Happy afternoon Saskertoon! It’s been awhile! Soooo: it’s 11°C and my cell phone says that’s as good as it’s going to get. The sun came up this morning at 6:00 on the dot and sets tonight at 8:12 p.m. for 14 hours and 12 minutes of glorious daylight. Here’s a pile of news I found.
1. FEDS INVEST IN NORTHERN MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT $1.2 million between two bands doesn’t seem like a whole heck of a lot, but hopefully it’ll help.
2. OPENING WOUNDS It blows my mind that anyone is still defending police who, according to a public inquiry, picked up Neil Stonechild and dropped him off in a Saskatoon field, where he froze to death. You can refresh your memory on the case here, and if you’re wondering about cops’ credibility, you can read this story about someone with a Saskatoon police computer who changed Wikipedia’s “Starlight Tours” entry.
3. REFUGEES AND PREDATORS The RCMP have charged a Regina woman with human smuggling involving people anxious to get out of the United States (or as the CBC puts it, “droves of asylum seekers … making their way north into Canada from the U.S. in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president.”
4. FRACK FRACK QUAKE Fracking in British Columbia caused 767 earthquakes between 2014 and 2015. Fracking causes earthquakes. What are we doing. We have got to kick the fossil fuel monkey.
5. IRONIES ABOUND AS BIGOTS FREAK OUT OVER SCHOOL PRAYERS A Toronto school board gave Muslim students prayer space and now critics are losing their minds. A lot of no-prayer-in-the-classroom type atheists like me tend to be for it (because come on, it’s NOT a school-endorsed-or-mandated class prayer, it’s a compassionate, tolerant and no-skin-off-my-nose accommodation) while people who would love to see the Lord’s Prayer recited in classrooms are opposed (which I have no evidence for that but it’s true).
6. CHINA IS CONCERNED ABOUT NORTH KOREA Hey! Me too!
7. THE TRUMP EFFECT: REPUBLICANS DODGE HUMILIATION IN GEORGIA So far, anyway.
8. JAILED KILLER JOCK PROBABLY KILLED HIMSELF Probably.
9. BYE-BYE BILL O’REILLY Fox News is dumping him. Good. O’Reilly’s been an angry, toxic person who infects viewers with his hateful worldview. Would love to see the end of his career.
