Catherine Cardiff

[mitra @mitrajoy_]

having our first trillionaire before everyone has access to clean water is a failure of the human species

[Jonathan Slater @slater57649]

You deserve these faces

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

In fact, I’d owe a debt

[Jamie Bonkiewicz @JamieBonkiewicz]

If I had a dollar for every time a trans person negatively affected my life, I’d have zero dollars.

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

Woot!

[Restoring Your Faith in Humanity @HumanityChad]

When music brings people together… One lone piper from Scotland and Boston’s finest bucket-drum maestro somehow created the collaboration nobody knew they needed 🥹

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

Awesome

[Cora Harrington @CoraCHarrington]

The earliest example of spun thread we’ve found so far is 50,000 years old and was made by Neanderthals in modern-day France.

[Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken @woofknight]

Just a thought…
Buy 2 bags of pet food for a shelter instead of fireworks. Make a difference, not a noise

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Things I love about recovery.

[Brandi Morin @Songstress28]

WOW. Big news.

The Assembly of Treaty Chiefs just dropped a bomb on Danielle Smith.

Treaty 6, 7 & 8. United. Unanimously calling for an RCMP and Auditor General investigation into whether the Premier and her UCP government committed TREASON under Section 46 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

The Chiefs met on Treaty 7 territory in Calgary on June 16 and voted as one — pushing a separation referendum that puts Canada’s sovereignty at risk, trampling the Treaty relationship, ignoring privacy violations affecting millions, and opening the door to foreign interference. That’s the case they’re laying out.

And they’re going back to the source. When Treaty was signed, the Northwest Mounted Police — now the RCMP — made a promise: protect First Nations, protect these Territories. The Crown guaranteed peace and goodwill in exchange for sharing this land.

The Chiefs are saying: eff around and find out.

#TreatyRights #Treaty6 #Treaty7 #Treaty8 #AlbertaSeparation

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

@bunsenbernerbmd Damn. I’m so sorry. Sending healing vibes with all my heart

[Variety @Variety]

Guillermo del Toro says AI is a form of "natural stupidity"

“We are on the verge of image illiteracy. We are on the verge of cinema illiteracy... The pact between man and image is sacred, but we are in a time when that is in danger... We are told images can be generated by artificial means. The existence of an image is not just to be there. It is to connect us, to make us feel beauty,” he said.

https://t.co/h1bAYmAQKa

[Liza Adamczewski or the accidental ecologist @lizaadamczewski]

Every evening at this time of year, I go out into the garden that surrounds my cottage, to pick the few strawberries that the birds haven’t taken from the vegetable garden. It’s then that my mind turns to the wild strawberries that I have encouraged to grow around my cottage walls. I am bending to pick the strawberries with an aching back. Now old and a grandmother I remember picking strawberries with my grandfather 60 years ago. And I think about my grandson who would love to pick strawberries with me I’m sure and because it is a modern world I will send him a photograph with my telephone of the strawberries. And realising this there is a sorrow deep in my chest of the things that we have lost with our modern world, at the same time as a gratitude for the technology that means I can send him this photograph and try to keep this connection open in a different way from the way we had these connections in the past. But I would love to be sitting beside him on the sofa watching him eat the strawberries that I have picked and for all the communication technology that we have these days there is nothing to beat the feeling of being a small child leaning against someone that you love and trust. Real connection real laughter real shared experience face-to-face in all its raw emotion.

[dr. alicia andrzejewski (she/her) @aliciaandrz]

a reminder my book Queer Pregnancy in Shakespeare’s Plays is available for free on Kindle. it’s an academic book, but I feel the introduction (part memoir) & first chapter on A Midsummer Night’s Dream might be of interest generally. I’d love more reviews!

https://t.co/XNIV0SPfY2

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

Library supervisor here. I can confirm.

[Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken @woofknight]

Pro tip: get a library card, even if you won't use it much. Cities look at those numbers, and they help keep libraries open, funded properly, and safe from budget cuts.

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

I’m so grateful we don’t use rBgh in Canada.

[Frank @FrankVeri]

🍁 🍁🍁🍁🍁
Monsanto wanted its growth hormone in every glass of Canadian milk. One government scientist stood in the way and his own bosses spent 14 years trying to destroy him for it.

His name was Dr. Shiv Chopra.

Born in India, 1934. Came to Canada in the 1960s. PhD in microbiology. Senior scientist at Health Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs. 35 years reviewing drug applications. Approve the safe ones. Reject the unsafe ones. Protect the public.

For 20 years he did it quietly.

Then Monsanto came knocking.

A new drug. Bovine growth hormone. Brand name Posilac. Inject it into dairy cows, get 10-15% more milk. Bigger profits for the industry. Far bigger profits for Monsanto. The FDA had rubber-stamped it in 1993. Monsanto expected Canada to follow.

The file landed on Chopra's desk.

He started reading the science. He started finding holes.

The data was thin. Long-term safety studies were missing. The cow studies that did exist showed lameness, mastitis, reproductive failure, shortened lifespans.

If it was doing that to the cow, what was it doing to the milk?

His recommendation: reject it. Demand real safety data.

His managers had a different idea.

Approve it. The Americans approved it. Why are you holding it up? Just sign off.

He refused.

So the pressure started. Closed-door meetings. Attempts to pull the file and hand it to someone friendlier. Gag orders don't talk to the media, don't talk to anyone. Suspensions. Reprimands. Demotions. Dead-end reassignments.

He kept refusing.

Two other scientists refused with him. Dr. Margaret Haydon. Dr. Gérard Lambert. Same data. Same alarm. Same answer.

In 1998 the Canadian Senate launched an investigation into what was happening inside Health Canada.

Chopra and his colleagues did something almost nobody does. They walked into the Senate and testified under oath. Said managers were pressuring them to approve unsafe drugs. Said industry was running the regulator. Said the system was broken.

It made headlines around the world.

In 1999, Health Canada rejected Monsanto's application. rBGH would not be approved. Europe banned it next. Then most of the developed world.

Sit with that. One immigrant scientist in Ottawa beat one of the largest chemical corporations on Earth — and won.

Then his own government fired him for winning.

July 14, 2004. After 35 years of service, Health Canada fired Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert on the same day. Official reason: insubordination. Real reason: he embarrassed them in front of the country.

The same year, the Prime Minister mailed him a gold watch for "illustrious service." While they were firing him. He called it comedy.

He sued to clear his name. The fight took 13 years. He lost appeal after appeal. The final ruling came down in 2017. Three months later, in January 2018, he died. 83 years old. Never reinstated. Never given his pension back. Never owed an apology by anyone.

But here is what they could never take back.

rBGH is still banned in Canada today. Every glass of Canadian milk is still hormone-free — because one man refused to sign.

And the United States? Never banned it. It's still legal there. Right now.

He kept it out of Canada and they fired him. The system he fought is still pouring it into glasses across the border.

So tell me below was Shiv Chopra a hero, or just a troublemaker who got what was coming to him? Pick a side. Because someone in those meetings is still telling scientists to "just sign off."

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

Surreal recovery moment:

14 years ago, I was homeless, struggling with addiction and mental health, addicted to heroin, cocaine, and meth.

Today, I’m sober watching my son’s ball hockey team win a championship.

From a doorway in Vancouver to cheering in the stands.
Never stop believing. 💪🏼❤️

[Bev 🇨🇦 @Garnet_2203]

This week, Bill C-16 passed. But there were 40 MP’s that voted no. Every single one of them are Conservative MP’s. Including Durham MP Jamil Jivani.

The bill includes measures to strengthen protections for women and children, including recognizing femicide as first-degree murder in certain circumstances, creating a coercive control offence, and increasing penalties for child predators.

Yet 40 Conservative MPs voted NO.

Can someone explain why?

Conservatives routinely criticize crime, “catch and release” justice, and weak penalties for offenders. So why vote against legislation that strengthens protections for victims, women, and children?

I’m especially interested in hearing from Jamil Jivani, who is currently touring the country speaking about men’s health and well-being. Protecting women from violence and protecting children from predators should be something all parties can support.

The bill passed. But constituents deserve to know why their MP voted against it.

[Catherine Cardiff @catcardiff]

@earthcurated Canada banned animal testing for cosmetics in Dec 2023 https://t.co/VRO0Wc0m9g

[guyfelicella🇨🇦🍁 @guyfelicella]

I hope this helps someone today that's trying to figure things out.

People love to talk about "letting people hit rock bottom" or using "tough love" as if suffering is what saves people.

In my experience, it's often what kills them.
What changed my life wasn't abandonment, it was human connection.

For years, my grandmother watched me struggle with addiction. While others had given up hope, she never did.
Twice a year on my birthday and at Christmas she would come looking for me on the streets of Vancouver. She'd take me for a meal, give me a little money, tell me she loved me, and remind me that she believed I would recover one day. She never stopped believing, even at the times I had stopped believing in myself.

In 2013, I finally entered recovery again (like over the 12th time) I met my wife, and shortly after, we found out we were expecting our first child, and at the same time, my grandmother was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and given just two weeks to live.

Normally, you don't tell people about a pregnancy that early. But we knew she was dying, so we told her she was going to be a great-grandmother.
It was one of the most emotional conversations of my life.

She had tears in her eyes when she said, "I can't wait to meet my great-grandchild."
I laughed and said, "Grandma, I'm not very good at math, but that doesn't add up. They gave you two weeks." She squeezed my hand and said, "I'm going to stay."

And somehow, she did.

For the next nine months, my wife and I visited her every day in palliative care. We'd drink black coffee, watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and spend every moment we could together.

She fought through unimaginable pain.
Long enough to meet her great-grandson, and long enough to spend nine precious months with her sober grandson.

Before she passed away, she told me something I'll never forget:
"I always knew you'd figure it out."
My grandmother didn't save my life with tough love, she saved it with love.
The kind of love that never gives up on people.
The kind of love that believes in someone until they can believe in themselves.
Sometimes, that's what recovery starts with!

[Prof. Carl Sagan @ProfCarlSagan]

We look at our neighboring worlds and we see a grim warning. Venus is a runaway greenhouse hellscape, its surface hot enough to melt lead. Mars is a frozen, bone-dry desert. Earth is the anomaly,a perfectly balanced, delicate jewel where the conditions for life are miraculously just right.

Yet, we continue to treat our atmosphere as if it were an infinite dumping ground.

A fragile canopy. A destabilized climate. A global crisis.