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The " wmtc's greatest hits " page is now updated to include 2018. Somehow Allan continues to find highlights.

He lives. Those of you who go back a long way with wmtc will remember how this blog was the target of trolls, back in the heyday of the blogosphere, before Twitter and Instagram existed, before so many bloggers moved to Facebook. Social media evolved, attention spans got shorter, and the trolls eventually left wmtc. All but one. You know who I'm talking about. The one and only magnolia_2000, a/k/a Mags. Mags has disappeared for long stretches of time, but he always returns. Allan says that Mags is addicted to me and will never leave -- that no matter how much time passes, we will always hear from him again. I am his obsession. Recently he's revived his pathetic attempt at bullying. I can't say I understand it. Can he possibly think I care what some random wacko thinks of my life choices?? It is utterly bizarre. Here are some recent gems from the boy. He doesn't like Port Hardy. He doesn't like Kai. He doesn't like where we shop. He doesn't like our rugs! Oh ...

Once again, Google has reduced the ease and functionality of Blogger. A while back, the layout of the Blogger dashboard changed. I used to be able to see an overview of all my blogs plus my "following" list on one dashboard page. I found this very useful, and I imagine that other users who also moderate more than one blog would have agreed. Now I can no longer check for and moderate comments on all blogs at the same time, and I no longer have one-stop-shopping for which blogs on my list have updated. For comments, I have to check each blog separately, necessitating many more clicks. For blogs I read, I had to subscribe to email updates, on blogs that offer this function. Not everyone does. (I don't like using feeds; I prefer to visit blogs and websites on their native platforms.) Next, Google discontinued the option to have comments on your own blog emailed to you. So, for example, if Allan put a bunch of comments through on wmtc, those comments would be emailed to me. I...

venn diagram courtesy of Lucidchart I just wanted to create a Venn diagram.

During my recent attack by wingnut trolls, I learned something new: how to request that the Internet Archive remove your site from the Wayback Machine . * * * * Before I was nominated as an NDP candidate in the recent provincial election, of course my online presence had to be vetted. All potential candidates were asked to deactivate their personal profiles from social media, and in addition I was asked to delete a few random tweets from several years ago. None of this was a big deal to me. The only big deal was wmtc. Early on, I was asked if I'd consider taking down the site. My first reaction was completely negative. Wmtc is so much a part of my life. Take it down? No way! It was only weeks before the election would be called -- and I've been blogging for 14 years. That's a lot of words! There was really no way to vet everything. While the NDP was considering the situation from their end, I was also thinking more about being a candidate, and increasingly feeling like it ...

I agreed to stand for election because it was an opportunity -- an opportunity to bring a progressive perspective to a riding where those ideas are usually overlooked, and a personal opportunity to expand my own skills and experience. Overall, it was a positive experience -- because it was so short-term. If it had been gone on for six months or a year, I would have been miserable! Here's what I liked, what I hated, and what I just don't get. Positives 1. I met a lot of people! Community activists, progressive-minded neighbours, minority voices in our suburban city. Strangers reached out to support our campaign, to encourage me personally, and with ideas of how they could help. I loved making these connections. It was personally gratifying, and it also expanded my own network in the community. 2. It was a completely immersive experience. I was fortunate to be able to take a leave-of-absence from both library and union work, so I could campaign full-time. I felt exactly like I ...

This page has now been updated: best of wmtc, 2017, as chosen by Allan .

Even though I don't blog very much anymore, my editor still manages to find some highlights. Best of wmtc, 2016 edition.

Blogger has rolled out a redesigned dashboard. For those of us who write or manage blogs with comment moderation, it is decidedly not  an upgrade. And for those of us who manage multiple blogs with comment moderation, it downright sucks. Unfortunately I can't illustrate this post; I didn't know my dashboard was going to change, so I didn't screenshot the old one. Previously, when I went to Blogger , which I have set as one of my home pages, I would see -- on the same screen -- all the blogs I manage. In one glance, with zero clicks, I could see if any comments were "awaiting moderation," as Blogger calls it, on all blogs. Now when I go to Blogger, I see only one blog at a time. First I have to choose a blog. Then I have to click comments , awaiting moderation  to see if there are any comments. Then choose another blog, click comments , awaiting moderation , and so on. I did notice that when I return to the page, it has remained on the comments field, kind of like ...

I barely wrote at all last year, but my editor and partner managed to find a few (possibly) worthy of a best-of post. Thus,  this page has been udpated . I miss blogging. I love my job and I love leading our union. I love having a steady paycheque, too! But I miss my old life. #CantHaveEverything #StopWhining #YesIKnowItsAFirstWorldProblem

About a month ago, I received an email from a film producer: Netflix is making a documentary about Americans who moved to Canada for political reasons, and asked if Allan and I would be interviewed. We spent a long time chatting with her, before being told that the film is being shot in Vancouver and we're not in it. Oh well. A few days later, a writer called about a story for The Guardian , asking much the same questions. That interview resulted in this article: 'An alternative exists': the US citizens who vowed to flee to Canada – and did . This writer didn't use much of my interview, but I did get the last word! Then someone at The Toronto Star noticed the Guardian story and did a long interview with me. That story came out yesterday: Disenchanted U.S. voters look with longing eyes to Canada, but few follow through . The editors scrapped most of what I said about the differences between Canada and the U.S. I even gave them the bullet-point version: universal health ...

Every year since embarking on graduate school, then beginning to work full-time, I've thought: I have no time to write, I don't write any more. And every year, Allan chooses a sizable number of wmtc posts as best-of for that year. I'm always surprised at how much I've written. I believe 2015 will finally change that. Adding my new union responsibilities to the mix seems to have displaced this blog. This time next year, we'll see if that proves to be true. For now, this page has been updated. Thank you, as always, for continuing to read wmtc.

This month - July 11, 2014 - I have been blogging for 10 years. Ten years! I clearly remember telling Allan I was considering beginning a blog about emigrating to Canada. He thought it was a great idea. July 11, 2004. I was working weekends at my (incredibly easy, wildly overpaid) job at Most Evil Corporate Law Firm. Our applications had been submitted , and we were waiting . August 30, 2015 will be the 10-year anniversary of our move to Canada, but I felt the 10-year anniversary of wmtc was worth a mention. Thanks for being part of what I love * about blogging. * Or hate, in some cases

The wmtc greatest hits page has been updated with the best posts of 2012, as chosen by my partner and editor. About this year's picks, Allan says: "I tried to be a bit more ruthless this year. Also you should highlight our Spain trip and also the tag "what i'm reading" since so many of those are great." All right, sir! Thanks for reading and sharing my posts, and thank you always for your support.

At the suggestion of a longtime reader - someone I had never heard from before, although he's been reading wmtc for many years - I will now be tweeting wmtc posts. For some people, this might be an easy way to follow or subscribe to this blog. I've been on Twitter for a little while, under a pseudonym, mostly to follow certain feeds, and to ask the occasional question. Now I've changed my account name to @wmtcblog . I like how Twitter let me change the name but keep the account; following and followers all stay the same. I suspect following me on Twitter will be redundant with following wmtc, but if you care to, here you go .

I haven't been writing much lately, so it's good to know loyal wmtc readers are still reading every post. Well, one is, anyway. Yes folks, a full seven years after first appearing in comments on this blog in the guise of a female fan, the freak we call Mags is still spewing his bile on a regular basis. We delete most of the comments without reading, but once in a while, it's good to share. For the record, I regard every one of those (nearly) 3,000 victims of September 11, 2001, and their loved ones, among the extremely long list of victims of US imperialism. I have mourned them all. Not a one deserved their fate. I merely recognize that their numbers are dwarfed by the millions of unacknowledged victims of US imperialism and other wars the world over. And I've had my fill (and then some) of the US exceptionalism and UScentrism that fetishizes the event. I know you all know that. But some things just need to be said, even if it brings attention to the class clown that we...

In 2009, I wrote this brief history of trolls at wmtc. At that time, the sad man who calls himself magnolia_2000 had been reading and leaving comments on wmtc for about three years. Now it's mid-2013, and Mags is still reading. It's been six years.  Six years!! None of his comments is ever put through moderation. Ninety-five percent of his comments are deleted unread. But still, he continues to post. GaryStJ went away. The guy from the Naruto fan forums  went away. But not Mags. Allan says Mags is my most loyal reader, and at this point, I can't disagree.

The wmtc greatest hits page has been updated with the best posts of 2012, as chosen by my editor and second-biggest* fan. Thanks for reading, and thank you always for your support. * My mother, who else?!

My recent post about no longer voting in US elections caused some dismay and upset among some of USian readers. At least one friend interpreted that post as encouraging others not to vote. I was surprised by this - but my friend was surprised that it meant otherwise! It seemed like a clarification was in order. First of all, I would never try to convince anyone not to vote. For most of my life, the idea of not voting was anathema to me. I would have never considered it. And, in the first few presidential elections in which I was eligible to vote, I voted Democrat, and I didn't agree with people I knew who voted third-party. So I understand all the arguments about voting and about voting Democrat. I know where my USian friends are on these issues, because I've been there. What's more, the inaction of not voting is not enough. Boycotting the duopoly without working on building a new system, or educating people about alternatives, would be fairly useless. And I am certainly n...

I am SO happy! My own domain name, wmtc.ca, is once again working with the Blogger platform. URLs for this blog will now show the wmtc.ca address, as they did many years ago, and I (again) have blogspot out of the blog's URL. I registered wmtc.ca in 2006, before Blogger really supported custom domain names, and used a cumbersome FTP transfer to get Blogger and wmtc.ca to communicate. It worked, but not well. Page-specific URLs (permalinks) wouldn't publish with the wmtc.ca domain; every page showed as wmtc.ca. You could get the permalink by right-clicking, but of course no one ever did that. So when readers shared my posts, they would only link to the home page. Then, after a time, Blogger stopped supporting the FTP transfer altogether. For a while I tried switching to WordPress, but that didn't work for me for a variety of reasons (all documented under the "meta" tag ). Eventually I stopped banging my head against the wall and set wmtc.ca to forward to wmtc.blog...