There are a lot of days that I think I’d rather be chasing cows down in Mexico. But maybe chasing cows in snow and ice isn’t such a bad price to pay for never having to think about screwworms. *shudders*

I hope that I’m never the sort of person who watches a military commit crimes and then thinks to myself “gee, this just isn’t very dignified.”

Not that anyone asked, but Emiliano Zapata > Pancho Villa. I will not be taking questions at this time.

The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else. Miguel de Cervantes

Thou shalt not pretend that you're at war with drug traffickers while pardoning drug traffickers.

If anyone is shopping for me for Christmas…

My painting SUNLIT HAYBALES

People want to believe that our leaders (both the evil and the less-evil ones) are constantly playing some sort of three dimensional chess. And I dunno man- I’m just not convinced. I think they’ve all been watching too much tv.

Early Bird Charles V 🤝 Diet of Worms

Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷

They won’t use it responsibly and they absolutely will lose my trust.

So the Yanks are going to invade Venezuela to fight a cartel that possibly doesn’t exist - but they’ve designated as a terrorist organization. We live in the stupidest timeline.

Few too many facts in here for the conservatives.

The basic pattern in Alberta is that we have a problem, everyone recognizes that it’s a problem, and then the people who’s job it is to organize the fight against the problem are all too chicken-shit to do anything about it. (Yes, this is about the ATA and AFL.)

Welcome to Alberta, where no one except the ruling party has rights and there’s only one clause in the Constitution that matters.

12 year old asked me what a Sicilian Opening is in chess. I have no idea, but he didn’t appreciate my suggestion that it’s one of the classic blunders, in which you go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. I’m wasted on these people.

Anyone who can do this work is amazing. I’m used to working hard- this motion would kill me. My back would seize up and I wouldn’t be able to walk after a day of this.

Soneto XVII de Pablo Neruda No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego: te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma. 1/3

Today’s adventures in bagpiping: selfies with a Persian entrepreneur in a Stetson (“you come play bagpipes for me. I will give you 100% discount on kebab”) and being followed by the lady who wants me to play for her 24 verse future hit “O Cannabis” (“My new verse is going to fix the Israel thing!”)

This cactus is doing its best to keep spirits up around here.

no amount of state propaganda will ever convince me this man is my enemy

Instagram’s algorithm is absolutely convinced that I need to know about every Mexican themed event in Southern Ontario. It’s an interesting choice because I live about 400km closer to actual Mexico than I do to Southern Ontario.

The Alberta government is considering raising the speed limit on some highways to 120km/hr. I guess far too many people were surviving.

Big news from the elementary school today. Someone stole 28 urinal pucks. The motive is unknown. The culprit remains at large. Absolute legend.

CBC news is, for the most part, trash. And their online news is a festering heap of trash.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when I gave up hope that society could be saved, but I think a flock (herd?) of BC ostriches becoming a cause celebre may have been the point that I couldn’t hold it together anymore.

The six year old told me her SCATHING opinion of kids saying “6 7” yesterday. I now feel comforted that she is unlikely to ever get peer pressured into…anything. (But she may not, however, be widely appreciated…)

November 5: let us remember this day Guy Fawkes, the last man to enter parliament with honest intentions. (This is usually where some Englishman jumps in and scolds me for celebrating a terrorist Catholic. But are we sure that disappearing the ruling class in an instant is such a bad idea?)

“If that was an animal shelter, crowded with the filth that we hear is in there, it would be closed down. It’s inhumane.” #PrayForAmerica chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

La ofrenda. Saturnino Herrán. 1913.

It’s going to shock a lot of people to hear me express a thought about professional sports- but I’m actually pretty sad the jays didn’t win last night.

"The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty." #PopeLeoXIV #DilexiTe #RememberThePoor

Any minute now, Pierre Poilievre will find a way to blame the Jays’ loss on immigration.

There’s that whole “punks are nice people pretending to be bad and hippies are bad people pretending to be nice” thing. And, in my experience, it’s 100% true. Don’t be a hippie, kids: be a punk.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: In my book I invented Gatsby lifestyle as a cautionary tale The president: At long last, we have created the Gatsby lifestyle from the classic novel The Great Gatsby

A look at the devastating power loss across Jamaica following the historic crossing of Hurricane Melissa, captured by NOAA-21.

It’s not cowardice: it’s disdain. She’s not scared of teachers (or Albertans in general); she just thinks they don’t matter. Treat her like the arrogant, entitled, disrespectful, petty tyrant that she it.

It’s super neat that this comment could, at this very moment, be fairly applied to multiple jurisdictions around the world.

The nuns say Pope Leo spends most of his day holding up various baseball jerseys

These terrifying bats are looking forward to #Halloween 🦇🦇🦇😱 Bodl. Library MS. Ashmole 304; 13th century; England, St. Albans; f.47v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Every day I think to myself that I should just write a letter to my MLA (the Honourable Nate Horner) and calmly explain that he and his government are doing…poorly. But I think it would be a complete waste of time. A pile of dogshit in front of his office door would get the point across better.

Watch as Nicolaides blames teachers, the feds, immigrants, and kids who don’t fit the norm for the poor, helpless UCP having no choice but suspend constitutional rights and impose a contract. I actually don’t have the words to describe the disdain I have for that political party.

My unpopular pedagogical opinion is that Alberta students missing 15 or 16 days of instructional time isn’t that big of a deal- that time will be pretty easy to make up. Crowded classrooms and demoralized teachers, and a belligerent government on the other hand…

I would like to invite Danielle Smith and, well, her entire caucus really, to take a long walk off a short dock.

People gotta stop saying ‘anarchy’ like it’s a bad thing. The archs are how we got here. Fewer archs (or even better- no archs) is bound to be an improvement.

We got the official letter that our wee girl can’t even go to swim practice unless we declare her gender at birth. And I’m furious. Not surprised, but furious. And exhausted. Tempting to just sign the damn form. There’s no prize for being the only family for miles around to make a stand.

A very quick trip to the city yesterday gave me a chance to pick up some maté. I haven’t had any in a long time. But in another life, I could have been very happy as a gaucho. I don’t own a proper gourd right now, but I still have a bombilla and my Navajo sheep mug is about the right size.

"Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness) As soon as the Portland Frog became a meme, Jewish social media blew up with jokes about the 2nd Passover plague - tzefarde'a (frogs) - and the Rabbinical commentary around it. I knew I had to make a calligraphy piece encompassing all of it. (more in alt.)

I’m starting to wonder if a general strike might actually happen (in Alberta, at least). I’ve started to hear rumblings about that sort of thing from people I really didn’t expect it from.

US Foreign Policy BL Stowe 955; 16th century; France; f.15r