral illness? @mmaroto.bsky.social @amykaler.bsky.social and I add some new understanding to this in our new paper published in The Sociological Quarterly

#Vaccination & social trust in #Alberta: new research from @mmaroto.bsky.social @andiewinnipeg.bsky.social & me. #Measles outbreaks make this especially timely. @picardonhealth.bsky.social of interest to your readers? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Exactly.

Southern Saskatchewan at the peak of a wet summer.

Canada is facing rising infectious disease rates — and US cuts to CDC data are making it harder to track and respond. Experts warn this could impair pandemic readiness and fuel health misinformation across the border. Read more. @amykaler.bsky.social www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

San Diego neighborhood makes ICE agents retreat

Extreme tech is like extreme woo or extreme natural-health: the political right and left dissolve into each other. The "Abundance" push for deregulation and endless growth seems not that different from Thiel et al wanting to do away with liberal states altogether. newintermag.com/abundance-bi...

in the name of all that is holy stop replying-all

Yep. FFS, boys aren’t being told they’re bad, they’re being told not to be assholes. Growing up in the 1970s and 1970s, I remember when boys were told that being assholes was normal and fine. That tacit permission to be your worst self is what’s changed (and for the better).

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

Yes absolutely: third spaces where you don’t have to buy stuff as a condition of being present (sorry, coffee shops and music festivals) but which are also appealing enough that people go there bc they want to, not bc they have no alternative.

Never mind daffodils and crocuses in milder climes: it’s Poplar Catkin Day here, which means the unofficial but definite beginning of spring in northern Alberta.

At least 500 unnecessary measles cases (probably fraction of actual cases, choose your multiplier); at least two avoidable deaths, and an unknown number of kids with liver damage bc parents are following RFK and overdosing kids with vitamin A to “cure” measles.

If I were a chickenhearted Republican senator who’s kinda unhappy about all the crazy but also kinda spineless - groupchatgate is the excuse I need to raise a fuss abt Hegseth et al putting American soldiers in harm’s way, being unpatriotic etc w/o directly opposing Trump.

In which I overthink whatever the hell that was when Vance and Trump berated Zelenskyy. northofhere1.wordpress.com/2025/03/23/o...

I decided to start a #thread 🧵 of stories about legal residents and tourists being (illegally) arrested, detained and/or deported by the Trump regime. I'll only post stories from serious sources, as rumors and conspiracies are really not needed in this authoritarian moment.

I love maps from different angles, unironically

Seamus Heaney and the spring that isn't here. northofhere1.wordpress.com/2025/03/15/e...

This is great. CBC is hiring local reporters for 23 communities across the country that are underserved for news.