The Antisocial Socialist

Forgot to post about Gadhafi being dead. My first reaction was "good riddance," my second was worry that whoever replaces him is likely to be just as bad but friendlier to Western interests.

Still. One less dictator is nothing to sneeze at.

There was a meme going around having to do with what tabs one's browser has open. So here's a snapshot of my morning reading:

1. Yahoo!Mail. This is always open.

2. Al-Jazeera. Also open frequently these days. Hugo Chavez, I am disappoint. The situation in Libya is long past diplomacy, and if you were half the anti-imperialist you claimed to be, you wouldn't give Gaddafi the time of day.

On a related note, I worry about Western intervention. It's not a knee-jerk reaction; I just don't trust our military or the Americans not to take advantage of the opportunity to further their own agenda in the Middle East. We do have a flawless track record of making everything worse.

3. More updates about Wisconsin.

4. A middle school student was suspended for holding the door open for a woman who had her hands full. And they say chivalry is dead.

5. The quiet unravelling of Canadian democracy.

Read the headlines, examine the evidence, plot the trend line dots and find that as Africans – from turnaround Ghana to impoverished Malawi – struggle to strengthen their democracies, Canadians are letting theirs slip.

6. Related to the above, the Government of Canada has now been rebranded the Harper Government in preparation for our Dear Leader declaring himself Prime Minister for Life.

7. The TDSB spends $11,000 to send trustees on a retreat to do team-building exercises. Meanwhile, schools can't afford books.

8. apperception sent me this article on insecure, whiny Nice Guys. I've read it twice now and I still can't tell if it's a parody. I am only relieved that the fellows mentioned in that article are removing themselves voluntarily from the dating pool. If they removed themselves from the internet, that'd be great too.

Oh! And exciting book on 19th century anarchists came in at the library. But I'm a third of the way into The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and I'm not sure I can put it down. What to read, what to read?

Can we stop talking about the Blade Runner sequel/prequel? It's a bad idea. End of story.