From the parking lot, New Year’s Eve edition

Interesting links that crossed my path this month. You can find these in real time at my Mastodon site, which is also mirrored on Bluesky.

• One of the most significant pieces of work I am currently doing is helping the Squamish Nation develop their Constitution by supporting large in-person and online community gatherings. It’s hard work and important work for the Nation, and I’m really happy to be a part of it. I get to work with the inimitable Amanda Fenton who supports the online work and Squamish Nation member Tyler Baker, who is my in person partner when we work at two different sites simultaneously.
• BC Child Poverty Rate Climbs as Income Inequality Grows: Policy Note. Child poverty is unacceptable, especially as we learned it can be nearly eliminated by a small universal basic income. The pandemic supports helped us to see something I will never be able to unsee: this challenge is possible to address, and quickly.
• The science and natural history of the fault zones of the west coast of North America. We live in a very active landscape.
• If you want to understand the complexities and nuances of life in British Columbia in 2024, this collection of books from The Tyee is a grand place to start.
• I met Lightning Bill Austin selling his art in the Pybus Market in Wenatchee, Washington this month. An absolute legend. Here’s his story.
• Contemporary Poets Respond (in Verse) to Taylor Swift: Perhaps the most inventive way to celebrate and honour Taylor Swift’s work and her impact on the world.
• This is the year-end summary of the highlights from EV Nautilus, a research vessel that explores and studies the geology and fauna of deep-water sea mounts. I love this channel because it is populated with scientists who show nothing but utter delight in seeing the creatures that they love. I’ve shared this link on my out of office responder this month.
• There’s No Place Like Home: Humanity and the Housing Crisis from CBC Ideas. Calling for housing to be a human right should not feel like the Quixotic quest that it appears to be. This is a fantastic lecture even if it leaves me deflated by the challenge.
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  The whole thing. Online and searchable.
• Dave Pollard writes a great piece on “What We Don’t Know.”  The undermining of expertise by folks who think they can hold their weight with people who have devoted their lives to fields of study and practice is ridiculous and dangerous.
• The Cosmos Teems with Complex Organic Molecules.Reading Stuart Kauffman’s work (especially Reinventing the Sacred) will also make it clear how inevitable organic chemistry is and how easy it is for the processes of life to get started.
• Narrative jailbreaking for fun and profit! Matt Webb and a chatbot hallucinate together. (And I suspect the chatbot has discovered Matt’s blog!)
• Tangerine is my new favourite Christmas movie.
• There is a reason that we don’t do icebreakers in meetings. Check-ins, yes, but disconnected icebreakers? No. McSweeney’s gets it.

Happy New Year to all.