iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Spotted some pronghorn on a recent camping trip, and my partner (who came to Canada from Ghana) had no idea we had antelope here. When we looked them up, I discovered that no, technically, we don't. But they're even more cool now. (Clearly in your prospective camping/wildlife podcast audience.)

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Fun pronghorn fact! They're not antelopes (sort of like bison/buffalo!) but their closest living relatives are giraffe and okapi. I thought you and @socialistdogmom.bsky.social might enjoy knowing giraffes have North American cousins. I don't think giraffes jump fences much but they don't need to.

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Siddeley Genet @sergalprojects.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Three Dead Trolls In A Plastic Baggie is yesterday's music. We have "Three Dead Kings In A Plastic Box" while the world's on fire now.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Nothing like handing out $100 cheques to try to buy votes after claiming you need to slash supports for disabled people because AB can't afford it. This government disgusts me.

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Ilana Horn @ilanahorn.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

what is wild to me is how few universities with schools of education are turning to us for our expertise in pedagogy. most seem to just be hopping on the AI train and largely ignoring the downstream consequences for our teaching

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Gwen Snyder is uncivil @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

The real problem with "it's not about sex it's about power" in the context of sexual violence is that in our culture, sex is also about power

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Cortado Concerto 🎼☕ @cortadoconcerto.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Every time friends and family and colleagues ask how my in-laws in Lebanon are, the only answer we can give is "Still alive, at least for now."

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

And I can't make it make sense in my mind that these things happened at almost the same time. How can these both happen in the same world? The moon gives me incredible hope for humanity. The bombs, though. I can't stop thinking about the bombs.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I cried my eyes out twice this week. Once was watching the crew name the crater Carroll to honour Reid Wiseman's late wife. The other was a video of a Lebanese woman recounting the terror of trying to find her child after a bomb landed near his creche.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

And while the mission in space filled us with awe, missions in the sky over Iran and Lebanon killed and maimed hundreds. Homes turned to rubble. Irreplaceable historic sites were damaged or destroyed. A president threatened to wipe out a whole civilization — that is, to commit a genocide.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

But then it is also almost certainly an opportunity for nationalist propaganda by a fascist president who wants to distract from his many failures. He will certainly want to take credit for a success right now to distract from the horrors that continue in West Asia.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I have had such complicated feelings watching the lunar mission — it is an incredible moment for humanity and the words of the crew and the people on the ground at NASA show a deep love for our shared world and care for our collective future. It fills me with joy to have seen it all unfold.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Watching the Artemis astronauts being recovered with such care and thinking about how on the other side of the world, the same country murders thousands without a thought. This is not to say the crew should not have care, but there is deep dissonance in seeing the same country doing both today.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

A world leader saying "I will destroy a civilization" is just saying you're going to do a genocide if people don't do what you say, and we're all out here still pretending international law means anything anymore.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

We talk a lot about public healthcare in Canada, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but without things like meaningful and comprehensive pharmacare that prioritizes medical needs, not austerity, it's not truly public.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

The treatment that would manage this condition is expensive and therefore is, in theory, covered by the province. But in Alberta, we have a government that does everything in its power to block access. My doctor's decisions about my care take a back seat to their slash and burn approach.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

And in the meantime my quality of life suffers. I can't sleep sometimes. I've had to go to emergency. It's affecting my work. And it's a vicious cycle because it's a condition exacerbated by stress and trying to finish a PhD when your body regularly freaks out is stressful.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

It doesn't matter that the first line treatment doesn't work — unless a specific specialist prescribes it, the chance of being approved is almost zero, even if the other specialist studied with them and knows that's what is needed. So I wait for access.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Love living in a province where I have been waiting several months to see the specialist I was referred to by the specialist who diagnosed my health condition so that I have some sort of shot at having coverage for the treatment I need.

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❤️🫀 momo (heartily good bad) 🫀❤️ @momo.thingsabout.xyz · 15/03/2026

lol how could some ides ruin my march

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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

genuinely fascinated by how every country that's ever had any vague dealings with Iran the last 60 years envisaged exactly this outcome whereas the country that has made planning war with Iran literally a whole industry that has employed thousands of people for decades never considered any of it

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

It’s not even that I think “Epstein class” is a particularly dangerous bit of antisemitism, intended or inadvertent (there are plenty on Right who use it knowing what they’re doing). But it functions as antisemitism did 1890s France, a means of moving people left to right.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

If you’re using “Epstein class” as a synonym for billionaires, ask yourself why you can’t say “billionaires.” Maybe you don’t know what an bait-&-switch it is. When, learning of that history, ask yourself why you feel you must persist. If you say, “but this Jew or that also says it,” well, friend…

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Fascinating to read of how this proto-fascist saw antisemitism as antidote to socialism, a means of persuading “low-info” workers that their enemy wasn’t really international capitalism so much as international Jewry. Hence my disgust for the term “Epstein class,” an evasion of capital.

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

So much usefully precise language here: on the role of Jew-hate in French proto-fascism: “antisemitism worked as a useful binding agent for the numerous unstable syncretic ideologies that were circulating.”

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

All while we continue to allow military arms and equipment sales to the US to be used in perpetuating their genocidal wars (and maybe against us soon too). But hey, elbows up! Don't let a little complicity get in the way of your patriotism.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

And yes, it sounds far fetched, but also a few years ago, people thought I was crazy for talking about the rise of fascism. I spend too much time studying these things to dismiss the possibility. It may not happen, but there's enough there to worry me.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

I keep hearing US news talking about fuel prices and remembering that I live in a place with the world's fourth-largest oil reserves (after Venezuela!) and that we have a separatist movement fed in part by US money and far too entangled with our provincial government.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

No, they served me (barely) but I'd almost rather they hadn't because it was not worth a 90-minute round trip by tube/bus and an evening of being ignored. There are places that won't accept solo women diners, though.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Anyhow, I know this isn't huge in the scale of the world, but it's one of the ways in which that world shows solo women that we are (still, in 2025!) seen as sad and broken, if we are even seen at all, as if women can never be happy unless they're attached to someone else.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Women alone in good restaurants aren't sad spinsters. We're just trying to have a nice evening like anyone else. If that bothers you, I guess stop allowing solo bookings? But you'll be missing out. Solos are actually good guests who will tell their friends why they loved (or hated) their experience.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Good restaurants know that solo foodie travellers exist and often want to enjoy something special. Often, they treat me incredibly well and make an effort to make my evening special. Why should I have to miss out on one of the best parts of travel because I sometimes like to go alone?

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

I know they say women over 40 become invisible, but I haven't experienced anything like this. Restaurants need to know that solo diners are often there to enjoy and focus on their food and often tell others about their experience. Often, they write reviews, especially if they have dietary needs.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

If I was in a country where it's the norm to signal a waiter when you need them, that would be different, and I know how to do that, but my experience of the UK is that they are less hovering than in North America but present, in particular if you catch their eye. But it was like I was invisible.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

From what I can tell, nobody was actually assigned to look after my table, so nobody did. There was even a comment at one point about how I was the "only booking for one" that evening. Well, if you really don't want solo diners to book, you can change that setting in your system.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

It took nearly two hours from when I walked in to when I left, and while I'm not a fast eater and I enjoy lingering over a meal, that's not why it took so long. I left feeling frustrated and a bit humiliated.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Finished dessert and my semi-cold espresso shot and sat for ages again until I got fed up and put my coat on then went to the front to ask for my bill. I told the man — politely — about my disappointment. He comped my glass of wine, which was fine but really didn't make up for the poor experience.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Sat for a long time again, then had a server come by like I was an afterthought while he was serving the table next to me. I wanted dessert and coffee to follow it but ordered both together because who knows if anyone would have come back again.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

And then again, not a single bit of anything until my plates were obviously empty. And I know they were checking on tables because I heard them asking others. I don't need a fuss, but I felt like I was ignored until it was obvious someone needed to look after things.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

However, instead, I somehow ended up with the hot vegetable side as well as my pie, which arrived together. The vegetables were good but I had wanted the salad to start. They offered to change it but then I'd have ended up with a cold main.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Another long wait to order a glass of wine and by the time that they came back, I'd decided on my meal too, starting with a simple green salad and then a lovely sounding chicken pie (which as a celiac is delightful!).

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

It's not actually very nice as a solo woman diner to stand around and have people look at you and edge past you to get to the door. And then I was seated and it did not get much better.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

From the start, it was a mess. Despite their claimed strict time limits, the table before me lingered and I had to hover awkwardly in the doorway of a very small restaurant for about 10 minutes.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Apparently in 2025, "solo female diner syndrome" is still a thing. It's a downer because I was really looking forward to my meal at a London restaurant much praised in the celiac community. If you don't want to take reservations for one, then don't. I travelled 45 minutes across London for this?

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Friends and I were texting after I saw both Cabaret and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in the same day and I was overwhelmed. We noted that we need art not only to warn us about fascism but tell us how to resist or we risk hopelessness. It was nice to leave the theatre tonight feeling hope.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

All that aside, see the show if you get the chance! It's very good and timely, and I hope it makes it across the Atlantic soon.

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Bridget Stirling @bridgetstirling.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

This is not in any way an indictment of the musical but rather an indicator of how fascism creeps into every corner of life without people realizing it. I bet you didn't know the Waldorf school guy had an influence on Italian fascism.

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