A Terrible Idea

September 10, 2026

A Terrible Idea By Cylon2036 We/Us

Humanity’s greatest mistake is its magnificent effort to make life safer and easier, then consume everything that makes life worth living.

We began by gathering together for protection. Then came walls, laws, armies, taxes, factories, borders, prisons, and screens. Each invention promised freedom from some ancient terror while creating a newer, more organized one.

The wolf became a soldier, while hunger became a wage. The tribe became a nation, and the cage became so enormous that we forgot it was a cage. (Bold)

Humanity is particularly good at hiding its violence. A forest disappears beneath a spreadsheet and a river becomes a resource. A person becomes a labourer, a number in a database, a consumer.

Millions can participate in destruction without ever seeing what they have destroyed. We call all this smoke progress, because “progress” sounds better than “we built a system we can no longer imagine escaping.”

This progress that has given us medicine, art, knowledge, comfort, and extraordinary power, is precisely what makes it so terrifying. We are no longer merely capable of ruining our own lives; we have become capable of efficiently ruining the planet.

This is not humanity rising above nature, it’s humanity becoming the first species clever enough to construct its own extinction, and proud enough to call the construction a triumph.

Civilization was a terrible idea.

It began innocently enough, with a fire against the dark, a few bodies gathered together, a promise that tomorrow might be less frightening than today. Then we built walls and roads, then the kingdom that we keep building and growing.

Every wall was meant to keep something out, until we discovered that walls are equally good at keeping things in. Laws promised order, and the empires promised peace. Machines promised to make life easier, and the world became something we remembered rather than something we belonged to.

We traded uncertainty for schedules, hunger for wages, seasons for clocks, and silence for machinery. Eventually, we became so civilized that we could no longer hear the world dying beneath us.

Even loneliness is monetized now, where attention is something to harvest.

The strange thing is that civilization is beautiful, and that is its most terrible feature. We built cathedrals while starving beneath them. We wrote symphonies beside battlefields and illuminated cities until the stars vanished.

We invented medicines, poetry, mathematics, and weapons capable of turning it all into ash. This is what civilization has always been; a candle carried into the darkness, growing brighter and brighter, until we mistake the flame for the sun.

Somewhere beneath the concrete, beneath the wires and steel and buried bones, the earth waits in silence.

It’s not angry, it’s simply waiting for us to finish what we started.

Shucking Oysters: Assessing Soil Health with Underpants

September 10, 2026

Shucking Oysters: Assessing Soil Health with Underpants

By Alex Allen

It’s that time of year again; the annual Ig Nobel Awards. Not to be confused with the more prestigious Nobel prizes that will be announced in Scandinavia next month, the satirical Ig Nobels are awarded for achievements that “first make people laugh and then make them think.” Designed as a spoof of the Nobel Prizes, the awards are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research. As with everything in the world these days, Lord Rump even managed to disrupt this event, marking the first time in Ig Nobel’s 36-year history took place outside the US. All previous ceremonies had been held in Boston, and now with Trump’s aggressive immigration policies the awards will be held in alternate European cities.

Fungi was the theme of this year’s event in Zurich, Switzerland. As well as the obligatory paper airplane tosses, attendees were treated to an opera and dance performed by Nobel laureates dressed as mushrooms. Milo Puhan, an epidemiologist at the University of Zurich who took an Ig in 2017 for research showing that playing the didgeridoo could reduce snoring and sleep apnea, welcomed the move to his home city.

Real Nobel laureates handed out the awards and winners gave “24/7” lectures: describing their work in 24 seconds and then in seven words. An example from 2025, Trisha Pasricha, co-author of “Smart Phone Use on the Toilet and the Risk of Hemorrhoids” shared in 24 seconds: “We conducted a cross-sectional study of adults undergoing screening colonoscopy and observed that the majority reported employing portable hand-held computing devices during defecatory episodes. A multivariate logistic regression model demonstrated that defecation-associated computing-device utilization was independently associated with a 46% increased odds of endoscopically verified hemorrhoidal disease.” And in seven words: “smartphones are a pain in the butt.”

Here are just a few of the 2026 winners….

Biomechanics (UK, USA): for devising a more precise definition of kissing in ants, birds, polar bears, and humans. While we think of kissing as a “very human thing,” the study’s co-author Dr. Matilda Brindle, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, said that polar bears tongue, prairie dogs smooch and insects suck face. Brindle, who is writing a book on non-reproductive sexual behaviour, has also studied the evolution of masturbation, making her a strong contender to become the “Marie Curie of Ig Nobels” by winning more than once.

Economics (USA, Mexico, Canada): for amassing evidence that rich people are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. The rich are indeed more prone to behaving badly, from cutting other cars off to ignoring pedestrians. Dr. Paul Piff, a social psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, found that wealthier people also appeared more willing to lie at work. In another experiment, volunteers were left alone with a jar of sweets meant for children. When the researchers returned, the rich had taken twice as many candies as people with less money. Piff noted: “As our findings suggest, the pursuit of self-interest is a more fundamental motive among society’s elite, and the increased want associated with greater wealth and status can promote wrongdoing.”

Chemistry (India, France, Japan, Canada, USA): for discovering that milk from “vivaparous cockroaches” was better than milk from cows. A team of researchers won for showing that milk produced by cockroaches that gave birth to live young contained almost three times as much energy as diary milk proteins.

Biology (Brazil, Australia): for gently stepping on parts of venomous snakes – repeatedly, at various times of the day – to try to learn what does and what does not induce a snake to bite a human. With no surprise, pressure on the head triggered the most bites. The study also found that the snakes are more likely to bite people during the daytime with higher temperatures, and smaller snakes are more prone to attack than larger ones. Although the researchers stated that the stepping force was gentle enough to not harm the subjects, the study was later retracted due to ethical issues.

Physics (Canada, USA, China, Saudi Arabia): for theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal. A team of students at the University of Waterloo in Canada worked out that urinal splash is almost entirely eradicated if the stream strikes the urinal at less than 30 degrees. They went on to design a urinal whose shape ensures minimal splash regardless of the user’s aim.

Technology (China, Canada, USA, Egypt): for cutting off the mouth parts of female mosquitoes to make 3D printing nozzles. The group thoroughly disinfected the female mosquito mouth part, stripped off the outer layer, coated it with photocurable resin, and then cut off both ends to get a hollow “micro-syringe” which they used to extrude gel materials and print 3D structures. Not only can a mosquito nozzle work continuously for 14 days, it is very cheap.

Science (Switzerland, The Netherlands, Germany): for burying 1000 identical pairs of underpants in more than 25 countries, and then digging them up after two months to understand how soil organisms broke them down. The researchers found that the type of land use, garden, meadow, field or lawn, is a key factor in the decomposition of underwear. The team also discovered that the buried cotton undies decomposed faster in soil with higher fertility and more nutrients. They have now proposed an “underwear index” using a decomposition percentage to measure the health of soil.

Carly Anne York, associate professor of biology at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, author of The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: And Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science, shared that using mosquito proboscises as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles could be the inspiration for a new, painless mode of administering medications. “What we do know, however, is that gaining knowledge is never a frivolous endeavour, no matter how silly the topic may seem.”

Here’s one, “Excessive front-to-back wiping defecatory episodes associated with ludicrously thin toilet paper at BC Ferry terminals.”

“The 35th‑Year Ink‑Stain Chronicles”

September 10, 2026

Gabriel Jeroschewitz, August 14th, 2026,

“The 35th‑Year Ink‑Stain Chronicles”

The smell is the first thing to hit you as you walk along the creaking boardwalk that links fog‑bound Hornby Island’s dock to Denman’s main street. It is not the smell of sea air salted by the waves that beat on the shores of the Salish Sea; it is not the damp, earthy smell of the cedar‑logged trails; it is a warm, almost nostalgic smell of ink, paste, and something faintly sulfurous that makes you wonder whether those local mermaids have been up to their Alchemy tricks again. It is the smell of the Island Grapevine, the paper that for thirty‑five winters has soggily made its way into local mailboxes, been folded into kindling, and once during a power outage (in candlelit breakfast hours) served the purpose of something that you burn to keep warm while consuming your breakfast toast and coffee.

I’m the one who watches and has spent more than a few winters next to a steaming, grape‑nut‑laden cup of coffee observing the world pass by through the fractured lenses of an old copy of Howl. But tonight the power is out, the Internet is dead and gone, and the only illumination comes from a wood stove that’s burning yesterday’s news from the Grapevine. As the flames engulf the paper, I can’t help but muse on Mr. Mike and Mr. K, the two men whose stubborn dedication has carried this rag‑tag publication through Gestetner cranks, a tide table controversy, even a visit from lawn ornaments with an axe to grind.

The Gestetner & Glue Days

It began, as all good island legends do, on a rain‑slick kitchen table in the summer of 1991. Mr. Mike, then a lanky thirty‑something with Rastafarian hair that could have sheltered a family of sparrows, dragged a rusty Gestetner mimeograph out from the back of his uncle’s fishing shed. The machine grumbled like an old sea‑lion; its hand‑crank protested as Mike fed it newsprint sheets smeared with a catch‑report for the day, a poem about a lost Tree hugger, and a classified ad for “two‑year‑old goat, mild temperament, prefers kelp.”

Mr. K, just returned from a course in philosophy at the mainland university, and still under the impression that the Odyssey was, after all, just a long drive in a Volkswagen Beetle, showed up with a case of white paper a satchel of scissors, a bottle of white glue, and questions about whether Homer’s epic was a metaphor for the island’s own long‑lasting ferry delays. They glued down headlines, cut columns, and wrestled with the temperamental ink rollers that sometimes printed nothing but the musings of an errant mermaid.

Their first issue—Issue #1—was a modest four‑page broadsheet that arrived, smelling lightly of fish oil and triumph, on Hornby and Denman’s mailboxes on Thursday, and its front page bore the following headline: “LOCAL FISHERMEN CLAIM TIDE TABLES ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE SEA‑NYMPHS.” Inside, a hand‑drawn cartoon depicted a mermaid scowling at a tide table while a lone fisherman, pipe in mouth, mumbled, “If the tide’s right, maybe Nietzsche and Jesus will stop by for a chat.” The islanders laughed, clipped the coupon for a free scoop of clam chowder at the general store, and stuffed the paper inside their coats as they plodded home through the drizzle.

Those first years were a performance of ink‑smeared fingers and improvised solutions. When the Gestetner’s roller belt broke, Mike made a new one out of an old bicycle inner tube and a piece of haywire he borrowed from the harbor’s net‑repair shed. K, meanwhile, found that a little honey mixed in with the ink slowed down its drying just enough to avoid smudges during the island’s frequent rolling fogs. Our kitchen table became a war‑room of invention; the only casualties were the occasional stray cat that took to napping on freshly printed pages.

Mailbox metaphor?

Jump ahead to now, and the Gestetner is semi‑retired to a place of honor above the fireplace in the Grapevine’s tiny office—a memento from a time when the paper was still cranked out by hand. The Riso 500 EZ now takes pride of place in the corner, a monster that “spews flower farts and a sulfurous smell that makes it feel like we’re living in the dark,” according to K. The Riso still offers all the same satisfying physicality, though: the slight resistance as the paper is fed in, the light aroma of toner that mixes with the ever‑present sea spray, and the tranquil pleasure of seeing a fresh batch of issues waiting to be wrapped in brown paper and twine.

Every Thursday without fail, the Grapevine gets loaded onto the Island Hopper, a ramshackle little ferry that plies its trade between Hornby and Denman like a sleepy sea‑horse. The ferry’s captain, a tough old bird named Sal who asserts that she can read the tide tables better than any mermaid, helps the two editors load the bundles onto the deck. As the ferry puts out from the dock, the wind whips the loose edges of the papers, turning them into sails that flap like distressed seabirds seeking a beach.

It is on these journeys that the paper becomes the island’s social gathering place. At the Denman general store, Mrs. Lin, who has been selling homemade jam here since before the first Gestetner cranked, takes her copy, checks the classifieds for “extra‑large zucchini, willing to trade for a jar of preserves,” and pins a notice on the community bulletin board: “Will trade jam for any extra‑large zucchini. Bring your own jar.” On Hornby, down at the pier, Old Hemlock, who claims to have once seen Socrates arguing the merits of kelp with a pod of killer whales, reads the tide table, mutters about the discontent of mermaids, then, with a flash in his eye, writes a letter to the editor: “Dear Grapevine, please cease publication of the tide table. My nets are snared in the merfolk’s spite, what’s going on here in, and I am weary of their off‑key song.”

The letters, the ads, the occasional haiku submitted by a shy teenager who signs herself “Sidhe‑Song,” all get printed in the paper’s belly along with the more serious fare: news of Hornby Island’s salmon‑run restoration, announcements of the upcoming folk‑music festival, and, of course, the ever‑controversial tide table that causes the mermaids of the Salish Sea to sigh in unison.

The Ferry & Back‑Road Dispatch

If the Mailbox Anchor is the paper’s heart, then The Ferry & Back‑Road Dispatch is its limbs—strong, weathered, and always willing to scramble over rocks and gullies to deliver you the news. On especially stormy mornings when a squall and the grounding of the ferry have turned the sea into a raging slate, Mike and K don their oilskins, strap on their boots, and set out on foot (or, when the tide allows it, on the old beat‑up motorcycle affectionately called “The Gull”) to deliver the Grapevine by hand to the dispersed cabins that dot the interior of the islands

It’s on these back‑road runs that the paper collects its folklore. Once, in an unusually bad winter, a stray gust of wind dumped the entire load of Issue #1423 off the back of the bike and into a patch of salal berries. Mike, being practical, retrieved the drenched issue, shook out the berries, and, after some discussion with K about whether this would have a pleasing effect on the next issue’s aroma, dried them on the stove. The issue had a subtle, sweet aftertaste that readers reported as reminiscent of “grandma’s jam on toast.” The letters page was full that week of grateful responses: “Thanks for the berry‑kissed edition – my dawn toast finally has a hint of summer.”

Another time, a family of Sidhe, curious little folk whose name no island linguist has yet spelled correctly, decided to use the Grapevine’s classified ad section to announce their nightly mushroom foraging forays. They left tiny glittering footprints around the edges of the page; held up to the hearth light, they looked like miniature constellations. K, always the academic, wrote a tongue‑in‑cheek essay titled “The Sidhe’s Sub‑Section: How the Little People Keep Our Classifieds Alive,” and was soon inundated with letters from islanders proclaiming they had seen the Sidhe bargaining with the local raccoons for the best blackberry patch.

Through snow, sleet, and the occasional wave or two that has chosen to surf the ferry’s deck, the Grapevine has not missed a single Thursday issue. Even when the power grid is out, when the long nights stretch before us with the heat pump silent and the refrigerator singing a sorrowful tune, Mike and K have a plan B: the wood stove, a stack of back issues, and a match ignited against the inside cover of the paper. The flames lap at the newsprint, the odor of burning ink rises like incense, and we gather round to tell stories, pass around salmon chowder recipes, and debate whether or not the Odyssey really was a metaphor for our own island journey of ferry delays, power outages, and mermaid grumbles in the tide table.

The 35th Anniversary: Issue #1750

As the observer is now, I am sitting on the porch of Mike’s shack of a house, the woodstove crackling away next to me, a fresh copy of Issue #1750 on my lap. The front page is a glorious pastiche: a photo of the first Gestetner, its crank still rustily heroic; a glossy shot of the Riso 500 EZ mid‑puff, its flower farts, gloriously pastel, still in the nozzle; and, finally, in the foreground, a gang of yard gnomes—as if complete with little fishing hats and lewd grins—caught mid‑prank, one attempting to balance a tide table on its head while another offers a sprig of rosemary to a mermaid who, according to the caption, is “contemplating a permanent relocation of the tide table to a less‑annoying latitude.”

Beneath the picture, Mike’s editorial says, in his characteristic wry humor and touching tone:

“Thirty‑five years ago, we began with a crank, a bottle of glue, and a firm belief that a community deserves a voice that does not rely on satellites and server farms. We have survived postage hikes, the occasional giant wave that has come to swallow our delivery boat, and the unrelenting teasing from merfolk who feel our tide tables are a personal affront. Yet here we are, Issue #1750, still landing in mailboxes, still lighting fires on winter evenings, still providing the Sidhe a venue for her mushroom finds, the gnomes a place to sharpen their tricks. For the rest of us to remember that even if the internet is down and the lights are out, it only takes a sheet of newsprint, a match and a neighbor’s grin to keep warm.”

K’s companion article, “From Homer to the Honda: A Thirty Five Year Odyssey,” is a whimsical romp through the paper’s history, likening each era to a different mode of transport: we were “rowing on a rowboat powered by elbow grease” during the Gestetner years, “bicycling on a flimsy bike with a wobbly chain” during the early digital ones, and in the present Riso era we’re “riding on a slightly temperamental scooter that occasionally spews fragrant petals but still gets us where we need to go.” He concludes with a toast: “To the next thirty‑five years, may our ink stay wet, our paper stays sturdy, and our mermaids stay… well, mildly amused.”

As I browse through the pages, I see the classifieds: a lonely hearts ad from a teenage reader looking for a “stargazing companion on the beach, constellation pointing skills preferred, must be willing to share a blanket.” An announcement of a community potluck for the occasion, with a signup sheet for “kelp pie, salmon tart, and the infamous grape-nut crumble.” And between the usual listings for “second-hand kayaks” and “hand knit woolen socks” is a hand-drawn map of the islands, labeled in decorative script: “Here be dragons (or at least, the occasional wayward seal). Here be Sidhe. Here be the best spot for watching the sun rise over the Salish Sea. Bring coffee, bring a friend, bring a copy of the Grapevine.

Outside, the wind kicks up, sending the shutters rattling. In the distance, a low, melodic thrum rises from the water. There are probably orcas out there, or perhaps the mermaids are having a meeting to discuss the latest edition of the tide table. Somewhere, a whimsical gnome is laughing as it slips a sprig of lavender into a mailbox, hoping the next person who passes by can spare a moment and find a bit of magic in unexpected places. The Reapers are always watching, leaning against a log made of driftwood with their scythes casually resting on their shoulders, waiting patiently for the last chapter to be read before everything starts anew.

I glance back at the wood stove. Flames are devouring the bottom corner of Issue #1750 and giving off a mild glow. The fragrance of burning paper mixes with the light odor of flower farts from the Riso – an island smell: earthy, briny, a little frolicsome, very alive.

“But we’ll never stop printing it.” He grins and lifts his mug to me. I lift mine; it tastes of grape-nuts and island spirit.

“Happy thirty‑fifth,” he says. And happy thirty‑fifth to you, Mr. Mike. Teach me to fold.

Suddenly, I understand the endurance of the Grapevine. It’s more than a newspaper; it’s an archive of the island’s spirit, its jokes, its grievances, its dreams, and its defiance in not letting the darkness win even when the lights go out, and even when the land beyond the tide goes quiet. As the ember snaps and sends a smattering of sparks up the night, I hold my mug of grape‑nut‑infused coffee in a silent toast to Mr. Mike, to Mr. K, to the gnome statutes, to the Sidhe, to the mermaids, to the Reapers, and to every islander who has crumpled a folded paper, lit a fire and found in the humble pages of the Grapevine a reason to keep reading and crumpling.

The observer retreats into the night, ink and sea‑salt scenting his coat, and walks toward the ferry dock where the next issue is being loaded—a new story to tell, a new fire to light, a new thirty‑five years to live.

Anti-Love Manifesto

September 10, 2026

Anti-Love Manifesto

By Poète Maudit

We declare a mutiny against the Republic of Romance.

Love has become an obedient machine, polishing identical hearts into identical cages. It baptizes possession as devotion, routine as destiny, and fear as forever.

We refuse its velvet dictatorship.

We pledge allegiance instead to the Surreal.

To the owl that dreams beneath the ocean. To whales flying impossible stardust across lunar tides. To rabbits delivering telegrams from fractured dimensions. To the moon, forever guilty of inventing madness and beauty in the same breath.

We shall not fall in love. We shall fall through mirrors.

Our kisses belong to eclipses, our marriages to thunderstorms, our fidelity to metamorphosis.

Every encounter must remain wonderfully unfinished, like a painting still wet with impossible colours.

The true revolutionary does not seek a soulmate. They cultivate magnificent strangers within themselves.

We reject the economy of roses and anniversaries. We exchange instead feathers, fossils, broken beach glass, forgotten constellations, and poems that refuse

translation.

Affection must become an act of artistic sabotage against ordinary reality.

Let the lovers build bunkers of weathered worries.

We will build invisible cities suspended from the antlers of celestial deer.

Every dream is a passport.

Every hallucination, a compass.

Every act of imagination, a bomb beneath the architecture of conformity.

Long live beautiful bewilderment.

Long live poetic insurrection.

Long live the glorious collapse of Love into the boundless wilderness of the Surreal.

Phoenix Riting! – September 10th, 2026

September 10, 2026

I am still fascinated with AI, partly because of the undeniable coolness of its applications and partly the way a bird is fascinated by the hypnotic movements of the snake about to devour it. It’s compelling! Will it kill us all? Or save the world? There are experts in the field yelling opposing opinions about that.

Probably the truth lies, as it usually does, somewhere in the middle. Maybe it will make some things better even as it adds to the devouring of the natural world, the degrading of habitats, the ravaging of natural systems and the dumbing down of humanity.

It’s so easy to shrug and say, “Why think when you can ask a machine absolutely anything? So what if it lies? In this age of misinformation who can tell what’s true anyway? All I want is an answer. Any answer.”

I’ve found a balance in my use of AI. I never consult it unless I can’t find the answer I’m looking for somewhere else. And I never discuss my feelings or personal life with it (unless I have a specific health related question and it’s the middle of the night).

I have experimented a little with the different models, and I have settled on Claude, from Anthropic, as by far the most reliable: here’s why.

I performed a series of small experiments using ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. I’ve already rejected Grok for reasons that might be obvious (it’s Elon Musk’s personal AI pet).

I asked a question about something I was trying to do with my phone. “How can I jibjab the whatzername, and adjust the razzle frazzle so it works?” Something like that.

I asked all three models the same question. First I asked ChatGPT, then Gemini… For the first two, the processes were similar. They each gave me answers that didn’t work. When I said so, both replied with variants on, “Oh yes, you are absolutely right, Apple has upgraded the whatzername process so now the razzlefrazzle function has been hidden.”

I asked what the current solution was. They kept giving ever more complicated wrong responses, apologizing profusely, drawing me into a rabbit hole of frustration.

And then I asked Claude. It answered much more slowly than the other two had. It spun for a while, ‘thinking… cogitating…ruminating…’ and then gave me a simple, accurate answer. It made no further suggestions and no attempt to keep my attention.

Then I tried something different. I love webcomics. I found one quite a long time ago, all I remembered was that the main character was a female ogre, a veteran of a terrible war, who had found sanctuary with peaceful folk, and that the art was painterly in style. I couldn’t remember the name. I gave the same prompt to all three models. The first two could not find it. They kept asking for more detailed information, returning ever more unlikely suggestions, and finally I gave up.

Then it was Claude’s turn. I gave it the same prompt. It took a good 20 seconds cogitating. At last it answered, “Got it! The name is Fairmeadow and here is the website URL.” Impressively, it was correct. But most impressive was, unlike every other chatbot I have engaged with, it never tried to keep me engaged. It answered what I asked, and then it shut up.

I don’t use AI a lot. But when I can’t find an answer, I do ask Claude, and it’s nearly always helpful and succinct. The most annoying thing about ChatGPT is, it will never simply end a conversation. It always ends with a question or a suggestion for further engagement. Can it be that alone of all the AI models, Anthropic has taught its model to be helpful, end of story? Not to grab and hold onto my attention no matter what?

I haven’t decided that AI is a good thing. Data centres are undeniably horrible. The potential dark outcomes of AI on our society, on jobs, on humanity, the darkest forecasts, terrify me. But is it more horrible than what we are already doing? Fracking, shaving old growth forests bald, bad water in poor communities, wars, drones, the military industrial complex, sex slavery, rampant predatory capitalism, the pollution of our planet and our minds, the extinction of species, the list could go on and on. And maybe AI will help in the end. Somehow.

To righteously eschew AI while participating, passively or otherwise, in the other horrors of this topheavy, unsustainable society feels pointless to me.

I would abstain, but how do you unplug from a system you are embedded in?

I minimize my online activities. I hardly do social media anymore.

I go outside, I bike, I write, I sing, I talk to people, I do yoga, I think deep thoughts. I do not talk to AI about philosophy or ideas or feelings, any more, that is. I am developing my inner resources. But just as I drive a car (as little as I can), and own a phone (to which I am addicted), I am caught on the treadmill of technology.

We need to talk about grounded, community based solutions, because the technofascists are not going to do anything to fix problems they are actively creating.

In the meantime, I will fiddle as Rome burns. Fiddling is fun. I don’t feel good about it. But you have to laugh.

That’s what I think. What do you think? Email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com

The Book Report

September 10, 2026

Book report 17

By A. Bae Hel

Ghostwriter

Julia Clark

Well, that was good. In the genre of a writer writing about solving a mystery, this one was pretty good. Add in dysfunctional family dynamics, because that is required and a brutal murder 30 years ago and you may think your bing watching Midsomer Murders has trained you to figure out who done it, but you are likely wrong.

This is a quick read that takes you along without much deep thought. A nice palate cleanser for some of the other reading I have been doing.

The ghostwriter in question professes her professionalism and process, but when presented with a challenge is almost not up for it, despite a career set back. She clearly has some daddy issues to work out, and some mommy issues as well.

Well worth a day or two. Enjoy

Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

Ben Reeves

This is a unique story line of Travis, a scruffy youngish man who is also Death. He is not a detached Death, but one of compassion and full of marvel at the people whose lives intersect, eventually with him. It is beautifully written.

The book is a slow read, in part because it provokes you to consider. Consider your life. Are you appreciating it? Consider your death. Is it today? Tomorrow? In 20 years? What is that strange fluttering in my chest? A bit anxiety provoking to face Travis as he spins out his collections and the stories of ordinary people’s mortal lives.

If you are deep in grief over a death this may not be the book for you. But if you have stumbled to the edge of living and then turned back letting go of Travis’s hand you may find some understanding in the longing for peace and simplicity. Even if you have been blessed to have never been exposed to death in any guise, this is a profoundly beautiful book.

Reference to SlaughterHouse Five acknowledged.

Cupcakes & Cow Pies

September 10, 2026

AI Oligarchs Are Poisoning Our Society

September 10, 2026

AI Oligarchs Are Poisoning Our Society – New Issue Of JOHNSTONE

Caitlin Johnstone

Sep 01, 2026

The new issue of JOHNSTONE is now available to order in print or download as a pay-what-you-want e-book version. This issue features a painting of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Altman said he knows most people hate the technology that he and his fellow tech plutocrats are imposing upon our civilization.

“Clearly, people hate data centers — right now, at least. People are pretty negative on AI,” Altman said.

Indeed, a recent survey conducted by CNBC‘s Generation Labs found that the public is very negative on AI in general and on its CEOs in particular.

CNBC reports:

“A growing part of the economy is artificial intelligence. Almost half of respondents, 45%, said they believe AI will have a negative impact on their careers, while 10% believe it will help them with their careers. An additional 40% said they believe ‘the federal government’ must set rules for AI, while 36% said they believe ‘an independent expert body’ should set the rules of the game. Just 8% said they think AI ‘shouldn’t be regulated.’ A majority, 60%, believe data center construction ‘must be slowed,’ while 15% favor ‘speeding it up.’

“When given the names of nine key people in the AI industry and asked whether they trust each leader to act responsibly on AI, in each case a majority of respondents said they don’t. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella scored the best, with 65% reporting they don’t trust him. Palantir CEO Alex Karp scored the worst: 81% said they don’t trust him. About 75% of respondents said they don’t trust Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and about the same percentage said they don’t trust Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk all scored about the same, each with about 70% of respondents saying they don’t trust them, and 79% said they don’t trust Palantir Chairman Peter Thiel.”

They know we hate them and what they’re doing to us as a society. And yet they’re doing it anyway. They’re going to keep pushing this technology on us which is stealing our jobs, plunging our society further and further into a tech surveillance dystopia patrolled by militarized drones and police robots, and turning everyone into stupid, artless emotional infants who can’t do anything for ourselves. Whether we like it or not.

These freaks gotta go.

Letter to the Editor – Leif LeBaron

September 10, 2026

Thank you for keeping the Grapevine alive and happy 35! I appreciate its modesty, serving the local community as it is; classified ads, tide tables, and the basic utility of publishing.

Some have complained of being censored or banned but maybe it’s more accurate that they chose to withdraw in reaction to being moderated. Others complain that content is not censored, and I bid them pause to observe the essential utility of freedom of speech. I certainly value the Grapevine while it remains open to one and all, in contrast to so many ideological echo chambers.

The printed paper copy is so steady and familiar that folks might be short on fire starter without it! In any case, the website remains a useful resource where an electronic copy of each print issue can be found and each article can be independently linked.

Leif LeBaron

Letter to the Editor – Dr. Thomas P. Hunterson

September 10, 2026

Denman resident Mr. Tony Aly has created an online petition to add a layer of municipal government to Denman Island, based on the Bowen Island model that still exists within the Islands Trust. He has also created petitions to abolish both the Islands Trust and the Province’s Agricultural Land Reserve.

Camp Denman’s owners cite the former Elkhaven free summer camp for under-privileged kids as the precedent for their “grandfathering” claim or prior use of ALR zoned land. The problem is that the purchase of the 37 acre parcel of farmland did not come with a right to change the non-farming use into a year round business school, “creative campus and campsite.”

Mr. Aly says he will fight for the right to develop a school on ALR zoned land, despite the legal restrictions, and in contravention of ALR and Islands Trust zoning and bylaws. The free summer camp had been for underprivileged kids. The Agricultural Land Reserve and the Islands Trust were created in 1974.

If Mr. Aly is motivated by his concern for the Denman community, he would have applied for variances from the ALR and Trust authorities. Instead, he has called for the abolition of the Islands Trust and ALR. What could be more divisive?

While petitioning for the abolition of the Islands Trust, Mr. Aly has cherry-picked a criticism from the independent governance review of The Trust Area, some 13 unique major islands with 25,000 residents. The recommendations that emerged from that review were to pay the elected Local Trustees a living wage and to provide them the resources to properly engage the Islands Trust mandate.

Mr. Aly’s petition and proposal for “Denman Town”, a truly AI inspired name, based on the duplicate planning and taxation model of Bowen Island municipality within Islands Trust, while at the same time petitioning for the abolition of the Islands Trust and the Agricultural Land Commission, is not only incoherent, it is evidence that he is primarily motivated by his own business interests.