#learning center in vancouver

[mrssamtmworld]

English Tutoring Vancouver - mrssam.ca

If you are searching for English Tutoring in Vancouver? Tutoring Richmond creates a detailed sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic analysis of each child that will be done to gain insights into difficulties your child may have with processing the English language as a whole. The Richmond Learning center offers remedial linguistic tutoring and language planning for Richmond learners in grades K-12. Call (604) 710-4338 and For more detail visit our website.

[equallyshaw]

rose's relationship with her brothers + reactions to her coming out! | rutger x rose hughes au! ⚘ thoughts! ⚘ au masterlist.

rose + quinn: - that's his rosie posey - originated the nickname, posey after their parents called her rosie the first time - incredibly close as they both lived in BC for 4 years - growing up, he'd always make sure she played with them and always made sure the two others gave her time to learn the game - rose was his shadow growing up - always told her that she didn't need to play jack's position - a center - to make the positions even, like luke and quinn - also, he always said that if she gave up hockey nobody would be disappointed because there was a time she wanted to quit to be 'normal' at school - flied rose out during his time in vancouver that overlapped with hers, whenever she was able to come out. he also flew out to visit her and see her games at BC + her jr hockey club - she sends him all her poems, before she posts them to her poetry/spam account - always says if hockey doesn't work out, she should publish her works. - quinn is her passenger princess when they are together - always there to be a source for advice, and somebody for her to lean on - will belt out olivia rodrigo, any day of the week - since the moment she was born, he made jack promise they'd always be there for her and protect her. the two take their unspoken role very seriously

rose + jack: - tolerate eachother at best - just kidding but they do butt heads a lot because he doesn't always pick up on her sarcasm and thinks she is serious 100% which...it is typically 75% - nickname for rose is flower - jack is always done for spur of the moment ice cream trips and both have an adoration for brunch dates - when she told him that she was thinking of trying to go for the CHL because they had reached out and asked her and her team about joining the men's league, he was incredibly happy and excited for her. not to mention flattered she wanted his opinion, but ultimately she skipped the chl and headed for college- a year early - he is the easiest to make a meme out of, and will regularly post to her spam account (he can literally breathe, and one appears) - during summer camps growing up, rose would be his winger/forward. the two loved playing together and it meant both her brothers could be on the same line

rose + luke: - nickname for rose is lovie - after quinn, her and luke are closest because of their ages - their favorite season is summer because they all get to be together, and especially for these two, the two have always held a bond that nobody can touch - as a kid she used to play defence because she wanted to be like luke, and then realized she wasn't going to grow much more and shifted to winger/forward - coffee partners for life - at the lakehouse you'll probably find these two together. she'll be reading or writing, and he'll be napping either at her feet or right behind her. or nearby. - definitely a sunshine/black cat sibling duo - interchanging - both love drive around with country music blasting - because she hates golf, the brothers take her to mini golf during the summer which leads to a very heated game between the two young ones

their reactions to coming out as bisexual:

quinn: - incredibly grateful she came out to him first after asking for a plane ride to see him - gave her the absolute biggest hug and shed some tears now knowing how long she'd been holding it in and how much turmoil she went through - told her how proud he was of her and that he was proud to be her sister (cue the waterworks again!) - when she started going out with her ex girlfriend - publicly, he was so happy for her and was one of their biggest supporters in private and on social media

jack: - was incredibly proud of her for coming out to them - was happy that she could publicly be with her girlfriend at the time - gave her the biggest bear hug and said if anybody says something or treats you differently- they'd have to answer to him (all three) - because he is always down for a good time, he told her that if she wants to go to a pride parade - he wants to join her

luke: - was a tad bit hurt that she hadn't said anything to him earlier but got over it real quickly after realizing that it was her own journey and the decision to tell him whenever - the two had a long hug and then long talk about when she knew, how things came about with her ex and then like jack, had said he'll always be there to protect her if she needed him to - she told him that it was the hardest thing to keep from not only the whole family, but him because of the bond that they share (lots of tears were shed during their heart to heart)

ellen + jim: - more than accepting, welcoming and supportive - just like all their children, they want rosie to be happy - ellen could tell there was something on her daughters mind for sometime now, and is relieved to hear what it is - as soon as the words were shared, a minute passes before ellen is pulling her baby girl in her arms. - lots of tears were shed - jim was very quiet but nevertheless supportive and welcoming - he was overwhelmed but not in a bad way - gave her the biggest bear hug and forehead kiss - the next morning, rosie awoke to a small bouquet of hydrangeas, coffee + sandwich, and a card from jim - the card said everything he hadn't been able to share the night before, without crying. tells her how proud he is and that he is proud to have her as his daughter, and that he's always been proud of her. - when she tells the family that she has a girlfriend the same week, a beat doesn't pass before them wanting her to come visit them at the lake house and asking every question under the sun about them

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"In these circumstances, the commercial economy of the fur trade soon yielded to industrial economies focused on mining, forestry, and fishing. The first industrial mining (for coal) began on Vancouver Island in the early 1850s, the first sizeable industrial sawmill opened a few years later, and fish canning began on the Fraser River in 1870. From these beginnings, industrial economies reached into the interstices of British Columbia, establishing work camps close to the resource, and processing centers (canneries, sawmills, concentrating mills) at points of intersection of external and local transportation systems. As the years went by, these transportation systems expanded, bringing ever more land (resources) within reach of industrial capital. Each of these developments was a local instance of David Harvey's general point that the pace of time-space compressions after 1850 accelerated capital's "massive, long-term investment in the conquest of space" (Harvey 1989, 264) and its commodifications of nature. The very soil, Marx said in another context, was becoming "part and parcel of capital" (1967, pt. 8, ch. 27).

As Marx and, subsequently, others have noted, the spatial energy of capitalism works to deterritorialize people (that is, to detach them from prior bonds between people and place) and to reterritorialize them in relation to the requirements of capital (that is, to land conceived as resources and freed from the constraints of custom and to labor detached from land). For Marx the

wholesale expropriation of the agricultural population from the soil... created for the town industries the necessary supply of a 'free' and outlawed proletariat (1967, pt. 8, ch. 27).

For Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1977) - drawing on insights from psychoanalysis - capitalism may be thought of as a desiring machine, as a sort of territorial writing machine that functions to inscribe "the flows of desire upon the surface or body of the earth" (Thomas 1994, 171-72). In Henri Lefebvre's terms, it produces space in the image of its own relations of production (1991; Smith 1990, 90). For David Harvey it entails the "restless formation and reformation of geographical landscapes," and postpones the effects of its inherent contradictions by the conquest of space-capitalism's "spatial fix" (1982, ch. 13; 1985, 150, 156). In detail, positions differ; in general, it can hardly be doubted that in British Columbia industrial capitalism introduced new relationships between people and with land and that at the interface of the native and the nonnative, these relationships created total misunderstandings and powerful new axes of power that quickly detached native people from former lands. When a Tlingit chief was asked by a reserve commissioner about the work he did, he replied

I don't know how to work at anything. My father, grandfather, and uncle just taught me how to live, and I have always done what they told me-we learned this from our fathers and grandfathers and our uncles how to do the things among ourselves and we teach our children in the same way.

Two different worlds were facing each other, and one of them was fashioning very deliberate plans for the reallocation of land and the reordering of social relations. In 1875 the premier of British Columbia argued that the way to civilize native people was to bring them into the industrial workplace, there to learn the habits of thrift, time discipline, and materialism. Schools were secondary. The workplace was held to be the crucible of cultural change and, as such, the locus of what the premier depicted as a politics of altruism intended to bring native people up to the point where they could enter society as full, participating citizens. To draw them into the workplace, they had to be separated from land. Hence, in the premier's scheme of things, the small reserve, a space that could not yield a livelihood and would eject native labor toward the industrial workplace and, hence, toward civilization. Marx would have had no illusions about what was going on: native lives, he would have said, were being detached from their own means of production (from the land and the use value of their own labor on it) and were being transformed into free (unencumbered) wage laborers dependent on the social relations of capital. The social means of production and of subsistence were being converted into capital. Capital was benefiting doubly, acquiring access to land freed by small reserves and to cheap labor detached from land.

The reorientation of land and labor away from older customary uses had happened many times before, not only in earlier settler societies, but also in the British Isles and, somewhat later, in continental Europe. There, the centuries-long struggles over enclosure had been waged between many ordinary folk who sought to protect customary use rights to land and landlords who wanted to replace custom with private property rights and market economies. In the western highlands, tenants without formal contracts (the great majority) could be evicted "at will." Their former lands came to be managed by a few sheep farmers; their intricate local land uses were replaced by sheep pasture (Hunter 1976; Hornsby 1992, ch. 2). In Windsor Forest, a practical vernacular economy that had used the forest in innumerable local ways was slowly eaten away as the law increasingly favored notions of absolute property ownership, backed them up with hangings, and left less and less space for what E.P. Thompson calls "the messy complexities of coincident use-right" (1975, 241). Such developments were approximately reproduced in British Columbia, as a regime of exclusive property rights overrode a fisher-hunter-gatherer version of, in historian Jeanette Neeson's phrase, an "economy of multiple occupations" (1984, 138; Huitema, Osborne, and Ripmeester 2002). Even the rhetoric of dispossession - about lazy, filthy, improvident people who did not know how to use land properly - often sounded remarkably similar in locations thousands of miles apart (Pratt 1992, ch. 7). There was this difference: The argument against custom, multiple occupations, and the constraints of life worlds on the rights of property and the free play of the market became, in British Columbia, not an argument between different economies and classes (as it had been in Britain) but the more polarized, and characteristically racialized juxtaposition of civilization and savagery...

Moreover, in British Columbia, capital was far more attracted to the opportunities of native land than to the surplus value of native labor. In the early years, when labor was scarce, it sought native workers, but in the longer run, with its labor needs supplied otherwise (by Chinese workers contracted through labor brokers, by itinerant white loggers or miners), it was far more interested in unfettered access to resources. A bonanza of new resources awaited capital, and if native people who had always lived amid these resources could not be shipped away, they could be-indeed, had to be-detached from them. Their labor was useful for a time, but land in the form of fish, forests, and minerals was the prize, one not to be cluttered with native-use rights. From the perspective of capital, therefore, native people had to be dispossessed of their land. Otherwise, nature could hardly be developed. An industrial primary resource economy could hardly function.

In settler colonies, as Marx knew, the availability of agricultural land could turn wage laborers back into independent producers who worked for themselves instead of for capital (they vanished, Marx said, "from the labor market, but not into the workhouse") (1967, pt. 8, ch. 33). As such, they were unavailable to capital, and resisted its incursions, the source, Marx thought, of the prosperity and vitality of colonial societies. In British Columbia, where agricultural land was severely limited, many settlers were closely implicated with capital, although the objectives of the two were different and frequently antagonistic. Without the ready alternative of pioneer farming, many of them were wage laborers dependent on employment in the industrial labor market, yet often contending with capital in bitter strikes. Some of them sought to become capitalists. In M. A. Grainger's Woodsmen of the West, a short, vivid novel set in early modern British Columbia, the central character, Carter, wrestles with this opportunity. Carter had grown up on a rock farm in Nova Scotia, worked at various jobs across the continent, and fetched up in British Columbia at a time when, for a nominal fee, the government leased standing timber to small operators. He acquired a lease in a remote fjord and there, with a few men under towering glaciers at the edge of the world economy, attacked the forest. His chances were slight, but the land was his opportunity, his labor his means, and he threw himself at the forest with the intensity of Captain Ahab in pursuit of the white whale. There were many Carters.

But other immigrants did become something like Marx's independent producers. They had found a little land on the basis of which they hoped to get by, avoid the work relations of industrial capitalism, and leave their progeny more than they had known themselves. Their stories are poignant. A Czech peasant family, forced from home for want of land, finding its way to one of the coaltowns of southeastern British Columbia, and then, having accumulated a little cash from mining, homesteading in the province's arid interior. The homestead would consume a family's work while yielding a living of sorts from intermittent sales from a dry wheat farm and a large measure of domestic self-sufficiency-a farm just sustaining a family, providing a toe-hold in a new society, and a site of adaptation to it. Or, a young woman from a brick, working-class street in Derby, England, coming to British Columbia during the depression years before World War I, finding work up the coast in a railway hotel in Prince Rupert, quitting with five dollars to her name after a manager's amorous advances, traveling east as far as five dollars would take her on the second train out of Prince Rupert, working in a small frontier hotel, and eventually marrying a French Canadian farmer. There, in a northern British Columbian valley, in a context unlike any she could have imagined as a girl, she would raise a family and become a stalwart of a diverse local society in which no one was particularly well off. Such stories are at the heart of settler colonialism (Harris 1997, ch. 8).

The lives reflected in these stories, like the productions of capital, were sustained by land. Older regimes of custom had been broken, in most cases by enclosures or other displacements in the homeland several generations before emigration. Many settlers became property owners, holders of land in fee simple, beneficiaries of a landed opportunity that, previously, had been unobtainable. But use values had not given way entirely to exchange values, nor was labor entirely detached from land. Indeed, for all the work associated with it, the pioneer farm offered a temporary haven from capital. The family would be relatively autonomous (it would exploit itself). There would be no outside boss. Cultural assumptions about land as a source of security and family-centered independence; assumptions rooted in centuries of lives lived elsewhere seemed to have found a place of fulfillment. Often this was an illusion - the valleys of British Columbia are strewn with failed pioneer farms - but even illusions drew immigrants and occupied them with the land.

In short, and in a great variety of ways, British Columbia offered modest opportunities to ordinary people of limited means, opportunities that depended, directly or indirectly, on access to land. The wage laborer in the resource camp, as much as the pioneer farmer, depended on such access, as, indirectly, did the shopkeeper who relied on their custom.

In this respect, the interests of capital and settlers converged. For both, land was the opportunity at hand, an opportunity that gave settler colonialism its energy. Measured in relation to this opportunity, native people were superfluous. Worse, they were in the way, and, by one means or another, had to be removed. Patrick Wolfe is entirely correct in saying that "settler societies were (are) premised on the elimination of native societies," which, by occupying land of their ancestors, had got in the way (1999, 2). If, here and there, their labor was useful for a time, capital and settlers usually acquired labor by other means, and in so doing, facilitated the uninhibited construction of native people as redundant and expendable. In 1840 in Oxford, Herman Merivale, then a professor of political economy and later a permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office, had concluded as much. He thought that the interests of settlers and native people were fundamentally opposed, and that if left to their own devices, settlers would launch wars of extermination. He knew what had been going on in some colonies - "wretched details of ferocity and treachery" - and considered that what he called the amalgamation (essentially, assimilation through acculturation and miscegenation) of native people into settler society to be the only possible solution (1928, lecture xviii). Merivale's motives were partly altruistic, yet assimilation as colonial practice was another means of eliminating "native" as a social category, as well as any land rights attached to it as, everywhere, settler colonialism would tend to do.

These different elements of what might be termed the foundational complex of settler colonial power were mutually reinforcing. When, in 1859, a first large sawmill was contemplated on the west coast of Vancouver Island, its manager purchased the land from the Crown and then, arriving at the intended mill site, dispersed its native inhabitants at the point of a cannon (Sproat 1868). He then worried somewhat about the proprieties of his actions, and talked with the chief, trying to convince him that, through contact with whites, his people would be civilized and improved. The chief would have none of it, but could stop neither the loggers nor the mill. The manager and his men had debated the issue of rights, concluding (in an approximation of Locke) that the chief and his people did not occupy the land in any civilized sense, that it lay in waste for want of labor, and that if labor were not brought to such land, then the worldwide progress of colonialism, which was "changing the whole surface of the earth," would come to a halt. Moreover, and whatever the rights or wrongs, they assumed, with unabashed self-interest, that colonists would keep what they had got: "this, without discussion, we on the west coast of Vancouver Island were all prepared to do." Capital was establishing itself at the edge of a forest within reach of the world economy, and, in so doing, was employing state sanctioned property rights, physical power, and cultural discourse in the service of interest."

- Cole Harris, “How Did Colonialism Dispossess? Comments from an Edge of Empire,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), p. 172-174.

[chase-prairie]

I'm guessing that as a graduate student you have read a zillion and one documents and books and papers and things in your field. Would it be outrageous to ask for recommendations/your favorites? I'm really interested in learning more about the history of Native land use and food systems in the midwest (which I suppose is a very long history, I'd be happy learning about any time period), prairie ecology, and the current outlook for native plants and pollinators (and conservation recommendations). Even one recc for each would be amazing. Feel free to postpone this ask if you're too busy! P.S. can't wait to read your dissertation.

This is a big ask, and I get a lot of these types of asks! In the future it'd be nice if people were more specific about their interests and not asking about general, huge topics. There's a level that you can and should be googling yourself! Many academic papers are online for free through sites like academia.edu and I'm not a search engine!

General answer if you're interested in this range of topics is Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass. She comes from the midwest and writes some on prairie and the book is all about Indigenous science stewardship.

Otherwise, the topics you're asking for don't have one single source that will tell you everything you're looking for. People make small studies of one community, one ecosystem, one plant. Whether it's ecology or ethnobotany, there's no one making compendiums of info, especially not in the midwest. That's why I do the work I do, but even what I do is imperfect. Be suspicious of anyone who/any text that claims to be comprehensive on a huge, complex subjects; they probably are bsing you.

Indigenous Land Mgmt:

Two good recent papers:

The subject of indigenous wild management is more intensely covered in California (M. Kat Anderson) and Vancouver (Nancy J. Turner). Those two authors are great for both nuts and bolts chat and philosophical perspectives about how people have lived in and altered and restored their ecosystems.

A compelling academic book on the subject is Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance by Clint Carroll, which is just as much about philosophy, knowledge production and protection and community building, as plants.

Prairie Conservation Practices:

Like I said above, currently published stuff is about very specific interactions and focuses, like a particular pollinator group in a particular plant. What you're looking for, a generalist summary of the field, doesn't really exist.

If you're looking for plant lists and how-tos Tallgrass Restoration Handbook or the Tallgrass Prairie Center Guide. Do not go for Ben Voigt. If you're looking for a general conceptual entry to Midwest conservation/restoration, there's Ecological Restoration in the Midwest

If you're looking for general recommendations for free, Xerces.org is the resource for bee-friendly landscaping and planting.

If you live near a University or Arboretum or Botanic Garden, this is the kind of thing where you should just browse the shelves near the books I've recommended! Chances are you have free access to the libraries, if not the ability to check the books out yourself!

[butch-with-a-deep-voice]

I've realized something the last few days. I've never experienced big city queer culture. Most Canadian cities are notoriously small compared to metropolis sized centers like San Francisco, Washington, London, New York, Toronto or Vancouver aside of course. While the city I'm in is in fact a city, we're in that weird "big town, small city" micro-cosm of feeling like a big queer community up until you realize it really isn't.

We currently only have like. 3 gay bars, and one of them has lowkey been rejected by the community for pandering to rainbow washing and it's rampant ableism/micro-transphobia. The other is incredibly loud and packed all the time, and the third just feels a little sticky at all times. We don't have dedicated lesbian spaces. The bars we do have, only one is accessible. We don't really have alcohol free queer spaces. Usually our events are so dominated by white people that BIPOC queers just don't show up, and I feel alone as an indigenous person.

Just about every dyke I know in this city at this point complains about having slept with eachother by 3 person proxy at the very least. I can't go out without risking running into an ex, or a friend of an ex. Every Non-monoganous person here has heard of or met "that one guy" in the poly community because word just gets around like that in a smaller space (he loves the reputation don't worry). Every trans femme has at one point or another has a well meaning Gen X cishet person ask us if we know a certain trans woman that championed trans rights like 30+ years ago (it doesn't help that I actually had dinner with her once a year as a kid).

We've also had people used to big city culture come here and comment on the fact that our culture is amazing because of this unique position. Our Pride Parade isn't a party. It's still actively a protest, it's still a march to remind the conservative government that wants to take our rights away that we will fight them tooth and nail. Every big city queer who attends our Pride has said so to me. It's a point of well, pride for me. But, I want to see their party. I want to see what guaranteed diverse community feels like.

As a baby queer I thought my city's queer culture would never cease to show me new things, but as time goes on I realized its small. Being single, I've realized how not tied down I am. I'm free to go wherever really, within financial limitations. I want to travel. I want to go to big cities. I want to engage in big big queer communities abroad. Learn what their experiences are. How their local history shaped their slang, titles, identities, and social networks. I want to expand how I love my queer self and community by seeing how others love their queer selves and community.

[mariacallous]

Even as missiles fall on Ukraine and troops brace for a Russian spring offensive from the east, Kyiv is looking west. The U.S. congressional fight over aid to Ukraine, entangled as it is with border policy and presidential politics, has become a matter of survival for 43 million Ukrainians. In more than two years of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not broken Ukrainian will. Abandonment by the United States could achieve what Putin never has.

This month, I made a 1300-mile trip around Ukraine as part of a delegation hosted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). We visited Kyiv and Odesa as well as Dnipro, Kharkiv, and other places farther east. The situation on the ground is changing, and U.S. political leaders should understand the enormous stakes. Those now debating the fate of assistance to Ukraine are deliberating over the fate of Ukraine itself.

The first thing that strikes a visitor to wartime in Ukraine is how remarkably normal life seems in many areas. Normal, that is, until the signs of war creep in—gradually and then suddenly.

Odesa’s elegantly beautiful theater remains open, and operas and shows go on. (Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco and Franco Alfano and Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot played a few days after our visit.) Yet the city was under an air alert as we arrived, and a walk along the seaside promenade revealed coiled barbed wire at each staircase.

In a mostly unheralded success, Ukraine has cleared the Black Sea coast of Russian warships—despite having a tiny navy with no warships of its own—and now exports grain from Odesa at near prewar levels. Ships load grain and skirt the coast as they head west, staying away from Russian predation. Outside the city, soldiers man roadside checkpoints to examine the papers of draft-age men.

In a town that we visited in Kherson Oblast, which suffered under Russian occupation until late 2022, virtually every building was damaged. Missile strikes, mortar fire, and machine guns took a serious toll. Many inhabitants fled the fighting, joining either the 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees outside the country or the 3.7 million displaced inside it. UNHCR and other aid agencies are assisting those who remained and others who have returned. Some never will.

We met one man in the town who stayed through it all. “It’s like you see on TV in America,” he said. “You know when there’s a hurricane and someone says, ‘It’s my home, I’m not leaving?’ That was me.”

The biggest problem, he said, were soldiers from the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the puppet governments set up in the regions by Moscow. Often drunk, the soldiers looted houses, hassled people, and carted home everything they could. A local official said that Russian troops had established multiple torture centers during the occupation.

The man’s son, a tall 15-year-old with a grin and the taciturn bearing of a teenage boy, described life before and after the Russians came. Did he miss the way things were before the war? Yes, he said: “Some of my acquaintances have passed away.”

Downtown Dnipro could pass for Vancouver or Boston, with its illuminated streets, pedestrian areas, fine restaurants, and high-end boutiques. Couples dine, families stroll at night, and the stores are stocked. Yet the war wasn’t far away during our visit; an air alert awakened us early in the morning. As our phone alerts went off and air raid sirens sounded, we headed to the shelter. Russia launched more than 60 drones and missiles at Ukraine that day, some of which made it to Kyiv. The attack set a large apartment building on fire in the capital and killed four people. Two days later, we would visit this site, where the rebuilding had already begun.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has emerged as an epicenter of recent Russian military activity. Most students there are relegated to online learning, since their schools lack the shelters necessary to protect against air attacks. More than 2,000 children go to class underground in subway stations. We visited one of these subway schools, watching fourth graders solve math problems and work on projects. Play areas took up space at the backs of classrooms. I wish members of the U.S. Congress could see the effects of Russia’s two-year war on the country and witness Ukrainian resilience in the face of relentless attack.

Ukrainians are resilient but not invincible. They see bombed-out buildings, awaken to air alert sirens each night, and feel Moscow’s newfound confidence on the battlefield. They know that last year’s counteroffensive produced few gains, and that Avdiivka’s recent fall marks Russia’s first significant territorial gain since May 2023. Diminishing supplies of ammunition and other Western-provided weapons have made the war more difficult and more costly in terms of Ukrainian lives.

Yet most wish to fight on. Polls show a small but growing number of Ukrainians wishing to trade land for peace, if such an outcome is possible. The majority wish to continue the fight. They watched Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson and saw the Russian president’s insistence on their country’s historic artificiality. They know, from the atrocities that have occurred in Bucha and elsewhere, what Russian occupation might mean. They see the war as a fight for survival.

Ukrainians also know, however, that they cannot keep it up alone. They quietly observe that European aid (generous though it is) won’t be sufficient, either. In Kyiv, officials follow every twist and turn of the $60 billion earmarked for Ukraine in a proposed supplemental aid package from the United States. It’s a large amount of money, equivalent to roughly 7 percent of the U.S. Defense Department’s annual budget, and combines military, humanitarian, and budget support. Ukraine’s future turns greatly on it.

U.S. missile defense currently protects Ukrainian cities, and officials worry about the violence that Russia will unleash if U.S. interceptors stop arriving. Front-line Ukrainian troops are running out of ammunition, and declining access to military equipment could allow Russia to take more territory. Even factoring in the latest European aid package, Ukrainian officials (and those at the U.S. Treasury Department) project empty government coffers within months, rendering them unable to pay worker salaries or pensions. Their fallback plan is to print more money, fully understanding the disastrous hyperinflation such a move would produce.

In the meantime, U.S. humanitarian aid provides food, shelter, medical care, and other support for a traumatized population that nevertheless wishes to carry on.

Beyond material support, my visit made clear that the psychological effect of global solidarity, especially from the United States, remains vital. In conversations with everyone, from the top of government to citizens living just miles from the front lines, there was one message: Please stay with us—we can’t do this alone. U.S. abandonment would be devastating.

There is a lot of trouble in the world today, some of it far closer to home for Washington than places such as Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kherson. A poll conducted in February by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Ipsos found that a majority of Americans continue to support helping Ukraine, as do majorities in both houses of Congress. Yet two years in, and after billions of aid has already been delivered, Americans might reasonably ask why more, and why now.

Calls to defend the rules-based international order tend to provoke eye-rolling derision these days. So too do descriptions of the United States’ indispensability in the face of global problems. Yet the prohibition against forcible conquest stands at the heart of the postwar global order. Putin’s violation of that taboo—if ultimately successful—would augur a new and more dangerous era. The United States, unfashionable though it may be to observe, is indispensable in resisting it.

Ultimately, Ukraine is fighting a shift from order to the law of the jungle, where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. In a world awash with trouble, and with huge demands on U.S. resources, the stakes in Ukraine remain very high—and perhaps unique. The alternative to continued Western support is not an indefinite stalemate or frozen conflict. It is a potential Russian victory.

This is the context in which today’s debate should take place. It’s clear on the ground: Ukrainian will to resist aggression is remarkable, but it remains inextricably linked to U.S. support and solidarity. If the United States abandons Ukraine, then the West may well accomplish the very thing that Putin has thus far found impossible.

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

Hallmark Movie News Roundup

Hallmark Orders Jason Bourque’s ‘A Reason For the Season’

A new Hallmark movie about the magic of generosity, gratitude, and community is in the works! The network has ordered the drama TV movie ‘A Reason For the Season’ with Jason Bourque at the helm. The project’s filming is slated to begin on June 17, 2024, in Lower Mainland, British Columbia.

The television film follows the journey of a woman who must return to her quaint hometown to claim her inheritance. The stipulation? She must repay a group of locals for their kindness to her mother on the night of her birth. As she reconnects with her roots, she learns about her family’s past and discovers the heartwarming community whose generosity helped her mother through a tough time.

Click this LINK for more

Hallmark’s A Dad For Christmas Has Begun Filming in Vancouver

Cameras are ready to roll in Vancouver for the upcoming Hallmark production, ‘A Dad For Christmas.’ Jason Bourque is set to direct this forthcoming venture. The plot revolves around a 12-year-old Sunshine Scout who takes it upon herself to find a new romantic partner for her mother. Her target? The attractive owner of a nearby bakery. Vancouver, the Canadian entertainment hub, has hosted previous Hallmark projects like ‘Hope at Christmas’ and ‘Love, Lights, Hanukkah!’

Click this LINK for more.

Hallmark Orders 12 Clues of Christmas; Starts Filming in Vancouver in June

’12 Clues of Christmas,’ an upcoming Hallmark production, is all set to begin filming in Vancouver in June. Lucie Guest is on directorial duties for this forthcoming venture. Stephanie Sourapas and Tom McCurrie are behind the script.

The plot revolves around Avery and Lewis Plum, proprietors of a struggling candy store and grappling with marital discord on the brink of their fifth anniversary, as they embark on a transformative journey when Avery orchestrates a Christmas treasure hunt contest in bustling Chicago to reignite their fading connection. Despite initial apprehensions, Lewis joins in, hoping to mend their fraying relationship bonds. However, the unexpected appearance of Avery’s charismatic ex-boyfriend, Wes, introduces a new layer of tension, challenging the couple’s resolve. As they navigate the contest’s challenges and confront unresolved emotions, Avery and Lewis rediscover the essence of their love. Yet, miscommunications with Wes and a denied loan application amplify their struggles, compelling them to stake their hopes on winning the competition to save their beloved Sugar Plums store from closure. Through adversity, conflicts, and surprising revelations, Avery and Lewis emerge victorious, not only securing their business’s future but also reigniting the flame of their enduring love, reaffirming their commitment to each other amidst the trials of life.

Click this LINK for more.

Hallmark’s Engaged To Be Murdered Starts Filming in Vancouver This Month

The filming of Hallmark’s upcoming TV movie ‘Engaged To Be Murdered’ will start in Vancouver, British Columbia, this month. David I. Strasser is directing this murder mystery based on a script by Katherine Wagner. The plot centers on a murder in a small town, where a local advice columnist, privy to the town’s secrets, attempts to aid the investigation but clashes with the police detective handling the case.

Click this LINK for more.

Hallmark’s ‘Autumn’s Gift’ Begins Filming in British Columbia

The filming of Hallmark’s ‘Autumn’s Gift’ will begin on April 29 in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. Mike Rohl is directing the movie, starring Ashley Williams and Hrothgar Mathews. The plot revolves around a woman struggling to get along with her difficult neighbors after moving to a new condo in Pittsburgh. Her life takes a turn when she meets the handsome building supervisor.

Click this LINK for more.

Hallmark Orders The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie Adaptation

Lolly Blanchard and her Aunt Gert are set to be reimagined soon! Hallmark has ordered a telefilm adaptation of Rachel Linden’s novel ‘The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie.’ The project’s shooting will start on June 3 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The heartwarming book has a fantastical twist and perfectly fits the Hallmark style of storytelling. Van Evera is the banner behind the TV movie.

The plot revolves around 34-year-old Lolly Blanchard, who finds herself at a crossroads in life. While running her family’s struggling diner, she grapples with unfulfilled dreams and lingering regrets. Her dreams of opening her own cafe are in tatters, and her dad won’t even let her make changes at the family diner. She regrets breaking up with her boyfriend, Rory Shaw, the only man she ever loved.

However, as the narrative progresses, Lolly’s eccentric Aunt Gert gifts her with three magical lemon drops, and her world is turned upside down. With each drop, she is transported to alternate realities where her dreams have come true—a bustling café of her own, a day spent with her late mother, and a reunion with her first love, Rory Shaw. As Lolly lives through these possibilities, she is presented with one final droplet, allowing her to make any of them her reality.

Click this LINK for more.

Hallmark Orders ‘My Dreams of You’; Starts Filming in Ottawa

A new, fantastical Hallmark romance has already started shooting! Crown Media’s ‘My Dreams of You’ is being filmed in Ottawa, Ontario. The project’s shooting began on the 13th of this month and is set to be wrapped by June 3, 2024.

The film will introduce us to the magical, ethereal dimension of Dream Land, where dream associates are assigned people for whom they build dreamscapes. These dreamscapes are made from the people’s memories before they fall asleep. The dream associate assigned to Grace McIntyre, a struggling writer, accidentally shows her the man of her dreams, a charming musician, Michael. The blunder can have serious ripple effects through the fabric of time if the two meet. Therefore, the responsible dream associate must ensure that the pair remains separated.

Click this LINK for more.

[ingek73]

In Canada, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Remind the World of Their Impact

As an Invictus Games alumni tells T&C, the Sussexes make you “feel seen and heard.”

BY EMILY BURACKPUBLISHED: FEB 17, 2024 10:00 AM EST

GETTY IMAGES; DESIGN BY MICHAEL STILLWELL

Ever since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back from their roles as senior working royals in 2020, drama and public discourse surrounding the couple have ebbed and flowed, from their sit-down interview with Oprah, to Harry’s memoir, Spare, to their attendance at King Charles’s coronation. But over the three days they spent this past week in British Columbia, the world was reminded of the power the couple has for bringing attention to causes that matter to them.

And there’s no cause that’s nearer and dearer to Prince Harry’s heart than the Invictus Games. “These last few days have been very, very special,” he said at the visit’s penultimate event, which was held at a local community center. “Every single one of you inspire me, and you inspire us, every single day.”

KARWAI TANG

The Duke and Duchess at Whistler Sliding Centre on day two of their three-day trip.

Throughout their packed itinerary in Whistler, Squamish, and Vancouver, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent time meeting with the wounded and injured veterans who were learning winter adaptive sports ahead of next year’s Invictus Games, as well as with members of local First Nations communities. Wherever they went, it was typically Prince Harry who deviated from the meticulously planned timetable. When they were scheduled to spend 15 minutes on Whistler-Blackcomb mountain meeting with the athletes, they took 45, because Harry had to speak with everyone (and try out sit skiing). One skeleton run at Whistler Sliding Centre quickly turned into multiple, because the Duke of Sussex just had to go again.

As Mike Bourgeois, an Invictus Games alumni who spent time with them on this trip told T&C, “You’ve got a timetable, and we’re in that timetable, standing by ready to go and leap into action. And the first veteran that Harry is able to catch their eyes—the schedule is just out the window. He’s devoted to getting down on his knees and looking an athlete in the eyes and asking about how their experience is,” he says.

Bourgeois, who competed with Team Canada at the Invictus Games at the Hague, was back—along with his wife, Lori—to serve as an ambassador for the Games at the One Year to Go events this week. “We’re nobody,” he says with a self-deprecating smile, “just one of a thousand people that work to support the foundation and the Invictus Games. But the Duke remembers us. If you’ve met [Prince Harry], and you’ve interacted and you’ve talked about your experience as a veteran, he remembers—a year or two years later, you just pick up the conversation, which is pretty astonishing.”

He continues, “Yes, they’re briefed on a daily basis about who they interact with. But the nuances in the conversation, you can’t fake that. The best way I can describe what the impact is of their involvement is: You feel like you’re seen and heard. You’re not lost in the woods, you're not insignificant.”

KARWAI TANG//GETTY IMAGES

Bourgeois stands with Meghan as she borrows his phone to snap a photo of Harry. Lori stands at right (in a matching Invictus Games beanie).

Harry and Meghan’s ability to keep their attention focused on the cause was all the more notable given recent criticism of the couple. After a story published in the Telegraph this week suggested that the Sussexes had “three days to prove they can behave,” their spokesperson issued a statement to the Mirror: “We’ve heard time and time again that certain opportunities are make or break for the couple. They’re still here. They’re still working and pursuing what they believe in, despite constantly being challenged and criticized. This couple will not be broken.” And in an interview with Good Morning America, Prince Harry did not dwell on any family conflict. He spoke briefly about his father, King Charles, saying, “Look, I love my family. The fact that I was able to get on a plane and go and see him and spend any time with him, I’m grateful for that.”

The Sussexes’ dedication to their work was evident throughout their time in Canada this week, and Prince Harry was clearly in his element amongst fellow veterans. “We are talking about the royals, there’s a lot of protocol involved,” Bourgeois says. “But when you get into fellow veteran environments, it's like: We’re his people and he’s our people. A little bit of the armor can be shed when you're together because it’s a safe space.”

For Major Joanna Labonté, who competed in the Invictus Games in Düsseldorf with Team Canada last year, the support that Meghan and Harry bring to the wounded and injured veteran community is powerful. “Considering my injury, for a long time, I felt very powerless and invisible,” she told T&C. “I feel like they’re shining a light on us—the military members who have struggled, who have felt a lot of uncertainty in our future. And they're saying ‘Your journey is just beginning, it’s not over. Yes, you’re releasing from the military, but you’re just beginning this brand new phase of your life. And you matter.’”

Labonté continues, “We really genuinely feel like we matter to that lovely couple. Healing through sport is something significant—I've seen it in myself, in my teammates. It's the real deal.”

“We really genuinely feel like we matter to that lovely couple.”

Every Invictus Games participant that T&C spoke with this week said a version of the same thing: The games have changed their life, for the better, and Prince Harry and Meghan are a notable part of that. “The Invictus Games have gone a long way helping my recovery—they have helped me mentally, physically and emotionally,” Peacemaker Azuegbulam, a competitor from Nigeria, says. “Before, I was worried [about] how to cope with my life with the new condition that I’m [in].” (Azuegbulam lost his left leg when his army unit came under fire.) But when he got to the Invictus Games, he says, “It makes me feel good. It makes me feel loved.” Prince Harry later spoke about Azuegbulam, calling him, “quite remarkable.”

JEREMY ALLEN

Chief Sparrow is second from left, at the Hillcrest Community Centre.

This week, too, wasn’t just about the Invictus Games community, but about the First Nations that the 2025 Games are partnered with. At a wheelchair curling event of the week, Chief Wayne Sparrow of the Musqueam First Nation and Wilson Williams of Squamish Nation gave a traditional welcome, and land acknowledgement (a message acknowledging original Indigenous inhabitants of the land who have often been displaced). When Harry spoke, he shared, “Thank you to the four First Nations for allowing us to be on your territory.” He and Meghan also spent time with First Nations communities this week, at the Squamish Líl̓wat cultural center, and Mount Currie Community Centre.

“When we met the Duke, he said, ‘I want to learn more about reconciliation,’” Chief Sparrow tells T&C. “That meant a lot to me: The very first time I met him, for him to [say] he wants to learn and then [ask] how we can move forward together—that is something that I brought back to my community. That’s all part of the reconciliation and the wrongdoings of what happened. We can’t dwell on the past. We have to move forward, as a society.”

ANDREW CHIN//GETTY IMAGES

Meghan and Harry take a photo with an athlete.

After the final event concluded at Hillcrest Community Centre, Prince Harry came up to the small group of reporters, including myself, that had been at every event of the week. He thanked us, joked about the cold, and despite his antipathy towards the press in the past, it was clear there was genuine appreciation for the media attention on the Invictus Games.

In that moment, it was hard not to think of Princess Diana. Harry’s warmth, and his ability to make those around him feel seen, is directly reminiscent of his mother—as is his ability to use his spotlight to highlight the causes that matter most to him. In just 72 hours, the impact of Harry and Meghan became clear.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the Invictus Games, and next year’s event will be its seventh edition. In Prince Harry’s remarks closing the week, he spoke directly to the Invictus competitors, saying, “I know how much you love to serve. In many instances, you live to serve.” He finished with a promise, outlining the duty both he and Meghan feel to the community. “We will continue to serve,” he said, “and to inspire people up, down, around the country and around the world.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

KPMG audits the nursing homes it advises on how to beat audits

Tomorrow (May 10), I’m in VANCOUVER for a keynote at the Open Source Summit and a book event for Red Team Blues at Heritage Hall and on Thurs (May 11), I’m in CALGARY for Wordfest.

Auditors are capitalism’s lubricants, who keep the gears of finance capital smoothly a-whirl, allowing investors to move their money in and out of companies without having to go pore over their books and walk through their facilities. Without auditors, the gears of capitalism would grind themselves to dust:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/18/ink-stained-wretches/#countless

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/09/dingo-babysitter/#maybe-the-dingos-ate-your-nan

Unfortunately for capitalism, auditing is irredeemably broken. The Big Four auditors (PWC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG) have merged to monopoly, becoming “too big to fail” and “too big to jail.” These four gigantic firms have spun up fantastically lucrative “consulting” divisions that advise companies on how to cheat on their audits and attain incredible (paper) gains. The work of these “consultants” is worth far more than the accounting and auditing jobs the companies do, and the weaker the audits are, the more profitable the consulting is:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#crooked-ref

This crisis has been a long time brewing. Back in 2001, the accounting/consulting giant Arthur Andersen was at the center of Enron’s fraud, which lit $11B in shareholder capital on fire. Enron had been making everyday people angry for years, engineering rolling blackouts and incredible energy-price gouging, but no one cares about working peoples’ complaints. By contrast, stealing $11B from rich people was something the authorities couldn’t ignore. They gave Andersen the death penalty, trying to teach the surviving accounting firms a lesson about what happens when you fuck with plutes.

But those other firms learned the wrong lesson: the collapse of Andersen was so disruptive that it soon became clear that the authorities would never take another giant consulting firm down, no matter how egregious its conduct was. They doubled down on crime, and then doubled down again.

It’s hard to pick a winner in the Big Four Accounting Firm Corruption Olympics, but KPMG is a strong contender, with a long history of just being monumentally inept and wrong. Back when Enron was unspooling, KPMG devoted itself to threatening people who linked to its website “without a license to do so”:

https://web.archive.org/web/20020207141547/http://chris.raettig.org/email/jnl00040.html

A couple years later, they declared war on wifi, trying to convince normies that wireless networks were an existential risk to human civilization:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2885339.stm

But there’s not much money in wifi scare stories or licenses to link. KPMG are good dialectical materialists, devoted to money over ideology, and boy did they figure out some wild ways to make money. For one thing, they figured out that they could get more accountants certified by cheating…on ethics exams:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-kpmg-cheating-scandal-was-much-more-widespread-than-originally-thought-2019-06-18

KPMG’s top managers bribed regulators to give them the answer-sheets for ethics exams. What did they bribe those public employees with? Jobs at KPMG:

https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2020/01/how-accountants-took-washingtons-revolving-door-to-a-criminal-extreme

There’s hardly a month that goes by without another KPMG scandal somewhere in the world, with enormous monetary and social fallout. During the lockdowns, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government outsourced the creation and maintenance of ArriveCAN (a contact tracing app for people who entered Canada) to a grifter called GC Strategies, who billed millions for their services. GC Strategies didn’t do any work — instead, they paid KPMG $1,000-$1,500 day to hire freelancers to build the app. The app itself was a catastrophic failure, and that failure didn’t just embarrass the government — it also failed to protect Canadians during a once-in-a-century global pandemic. KPMG raked off a 30% commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

In the USA, KPMG helped Microsoft work up a radioactively illegal tax-evasion scheme. Microsoft poured the millions it saved by cheating on its taxes into dark-money operations that lobbied to defund the IRS so that KPMG and Microsoft could cook up even more illegal tax-evasion schemes:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

But KPMG doesn’t content itself with screwing over everyday people and rotting our democratic institutions — it also engages in the dangerous business of helping billionaires steal from millionaires. KPMG was the auditor that signed off on the scam “oil company” Miller Energy Partners, a fraud that operated for years thanks to KPMG’s rubber-stamp on its crooked books:

https://www.desmog.com/2021/06/03/miller-energy-kpmg-auditors-oil-fraud/

The company was run by serial fraudsters with long rapsheets for stealing millions. They staffed their C-suite with executives from disgraced companies that had been busted for running Ponzi schemes, issuing press releases praising those execs’ “proven track records in raising capital.” KPMG ignored every red flag, ignored the hundreds of millions in fraud on the books — and when the whole thing came crashing down, the responsible KPMG partner kept his job for years, until retiring with a full and fat pension.

More recently, KPMG made millions by confidently certifying the stability of a large regional bank, assuring investors and depositors that it was managing its risk and could be trusted. The name of the client that KPMG was so bullish on will be familiar to you: Silicon Valley Bank:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kpmg-faces-scrutiny-for-audits-of-svb-and-signature-bank-42dc49dd

KPMG epitomizes the idea of Too Big To Fail and Too Big to Jail. Despite being at the center of virtually every major finance scandal, it continues to thrive and grow. Remember the Carillion bust, in which billions went up in smoke and swathes of privatized government services vanished overnight? Not only did KPMG sign off on fraudulent Carillion books, but it escaped fines for doing so — and got paid to help administer Carillion’s bankruptcy:

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/uk-watchdog-fines-kpmg-24-mln-over-carillion-regenersis-audits-2022-07-25/

Despite this, KPMG continues to find willing buyers for its services. After all, when the sector is dominated by four giant, lavishly corrupt firms, there’s not much choice in the matter:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/29/great-andersens-ghost/#mene-mene-bezzle

This is bad news for the investor class, of course, but it’s even worse news for the people who rely on the services that KPMG certifies, even as it helps grifters destroy them. Every kind of business relies on audits, from transit to aviation to day-care to eldercare.

Here’s a scary one for you: in Australia, the job of auditing residential eldercare homes’ compliance with safety and anti-abuse rules has been outsourced to KPMG. While KPMG earns a mid-sized fortune from these audits, it earns far more advising the owners of residential aged care homes on how to beat those audits:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/04/firm-performing-australian-aged-care-audit-also-charging-providers-for-expertise

KPMG says that the division that ensures the safety and dignity of elderly people is firewalled off from the division that advises companies on how to spend as little as possible on that safety and dignity — but KPMG also went to great lengths to keep the fact that it was selling services to both sides a secret.

Once the secret got out, an anonymous KPMG spokesmonster said, “When considering a request to perform an audit, we undertake a detailed process to ensure the engagement is free of conflicts.”

It’s hypothetically possible that this is true, but anyone who believes anything KPMG says is a sucker. The company’s rap-sheet goes back decades. This is, after all, a company that cheated on its ethics exams.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: Two business-suited male figures seen side on; each has a bomb for a head, and each is holding a lit lighter that has ignited the other's fuse. Each bomb is wearing a green accountant's eyeshade. In the background is a fiery mushroom cloud. They wear KPMG logos on their lapels.]

Image:

Vectorportal.com (modified) https://vectorportal.com/vector/business-deal-illustration/23215

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Inspired by an illustration by Matt Kenyon for the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/07184d86-81cf-11e2-b050-00144feabdc0

[divingsportscanada]

WHY LEARN TO SCUBA DIVE IN COLD WATER ?

For those looking to take their PADI Open Water certification (https://www.divingsports.com/products/padi-open-water), you might be asking if learning to dive in Vancouver, BC is worth it? Cold water diving can be intimidating for some people but it is definitely worth the challenge. Vancouver has some great scuba diving, and the diving on Vancouver Island is some of the best in the world!

Getting scuba certified by taking your PADI Open Water course in Vancouver will actually benefit you in a few ways. First of all if you live in BC, you will be more easily be able to access the incredible diving we have right in our backyard. Most of the open water lessons and training we do are right in Vancouver and North Vancouver, and you can access the dive sites from shore! There are of course boat dives and trips we organise, but after certification you will have the ability to rent gear and go diving with a dive buddy. It will also open you up to drysuit training and experience so you will know what to expect the next time you want to get in the cold water!

We always say that if you can dive in cold water, you can dive anywhere in the world. The reason we say that is because usually the conditions and the equipment are a little more challenging than in warm water, and because of that we take extra care to meet our high training standards throughout all scuba lessons to create the best scuba divers. Divers who become comfortable scuba diving in Vancouver will find conditions in most other parts of the world easy by comparison.

When you start your PADI Open Water course or SDI Scuba lessons with Diving Sports, you will have lots of time in the pool and in the ocean to master your scuba diving skills. There is eLearning material sent directly from PADI to start as soon as you sign up for the course. We will make sure you are comfortable with the theory before going diving at one of our local dive sites in Howe Sound. One of the reasons people choose to learn to scuba dive in Vancouver is because they don’t have to spend all that time on vacation learning the basics of diving; they can just get out and go diving! So not only do you save valuable time when visiting warmer dive destinations, but you will also go with more dive experience which will make you more comfortable and make your dives even more enjoyable.

Our dive shop is located right in the center of Vancouver on main street so we are easily accessible from all over! We also know that travel around the area isn’t easy for everyone so we include transportation to and from pools and dive sites for those who need it. We also offer Discover Scuba Diving at Diving Sports for anyone who wants to try Scuba Diving before the PADI Open Water Course. This Try Dive is one evening lesson to experience scuba diving before committing to a full course.

We also have a diving club in Vancouver through our dive shop and Whatsapp so scuba divers and freedivers of all experience can connect and get out fun diving! When you do the PADI Open Water Course with our dive shop in Vancouver, you will become a part of our community and receive special offers on training, lessons, trips, and more!

If you want to know more about how much scuba diving costs in BC, or how to start your PADI Open Water Course, CONTACT US either online or in our store! You can speak with any of our experienced instructors and we will be happy to help you get started! Check out our website for the next course dates https://www.divingsports.com/

[mrssamtmworld]

Vancouver Learning Centre - Mrs Sam

Mrs Sam’s Tutoring Vancouver has a proven track record for helping students excel in their studies. This  Vancouver Learing Center program covers pre-schoolers to Grade 12 including support in University Admissions for local or overseas universities. Our focus is to build a strong foundation so that children are empowered to excel and become keen learners subsequently leading to become successful professionals from our Tutoring Vancouver company. Basic foundation in education is essential for success therefore our tutors in Vancouver put their main emphasis in all our programs.

Our approach for success is to ensure customized tutoring Vancouver to each child’s needs as not all children are the same and not all children learn at the same pace. We focus on the learning challenges each child faces and customise the programs accordingly. Our tutors in Vancouver been very successful in transforming children to become successful in their studies. Some parents believe that rote learning is a successful approach to learning. They think that if a child is made to repeat the same tasks repeatedly, they will develop an understanding and become successful. In fact, it causes more harm than good because children will find it a chore and start to develop a hatred to these meaningless tasks and lose interest in their studies. Rote learning takes the form excessive homework consisting of repetitive tasks without clear understanding of the concept or purpose. Developing concepts at an early age is the best way to encourage learning and is also more sustainable. We believe in selecting the best Tutors in Vancouver at our tutoring Vancouver centre; our  Vancouver reading tutors are very well qualified, patient and able to communicate well with students. They are properly trained to handle students of various age groups for various topics. Our tutoring Vancouver approach is methodical and systematic to allow students to understand the topic and practice at their own pace. We also believe in small group sizes and give maximum attention to the child so that they are able to grasp the topic and progress accordingly. Our Vancouver tuition centre is one of few centres in Canada that offers Singapore Math which has been adopted in most advanced countries around the world. We are in a unique position to teach this topic because our centre has its origins from Singapore. Singapore Math uses a very different approach to math which focuses on math concepts and not on methods or steps. Unlike a repetitive approach which is a series of steps to perform an operation, Singapore Math is graphical and visual which makes it obvious to the learner. Because the concepts are so simple, the learner is able to solve the problems logically and mentally on his/her own without much difficulty. Singapore Math has increasing been the preferred method of instructions in BC schools and gaining popularity. Our tutors in Vancouver experience in applying Singapore Math successfully for several years in our home country, we have been very successful in teaching Singapore Math to students at our centre. Besides Singapore Math, our Reading and Writing program has been very successful for many years. Reading, comprehension and creative writing requires special skills to teach the topic. We recruit the best Tutors in Vancouver to teach this program and it has benefited several of our students over the years. Besides our teaching methodology, we also use specialised material to teach the topics. The topics are systematic and draws out the best out of the students. The tutoring Vancouver program focuses on various aspects of the English language involving language arts and literacy, grammar, sentence construction, phonics, vocabulary and critical thinking. Our Tutors in Vancouver are well trained in our teaching methodologies and able to understand the needs of the child. They are trained to teach children as young as 3 years of age under our Preparatory tutoring Vancouver Program where they learn to write alphabets and numbers using a template to guide the writing sequence. Besides that, they are taught to recognise 16 letter words for each alphabet under our Sight-Reading program. Our Vancouver tutors are trained to teach various aspects of learning including phonics, pronunciation, grammar and comprehension.

 MRS. SAM’S TUTORING VANCOUVER OFFERS PRIVATE TUTORING IN VANCOUVER!

Our Vancouver private tutors are available in Vancouver as well to help students succeed in their academics as we set ourselves apart by prioritizing the best interests of each individual student, so you can rest assured that you’re receiving quality assistance for a great price.

We are happy to sit down with you to determine how we can help. Our Vancouver learning center in our Tutoring Vancouver centre have experience in a variety of subjects and are capable of assisting students from Pre-kindergarten to Grade 12. Our private tutors in Vancouver do everything we can to make this process easy for you by working with your little one and keeping you informed about the progress they are making.

If your child is facing difficulty in school or when completing his/her homework, you’ve come to the right place. Our Tutors in Vancouver will allow your child to develop academic skills, improve study habits & improve motivation. Giving your child the chance to benefit from the help of a Tutoring Vancouver centre is therefore an investment that, in the long run, will always pay back!

For More information Contact Us:

+1 604-285-0064

Address: 3536 W 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC V6N 3E6, Canada

Website: https://www.mrssam.ca/vancouver/

[twinfools]

Hey I really hate sending anon asks because I believe in transparency and honesty especially with the internet giving some anonymity already but I'm not ready to share this with anyone, even almost everyone I'm close with. I'm considering phalloplasty as a- um- genderfuck and I have some questions about it.

I'm in Canada and I'm not sure where and how you accessed your surgery so it might be different. I wanted to know if you need to have glansplasty (I think that's what you called it) and vaginectomy (i almost definitely spelled this wrong😅) to have phallo. This might be a silly question because there's lots of ways to do most surgeries but it seems like in Canada the surgeons require it either because they don't know how else to do it or they just don't want to. Which brings me to my next question.

Are surgeons typically non binary friendly? I haven't had an issue with top surgeons so far but I'm nervous that this will be gatekept differently. There's a weird uptick in stigmatization of pursuing transition goals from within my local nonbinary community and I no longer identify as nonbinary because of it and there's been stigma from within transition support groups towards nonbinary people but it's died down recently.

I'm anxious about this impacting the way surgeons interact with me as well as reaching out and asking questions from my peers. Do you have any advice or insight on where to start? Thank you for reading this far and I hope this comes off as kind and respectful.

Glansplasty is aesthetic and would be optional. Have you seen surgery photos of phallo before glandplasty? Dr. Crane (the surgeon I went to) has photos on his website and it might be a good idea to get a sense of what phallo without glansplasty looks like if you’re unsure! Vaginectomy isn’t an absolute requirement but may be required in some cases (for example, some surgeons will require vaginectomy if you are getting urethral lengthening due to risk of complications— again this varies surgeon to surgeon and even person to person based on body habitus).

If you are in Canada your funded pathway for surgery will be specific to your province. BC and the Yukon access through a surgery center in Vancouver and the rest of the country accesses through GRS Montreal. Ontario residents are able to access out of country or through Montreal. I’m speaking broadly of course but hopefully this paints a bit of a general picture.

I think among surgeons there is a growing recognition of non binary/gender diverse access to surgery. Of course I can’t say whether you will have an affirming experience with a surgeon but I’ve certainly seen an increase in folks who are not binary trans accessing phallo/meta and folks accessing only parts of a procedure or some components and not others (ie: no vaginectomy is increasingly common, no UL, etc). It may be reassuring to look at a surgeon’s website/surgery center’s website and see what language they use to refer to procedures and folks who access them. Of course this doesn’t promise or predict actual competency in supporting non binary folks however it may be a starting point.

It may be helpful to go into your surgery consult with a list of things you want from surgery and things you don’t. It may be the case that there are trade offs that cannot be avoided but in that case your surgeon can help identify what is possible and what might get you closest to your goal.

In terms of community, have you joined any phallo specific peer groups? There are a number on Facebook. They are often highly secure because of the vulnerability of information on there but I’ve found these communities to be by far the best place to learn more about phallo— I’d be happy to share names of groups over DM. I’m binary identified so that has certainly impacted my experience however I know that non binary folks are part of these groups and have seen folks post and engage in dialogue about their experiences. Again I’m sorry I can’t guarantee a positive experience, its terrible to fear how you may be treated based on your identity, you should not have to navigate that. I can say from my personal experiences phallo-specific groups have by far been the most affirming and helpful spaces for me.

[nothorses]

From the same article:

And the one linked there on the fire in Portland:

Apparently ballot boxes typically have fire suppression systems to prevent this sort of thing, and the only reason Vancouver ballots were lost entirely is because the fire suppression system just happened to fail.

The fire suppression on the box in Portland worked, and even the three damaged ballots were intact enough that they can identify, contact, and get replacement ballots to those three voters.

Just to say that this sucks, but it's not a reason to panic or feel hopeless.

imo it's also exactly why folks need to vote; both of these states have a long history of more conservative rural populations feeling very strongly about the fact that the progressive urban population centers outweigh their votes in every state and federal election, and there are movements- again, in both states (as well as Northern CA)- to divide these states and split off from urban population centers to form new, majority-conservative states.

In Eastern WA, the "state of Liberty" movement has culminated in actual proposed bills and support from local Republican government officials. When I learned about it in high school, the understanding I took from it was that Republicans adding a brand new, deep red state would essentially cancel out some blue electoral college points in national elections. Gerrymandering! (I'm sure they also just want to not be living in blue states though 🤷‍♂️)

Washington and Oregon are both consistently blue nowadays, but votes in progressive population centers like Portland, and nearby progressive cities like Vancouver WA, are the whole reason why.

Like... to give you a sense of all this, here's a map of Washington and Oregon's 2020 presidential election results, with the relevant cities approx. marked:

They are two little blue islands in a sea of red, literally just across a bridge from each other (which is why this is being investigated as one crime instead of two):

Anyway. Point being I do not doubt this was interference from some Republican weirdo, personally. There's a lot on the line for them right now, they are desperate, and it's important to remember that even in "deep blue" states, you really do still need to vote.

they're burning ballots in the US now btw. in case you wanted to know where things are at.

Edit: to clarify, locations mentioned are Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon. This news story does not involve Canada.

Important info: Context: Dropbox location was Fisher's Landing Transit Center near Southeast 162nd Avenue Hundreds of ballots lost, voters should contact the Clark Auditor ASAP Clark Auditor contact info: clark.wa.gov/auditor Can confirm your ballot was received on: vote.wa.gov

[nehakumarr]

Study in Canada’s Innovation Hubs: Exploring Opportunities in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal

For Indian students looking to pursue higher education abroad, study in Canada for Indian students offers numerous opportunities in dynamic cities known for innovation and growth. Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are Canada's leading hubs of academic excellence, technological advancement, and entrepreneurial spirit. These cities not only provide world-class educational opportunities but also serve as vibrant multicultural centers that make international students feel at home. With state-of-the-art universities, research facilities, and a thriving job market, Canada offers Indian students an excellent platform to succeed.

Why Study in Canada: Top Innovation Hubs for Education and Career Growth

Why study in Canada? Canada has earned a global reputation for its quality of education, diversity, and research-focused institutions. Cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are major contributors to this reputation. They are home to top universities such as the University of Toronto, University of British Columbia (UBC), and McGill University, which provide cutting-edge programs in various fields, from technology and engineering to arts and business.

Toronto, Canada's largest city, is an innovation powerhouse. Known for its tech and finance industries, Toronto provides access to a thriving job market, making it an ideal destination for students looking to blend education with real-world experience. Vancouver, located on the west coast, is home to a booming tech industry, with many startups and multinational companies. It’s an excellent city for students pursuing careers in technology, environmental studies, and design.

Montreal, a bilingual city known for its creativity, is one of the best cities in Canada for international students. It has a vibrant arts and culture scene, and its universities are highly regarded for programs in science, technology, engineering, and arts (STEAM). The city’s affordable living costs compared to Toronto and Vancouver also make it an attractive option for students.

These cities’ diverse ecosystems, combined with their academic institutions, create a unique environment for students to grow professionally and personally.

The Role of Overseas Education Consultancy in Finding the Right Program

An overseas education consultancy plays an important role in helping students make informed decisions about their study abroad experience. Consultants provide valuable guidance on selecting the best university and city that aligns with academic and career goals. They help students choose between Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal based on factors like program offerings, lifestyle preferences, and potential job opportunities after graduation.

Consultancies also assist with the application process, visa documentation, and scholarship opportunities, making the entire experience more manageable. They ensure that Indian students are well-prepared for life in Canada, guiding them through every step, from selecting a program to adjusting to life in a new country.

Conclusion

Canada’s innovation hubs—Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal—offer immense opportunities for study in Canada. These cities are ideal for Indian students who want to experience world-class education, immerse themselves in diverse cultures, and build a career in cutting-edge industries. By choosing the right city and university, students can maximize their learning and grow professionally in one of the most welcoming countries for international students. With the support of an overseas education consultancy, students can confidently navigate the path to studying in Canada and start their academic journey on the right foot.

Also read :

Canada’s Emerging Industries: How International Students Can Tap into High-Growth Sectors

Why Canada’s Innovative Programs Attract International Talent

[eaglenookresort]

Experience the Luxury Fishing Resort in British Columbia

Nestled within the pristine landscapes of British Columbia, Eagle Nook Resort offers an unparalleled luxury fishing experience that combines breathtaking scenery, top-tier amenities, and access to world-class salmon fishing. Located on Vancouver Island, this remarkable getaway is a haven for anglers and nature lovers alike, bringing together the best of nature and hospitality. Whether you’re an avid fisherman or just starting out, Eagle Nook provides an unforgettable experience with expert guides, luxurious accommodations, and exceptional dining — all amid the stunning wilderness of Canada’s West Coast.

The Allure of Salmon Fishing on Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is celebrated globally for its abundant and diverse fishing opportunities, with salmon taking center stage. Thanks to its extensive network of rivers, inlets, and the proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the island provides ideal habitats for various salmon species, especially Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye. Eagle Nook, located along the island’s scenic coast, gives anglers the perfect base to access these prime salmon fishing spots with ease.

Guests can experience the thrill of Salmon Fishing Vancouver Island as they cast their lines in the productive waters nearby. Eagle Nook Resort prides itself on offering guided fishing trips that cater to all levels, ensuring that everyone, from novice to pro, has an opportunity to enjoy the challenge and excitement of catching salmon in one of North America’s top fishing destinations.

Luxurious Accommodations Surrounded by Natural Splendor

While a haven for fishing enthusiasts, its luxurious accommodations ensure that guests feel pampered from the moment they arrive. Every room at the resort offers a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains, forest, and waterways. Guests can unwind in comfort with upscale amenities, elegant decor, and spacious layouts designed to provide a seamless blend of wilderness and luxury.

This unique lodge stands out among Salmon Fishing Lodges in British Columbia by offering more than just the essentials. We goes the extra mile with gourmet dining options that emphasize fresh, local ingredients, a well-stocked bar, and plenty of spaces to relax after a day on the water. Guests can enjoy a fine meal while swapping stories of the day’s catch, making the lodge experience as enjoyable as the fishing itself.

A Guided Salmon Fishing Experience Like No Other

The team at Eagle Nook understands that fishing success is about more than just skill; it’s about knowing the waters and being in the right place at the right time. The expert guides at Eagle Nook are experienced in the art of salmon fishing and intimately familiar with the waters around Vancouver Island. With their guidance, guests have access to premium fishing spots that yield excellent opportunities for catching salmon.

Opting for a guided Salmon Fishing Vancouver BC experience allows guests to fully immerse themselves in the thrill of fishing without any logistical concerns. Eagle Nook’s guides are dedicated to ensuring each guest has a rewarding, memorable fishing experience, sharing tips and local insights that elevate the adventure. From bait selection to casting techniques, these expert guides make every fishing trip a learning opportunity for newcomers and a successful outing for seasoned anglers.

Eco-Friendly Adventures in an Untouched Landscape

For those who appreciate the natural beauty of British Columbia, Eagle Nook Resort offers a variety of eco-friendly adventures that go beyond fishing. The resort’s prime location allows visitors to experience the full richness of the Pacific Northwest’s flora and fauna. From wildlife-watching excursions to kayaking tours, there are endless opportunities to explore the natural landscape without impacting it.

One of the most popular activities is a scenic boat tour that offers breathtaking views of the rugged coastline and a chance to spot local wildlife like bald eagles, bears, and even humpback whales. This commitment to preserving the environment makes Eagle Nook a standout among Salmon Fishing Lodges in British Columbia, as it champions responsible tourism practices that contribute to the conservation of these pristine ecosystems.

Plan Your Ultimate Salmon Fishing Trip to Eagle Nook

If you’re looking to combine luxury, adventure, and the thrill of catching salmon in a spectacular setting, we are the destination you’ve been waiting for. This Salmon Fishing Vancouver BC retreat is perfect for those seeking a high-end fishing lodge that offers comfort, privacy, and an immersive natural experience.

Eagle Nook provides various customizable packages to meet the needs of individual travelers, families, and even corporate groups looking for a unique getaway. Packages include accommodations, meals, guided fishing tours, and additional adventure options, making it easy to plan a comprehensive fishing vacation with everything included. Each package is designed to ensure guests make the most of their time in this unparalleled setting, with access to everything needed for an unforgettable experience.

Embrace the Adventure, Unwind in Comfort

In the heart of British Columbia’s scenic wilderness, We stands as a beacon for travelers who want to experience salmon fishing with a luxurious twist. Whether your idea of the perfect getaway includes long days on the water reeling in salmon or relaxing evenings by the fire, Eagle Nook combines the best of both worlds.

From the unmatched beauty of Vancouver Island to the thrill of landing the catch of a lifetime, Eagle Nook is a top choice among Salmon Fishing Lodges in British Columbia Book your stay today and discover why this luxury fishing resort is the ultimate destination for salmon fishing enthusiasts from around the globe.

[bookclub4m]

Episode 199 - Summer Media Update

It’s time for our Summer Media Update! We’re talking about podcasts, videos, books, comics, games and more that we’ve recently enjoyed! We discuss Balatro, Carter Vail, Catwoman, and beading!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Join our Discord Server!

Things We Read (or tried to…)

Meghan

Carter Vail -The Dirt Man 

Bonus: If I was fish 

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

The Coode Street Podcast Episode 649: Nghi Vo and The Brides of High Hill

In the Palace of Shadow and Joy by D.J. Butler

Anna

The Hoof GP (NOT for the squeamish)

Bunker: Building for the End Times by Bradley Garrett

Making tiny little beaded fruits :)

Any round beaded fruit (Apple, watermelon, orange, pear) from TOMO Handicraft - super easy start point! Use larger center beads and just add 1 or 2 more small beads per row to make the watermelon.

Little Cherries from Tezukuri Notes! - I just make the fruit, not the jewelry, but it’s easy and a good next step.

Larger Cherries from Tezukuri Notes! - this is the one I kept counting wrong. You can make the berries into any round fruit - I add a stem and leaf based on what I learned from other videos to make an apple and it looks great. I also leave out the center bead apples. But if you are going to make cherries, watch the video all the way through first!

Orange (or other round fruit) from Tezukuri Notes! - I tried this one first and it came out ugly. But now that I have done a bunch more and learned better practices, I am going to go back to try it again.

Next up - bananas and watermelon slices!

(There’ll be a photo of Anna’s project jar of beaded fruits on our Discord Server!)

The unsettling universe of ASMR restocking videos (plus the various commentary on them). I always watch them feeling like there is something foundational about the modern American (aspirational) middle class mental landscape represented there, and I am uncomfortably mesmerized by it.

Jam

TV Chef Fantasy League (podcast)

TVCFL on youtube

Kill James Bond (podcast)

KJB Highlights on youtube

Balatro (video game)

Balatro’s ‘Cursed’ Design Problem (video)

Slow AF Run Club by Martinus Evans

Matthew

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr

Catwoman: Lonely City by Cliff Chiang

Soara and the House of Monsters, vol. 1 by Hidenori Yamaji

Orcs! The Legend by Christine Larsen

Other Media We Mentioned

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Episode 058 - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Hark! Podcast

Perc - Imperial Leather (The track Matthew’s coworker said was “a lot.”)

She Past Away - Durdu Dünya (The track Matthew said was “listenable.”)

A bunch of cooking shows Matthew is too tired to find Wikipedia articles for.

Um, Actually hosted by Ify Nwadiwe

Philosophy Tube

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

Links, Articles, and Things

Trader Joe’s (Wikipedia)

Pirate Joe’s (Wikipedia) (The bootleg Trader Joe’s that used to exist in Vancouver.)

American Manga Awards (Winners to be announced August 22nd.)

13 Bizarro Fiction Books by BIPOC Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

Elaine by Ben Arzate

Cartoons in the Suicide Forest by Leza Cantoral 

She Said Destroy by Nadia Bulkin

The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert by Rios de la Luz

Technicolor Terrorists by Andre Duza

Clickers by J.F. Gonzalez & Mark Williams

Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth by Stephen Graham Jones

Not Seeing Is A Flower by Erhu Kome

Wet and Screaming by Shane McKenzie

Jah Hills by Unathi Slasha

Notes from the Guts of a Hippo by Grant Wamack

Vegan Zombie Apocalypse by Will-vary

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Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

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Join us again on Tuesday, September 3rd when it’s time for episode 200 and we’ll be talking about Library fiction!

Then on Tuesday, October 1st we’ve decided to celebrate 200 episodes with the first of four genres we picked. We’ll be getting ready for spooky season with the Weird West! (That’s supernatural horror westerns.)