Welcome to the first ever Weekly Reckoning, prairie dog’s attempt to grapple with discarded butt-ends of the week! Let’s reap a few things.
1. AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A POPE FRANCIS PARTY BECAUSE POPE FRANCIS JUST DON’T STOP (SAYING AWESOME STUFF). Say what you will about the latest head of the Catholic Church – he seems determined to run headlong at issues of social justice. At a meeting with unemployed people in Cagliari, Sardinia, the pope put aside his prepared notes and delivered a heartfelt message about the evils of a globalized economic system that swallows people and burps up their bones. Not that he used those words exactly: “The world has become an idolator of this god called money,” is what he actually said at mass later that day.
2. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE THINGS GOING ON IN NAIROBI. The attack by the militant group al Shabaab that claimed 59 lives – including that of two Canadians – has devolved into a siege with hostages. Al Shabaab opposes the presence of Kenyan peacekeeping forces in Somalia, so the best way to fix that is to fire into crowds of shoppers in a downtown mall. “10 hours have passed and the Mujahideen are still strong inside #Westgate Mall and still holding their ground. All praise is due to Allah!” the group said on Twitter, because of course they’d have a Twitter account (since suspended).
3. DAMN, NOVA SCOTIA. A survey on marijuana use in Canada has come out, and it turns out that British Columbia is not the pottiest province around. That honour goes to Nova Scotia, where 14.8% of respondents to the Stats Canada survey affirmed that they had smoked the international healing herb within the last 12 months. Having grown up in Nova Scotia, this makes sense. BC came in second at 14.2%. Dead last? Good old productive Saskatchewan at 10.1%, where we just drink to forget.
4. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE THINGS GOING ON IN PESHAWAR. Remember just a few seconds ago when you were reading about the attack in Nairobi? Let’s add another 60 to the number of dead that can be attributed to religious extremism and political tactics of mass violence. A bomb going off in a Peshawar church killed an unbelievable amount of people as they left the building. According to reports, they were about to get a free meal being offered on the front lawn when two suicide bombers in the crowd detonated their devices.
5. LOUIS C.K. ENDORSES SADNESS, FROWNS ON SMARTPHONES. “You just feel kind of satisfied with your products. And then you die.” Louis C.K. takes a minute to explain everything that’s wrong with our technologically advanced and absurdly privileged Western world. And since I’m incapable of unlocking the magic combination of keystrokes needed to embed a YouTube video into this blog post, I urge you to click on the link below. Will you get a free kitten for clicking? There’s only one way to find out.
