Good afternoon comrades, critics and media connoisseurs! It’s a gorgeous afternoon: 19 degrees, sunny as shit, not too windy. I’m not on a patio drinking beer, why? Right: I have a job. An awesome job! An aggregating job, even! I’d better get to it.
1. BUTT OUT Regina passed a probably overdue smoking ban. I’m not sure about banning smoking in public parks; that’s getting too nanny-statey for even this nanny-state fan. It’ll be nice to see fewer cigarette butts on the ground though, and if this helps people quit smoking that would be great.
2, BIG MEETING ON RAILROAD REDEVELOPMENT THURSDAY NIGHT Good. So is a pedestrian bridge/corridor to Dewdney going to be built? I’m sick of having to walk an extra 20 minutes to get to Iron Beauty, Bushwakker and Durty Nelly’s. Come to think of it, I haven’t been to Durty Nelly’s. Maybe because THERE’S NO EASY WAY TO GET THERE FROM DOWNTOWN EVEN THOUGH IT SHOULD BE A SIX-MINUTE WALK.
3. MINORITY REPORT British Columbia politics are officially fascinating now that the NDP and Greens have agreed to team up. Annoyingly, Christie Clark — whose Liberals got 40 per cent of the vote to the NDP and Greens combined 57 per cent — says she’ll stay on as premier until she loses a confidence vote. Can you imagine how badly right-wingers would freak out if an NDP government pulled a stunt like that? Then again, maybe that’s just the process that needs to be followed and I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
4. NOTLEY’S STILL PUSHING PIPELINES Well, she has to. Albertans don’t believe in climate change and Notley’s a hostage playing the hand she’s been dealt. She can’t be an environmental advocate until Albertans accept that they might need to make a few sacrifices for the future. They might as well; we’re all going to suffer from climate change sooner rather than later. Thanks to Big Oil, the window of opportunity for relatively painless adaption to the inevitable post-carbon future is shut; now it’s about how badly we’re going to get hurt. The sooner we act like adults and take our medicine, which will get more bitter the longer we wait, the better–and that goes triple for Albertans and their fantasy, never-ending fossil fuel economy.
5. COCKTALK That was my other idea for this post’s headline, but I couldn’t decide if it needed a hyphen or if that would spoil the joke. I guess I just liked it because it sounded dirty.
6. THREE-MILE ISLAND IS SHUTTING DOWN Also, Three-Mile Island was still operating? Huh. If you don’t know what I’m talking about because you weren’t alive in 1979 congratulations! You are a desirable demographic to our advertisers.
7. TORONTO ALT-WEEKLY SAYS SCHEER STINKS Perhaps you would be interested in reading this fine article.
8. HOW THE WEST WAS LOST The mighty Jeet Heer has a great column in nthe New Republic on how Trump has destroyed the European-American alliance. Read!
9. SHUT. IT. DOWN Portland’s mayor wants an alt-right demonstration cancelled because the alt-right activates maniacs like the would-be headhunter who killed two people after he caused a racist confrontation. Tangent: right-wing extremism is the kind of “free speech” pro-life, pro-gun, anti-Muslim Conservative leader Andrew Scheer wants to protect on Canadian campuses. Because inciting people to violence is free speech!
10. 16:05:43 The sun rose at 4:53 and will set at 8:59 for a glorious 16 hours, five minutes and 43 seconds of glorious sunlight. Whoop!
RESPECT THE TALK On the last Tuesday of every month, comedian Jayden Pfeifer brings his microphone and smart mouth to Talkies, Regina’s B-movie narration wherein cult classics like Monster Squad, sad piles of failure like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace and nature documentaries like Anaconda get a running commentary. Tonight, Pfeifer and guest heckler Krystal Lewis bring their love, contempt and sarcasm to the 1988 Tom Cruise proto-bro barbuster Cocktail (holy poop, it’s almost 30 years old). The fun starts at 7:00 at the RPL Film Theatre. Admission is free with a donation (cash or cans, cash being better) to the Regina Food Bank. Here’s the trailer.
https://youtu.be/IuzgZSuZA6o
