Tag: unscheduled

Cedar Freed

Just a quick unscheduled post to keep everyone updated – yesterday afternoon it was announced that Cedar Hopperton, the Hamilton anarchist and trans activist who was unjustly arrest and incarceration for the “parole violation” of exercising their free speech, was released from jail

There have been no further updates on the details and reasons about why this happy event came to be (the Tower, a Hamilton anarchist organizing space, has promised an update on its Facebook page, but as of this morning none has yet been posted.) The CBC article on this implies there was a “credited time” issue with Hopperton’s incarceration.

While is is obviously very welcome news for the LGBTQ+, trans, anarchist and anti-fascist communities in Hamilton (and also for Cedar themself), let there be no mistake: This isn’t over. At the very least the city and the police have a lot of questions to answer about why violent fascist hate groups are being allowed to use public space, why the HPS feels it can withdraw public protection on a whim, and the generally disastrous handling of the entire situation from day one.

Cedar Hopperton is free. However that came about, one less ongoing injustice can only be a good thing. But there’s a lot more work to be done, however much the mayor and the police might want this all to go away.

There are the Pride Defenders facing charges — those must be dropped. There must be an independent review of police conduct around Pride. There must be a review of the city’s conduct. Mayor Eisenberger must name and denounce the fascist hate groups who helped attack the Pride event. There must be transparency in LGBTQ+/city relations, not just closed-door meetings with handpicked “advisors.” And police must finally take action and arrest the violent homophobes and so-called “religious preachers” who attacked people in Hamilton and Toronto… and who are reportedly planning on doing it again at London Ontario’s Pride celebrations this week.

Blog Changes

Just a quick note to acknowledge some changes around here — I’ve updated the blog’s look and fiddled with the colours to make it a little less stock-Wordpress. I’ve added some new content, including subscribe and support options to the right of the page, Facebook and Twitter share links at the bottom of posts and a few other cosmetic changes, including a page setting that will allow me to hide long posts behind a “continue reading” link.

Continue reading “Blog Changes”

Working Out My Posting Schedule

So, after the first couple of weeks of trying to get this blog underway, I’ve come to a decision. I’d originally intended to write shorter posts — perhaps a thousand words each, maximum, three times per week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Then the reality of my Mondays and Wednesdays kicked in, so I realized I needed to publish Tuesdays, Thursdays and, as a compromise, Saturdays. This is turning out to be sub-optimal.

To complicate matters, I seem unable to limit myself to a thousand words. Most of my posts are averaging about three thousand words, except for the one on abortion which I’m super unhappy with — I feel like I only barely scratched the surface. (I’ll almost certainly revisit the topic later.)

The problem with a three-thousand word post is that it’s the functional equivalent of a ten-page essay. Doing three ten-pages essays a week, every single week, isn’t sustainable in the long run; it’s like crunch week at college, but permanently. And I’m not doing that permanently. As it is I’m getting some serious anxiety about meeting my self-imposed deadlines.

So, here’s my latest compromise — I’ll stick with the longer posts, but I’m going to publish only twice a week instead of three times. Let’s call it Tuesdays and Fridays, which gives me a weekend and lets me meet my Monday obligations.

We’ll see how it all plays out. Tomorrow’s post, which I’m already working on, is going to be on the recent attacks and threats against LGBTQ events both here in Canada and in the US. I’ll try and get it up in good time tomorrow afternoon.

No Post Today

When I started this blog I was hoping to post three times per week. Sadly, life has decided, with the sublime and subtle timing of the great teacher, to kick me solidly in the crotch.

We’ve had intermittent internet issues all week, with our ISP insisting there’s nothing wrong. I’m currently waiting for a technician from our new ISP to come out to the house and install our new fiber optic internet connection. This is going to take up the bulk of the next six to ten hours, so no post today. I’ll try and make it up to you all later.