Happy nooner, Saskatooner! It’s, uh, minus-21 with a minus-29 windchill. That’s the bad news. The good news: sunset is 7:01 tonight, breaking the 7 p.m. barrier! Wooo!
1. “KINDLY AND WELL-INTENTIONED MEN AND WOMEN AND THEIR DESCENDANTS” Conservative senator Lynn Beyak defends residential schools. SMH.
2. MARIJUANA ACTIVISTS ARRESTED Opinion: this is a waste of police time and resources. Theory: it’s happening now either to appease a U.S. government that hates weed, or because weed-haters are emboldened by the Trump regime. Regardless, it seems stupid. Legalize weed!
3. FIRE ON THE REZ The Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation lost its second residence to fire this week.
4. GOAT YOGA??? Goat yoga!
5. U.S. EPA BOSS SAYS CARBON DIOXIDE ISN’T THE MAIN CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE This is factually incorrect. He’s incompetent. He should lose his job.
6. TRUMP’S ECO-VANDALISM The most anti-environment U.S. president ever plans to slash funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Sea Grant program, which studies and protect coastlines. The worst part about political/ideological attacks like this: good, smart people must waste time defending their important work instead of doing that work.
7. THE EARTH IS ROUND, LIKE A BASKETBALL This is from a while back but I just read about it: NBA dribble-king Kyrie Irving believes the earth is flat:
“For what I’ve known for as many years and what I’ve been taught is that the Earth is round, but I mean, if you really think about it from a landscape of the way we travel, the way we move and the fact that, can you really think of us rotating around the sun and all planets aligned, rotating in specific dates being perpendicular with what’s going on with these planets and stuff like this … It doesn’t come back. There is no concrete information except for the information that they’re giving us.”
It used to be fun to mock ignorance (okay it’s still fun) but since we live in an age of climate change denial, political repression of scientists and alternative facts we have to take batshit statements from public figures, even athletes, seriously. That’s why I like this rebuttal from psychology prof Craig A. Foster. Says Foster:
“United States residents might think the idea of a flat Earth is so absurd that it could never become a serious political concern. They shouldn’t. Science educators fight this type of battle daily. The scientific evidence that the Earth is billions of years old is nearly as convincing as the evidence that the Earth is round. The United States has a vice president and several other politicians who nevertheless believe in a “young Earth” or are unwilling to contradict the idea publicly.”
Check it out. And remember: the earth is round, like a basketball—or if you prefer a more literary metaphor, an orange.
