Since I've picked up some new followers - If you or someone you know was privately sponsored to resettle in Canada, was a gov't sponsored refugee/asylum seeker who had a group of non-refugees who supported you, or have been part of a sponsorship group, we'd love to talk!

Aha, @smsaideman.bsky.social and I spoke to the same journalist! ottawa.citynews.ca/video/2026/0...

This is exactly what I said in my interview (haven't seen it go live yet): proposing that the Greenland nonsense is a wag-the-dog attempt to distract from Epstein proposes WAY more organization and message discipline from the Trump administration than is sensible.

Haven't read the full article yet, but this is really interesting, and also reminds me of the decades-long activism to have Arab-Americans be categorized as non-white on US Census documents and official data - which will finally happen in the 2030 census. www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1...

I just did an interview with CityTV about wtf is going on with the US and Greenland, and it was so much work not to just yell THIS MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE AND IS ABSOLUTELY INCOHERENT. Anyway, I liked this CBC piece that's mostly the words of Greenlandic Inuit: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

There are choices beyond Becoming an Oppressor or Becoming a White Savior. That's all.

goode folke... [subdued gesture of yntroductioun] the weeke ende

Re-upping this. Thanks again for making it, @ziibiing.com. www.standwithminnesota.com

My colleague Patti and I have been wanting to do an analysis of presentations of LGBT issues in the orientation materials for refugees being resettled to Canada, and we have just located the manual they use. Hoo boy, is there A LOT GOING ON HERE.

I just finished marking my term papers from my fourth-year US politics seminar. I won't say my students are a representative sample of Canadian university students (they're much smarter and cooler, obviously), but I still think the distribution of term paper themes reflects something:

Glad I’m not the only person who is insane about the Q train.

As I encounter more and more LLM-generated text in the papers I'm marking, I at least can reassure myself that I just went from one project on racism in Lebanon (a topic I care about a great deal) to a project on why The Youth Today are all communists (positive). It's not all bad.

Remembering today that having your heart broken is a necessary step on the path to becoming fully human. Whichever heartbreak is your first, it’s probably critical that a state break your heart so that you can develop a political imagination. If this is your first, I’m sorry and also welcome.

Exciting thing I'm learning marking these research notebooks: approximately 1/10 of these first year students do not actually understand what a citation is and what it should have in it. *deep breath* So this is a learning experience....

Just got good news from Mohammed - Sally is out of isolation and will be continuing her recovery at the hospital for another week and a half. He’d like to be able to buy a new tent for her to come home to, to better protect her from the weather - can you chip in? chuffed.org/project/1518...

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Or in the Middle East. Or literally anywhere.

Using the washroom at Wawa before we start driving back to Canada, and the woman entering behind me said (full Delco accent) “Well, that’s a different haircut. I like it!” Is it possible that in the year of our lord 2026 this woman has never seen…an undercut???

Ok, I did the math: on Libby, this year I read 34 new books, listened to 24 new audiobooks, re-read 2 books, and re-listened to 19 books. (Plus work reading and some paper books.) I prioritized book reading this year, and was also less embedded in a fandom, which made more room in my reading diet.

Hi, I’m “being born.”

When I was a pretentious teen and people asked what car I wanted when I grew up, I would say “a Metrocard.” End of an era.

I transferred money to Mohammed today, but he will have additional expenses for the rest of the two weeks Sally will be in the hospital. I’ll be sending another transfer on January 3rd, so if you can make a donation by then, it’ll go directly to him with no delay.

You may remember that I’m fundraising for Sally, a one year old girl in Gaza who has a heart defect and needs treatment abroad. Sadly, her father, Mohammed, has let me know she’s hospitalized with meningitis. Donations are tremendously appreciated. chuffed.org/project/1518...

You may remember that I’m fundraising for Sally, a one year old girl in Gaza who has a heart defect and needs treatment abroad. Sadly, her father, Mohammed, has let me know she’s hospitalized with meningitis. Donations are tremendously appreciated. chuffed.org/project/1518...

the two genders

Boxing Day has passed, so it is time for me to begin the marking (grading) for my classes. Suffer along with me. Task 1: Marking 210 "research workbooks" by my first year students. The first one I marked was basically all ChatGPT. *deep breath*

I’ve been working on refugee issues in Niger, Nigeria’s northern neighbor, for a while. Very worried about how US military involvement will lead to more displacement. Various militias are a problem for both civilians & the state, but US airstrikes are unlikely to actually resolve the issues here.

Santa Claus, the Elijah the Prophet of American Christmas - Di Forverts, 1917

You can tell my extended family has gotten more mixed because we opened presents in the morning and are having Chinese for dinner.

Merry Christmas and friendly reminder that Jesus was a brown, woke, anti-capitalist refugee from the Middle East who had two dads, became a rabbi, wore flowing dresses, ran around with sex workers, preached radical inclusion, railed against income inequality, and was brutally killed by the police.

Please enjoy this Palestine folktale in which Jesus grants wishes to a good hearted bandit who uses them to prank Azrael, the Angel of Death: soniasulaiman.com/2023/07/01/p...

Just found an OurCommons petition opposing anti-trans legislation in Alberta and Saskatchewan, asking the feds to disallow the use of the nonwithstanding clause to strike down these laws. Let’s tell the Liberals to hold the line for trans Canadians. Sign here: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

Reminder Canadians: PP has promised to have Canada do to trans Canadians what America is doing to trans Americans. So if you are horrified, you dont get to be smug and you need to make sure he never becomes PM. We are literally always one election away

Hello from Geneva - I’m here to yell about refugees in a suit. Wish me luck!

If you see this, repost with your model of positive masculinity. (Not to get too maudlin, but this is my dad.)

Hey Canadians! It's not a Commons petition but it still would be helpful to Heather for you to sign this so as she pushes it in the House, she has numbers behind her. She is calling on the government to use the disallowance clauses in the Constitution to block the legislations Sharing is allyship

I had a medical procedure done today on my knee and was realizing we didn’t have an ice pack, and then realized: it’s Ottawa! The sky has been making ice pack filling all day!

I remain annoyed with myself that I still curse in European French, even after more than a decade here.

We're hiring a CRC Tier 2 (=assist/assoc prof + research $$$) in Environment and Security. Pass it on to colleagues, and I'm happy to answer questions about working at uOttawa, the École d'Études Politiques, or our hiring process in general. uottawa.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/uOttaw...

@boltsmag.org is new to me but their coverage looks super interesting - take Russ up on this offer!

Wealth inequality & other forms of privilege affect accommodations bc marginalized kids are less likely to have access to diagnosis than privileged kids. Making accommodations harder to get makes that WORSE, not better.

be the bitch doing something yourself that you want to see in the world

Being a Rainbow Haven member has been one of the best things I’ve done over the past decade. Here’s to another 10 years of welcoming people to Ottawa!

I spent entirely too much this weekend but I now own winter boots that I can wear with a suit and which won’t make my ankle/knee/hip issues worse, so points to me I guess.

This book left me kind of stunned, it’s that goddamn good. Highly recommend.

A movie that takes place where I’m from: