Books read in October 2025

1. Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison

2. Framed in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in August 2025

 Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway

The first soil

If you're going to grow some potted plants or a garden, you need soil.

 

Not dirt, soil.

 

It is possible that the soil in your yard might be good enough for a garden, but it's likely you'd buy something at the garden centre to enhance it.

 

And if you were setting up potted plants, you almost certainly would buy soil, not just grab a shovelful of dirt from your yard.

 

 

I wonder when this distinction between soil and dirt originated?

 

At some point early in agricultural history, people would have figured out that some areas are better for growing food than others. How long did it take them to figure out it's the soil? (Rather than the hilliness or which trees are growing nearby or which areas are under the protection of which gods?) (Although, also, which trees are growing nearby might also be a function of the soil.)

 

Someone came up with the idea of adding stuff to soil to make it richer and more fertile. Once commerce existed, these soil additives would have been sold, and, eventually, someone came up with the idea of packaging and selling the soil itself.

 

And now we live in a world where you buy soil, because you can't just plant your houseplants in any old dirt.

 

Although, when I mentioned this to someone who knows more about plants than I do, they pointed out that commercial potting soil that you'd buy for indoor plants has the benefit of having been sterilized, so it's far less likely to have contaminants or pests in it.

 

Which I am completely onside with, but it is kind of funny that we buy soil instead of using dirt because the dirt is dirty.

 

 

Also, fun with the English language: If something is soiled, it most likely doesn't have soil on it. But if something is dirty, it might have soil on it.

Steal This Idea: stealth crossover mystery

Two or more TV shows (or other works of fiction) are set in the same location at the same time, with different, unaffiliated characters solving mysteries.

 

Except, unbeknownst to any of them, they're solving the same mystery!

 

Each show has the characters find a different set of clues that lead them to the same person having committed the same set of crimes, although perhaps each show emphasizes a different crime. (For example, one show is solving "Who stole the MacGuffin?" and the other is solving "Who was the hit and run driver?", when it turns out the driver committed the hit and run during their getaway from the MacGuffin theft.) If it's the kind of mystery that has to end with the police arresting the bad guy, it's shown in screen in a way that's vague and non-specific enough to avoid any awkward questions (e.g. montage with uniformed officers and dramatic music while the main characters have an emotional discussion that resolves their respective B plot.

 

Just once or twice in the season, we see actors from one series as background characters in a scene in the other series. For bonus points, we see them both in the same scene in the different series - e.g. one cast walks by the window as the second cast eats in the restaurant. 

 

For added authenticity, both series could share background actors, so they both have the same older lady in a statement hat and enormous man walking a tiny dog walk by in the background.

 

 

The most important part: they must not promote this crossover in advance! Wait for the internet to notice, and be careful with your IMDB curation until the internet does notice! This should be posted by some small Tumblr (yes, I said what I said in this the year 2025), then reblogged by some big-name fanfic writer, which leads to it being screenshotted on Reddit and then someone makes a TikTok post about it that doesn't get traction until some influencer duets it. By the time the information becomes general knowledge, the season is already over, and the ensuing buzz saves at least one of the serieses from cancellation.

 

I theorize that there's a 63% chance someone's already done this and no one has noticed. 

Journalism Wanted: if you evacuate a plane and leave your belongings behind, what happens next?

If you're on a plane that crashes and you have to evacuate, you're supposed to leave your belongings behind. And every time there is a plane crash that makes the news, you hear about people trying to bring their belongings with them.

 

An easy way to prevent this would be to widely publicize what actually, in real life, happens to people who evacuate a plane and find themselves on the tarmac of a strange airport in a strange country with only the clothes on their back. (Which might not even include coat and shoes, because sometimes people make themselves comfortable on airplanes.)

 

What measures are in place to keep people safe? How do they avoid the pitfalls we can all anticipate, and those we can't?

 

Suppose your passport is on the plane. You're in a foreign country with no passport and no ID. Maybe it isn't your destination country and you aren't actually legally permitted to enter that country. What measures are in place to regularize your presence so you don't get arrested and imprisoned? What if the country you're in isn't safe for people of your demographic?

 

Suppose your wallet is on the plane. You have no money and no cards. How do you get all the things you need, including random incidentals like menstrual pads and eczema cream?

 

Suppose you lose your driver's licence in the plane crash and need to drive home from the airport. What provisions are in place to keep the cops from arresting you for driving without a licence?

 

What if your baby's car seat is in the plane? How do you safely and legally get, like, anywhere? 

 

To what extent are they assuming goodwill ("Don't be silly, the authorities won't arrest you for being in a foreign country without a passport if you've just been in a plane crash!") vs. having actual procedures in place ("This is your official internationally recognized Plane Crash Survivor card")?

If they actually want people to leave their belongings behind, they need to let people know what measures are in place to protect them. But I've never seen anyone report on this - it's always just "These plane crash survivors are Bad and Wrong for trying to collect their belongings!"

Discoverability is not morally neutral

I tend to learn about books/TV series/other creative works because I've seen it around, people are talking about it, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out.

 

Occasionally, when I do check it out, I fall in love with it. Most creative works I don't fall in love with, but occasionally I do. I tend to have one primary fandom that I'm absolutely in love with going at any given time. I have no control over when this happens, and I have no control over when and how it switches to another primary fandom. 

And every once in a while - although certainly more often than I'd prefer! - I learn, long after falling in love with a creative work, that the creator is a gross person, which makes me no longer want to be a fan of the work. 

 

People in this situation often get rid of their books via used bookstores or libraries or little free libraries.

 

But the problem with that is it increases discoverability by people who might be like "Yeah, I've heard of that, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out!" but aren't into it enough to know why the creator of the work is gross.

 

Which could then lead them into this very unwanted situation of falling in love with the work, and being in love with a work by a gross creator.

 

This is a problem. Discoverability is not morally neutral - especially when the creator is still alive and using their money to do harm or protect themselves from the consequences of harm they've done.

 

As a reader/viewer, I don't want to be emotionally attached to works by a gross creator. It has happened entirely too often! I would very much like product labelling and curation norms to protect me from this by making me aware of the issues before make the decision to read/watch.

 

***

 

What do I mean by "protect me"?

 

An example of this is the societal norms surrounding labelling/classifying/marketing/curating sexual content.

 

I have certainly in my life encountered sexual content that I'd rather not have seen, but in every instance, I felt like "Well, what did I expect?"

 

When I was 11 I had the chance to stealthily watch an R-rated movie, and quickly became uncomfortable as it referenced aspects of sex that were far too advanced for me to even think about. Well, what did I expect? It's 18+!

 

Sometimes I've clicked on questionable links and seen thoroughly unappealing porn. Well, what did I expect? I clicked on a questionable link!

 

Some (but not all) of the sexual content aspects of Monty Python made me uncomfortable watching as a teenager (and others made me uncomfortable watching with my parents in the room). Well, what did I expect? It was introduced to me as irreverent, boundary-pushing humour written by a male comedy troupe!

 

This sense of "well, what did I expect?" is useful! I want that every time I come across something I didn't actually want to see!

 

However, this sense of "what did I expect?" doesn't seem to work for other types of content that I might want to be warned about. For example, I didn't anticipate the racism in Monty Python. I'm not able to explain why I was able to anticipate the sexual content but not the racism, but something about it didn't end up working out for me the way I wanted to.

 

This needs to be fixed somehow. We need a way for audience members - especially ignorant audience members - to be effectively forewarned, like we are with sexual content. 

 

The big problem for me with racism and Monty Python is that I wasn't worldly enough to perceive it. But if I had gone in forewarned, and if I had decided to watch it anyway (Teenage Me might have watched it anyway to see what the big deal is), I would have kept an eye out, asked questions (I would have been comfortable asking my parents and they would have answered), and come away more informed.  

But instead, I stumbled upon something I didn't even know was racist and went around gleefully talking it up to everyone who would listen for decades.  Much like how, multiple times, I've stumbled upon - and become emotionally attached to - works that I would never have given the time of day if I had known in advance that the creator was a bad person I don't want to support, and gleefully promoted those works to other people.

 

***

 

I don't know what the answer is for the problem of unwanted discoverability of gross creators. I don't want to burn books or ban books. I just don't want to fall in love with any more works by gross creators without being aware of the problems.

 

Maybe a useful approach would be to treat works by gross creators the way you would obscure reference books. They aren't the shelves, but you can pull them from the stacks or order them on request - not because they're banned, but rather because there's higher priority for shelf space. That way, people won't accidentally stumble on them and innocently fall in love with them - you have to know about them to ask for them, and, if we normalize this approach, the fact that they're not on the shelf might lead people to think "Oh, what if this is problematic?"

 

I'm sure other people who are smarter than me can also think of other useful approaches. And hopefully some of these people are in charge of curation and discoverability.

Books read in May 2025

 The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler

Books read in April 2025

1. Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic by Nora Loreto

2. Bonded in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in March 2025

 1. Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper to help Canadians buy Canadian

In 2010, Canada Post introduced a tool called the Canada Post Comparison Shopper, which let you compare prices and shipping costs from a huge range of different online retailers.

 

Here is a news release from when the Canada Post Comparison Shopper was first launched, and here is my blog post from when I discovered it.

 

This tool helped me discover all kinds of new stores I never would have come across on my own and get amazing deals that I never thought possible. I mourned the day it was discontinued - I've never found a replacement that's anywhere near comparable!

 

As Canadians work together to disentangle ourselves from the United States of America, the time has come to bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper.

 

It could be a quick, easy way to search Canadian retailers for the specific product you're only been able to find on Amazon, or for a Canadian alternative or non-US alternative to the American product you've been using for ages. 

They could provide options to filter for Canadian-made products, or filter out US-made products, or filter out foreign-owned retailers.

 

Currently, the comparison shopping tools available to us are controlled by American oligarchs and run on algorithms designed to enrich them.

 

The Canada Post Comparison Shopper was a public good designed to benefit Canadians and Canada. In this, our moment of need, it's time to resurrect it.

Books read in February 2024

1. Moonshot: the Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 2

2. Random in Death by J.D. Robb

Things They Should Invent: Canadian (or non-US) equivalent of Consumer Reports

I value buying and using quality products, so when I'm shopping for a new product category, I regularly search sources that provide objective, scientific, comparative product reviews like Consumer Reports does, or like Beautypedia used to.

 

As the need to economically disentangle ourselves from the United States becomes more and more apparent, I've been looking at the origin of various household goods, and I've noticed a pattern: most of the products I use regularly that were made in the US are products that I started using because they were well-reviewed in Consumer Reports or Beautypedia.

 

And I realized: this is because Consumer Reports and Beautypedia are American - they review products commercially available in the US, which likely strongly correlates with products made in the US! If a product is made elsewhere and is not sold in the US, they aren't even going to know about it to review it, so high-quality Canadian products are significantly less likely to have received a good review, because they're significantly less likely to have been reviewed at all.

 

With more and more Canadians trying to buy Canadian and more and more people around the world trying to avoid US products, now is the perfect time to fix this.

 

We need something along the lines of Consumer Reports or Beautypedia that rigorously and objectively reviews Canadian-made products or non-US products to determine which is the best quality. What is the most absorbent Canadian paper towel? What is the most effective Canadian dish detergent?

This would take the guesswork out of switching to buying Canadian and help promote Canadian products in general by highlighting Canadian excellence.

Books read in January 2024

1. True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change by Jody Wilson-Raybould

2. Payback in Death by J.D. Robb

We need a way to respond to intimate partner violence that doesn't create a burden for victims

A recent Ask A Manager letter:

A couple of days ago, I was walking my normally well-behaved large dogs when another dog charged them, unprovoked, and they tripped me, and I ended up hitting the sidewalk hard. Thankfully the other owner ran to get my partner (I was a block away from home) and my partner took me to the ER. I have a concussion, a small fracture in my rib, and various other bruises and bumps. But what is most noticeable is my black eye. I hit my head just above my eyebrow and my eye looks like someone drew on me with a purple sharpie, and since I’m very pale, it’s not going away soon.

I took a few days off from work and screens but since I primarily work from home and have a bunch of Zoom meetings backed up, I’m back at it on a limited basis. My team was shocked when they saw my face, but they have all been supportive and said it’s fine and they’ll get used to it. My problem is outsiders! Most of my meetings are on camera, and I feel weird saying I want to be off camera because of a face injury (sounds worse than it is) but then if I’m on camera it is very distracting and I can feel people staring.

An added complication is that some of the organizations I meet with support people who have experienced domestic violence, and I look like a poster child for getting punched in the face. (In my case the assailant was the sidewalk, but from the way I look you wouldn’t know that.) So my look is very triggering. In a couple of days, I could probably use some makeup on it, but it’s too tender for that right now. I just need an easy way to explain away this massive black eye that doesn’t sound dismissive.

 

This is a problem many women I know have encountered, myself included - you have bruises or injuries, and then have the additional burden of people thinking you're a victim of intimate partner violence.

 

Let's stop and think about that for a second: it's a burden if people think you're a victim of intimate partner violence.

 

The fact that it is a burden is unhelpful. This makes things worse for everyone.

 

And it absolutely is a burden! People don't believe you when you say you are in fact safe, so you have the burden of trying to convince them. (See the time I walked into a door and was trying to think of a plausible cover story because no one would believe me.) Sometimes, even if they let it drop, they think you're lying to them. This can be a problem in medical contexts, where a doctor sees you as less than credible (and perhaps even puts it in your file) because you told them your bruises from moving equipment were from moving equipment.

On top of that, sometimes, in some contexts, by some people, you're seen as unstable if they think your relationship is unstable. Sometimes people (especially employers) think an unstable relationship means you have poor judgment. Sometimes they think it means you're unreliable. This can be detrimental in many areas of life (as it's also detrimental for actual victims of abuse!)

 

 

This is a problem! So what can we do about it?

 

I don't actually know, but here are a couple of starting points for brainstorming: 

1. What if we adjusted help/resources for victims of intimate partner violence so they could get exactly the same support and outcomes even if no one reached out to them? 

 

My first thought on writing this was "But abusers try to isolate their victims," but on further thought, maybe resources need to be just as available even if no one reaches out to you for that very reason? 

 

Currently, what does the person who reaches out bring into the situation? (I'm genuinely asking - I don't actually know what you're supposed to do next. Maybe this is something I should learn.) Could this contribution be added instead at a systemic/structural level, so victim can connect with help even if no individual takes the individual action of reaching out to them?

 

2. What if we normalize the idea of only offering to help if you genuinely have something specific to offer? 

 

There's a strong narrative - evident in some of the Ask A Manager comments - that you can't just say nothing if someone is being abused! 

 

But if you were to say something, what happens next? In other words, if you comment on your co-worker's black eye and ask if they're being abused, what's the plan if they say yes? What can you bring to the situation that they can't do themselves?

 

 

When I was a young adult and my social circle was making the transition from "pregnancy is obviously unwanted" to "pregnancy is frequently wanted", I was given a piece of advice to keep me from making an ass of myself: "If this pregnancy were unwanted, are you the person they'd be going to for help?" 

 

Thinking about it this way took some adjustment - for a brief period of time, I (in my capacity as someone who had left the church and moved to the city) was actually the person casual acquaintances might go to, even if just "I'm going to tell my parents you invited me to a girls' night out and a sleepover - play along!"

 

But when the pregnant acquaintance is someone who lives in the same city as me and has just as much agency as me, they don't need my help.

 

 

Grasping that nuance helps me respond more appropriately to unexpected pregnancy announcements. Maybe it would also help people respond more appropriately to suspected intimate partner violence?

 

I don't know the answer, but I do know that we need to adjust something, because it doesn't help anyone if people thinking you're a victim of intimate partner violence creates a burden on you - especially if you actually are a victim of intimate partner violence.

Books read in December 2024

1. Encore in Death by J.D. Robb

2. Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer by Barbara Ehrenreich

Horoscopes

Today I am 44, which is significant because I started working as a translator at 22.

Even though my birthday horoscopes stopped being accurate several years ago, I continue to keep track of them.

 

Toronto Star:

You’re perceptive, discerning and soulful. Skimming the surface of life isn’t for you. You would prefer to explore the depths instead. In relationships, you crave substance and integrity. Many would say you’re loyal and devoted to those you love, and you’d likely agree. You often achieve many successes and wins because you always stay prepared for any opportunity and are always willing to do the necessary work. You possess an enterprising spirit and a clever mind. You’re also patient, level-headed and resilient. This year, you will thrive with a glass-half-full approach rather than one where the glass is half-empty.

Globe and Mail:

Get serious about your ambitions and start making those small but necessary changes that will help clear a path from where you are now to where you most want to be. A succession of measured steps will add up to a massive leap forward.

Books read in November 2024

1. Children of the Fox by Kevin Sands

2. Desperation in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in October 2024

 1. Abandoned in Death by J.D. Robb

Things They Should Invent: handyman service as a condo amenity

One benefit of living in a well-run rental apartment building is the on-site superintendent handles home repairs for you. However, in a condo, you're responsible for your own repairs, which means you have to hire someone if the repair is out of your skill set.

But there are hundreds of units in a condo building, all of which started out with the same appliances and plumbing fixtures and door frames. 

What if they all pooled their resources and hired an on-site handyman-type maintenance person who would do in the in-suite repairs and odd jobs that are normally the resident's jurisdiction?

Some quick back-of-envelope math: if a maintenance makes $100,000 a year (nice round number) and there are 500 residents in the building (like there are in my building), it would cost everyone $200 a year - or $16 a month - to have on-site on-demand maintenance service for all the things that would normally be the resident's jurisdiction. Not bad, considering there's usually a minimum charge of about $100 for a tradesperson to even come out to see you, not to mention the peace of mind of knowing who to call (and not having to figure out who's a competent tradesperson and who's a scam, and not having to figure out what kind of tradesperson to call for your specific problem when it's not glaringly obvious - I mean, whose job is "my blind won't open" or "my soft close hinges no longer close softly" or "the handle fell off my window"???)

One benefit of living in a condo rather than a rental building is that there isn't a profit motive - they can spend condo fees on things that are convenient for residents, solely on the grounds that they're convenient for residents. For example, my condo hires professional window washers to wash the balcony windows, which is a marginal cost for each household but makes everyone's life significantly easier by taking away an irritating chore.

This would also make everyone's quality of life easier, by taking away all kind of irritating chore.