The Army Chief of Staff, a combat veteran with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, asked Pete Hegseth why he was blocking the promotions of two Black officers and two female officers who had earned them. Hegseth refused to answer. Then he fired him.

Some VPs work, in theory. None work seriously in practice as actual work is done by a seemingly every expanding staff. Most admin, like VPs, take credit for things that 'worked' but pass responsibility/blame to underlings when they don't. In my int'l experience, most senior admin is a scam.

CBC News honours the life and legacy of Stephen Lewis.

Not a single story on the US/Israel war on Iran, or Israel's invasion of Lebanon (which Canada has condemned) on the online site of @theglobeandmail.com. What a whitewash. www.theglobeandmail.com

"Israel is the first state in history to legislate a death sentence that applies only to one ethnic group. There's a reason nobody has ever done this. It's a depth of evil beyond humanity itself." ~ Daniel Lambert, KNEECAP Manager

Arts/culture employs more Canadians than oil/gas. chamber.ca/news/arts-an...

I’ve been a journalist for 27 years. I’ve reported major stories about mass surveillance, torture, war, the military-industrial complex, police black sites, etc. But this is the most important story I’ve ever had the horror/honor to work on. For it is a story about the current phase of a genocide.

Three days ago I fulfilled a lifelong dream by taking a bus from Santa Marta, Colombia to Aracataca to visit the childhood home of Gabriel García Márquez, where both the author and Macondo were born.

What is Emmanuel Grégoire, the new Paris mayor, planning for the city over his new term in office? —60,000 new social housing units —15 express bus routes —Completion of city's full bike network —Transformation of ring highway into a boulevard —1000 new pedestrian streets —300 new hectares of parks

Throw them all into the sea.

Every. Day www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/w...

40% of the Shaughnessy Cohen finalists are published by @biblioasis.bsky.social.

QPD Alfredo Bryce Echenique. *Un mundo pra Julius* is one of the greatest novels of the Latin American Boom, even as it is totally unlike any recognized Boom novel. No one else could write about the upper bourgeois worlds Bryce Echenique knew so intimately. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Guess whose youth (18-21) population is projected to hold up better than any in the Americas over the next 20 years?

In a world in flames, archives might seem inconsequential, yet they represent our collective memory, and their erasure also is a political act. apple.news/A_Mlcl43oQNm...

I enjoyed making a fleeting appearance on this @globalnews spot while jetlagged at a cheap Heathrow hotel. globalnews.ca/video/117206...

RIP António Lobo Antunes. No one equalled his great gusts of language. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/b...

The reason the category of settler colonialism is so vital to the Palestine/Israel discussion is that you simply cannot understand contemporary Israeli policies without it, e.g. in West Bank. Otherwise people resort to talking about the problem as one of "fanatics" - and that's just unconvincing. 1/

This is a profound continental divide. Canadians overwhelmingly view other Canadians, even those unlike them, as being good people. Americans, more than any other country, view their neighbours and fellow citizens as bad people. Anti-Americanism flourishes in the United States

Azerbaijan has entered the chat. Trump and Netanyahu have opened a Pandora’s box that will bring death and destruction to the Iranian people. This was never about freedom, it was about breaking Iran into ethnic pieces that could be more easily controlled by Israel and Gulf State USian allies.

so Iran has apparently knocked out and destroyed / disabled to some extent two U.S. THAAD batteries This is a massive deal. Aside from the expense, this is not a weapon system we just have a ton of lying around. You don't replace these easily. defencesecurityasia.com/en/irgc-dest...

In the midst of chaos, I'm delighted to see this review of Jean Bart's *Europolis* (CEU Press, translated by SH) from the Carnegie Endowment.. carnegieendowment.org/europe/strat...

I have just held a call with President Pedro Sánchez to express the EU’s full solidarity with Spain. The EU will always ensure that the interests of its Member States are fully protected.

Yes, this really is how you spell George #Orwell in #Latvian .

Which air force is responsible for the Minab attack which killed close to 200 girls? No clear info so far. Given the location in south east Iran it is likely the US - as Israeli attacks have focussed on western parts of Iran. But either way, we need to know who is responsible for this atrocity.

Alain Mabanckou is a very good Congolese writer, but he writes in French and this book is a translation by HELEN STEVENSON. @serpents-tail.bsky.social , one of the pioneering publishers of modern literary translation, should be ashamed of removing Stevenson's name from cover and title page.

Mature commentary by Bob Rae on today's events in Iran. I would have preferred this tone from the Prime Minister. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Home of the US 5th Fleet:

Fue un placer hablar ayer de *Margarita, está linda la mar* de Sergio Ramírez en la Universidad de #Galway, Irlanda.

You can't walk far in #Cork without finding support for both #Ukraine and #Palestine.

The only reliable way anybody has found to keep a lit mag solvent is have the CIA fund it.

Many years ago these rooms were the grad student lounge (MCR) of #Wadham College Oxford, where we partied, did politics, read newspapers. (One year I was MCR president.) Today I gave a seminar in my old MCR, now converted into seminar rooms divided by a wall. It felt inappropriately academic.

From the River to the Sea

On le savait déjá. Autrement, les sionistes n'auraient pas approvés les chiffres.

Nothing quite like watching hockey on the BBC. "For those of you wondering, the puck is about the size and weight of a cricket ball..."

My thoughts on how critical fully funded public libraries are to any Left political project in the U.S. open.substack.com/pub/prisoncu...

Au Musée du Luxembourg, à Paris, Leonora Carrington, artiste surréaliste majeure du XXᵉ siècle

A despicable piece of genocide-washing @theglobeandmail.com. The solution to the fertility deficit is...Israel! "In Israel [...] Children are a joy." (Not Palestinian children obviously. Not the 20,000+ children Israel murdered.) www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

The ballsiest thing Ontario student unions could do right now is ask the province to cancel the OSAP cuts and raise tuition instead. They won't, of course, because their politics are as regressive as those of the Conservatives. But it would be great if they did.

My analogue methods of finding my way around London--and recording the experience.

A Tel Aviv-based group that describes its mission as going on the "legal offensive against Israel’s enemies" says it is trying to "shut down" Canadian news organization @readthemaple.com Shurat HaDin is lobbying Canadian police to arrest a Canadian journalist www.readthemaple.com/a-mossad-lin...

#Britain is now wielding the Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode as a bludgeon to kill dual nationality. Here's how it used to be a passport to mobility and how many of us were progressively forced to abandon this convenience. geist.com/fact/lost-na...

Today's High Court judgement, which found that Yvette Cooper acted unlawfully in proscribing Palestine Action, cited the work of political philosopher John Rawls. Rawls's ideas can help us to see how Cooper's actions were such a deep violation of democracy values. open.substack.com/pub/martinon...

Trump’s escalation of the illegal blockade on Cuba has triggered a humanitarian crisis. This is but the latest attempt by the U.S. to destroy Revolutionary Cuba. For more on that history, consider these titles. We've also made the e-book for "The Declarations of Havana" free.

This February I'm speaking in #Warwick, #Oxford, #Cork, #Galway and #Dublin. www.stephenhenighan.com

I'm pleased to be in agreement with Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Portuguese voters destroy the far right. A new socialist president.

Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure bear the characteristics of the crime of genocide, a war crime, and a crime against humanity, as they predictably lead to mass suffering and are a policy of "destruction of living conditions." Criminals must be punished. 📹MinEnergy_ua/ Facebook