🍁 Left of Woke Warrior

@wokenojokewarrior.bsky.social

1256 Followers 742 Following

When someone tells you who they are or what they'll do (e.g., Poi-LIE-vre), believe them the first time. đŸ˜Œ Me: 1st gen đŸ‡łđŸ‡± immigrant, feminist, She/Her, cis, trans ally, vegan, cat/book lover, anti-wealth, tax the billionaires and churches, + vote ABC!

A 1000pc Cobble Hill puzzle called Squirrels Around Town by artist Nancy Rose: "Nancy Rose is a clever, retired high school Guidance Counselor who was inspired to capture the "The Secret Life of Squirrels" - with a little coaxing, of course! Nancy discovered that the squirrels in her backyard were enjoying the bird feeder, so she began creating miniature settings with different props for the squirrels. The curious creatures visited the dioramas to search for hidden peanuts as their prize. As one who always has a camera, she took the opportunity to photograph the squirrels in their scenes and voila! Cobble Hill has enjoyed the pleasure of producing these cheerful scenes from Nancy Rose into jigsaw puzzles that uncover the joy of wildlife living like us humans."
Hello, how are you? I’ve been away a spell, and while in all likelihood I won’t be reappearing here on a daily basis any time soon, I may pop in occasionally with a mini (sometimes amusing?) musing. Here’s my maiden one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Has the word ‘left’ lost all its political meaning? I’m beginning to think it has. Cuz while I came up with what I hoped at the time was a creative and perhaps clever Bluesky handle, apparently it’s far more accurate than I realized. At least, given the way ‘left’ is often characterized these days—far left, extreme left, leftist, the radical left—one can’t help but wonder where the lone 4-letter L word has disappeared to. Worse, when I see things or political parties described as TOO left (excuse me, the Liberal Party in Canada veered too far left so Carney course-corrected by yanking it to what some call the centre, but which I call right?) I’m left scratching my head. Clearly, a bunch of us are confused about what the term ‘left’ actually designates. So go ahead detractors, call me woke, call me antifa, hell, call me communist if you like since that misapplied word now functions as a too oft-used comeback
 thanks, Donald. At any rate, I proudly claim my ‘leftness’ and I hope that one day you’ll find your inner lefty too. Call me if you need any help. Sincerely, LoW.
Puzzles generally come in what's called the typical 'ribbon' cut where pieces are uniform with two tabs and two blanks, or a 'random' cut like the pieces in this puzzle. When I first started puzzling I liked the ribbon cut better, but now prefer random as it actually makes it easier and more fun to place.
A later 1950s version put out by the same company, but this time it features only one squirrel and its a cutout figure with far fewer pieces.
1930s A Jig-Saw Puzzle of Squirrel Nutkin (Beatrix Potter's Famous Character) put out by the Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. is now almost complete - just a few edge pieces to put in.
I began this puzzle - a 1930s A Jig-Saw Puzzle of Squirrel Nutkin (Beatrix Potter's Famous Character) put out by the Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. - the usual way by gathering the edge pieces first, but soon realized it would be too daunting as they were too similar in shape and colour.
Decent men need to show their outrage now. They need to express their abhorrence to the men who are watching this vile material online, fantasising about it and doing it. There is no way of knowing who these men are, so they need to talk about it publicly. Express their abhorrence. Shut down edgy jokes. Fight for regulation of pornography and “rape academy” sites. Run programmes and conversation circles for teenage boys. They need to tell those men: “it’s not all men”; “it’s not normal”; “it’s not acceptable”; and “you need immediate help”.
Two squirrels from the vintage 1930s A Jig-Saw Puzzle of Squirrel Nutkin (Beatrix Potter's Famous Character) put out by the Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. And it's finally complete! I normally resell the puzzles I do, but not this one. No siree, this one's staying with me.
Two squirrels now sitting on a log from the vintage 1930s A Jig-Saw Puzzle of Squirrel Nutkin (Beatrix Potter's Famous Character) put out by the Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. This puzzle is coming together! Love the cut of these pieces, but because they don't lock in place, kept sliding around.
Two squirrels from the vintage 1930s A Jig-Saw Puzzle of Squirrel Nutkin (Beatrix Potter's Famous Character) put out by the Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd.
Money — where it is spent and not spent — tells the story of the Liberal government’s priorities. While international development aid is slashed by $2.7 billion and the public sector cut by 12,000 positions, including by 3,000 positions at the citizenship and immigration department where backlogs continue and the government decides to limit people’s rights rather than hire more staff, Carney’s government scrapped a surtax on luxury yachts and jets, reversed course on capital gains increases and on fossil fuel subsidies, including recently agreeing to pay $1 billion in United Nations fees incurred by the highly profitable Norwegian energy giant Equinor’s Bay du Nord project. No one in Parliament asked about that.
Identical arguments were used to dismiss the rise of Maga until it was far too late. The playbook tested out on feminists and on Black, queer and female creators in the mid-aughts was replicated in far-right movements across the global north – as was the response of muted both-sidesism. Then as now, politicians, pundits and industry leaders officially disapproved of the worst excesses of the manosphere, but declined to take an explicit stand, terrified that any display of moral integrity would alienate their base.
In hindsight, it is startling that all of this was normalised for so long. It was apparently inconceivable that violence against women could constitute a crisis – unless, of course, the violence was blamed on immigrants or on transgender people, at which point women’s safety suddenly shot to the top of the political agenda. When feminists and others in the infected eye of the storm tried to raise the alarm, we were told we were exaggerating for attention, or that we couldn’t take a joke. Under the posturing, cartoon frogs and memespeak, these were lost young men who deserved patience and understanding, and if we didn’t offer it we were heartless, humourless killjoys.
A squirrel tucks into a nut after emerging from its nest with the warming weather in Segmenler Park in Ankara, Turkey. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
A sign in Marilyn Gladu's home riding expressing anger at her decision to leave the Conservative Party to cross over to the Liberals. Original election sign now has her name crossed out and taped messages added saying: 'Liberal', 'Traitor', and 'Resign'
A baby blue jay fledgling. Saw them walking awkwardly around the back patio (this was about 4 years ago), then the next day they were gone. A predator likely took advantage. Sad.
Once we name Windigo Inc., we can begin to ask the questions that matter the most: What would an economy look like that is structured around sufficiency rather than endless growth? What institutions could channel human ingenuity toward flourishing rather than extraction? What values — drawn from Indigenous wisdom, from contemplative traditions, from sciences of complexity and ecology — could replace the Windigo’s insatiable hunger with a different animating principle?
People ask if I feel vindicated. It’s an evil question. I wanted justice, not approval. No one needed to vindicate me. I knew I was right: I wanted the world to make me wrong. Facts are facts, and cowards are cowards, and belated recognition of obvious crimes does not negate the harm done to victims. What the truth can do is shine a light to a better future. But officials behave as if the future is foreclosed. They rush toward evil in every form: genocide, eugenics, the replacement of humanity with artificial intelligence. They are part and parcel with the predators they were supposed to expose and condemn and prosecute. They always were.
This is an excerpt from our newly published book, Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us: The Urgent Case for a Wealth Tax. In it, we tackle one of the most insidious tools that billionaires use to starve public coffers in Canada: their private foundations. These foundations hide the ultra-wealthy’s vast wealth from taxation, then funnel that money toward their pet projects.
As the U.S. slide into authoritarianism continues, Canadians must look in the mirror. It is not enough to simply acknowledge that the rules-based international order is ending – we must think long and hard about why it failed and how we can forge a different path. One thing that should be clear is the intimate link between economic wealth and political power. It is no coincidence that authoritarianism is rising in one of the countries with the highest levels of income and wealth inequality in the world, and the greatest number of billionaires. Extreme wealth gives rise to extreme power, undermining democracy.
Robin sitting on fence and about to enter the evergreen tree to check on the babes in the nest.
The United States is not competing with China in the arena that matters. It’s distracted, bombing countries in pursuit of objectives that shift every news cycle, burning through military stockpiles, watching its alliances collapse, while China quietly builds the productive capacity that will define the next century.
When my lawyers announced my decision to hold the trial in public, journalists from all over the world turned up in huge numbers to report on what was unfolding. And it was so much more than a procession of monsters: it was a deep dive into all of us, ordinary men and women, into our bedrooms, our relationships, our families, our sewers. This story stirs up our violence, our barely concealed sordidness, our dormant traumas, our silences, our equivocations. It is the grubby reflection of the domination and predatory activity that still structure our world. p.244
I do not know where we go from here. I know that a lot of people are working on it. In 2019, Greta Thunberg said “Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.” I believe that millions are endeavoring to build a cathedral of democracy and a stronghold against authoritarianism. You build it in private in organizations and networks, and you build it in the streets with direct defense of those under attack and with protests like the monumental one on Saturday.
Bluesky is acting up. Says ! Unable to connect. Please check your internet connection and try again. No notifications yet! with picture of bell/notification sign.
At the Good Friday Stations of the Cross, Pope Leo prayed for the children “taken away and imprisoned during protests, deported by policies devoid of compassion, shipwrecked on desperate journeys of hope, killed in war zones, and wiped out in death camps.” This is an Easter message that will resonate with many people regardless of whether they have a religious background or not. It is also sending a message to Trump that he now has a serious fight on his hands with the Pope and the American Catholic Church.
Peter Rabbit jigsaw puzzle 'Home Sweet Burrow' by the New York Puzzle Company, standing beside a Royal Albert cup and saucer decorated for Easter with eggs and blue felt bunny.
Poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller displayed on a brick wall: First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak for me There are different variations of this verse with some including: Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist others including both Communists and Socialists, while some substitute Socialists for Communist.
I’m sitting here, on Trans Day of Visibility, in a country I served which does not recognize my service, from which I cannot leave with an accurate passport that will keep me safe abroad, upon whose roads I cannot drive in a growing number of states with an accurate driver’s license, to workplaces that will not hire people like me or hospitals that will not treat people like me or businesses that will not serve people like me.
Today, transgender people across Kansas are reporting receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles stating that they must surrender their driver's licenses and that their current credentials will be considered invalid upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday. Should any transgender person be caught driving without a valid license, they could face a class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The public conception of transness has reached the point of absurdity. Billions of dollars have been poured into hating trans people. The Epstein class has convinced your neighbours that we are their biggest threat, that we are “transing your children”. They are telling you to be more afraid of a theoretical transfeminine athlete who’s somehow miraculously the world’s strongest human, whilst simultaneously making you fear that your local teenager cannot make medical decisions in their own best interests because of their alleged “weakness” and “vulnerability”. They dress up in care the language of oppression. They draft up, through normalizing the fear they manufactured in you, the laws they’ll use to commit genocide against us
 and our visibility has absolutely not helped with that, given that said visibility is no longer in our control.
I encourage all of us to do what we can and not be drawn into what we think we can’t do. Join in a protest in your area because there will be more. It won’t be just about changing a government and who leads us, it’s about changing a mind set that has developed that is leaning further and further to an American model of politics, health care, education and social assistance. We can’t just complain that we don’t like what’s happening; we need to do something. So, please get involved for your own sake; for the sake of your neighbours; for the sake of your community; for the sake of your children and grandchildren; for the sake of all Ontarians. Things don’t have to stay as they are; the future can be different. Speak up and speak loudly and speak confidently. We will be heard!!
At a Doug Ford protest in Hamilton I believe. One sign says, "Doug Ford Is Corrupt And Must Be Removed!! Ontario Is Not For Sale" while the other sign says, "Doug Ford Get Your Hands Off Our Nutz" and is held by a giant blow-up critter.
This pic at the #OntarioMarch28 Fight Ford protest in St. Catharines shows folk starting to gather post-protest for a group shot. When we were about to disperse, a vehicle with 2 mall security guards appeared, so wonder what they would've done...
Dark skies (portending a dark future for #DougFord?), some flurries, and VERY cold, but this protest in Niagara attracted 300+ folk. Lots of great signs, lots of honking cars, local TV coverage, and only 1 heckler. Success!
Placards printed out for the Fight Ford Protest today, March 28, all across Ontario (hopefully) to display our anger and displeasure at the provincial government's mismanagement, if not outright corruption. So many scandals, and yet Doug Ford is in his 3 majority term. Enough is enough! Two of the placards read: Protect Ontario From Doug Ford, and Ford's Ontario: Death By a Thousand Cuts (Cut Healthcare, Cut Education, Cut Social Support, Cut Protections, Cut Public Input) He's Bleeding Ontario Dry!
This campaign rejects the false and harmful idea that women’s rights and trans rights are in conflict. They are not. Trans people are not the cause of women’s inequality, violence, or insecurity. The real sources of harm remain what they have always been: systems and structures that enable violence and that uphold misogyny, inequality, and discrimination.
Flurries in March, but given the weather conditions Barb in Alberta is experiencing, I'll no longer whine or complain about it. Silly me.
Sign on the back fence of a house along my neighbourhood paper route saying, "Squirrels ONLY beyond this point"
On the public side, we’re cheap and petty and all too ready to scream bloody murder should anyone so much as regrout a tile. It’s an impulse that is both regrettable and understandable. It’s also shared. In an episode of The Thick of It, a satirical series that sends up political life in the United Kingdom, Malcolm Tucker, the government’s sweary and scary factotum, berates a minister of the Crown for having an ergonomically suitable chair. “Bin it,” he says to her. “People don't like their politicians to be comfortable. They don't like you having expenses, they don't like you being paid, they'd rather you lived in a fucking cave.”
Niagara rally against the Ford government as part of the province-wide Fight Ford protests taking place Saturday, March 28, 2026. Address: on the northeast and northwest sidewalks of the corner of Glendale Ave. and Tremont Dr. near the Pen Centre. 11a.m. to noon. See you there!
Information on what to expect when attending Ontario-wide Doug Ford protest on March 28.
Updated list of cities participating in the province-wide Fight Ford Protests taking place on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Contact 'Fighting Ford (Protest Doug)' on Facebook.
The Raging Grannies singing at Elbows Up Niagara West with Charlie Angus of Meidas Canada/The Resistance.
Pop-up in the Canadian Food Basics grocery store website encouraging you to sign in to try the new AI Cart Genius which will made recommendations as to what product items to add to your cart. I say NO.
The FASTEST chipmunk in the world, caught running by an intrepid chipmunk watcher.
The way we address the Epstein files is by combining forces along ideologies, races, ethnicities, religions, economic status, genders, and more. That is how you beat an abusive system. That is how you gain more power than Trump and Elon Musk.
These are all hallmarks of conspiracy theories. So it makes sense that people are starting to buy into them, even people who might not have in the past. The problem is that most people don’t understand that conspiracy theories aren’t wrong because conspiracies don’t exist. They are wrong because they oversimplify narratives and create mythically evil and devious villains.
We have enemies. They are not in Palestine. They are not in Lebanon. They are not in Iran. They are here. Among us. They dictate our lives. They are traitors to our ideals. They are traitors to our country. They envision a world of slaves and masters. Gaza is only the start. There are no internal mechanisms for reform. We can obstruct or surrender. Those are the only choices left.
According to Collier (2017), just between 1970 and 1975, 1200 Indigenous women were sterilized in Canada. 77% of Indigenous women who were sterilized during this period were viewed as sexually promiscuous or diagnosed as intellectually impaired through systematically biased IQ tests. Within North America, forced or coerced sterilization has resulted from colonization, the eugenics movement, and forced assimilation. Since 2018, over 100 Indigenous women have come forward, reporting that they felt forced or coerced into undergoing sterilization procedures in Canada in recent years. Boyer & Bartlett (2017) conducted an independent review where they interviewed healthcare providers and women who were forced or coerced into sterilization. They found Indigenous women were pressured by healthcare providers to consent to sterilization while they were in labor or shortly after labor. The women felt that they were given inadequate information about the procedure and were not given alternative family planning options. This lack of information led to women consenting to sterilization without completely understanding the risks or dangers associated with the procedure. This goes against current Canadian medical ethics and the understanding of informed consent in medical practice.
Again, she was mocked by the political establishment for this. Why, they would ask, would you devote resources to helping the community when you need all the resources you can get to getting yourself elected? Read that statement again, and then think about everything that is wrong with modern American politics. Are politicians ultimately here to get themselves elected, or are they here to try to help their communities. Some may argue that you have to get elected first in order to help the community. Kat dared to ask, why not both?
Account that needs to be permanently kicked off. Name: "I reposted ur post because I need ur help plz C my page"
“Asked what leads soldiers to commit violent acts of rape in conflict zones, a well-known historian of the two world wars responded, Because they can. It sounds almost cavalier, but he said it in a tone of profound melancholy, the conclusion of a lifetime of research into conflict, violence, and depravity. They rape because they can, because society lets them, and when a man is allowed to rape, he will. It is as if the potential for evil is ever present in all of us; in conditions where brutality is possible, it will inevitably manifest. This is truly the theater of cruelty.” p151-2
The danger of normalizing extremism On a superficial level the goals of groups like Second Sons and Diagolon appear to be spreading hatred against Muslims, Jews, Blacks and immigrants, and converting everyone into white supremacists. But the deeper objective is to shift our society into adopting practices and policies that affirm that Canada belongs to the white race and that the only “real citizens” are white. This is achieved by telling people that their financial problems would disappear and all problematic national issues would dissolve if the population were more like that of the 19th century, when immigrants were predominantly white Europeans. In this way, white nationalists who, for the most part, have been viewed as being on the fringe of acceptable discourse, use a concept called the Overton Window to infuse their world view into the mainstream.
Rai is the author of a new study into the groups that examined how Canada's active clubs have surged in size and visibility in the past two years — in part because they claim to foster innocuous ideas, such as the celebration of Canadian heritage, male bonding and fitness. And the more outspoken active clubs typically "really try to downplay" how extreme their beliefs actually are, Gilmore said. That shift has "opened the floodgates to people who might not have otherwise joined white supremacist groups," said Rai, who estimates there are "hundreds" of active club members Canada-wide.
“For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, for Vučić in Serbia, it took eight years, and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year,” Lindberg says. US democracy is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage. All progress made since then has been erased, according to the report. Worldwide, democracy has receded to its lowest levels since the mid-70s. “The world has never before seen as many countries autocratising at the same time,” Lindberg says.
A poster I saw AND FIXED (it now has the words 'Hate' and 'White Nationalist' and a line through the sentence 'Join The Movement') yesterday on my walk in Niagara Region that I recognized, although many may not. The Dominion Society of Canada bills itself as a Canadian Nationalist group, but with their focus on remigration (a right-wing buzzword for mass deportation); they are in essence a white nationalist group. And one of Canada's more polished ones at that.
A poster I saw yesterday on my walk in Niagara Region that I recognized, although many may not. The Dominion Society of Canada bills itself as a Canadian Nationalist group, but with their focus on remigration (a right-wing buzzword for mass deportation); they are in essence a white nationalist group. And one of Canada's more polished ones at that.
Squirrel sitting on a fence looking directly at me, and now at you. Pic's a bit blurry, oops. There's also a blue swing set behind the fence, which is my favourite reading corner when weather permits.
Picture of a stuffed chipmunk looking out the window at the snow outside. They appear to be contemplating contemplating any or all of the following: * the meaning of life * the meaning of the white shite on the ground in March(!) * the meaning of the white nationalist shit springing up everywhere but most importantly of all: * the meaning of the mouse on top of their head