Amy Kaler

(Hole in head maybe not best word choice given Noem’s fondness for shooting pets)

She’s going to be hanging around Alberta in her new capacity, egging on the MAGA-backed separate-from-Canada nutters. She’s a former northern plains governor and she’s got the rhinestone-cowboy cosplay aesthetic that the separatist bros adore. Canada needs this like a hole in the head.

I know “zombification” has become a really overused metaphor in social sci but it’s kind of horribly apt here.

(Also insert “dead hand” reference).

It looked fake AF & Trump’s people are quite willing to lie & commit violence to make themselves look good. The Trump shooting joins the MAGA catalog of dramatic/apocalyptic/Manichean story moments (like J6, Kirk etc). Almost doesn’t matter if the shooting was “real”: it did its work nonetheless.

S

genAI, Chibaro, and Vocational Awe: On Not Complying With the Devaluation of Labour (John and Ida Chilembwe and daughter Emma. John led the 1915 uprising against chibaro in what is now Malawi. Wikipedia). Reading through the recent deluge of horrifying and possibly alarmist accoun…

northofhere1.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/g...

Wow, I really did not need to see Kid Rock whacking RFK Jr’s butt with the shirt he’s just whipped off and then the whole scene cutting to flames. I did not need to see that at all.

I am so so so tired of the infantile performative demands for “respect” emitted by Republicans. I learned a long time ago that respect can’t be ordered, it can only be earned; and that if you haven’t earned it you won’t get it by insisting that people put on a performance of subordination.

U of A looks to remove EDI from hiring policy | CBC News The University of Alberta is proposing to eliminate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) from its hiring policy, a year after the school initially said it was moving away from the term.

NO ONE AT UALBERTA:

ABSOLUTELY NO ONE AT UALBERTA:

PRESIDENT OF UALBERTA: We must get rid of EDI because outcomes > acronyms & bold excellence striding into the future & it might make the UCP like us!

Sometimes I’m proud of where I work; other times not so much.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

No. Abolish ice.

UNMASKING ACADEMIA explores how faculty and students managed increasing demands for EDI committee labor, coinciding with the pandemic's weight and continued exposure to racialized violence. Who belongs, and who is tasked with fixing the system?
https://bit.ly/3M7SJPe

#RacialJustice #HigherEd

“The bulk of the work was performed by faculty and their department heads, who altered hundreds of syllabi. Deans forwarded 54 courses to the president & provost for final review. The president granted 48 exceptions”.

I’d love to hear abt dept heads & deans who said screw this, I will not comply.

Maybe I’m cynical, but “accountability measures” strikes me as far too weak. . This is not a few bad apples going rogue. This is widespread violence that’s justified & encouraged at highest levels. Asking ICE to wear cameras won’t deter them from gassing & beating. Defund it & shut it all down.

Trying to provoke an international incident/ragebait. If Italy says, “no ICE”, Trump has set the stage for pulling the US team and blaming it on Europeans who hate America.

Also a dry run for a big ICE presence harassing teams from “unfriendly” countries at World Cup.

We’re selling ICE our building. You may have feelings. The end.

Whether or not journalists ever achieve a gotcha moment where a DHS goon says on a hot mic “yes we are Nazis”, these posts & memes move the visual Overton window, licensing other right-wing groups to use more and more ethnic nationalism images. It’s aesthetics creep.

The Thing Without Feathers: Empathy and Violence The killings in Minneapolis are all over my mind right now, mainly because I lived in Minneapolis/St Paul for six years in the 1990s, and I know the neighbourhoods, the streets, where they happened…

northofhere1.wordpress.com/2026/01/25/t...

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

“Sudden quest to obtain” ffs. That makes it sound like Trump is riding out on a white stallion in search of the One Ring.

Let’s try “threats to take Greenland by force, against international law and the wishes of the people of Greenland”.

Okay, is the U of MN administration agreeing to put ICE in the Graduate hotel? Or is this completely not under their control? I’m an alum now living in Canada (PhD 1998) and I want to know.

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

Fascism has a fast-moving horizon. Fascists have been claiming the US has special protection of God for a long time, but claiming that God's will is for US to be entirely Christian nation is a new frontier. This claim is evil, ahistorical & dangerous (speaking as a practicing Christian).

November 1. Way back at the beginning of covid, I often saw the assertion (attributed to various therapists and self-help mavens) that while the pandemic made everyone anxious and depressed, people who actu…

northofhere1.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/n...

“Not even in an elevator “ seems like a rather strange detail to emphasize.

De-skilling women by restricting access to female-dominated professions which have historically provided relatively high-paying and secure jobs (esp nursing). Women w/o secure job prospects are more likely to fall back on “traditional” marriage, i.e. financial dependence on men.

PSA: “It’s a sobering reality: every person living in Alberta today has a 47% chance of being put in charge of Alberta Health Services at some point in their life”.

Ah thanks Heather! I’m honoured.