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Mattea Roach

@mattearoach.bsky.social
3K followers 145 following 105 posts

host of Bookends on CBC Radio/podcast platforms everywhere, former 23x Jeopardy champion, slowly also writing // everything that happens will happen today

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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It may only be mid-September but I’m pretty sure I know what my top played song of the year on Spotify is going to be and also that it’s going to be just like, absolutely catastrophically embarrassing. Watch this space…
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Bought two highlife/afrobeat albums at the record store today plus one RITA MACNEIL… life is a rich tapestry
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Very very good baseball writing by my pal Amy - so many Jeopardy sickos are baseball sickos too
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Honestly this rocks lol, who amongst us hasn’t spent some quality time in nature and thought about how maybe we don’t want to return to our jobs after all
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Loren King @lorenking.org · 05/08/2026
open.substack.com/pub/waterkee...
open.substack.com
Swimming is a Revelation
Why August Belongs to the Canadian Swimmer
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Having the Sunday scaries is very passé… what I have is the Tuesday terrors (dread about my return to the office tomorrow after a week and a half away)
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conputer dipshit @davidcrespo.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
nice quick AI take from donna haraway english.elpais.com/culture/2026...
Q. We’ll return to forms of resistance, but let me clarify something: Do you use artificial intelligence?

A. It’s impossible not to use it. Every time I log into Google, I get an AI-generated summary of what I looked up. I have no choice. Do I actively and intentionally use AI? No, I have not. I’m too lazy to learn how. I have artist friends who do very interesting things with it. At some point, I suppose I’ll learn to use it selectively. But, again, it’s not the devil: it’s a set of tools that’s the subject of hyper-investment — with large amounts of capital going into it and not for the best purposes. It’s causing enormous environmental damage. I’m more for a “slow AI” — developing it only to the extent that there are sustainable energy systems, sustainable ecological relationships, and a creative reorganization of work. I’m for slow AI integrated into the world of the kind that I want to affirm. And not the “fast AI” that we are currently being subjected to.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Was driving through a town of ~30k people in rural Tunisia today and saw a guy (clearly local) strolling around in a Hockey Canada jersey from like 2006… dudes rock
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 08/05/2026
personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.
Editors’ Note: May 1, 2026
This article was updated after The Times learned that a remark attributed to Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, was in fact an A.I.-generated summary of his views about Canadian politics that A.I. rendered as a quotation. The reporter should have checked the accuracy of what the A.I. tool returned.  The article now accurately quotes from a speech delivered by Mr. Poilievre in April. He said, “My personal opinion is that when a member of Parliament goes back on the word they made to their constituents and switches parties, constituents should be able to petition to throw them out and have a byelection. That would put the people back in charge of our democracy rather than having dirty backroom Liberal deals by Mark Carney determine our destiny.” He did not refer to politicians who changed allegiances as turncoats in that speech.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
At a friend’s parents’ cottage for the weekend and was absolutely delighted to discover that when I was last here eight months ago I left a coconut Lacroix in the fridge and a bottle of conditioner in the shower… if you don’t look after yourself then who will
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Glyn Bowerman @glynbowerman.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Excellent episode of The Hatchet with @arshy.bsky.social. The recent police scandal is not “a few bad apples,” the Toronto Police have been operating like organized crime for generations. They act with impunity, refuse reform, and target and punish their critics: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
The Toronto Police Has Been a Rogue Agency for Too Long. Rein Them In.
Podcast Episode · The Hatchet · 2026-02-14 · 29m
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
“Right now the focus should be on supporting the community in mourning, not weaponizing this event as hate against a vulnerable group at large.” I hate profoundly that articles like this need to be written when, like Mel says, the focus should be on community. But thank you Mel for writing ❤️
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Jen St. Denis @jenstden.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
A few years ago, my colleague @amandafollett.bsky.social wrote this portrait of Tumbler Ridge, a former coal mining town. thetyee.ca/News/2020/11...
thetyee.ca
Tumbler Ridge: A Coal Mining Town’s Fight for Survival | The Tyee
From dinosaur discoveries to mountain biking to clean energy, this northeast BC community is looking to build a new future.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 29/01/2026
Media often appended it with “Hamas-run” as a way to subtly discredit its numbers. Many experts credibly argue those figures are in fact far lower than the real number today.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Just updated my four favourites as well so why not share it all… with the cold snap it’s never been a better time to stay home and watch some absolute cinema
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Nothing worse than going to karaoke and seeing someone absolutely butcher a song that you know you could body
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Yet another BANGER from Vass Bednar on competition
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roxanne panchasi @rpanchasi.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
i’ve never felt this patriotic in my life
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nam kiwanuka @namshine.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
“Serious voices in this country are sounding alarm, warning that this volatile start to 2026 means that Canadians need to stare down the reality that we no longer have the luxury of pretending it’s business as usual.” www.thestar.com/politics/pol...
thestar.com
Susan Delacourt: Is it time to get alarmed about how Trump is kicking off 2026?
Serious voices are warning that Canadians need to stare down the reality that we no longer have the luxury of pretending it’s business as usual.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Beautiful, beautiful piece - what a love letter to local journalism and gorgeous meditation on the passage of time
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...” A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today. lithub.com/renee-nicole...
lithub.com
Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…
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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 07/01/2026
CBC Books thinks I wrote one of the books to make you feel hopeful for the year to come and who am I to argue? www.cbc.ca/books/13-boo...
cbc.ca
13 books to make you feel hopeful as the new year gets underway | CBC Books
This time of year is usually full of promise and good intentions. But when global unrest of various kinds starts to seem like the new normal, it can be hard to feel hopeful about the year ahead. Here ...
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Had the duty/honour of explaining who Sidney Crosby is to an American who’d never heard of him the other… wish I’d had this article in my back pocket at the time, legendary stuff. Our special Nova Scotian boy
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Sabrina Fernandes @sabrinafernandes.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Rubio is claiming that they did not need Congress permission because it was a law enforcement mission. The US is behaving as a global police state, extending its own arbitrary legal decisions to the whole world. This is not a problem just for Venezuela.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
new quarter century more art more good
david lynch meme
okay, let's try that again, but this time good.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 30/12/2025
Alex Shephard from the New Republic what did I ever do to piss you off 😔
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Canadian Paintings @canadianpaintings.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Covered Bridge in Winter Maud Lewis c. 1967
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
Excited for the cottage episode of Heated Rivalry bc in my experience going to the cottage with your gay love is all about getting too stoned at the beach and then crying to Adrienne Lenker but hey… what do I know
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404 Media @404media.co · 03/12/2025
Audio-visual librarians are quietly amassing large physical media collections amid the IP disputes threatening select availability.
404media.co
The Last Video Rental Store Is Your Public Library
Audio-visual librarians are quietly amassing large physical media collections amid the IP disputes threatening select availability.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Two Maritime queens on Canada’s Drag Race… I used to pray for days like these
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Chris Hadfield @cmdr-hadfield.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
How to write a novel and choose what to do in life - thanks @mattearoach.bsky.social and CBC for the interview! www.cbc.ca/books/booken...
cbc.ca
Back on earth, astronaut Chris Hadfield writes about space | CBC Books Bookends
The Canadian author discussed his book, Final Orbit, on Bookends with Mattea Roach.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
You know a country by its values. By what a country values. And it turns out that what a country values can change over time. Sometimes, though, there’s a sort of cognitive delay between the country you think you are in, and the country you’ve actually become. For example, you can keep selling yourself, to foreigners, as the country of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and luring busloads of tourists to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath, and put a statue of George Orwell in front of the BBC, and imagine yourself a cultured and literate nation, which the rest of the world admires for its devotion to the written word – but if you then chronically underfund your cultural institutions, and treat your cultural workers with contempt, many people will suspect you of being full of it. And as the decades pass – and fewer and fewer Shakespeares and Austens and Orwells emerge from your little island – even more people will begin to suspect that in truth you do not value culture at all, and are in fact running a giant heritage museum in which the only cultural workers you respect are the dead ones.
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Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
This isn't a closing election argument, it's Vidkun Quisling explaining why surrender is better than resistance.
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Bruce Arthur @brucearthur.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
They say baseball breaks your heart, and the Blue Jays are a Hall of Fame what if team, now. So what does it mean to watch your team lose the World Series in one of the greatest games ever played? It means you got to feel something; you just didn’t get to choose what. www.thestar.com/sports/blue-...
thestar.com
Bruce Arthur: These Blue Jays are a Hall of Fame ‘what if’ team. The World Series loss just makes the heartbreak worse
This World Series will echo across Canada for decades, because Toronto lost the MLB championship in one of the greatest baseball games ever played.
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Norm Charlatan @normcharlatan.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
CBC presents This Hour has 22 Innings
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Alejandro Kirk is a Scorpio and this is his season let’s GO
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evy kwong @evystadium.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
YOU READY SHOHEI??????????????
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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 21/10/2025
My @thestar.com column this week: after Toronto Council requested reports on potential new rules for activities like raves, jet ski riding and pickleball, I’ve got an important reminder: it is a very good thing that people are having fun in the city. Fun is good. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
thestar.com
Matt Elliott: Now, Toronto has noisy pickleball games in its crosshairs. Are we becoming the City That Fun Forgot?
Tending to the whims of grumblers might make for good politics in election season, but it often makes for lousy governance.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Every day is a beautiful day to live in Toronto but TODAY MOST OF ALL!!!!!
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Mark Kersten @markkersten.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
“One day we will be brought to the [International Criminal Court in the Hague], not because of Gaza, because of what happens in the West Bank and we will have no good defence. Because it happens in front of our eyes and no one seems to care.” - former Israeli PM Olmert: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Canadian charities complicit in helping fund Israeli settlement movement in West Bank, critics say | CBC News
Tax deductible donations made by Canadians to groups that financially support West Bank settlements that are illegal under international law are continuing in the face of escalating attacks on Palesti...
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Any time I have to drive anywhere to run an errand I start to understand within about ten minutes why so many regular drivers’ views on municipal politics seem to be entirely informed by shit like traffic and parking. I don’t think it’s right but I get it!!
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 18/09/2025
Between the purge of late night comedians, Trump allies buying up TV networks, Hollywood studios and social media platforms, and news organizations getting slapped with multi-billion dollar lawsuits, there is a full-court press to dismantle the information systems propping up American democracy
hollywoodreporter.com
ABC Suspends ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ “Indefinitely” Over Charlie Kirk Comments
The network’s decision comes after affiliate group Nexstar said it would pull the late-night show, and the chairman of the FCC suggested he might take action against ABC.
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Matt Elliott @graphicmatt.com · 10/09/2025
Trying to come up with an equivalent to this speed camera story but for transit riders. Imagine if, in wake of hypothetical reports of people getting mad about fines and vandalizing Presto readers, the gov was just like, well, I guess we should stop fare enforcement. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
'We are prepared to help get rid of them,' Ont. government says after 16 speed cameras vandalized | CBC News
Sixteen Toronto speed cameras were found damaged on Tuesday morning, only two days after the Parkside Drive speed camera was cut down for the seventh time in less than a year.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Tried to do a good deed by letting my brother borrow my carry-on suitcase to go back to NS bc his is broken… now I have to go to NS as well so guess who’s stuck using the busted suitcase 🙄
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amy brown 👻 @amybrown.xyz · 22/08/2025
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Why should I write better when a machine can do it for me?
Because actually no one can do it for you, because your voice is unique among all the people on earth. Siri never petted a horse's neck. Alexa has never been ghosted by the captain of the football team. But you have lived, your heart is beating, you have suffered, and you have something important to say. It's a human's job, to use words, and whatever job you give to a machine, that part of your brain goes dark. Maybe it's worth it when it comes to remembering phone numbers and directions, but when that part of your brain that uses words goes dark, that's a vast area that's very close to your soul. Don't let some internet platform convince you that what you have to say and create isn't worthwhile. Words are the echo of your soul. Honing that echo matters.
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Mattea Roach @mattearoach.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
Last weekend I injured my calf in a manner befitting someone at least twice my age, and now my biggest concern is whether I can hobble to Oasis NEXT weekend without incurring permanent damage… it’s a hard knock life
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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
The five brave Palestinian journalists whom Israel targeted and killed today (left-right): -Anas al-Sharif (correspondent) -Mohammed Qreiqeh (correspondent) -Ibrahim Zaher (camera operator) -Muhammad Al-Khalidi (photojournalist) -Mohammed Noufal (camera operator) -Moamen Aliwa (camera operator)
a young man holds a young boy and girl in front of rubble a man holds a microphone with an al jazeera logo while wearing a vest with the word press on ita young man in glasses wearing a protective vest with the word press on it leans against a car a collage shows three young men smiling
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Aaron Wherry @aaronwherry.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Good post by Fred DeLorey, pushing back against complaints (from non-Nova Scotians?) about Nova Scotia's fire prevention measures. freddelorey.substack.com/p/nova-scoti...
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 05/08/2025
A journalist with Canada’s public broadcaster was not allowed on the Canadian plane air dropping aid into Gaza because of Israeli restrictions. When she made it onto a Jordanian plane, she was not allowed to film what she saw on the ground in Gaza because Israel forbids it from being shown.
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