Weekly Report

Weekly Report: June 3rd - June 9th 2024

Good Morning Magpie

09 Jun 2024 — 3 min read

The Week in Summary:

From Monday to Friday, Taylor was off in Montreal for their friends' convocation leaving me to fend for myself. I missed them like crazy, but I am really happy they got some time away from work to get some relaxation in before work picks up over the summer.
In the midst of a drought in southern Alberta (though severity had been reduced due to increased spring precipitation), Calgary's major feeder water main burst on Wednesday evening up in Bowness. On Thursday morning at 6:36 AM, an emergency alert was issued informing the public that the City of Calgary's water supply levels had reached a critical state and that the public was to work with the government to conserve water. Unfortunately, though residents initially responded by reducing their water consumption, it was short-lived and the City of Calgary notified the public on Friday that unless water consumption was reduced by 25%, that the city would run out of water. The following day, water use had again fallen and a timeline of a minimum of 5-7 days was established for resolving the issue. In any case, Taylor and I picked up some extra water in case (nothing crazy). We are fairly stringent when emergencies like this happen, but we would rather be prepared.
This week, Firaxis Games announced that Civilization 7 is going to be released in 2025. Civilization is a franchise close to my heart. I've been playing it with my father since I was in Grade 4 and I'm really excited to see where they take the game next.
I got my Alberta NDP leadership ballot in the mail recently and voted this week. I went with Nenshi as my first preference. He's a strong progressive leader and I imagine he'll present a serious challenge to this lunatic UCP government.
Over the weekend, Taylor and I stayed at home and relaxed. We played some games, listened to an audiobook on phosphorous, and made some burritos.
Provisional results in the European Parliament election indicate a broad right-wing shift across Europe with greens, liberals, social democrats, and socialists alike experiencing major losses. This is troubling news to say the least.

Recommendations:

Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia: This book explores the intersection between neoliberal capitalism, colonial dispossession, extractivism, migration politics, and the recent emergence of far-right populism. Though dense, I found this book to be exceptionally well-structured and held a solid flow. Some interesting highlights were the chapters on Canada's Temporary Foreign Workers Program, the Gulf State's Kafala system, the externalization of border enforcement, and Australia's asylum detention program. All of these chapters highlighted a broken global system that devalues and brutalizes human life, even in our nation, which is often mythologized as a "land of immigrants". Human life matters more than corporate profits.