2326 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

This week marked the 156 anniversary of Canadian Confederation. The British North American Act took effect on July 1st, 1867 and Canada passed from being a British colony to a member country of the British Commonwealth.

I for one refuse to forget that past. There has been a huge push against colonialism in recent years. The British now looked upon in an unpleasant light. Once again the statue of Queen Victoria in Kitchener’s Victoria Park was vandalized, doused in red paint in an act that has played out four times in the last two years. What I find most intriguing is that these former colonies, the places where we now try to erase people like Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister and deny our history, are the very places where people want to immigrate. As much as we want to abhor the blue-eyed devils we flock the places they built.

All I can say to Canadians, members of the British Commonwealth and those countries who were founded on British and European ideals, do not be ashamed of your history, embrace it. Many of the places our people have built are a beacon of peace and civility for the rest of the world.

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As Google and Meta get set to turn off links to Canadian news sites I ponder an interesting question. The Canadian government passed legislation that would force content giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta to pay for content they display or link to on their platforms. Up until this point they have presented content from independent sources free of charge. In the process, making billions of dollars in advertising revenue that those providers will never see. The Canadian government has become the first to protect homegrown content providers by forcing these giant tech companies to properly compensate creators.

We could argue whether that is fair or even feasible but that is not the crux of my question. You see, for years these entities have claimed they are not responsible for the content they present and as such can’t or shouldn’t be held liable for it. They don’t believe they have an obligation to monitor or regulate the content to which they provide access. They claim it is too large a financial burden to expect them to build the apparatus to police content. Interesting that moment they have to pay for the content they present all of the apparatus to block it, the apparatus they claimed was too expensive to build, suddenly isn’t that costly and even more alarming already exists. All they need to do to ensure they don’t have to pay for content is flip the switch to have it blocked.

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As we celebrate this Canada Day I have been listening to Canada’s greatest songwriter who passed away earlier this year. It was once said that the offices of SOCAN have one storage room (this was before computers) for all the songs written by Canadian artists and a second room for all the works of Gordon Lightfoot. I have previously featured The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Here are some other faves, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Sundown and Carefree Highway.

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The week in review…

Who Knew
Proof from Fandango at This, That and the Other that Seniors love heavy metal too.

The MidSummer of the Nightly Mirror and Rose’s Hand of the Fortune
Written by Rockstar Girl at Where Stories Can Spark Their Magic

Metaphor
Be wary of the man in a fedora preaching a better future.

A Cold Case
A wild ride through the seedy world of the Mob by Nancy at The Sicilian Storyteller.

The Mangy Stray Cat
Fandango at This, That and the Other deals with a stray that has moved into the shed.

The Talking Dead
Sadje at Keep It Alive will have you hearing the voices of the dead.

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

Glass Slipper | A fairy tale cliffhanger written for Sadje’s What Do You See? challenge and incorporating words from Fandango’s One Word Challenge.

Maybe… | If it weren’t for the voices. Written for Fandango’s Story Starter and incorporating words from Fandango’s One Word Challenge.

How Shite Is My Site? | Written for The Monday Peeve at Light Motifs II and incorporating words from Fandango’s One Word Challenge.

Next week…

Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction and another installment of T-Shirt Wisdom. Don’t forget to get your entry in for July’s Creative Writing Monthly, July 31st is almost here. Have a great week everyone,

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