Risky to say that you're looking forward to *Flesh*, but *All That Man Is* showed me that Szalay is a remarkable writer. www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/book...

I know no media is covering the Canada Student Grant cuts, but it's real and it's going to cost several hundred thousand students about $1200 this year. Here's the explainer.

Canada has just lost measles elimination status. The U.S. will undoubtedly follow shortly. Elimination means that there is no continuous spreading of measles within the country for a year or longer. Canada and the U.S. have blown it, and it’s largely the fault of the anti-vaccination movement.

Thank you very much!

What’s happening inside the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre isn’t normal turbulence. It’s institutional decay disguised as discipline. It's a flashing red light signaling rot, with a party on the brink of combustion. This isn't a political party; it's a cult. #cdnpoli

Very pleased to receive a visit from my MP @orourkeguelph.bsky.social to help me promote my novel *The World of After* ( @cormorantbooks.bsky.social) --my bestselling title of the day-- at today's Book Bash in #Guelph, @downtownguelph.bsky.social.

Tomorrow, Sunday November 9, I'll be at Book Bash, 32 Essex Street, #Guelph, from 1 pm to 4pm. Please stop by.

UN report on the situation in the West Bank, October 2025 only: -260 settler attacks (average 8 per day), highest number since the UN started recording in 2006 -140 Palestinians injured -150 attacks on olive harvesting -4,200 olive trees vandalised in 77 villages www.ochaopt.org/content/huma...

Newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, have policies restricting use of LLMs. These experiments show why those policies are needed -they can't be trusted in writing, research or editing. I'm not anti-AI. It's worth developing. But the design of LLMs makes them a non-option for truth-based work

Canada's first big-city Muslim mayor was also from a South Asian family with roots in East Africa.

The chronology of our hemisphere is ever changing and becomes ever longer. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

this morning, ICE went into a Spanish language immersion daycare and took a teacher from the building in front of screaming and crying kids and parents at dropoff and the daycare had to shut down for the day (near Lane Tech, where they were yesterday). Really hoping today's "theme" is not "daycare."

Pleased to be going to Book Bash in #Guelph this Sunday. www.guelphmercury.com/things-to-do...

For anyone who thinks this government actually cares about universities & colleges, consider the following statement from the budget. "New international student arrivals have also declined by approximately 60 per cent compared to 2024. This is a start, but we recognise there is more work to do."

Not a bad review by Beattie, either. One of his better ones, in fact.

Peru breaks diplomatic relations with Mexico.

As many of you know, I was born in Guyana. Just found this excellent set of YouTube videos exploring the history of the Guianas. Little known story for most people in the world, and yet a globally impactful one. youtu.be/iaR53L2CFN0?...

Sad to see #Montreal get doughnuted like some S. Ont. section of sprawl, with the suburban low-tax, anti-bike-lane candidate closing in on the city centre. Sad, also, that the daughter of anti-Pinochet #Chilean refugees is the protagonist of this movement.

« Les infrastructures de transport actif ne visent pas à privilégier un mode de transport plutôt qu'un autre, mais à partager équitablement l'espace public et à planifier un avenir où chacun aura le choix. » [Traduction libre] - Mathieu Roy, CEO, Trans Canada Trail À lire!

Relieved that we can now return to nobody liking Toronto except Torontonians. 🙃

Chega em Abril 2026: *Fissured Ground: National History in Angolan Fiction, Origins to Independence*.

Drugs enter the US from all over Latin America. The largest quantity comes from Mexico; also lots from from Ecuador (a Trump pawn exempt from reprisal). Venezuelan drug traffic is derisory and unexceptional. What is exceptional is the size of Venezuela's oil reserves--the largest in the world.

Resegregation in real time. Bari Weiss is an expert in defending apartheid.

“Idi Amin was a man of international stature, a statesman, so when I called Donald Trump Idi Amin, I thought I was paying him a compliment. He’s been behaving like a dictator.” There's no one quite like Wole Soyinka. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Nothing to see here, folks 🤫🤔

The last government to ban Wole Soyinka was a Nigerian dictatorship. Definitely good company for the USA.

Colombian President Petro told DT to read *One Hundred Years of Solitude* to overcome his ignorance about Colombia. But it's getting harder to read this novel in the USA: thousands of schools and public libraries have banned it. www.elconfidencial.com/cultura/2025...

In Gaza, the rubble is mixed, by one account, with 6 to 9 thousand pieces of unexploded ordnance, contaminated materials (World Bank, UN & EU estimate that “2.3 million tons of debris may be potentially contaminated with asbestos”), and human remains. @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

A speech you can get behind, without understanding it.

Sergio Ramírez gana el VI Bienal de la Novela Vargas Llosa. Felicidades, doctor!

The region of #Spain where *Don Quijote* is set no longer has shepherds due to population decline. Spain is seeking foreign shepherds, showing why Europe needs immigration! Ya no hay pastores en La Mancha. España llama a inmigrants para cuidar sus ovejas. www.libertatea.ro/stiri/meseri...

The region of #Spain where *Don Quijote* is set no longer has shepherds due to population decline. Spain is seeking foreign shepherds, showing why Europe needs immigration! Ya no hay pastores en La Mancha. España llama a inmigrants para cuidar sus ovejas. www.libertatea.ro/stiri/meseri...

The violent persecution of Palestinian farmers in the West Bank is the worst it's been since 1967. This is a state orchestrated campaign of terror.

Add Guatemala to the countries listed here: you can vote for a "pro-democracy" candidate, but even as president this person will fail to create democratic guarantees. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/o...

This dark time should wake us up to the bankruptcy of the corporate Democratic Party. It should mark the birth of the people’s Democratic Party. Zohran Mamdani and others like him are its future. Some thoughts... https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-mamdani-moment

It's been obvious for months that the Gaza Ministry of Health is extremely conservative in counting the dead. Now the University of London says they've undercounted civilian deaths by 39%. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

You don't make this kind of renovation to your house unless you're planning to live there for a good long time.

"Peaceful" Costa Rica now has the highest homicide rate in Central America after Honduras. A terrible transformation, led by inter-gang warfare and assassinations of exiled Nicaraguan opposition figures. cnnespanol.cnn.com/2025/01/03/l...

Petro tells Trump to read *One Hundred Years of Solitude* to overcome his ignorance of Colombia. This is reminiscent of the moment when Chávez responded to GW Bush w/ an allusion from *Doña Bárbara* and Bush and all his Latin American advisers missed the allusion.

The NYT is pretty sure the Inuit won't consolidate our claim to the Arctic. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/w...

Feliz cumpleaños número 151, Miguel Ángel Asturias. *Leyendas de Guatemala, *El Señor Presidente*, *Hombres de maíz*, *Mulata de tal* y otros siguen siendo fuentes inagotables de riqueza.

It's very sad to learn of Roy Jacobsen's death. I did a small amount of editorial work getting the first three of his Barroy series ready for N. American publication @biblioasis.bsky.social. They're wonderful books. *The Unseen*, in particular, is a masterpiece. www.nrk.no/kultur/forfa...

Lazer Lederhendler's superb translation of Christophe Bernard's novel (edited by SH @biblioasis.bsky.social), won the French-American Foundation Prize for translation & the Governor General's Award for Translation. A delight to see it as a finalist for Quebec Writers Association Awards.

Very pleased to see an Angolan woman, Ana Paula Tavares, win the Camões Prize, given to a writer of Portuguese for their life's work. Tavares, best known as a poet, is the fifth African and second Angolan to win the Camões.

The peace she supports is the peace of the tomb.

Here's a lucid evisceration of corporate America's sham-nationalist anthology *Elbows Up*. It's very good on how younger Cdn. authors who've advanced their publishing careers by playing the ethnic card have no language to understand or defend Canada. shush.substack.com/p/an-elbow-i...

Mon Dieu! Le bulletin des informations de @iciradiocanada.bsky.social à 6:30 ce matin vient de dire que la capitale de la Hongrie est Bucharest. C'est BUDAPEST!

Trump's attacks on "Venezuelan narcoterrorists" have been killing Trinidadian fishermen.