Sam Nabi's latest blog posts
It's past time to stop giving any oxygen to the ongoing dumpster fire that is Twitter/X. For those of us who joined in the early days, it's sad to walk away from the platform that had been a touchpoint for political organizing and local community-building. But it's not that place anymore, and the sooner we build a home elsewhere, the better ( cough, spore.social ). For old times' sake, though,…
Today, the lowest-paid group of education workers (represented by CUPE) are on strike in defiance of the Ontario government’s new law that prevents them from doing so legally. This is a big deal, and I applaud everyone who’s able to show up and picket the offices of MPPs. Unionized workers in Canada are only allowed to strike when their contract expires and they can’t reach an agreement during a…
Elections are galvanizing moments: when an inspiring candidate presents themselves, people can project all of their hopes and dreams onto someone that might win and change things for the better. Deep down, we know that it takes more than one person to change the world. But our culture is so focused on personality, identity, and celebrity that it’s hard not to hang your hopes on one candidate’s…
This Monday, we go vote for our Mayors, councillors, and school board trustees in the municipal election. You’ll remember to vote, right? Set yourself a calendar reminder right now before you continue reading, I’ll wait. In Waterloo Region we’ve got a few different ballots to pay attention to. If you live in Kitchener, Waterloo, or Cambridge, you’ll vote for your city mayor and ward councillor,…
When I have conversations with friends and neighbours about new housing being built in Kitchener, I see a strong sense of bewilderment — especially when they haven’t been downtown in a while. “I don’t even recognize Kitchener anymore with all the new condo towers.” “With these high-rises popping up all over town, we’re becoming like Toronto.” I love this reaction because I’ve heard the exact same…
My most pleasurable reading experience of the past year has been Robin Sloan's Year of the Meteor newsletter. Every Sunday, I was comforted to see that new email message nestle into my inbox. Sometimes I would read it right away. Sometimes I would let it linger there for weeks before I got around to opening it. The newsletter didn't command my attention. It would be there when I was ready for it.…
A collection of converging anxieties, this mini-EP is about all the things that create a sudden tightness in your chest. Friendships that evaporate into a cloud of mist. Unsettling family dynamics. The incredible inertia of our reckless, self-destructive society. There’s no point denying what’s happened. Now we have to deal with the fallout. Stream the album on Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play,…
The Green Party of Canada has released its climate action plan for the fall election. It's called Mission: Possible , and lays out a path to zero carbon emissions, renewable energy, and green jobs all in a spirit of political co-operation. If we're going to turn the corner on the climate crisis, it's our responsibility to work across party lines, and for our ambition to meet the scale of the…
In no particular order, these are some of the artists who impressed me with new music in the past year. As I gear up to release some new work in 2019, I can say for sure that these artists have influenced my creative process. Logic Logic released two albums this year: his trap-heavy Bobby Tarantino II mixtape fell flat for me, and honestly seemed like a death knell for the lyrically dense,…
In June 2017, the Canadian government passed Bill C-16. It's a law that expands the human rights code to include "gender identity and expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination. This was a significant, if symbolic win for trans rights in Canada. But to hear a certain U of T psychology professor describe it, the passage of this law would mean a Stasi-style era of "compelled speech", where…
Buy local, eat local, ... read local? In today’s digital media landscape, there are a few giant tech companies that control most of what we read. Their algorithms are tailored to feed us the most sensational, cringeworthy, funny, viral stuff. They dredge up the popular posts from the slurry of so-called "content" out there, and track our attention down to the millisecond. These platforms push us…
In the 2018 provincial election, the Green Party of Ontario's goal was to get our leader elected. Mike Schreiner handily won his seat in Guelph, earning 45% of the vote -- more than double the votes of his closest rival. It's a historic moment for Greens in Ontario, and we should be proud of that accomplishment. But on average, Green support doesn't seem to have shifted much between 2014 and 2018.…
I moved to Waterloo in 2008 to attend university. Coming from Whitby, quite a homogeneous bedroom community, I was taken in by the incredible diversity of experiences that the tri-cities had to offer. It was a short trek from campus to downtown Kitchener, where I volunteered with Food Not Bombs and became acquainted with The Working Centre. I remember mountain biking at Chicopee in the fall, and…
Julia and I decided to take a bike trip through Colombia for many reasons: the country is a major cycling destination, with a culture of respect for cyclists and breathtaking, challenging terrain. It's also a country that speaks Spanish, and we wanted to be able to communicate effectively during our trip. Perhaps most importantly, Colombia is a place that we could get to without flying. Being…
Imagine a redevelopment project that could bring 50 new apartment units and 20 new retail shops, offices, and restaurants into a neighbourhood. It doesn't sound terribly ambitious, but it could make a welcome addition to many semi-urban residential areas. Now, imagine you could accomplish this without tearing down a single house, without displacing a single person who already lives there. Imagine…
Colombia is such a fantastic place to tour by bicycle. The ecosystems transform from jungle to farmland to barren mountain, all in the span of a few days. Nearer to the Caribbean coast, you'll find mango trees dotting the roadside which offer a refreshing respite from the hot sun. There are many rural villages in Colombia, and they are spaced pretty evenly every 30-50 kilometres along the main…
9 April 2016 La Libertad, El Salvador We're sitting with a couple bottles of cheap beer at "La Ola 10", a restaurant in La Libertad, on El Salvador's Pacific Coast. It's been a trying three days, and we've decided to make for the beach, any beach, with waves and fish and sand and mariachi bands. Anything but the dry, dusty, mountainous trash heaps we've been traveling through for the past week. As…
6 April 2016 Mexico City Deciding to spend an extra day in Mexico City was a good idea. Our hostel room is equipped with quite a nice bed and a large private bathroom, which we used to hand-wash all our clothes. The hostel is fun, social, and full of people our age. We made a few new friends over drinks at the neighbourhood bar, trading stories of travel experiences. We met a man from Lund, of…
The humble PHP mail() function is a handy friend to have. Whether sending yourself debugging messages from a test server, or implementing a quick-and-dirty contact form, I've always been able to rely on sending quick email messages from the server. At least, this is the normal experience on a shared LAMP server. Email gets sent, more or less like magic, and I don't have to worry too much about the…
One thing I love about Kitchener-Waterloo is the supportive community that has developed around open mics, house shows, and small-scale concerts. It takes a strong culture of togetherness for hosts to prepare a safe and welcoming venue. It takes dedication and a genuine interest in the art for people to show up to these events. And of course, it takes confidence and trust for performers to take to…
Proportional representation in Canada has been a long time coming. Yesterday, we crossed yet another milestone on the road to a fairer voting system. The Special Committee on Electoral Reform (ERRE) released its final report [PDF] , which includes majority support for proportional representation. Now, that's a big deal. Greens and the NDP have been advocating for proportional representation for a…
29 March 2016 Kitchener, Ontario, Canada There are four and a half hours until our train leaves. Julia is rushing to complete some paperwork for her financial return to Elections Canada. She's in the living room, papers strewn across the work table. It seems inevitable to be rushing around at the last minute, whether we're about to take the bus uptown or head off on this adventure thousands of…
Our destination is Colombia, but we got a big dose of adventure before even setting foot there. We wanted to arrive without flying, which meant getting up close and personal with the Guna Yala, a proud and independent Indigenous group that controls access to the only safe passage through the notorious Darien Gap . We rode in a tiny boat down the Panamanian coastline, hopping the waves with the…
The Jetpack plugin is a must-have for almost any WordPress website. It may be bloated with all kinds of crap you don't need, but it always has one or two features you absolutely do need. And it tends to do those things quite well (security protection, stats, social media sharing). It's no wonder that major theme developers are relying on Jetpack instead of reinventing the wheel. So I thought it…
Last weekend, I spent three days in Ottawa's downtown Delta hotel running on adrenaline and idealism. I was socially, mentally, and intellectually exhausted by the time Julia and I left town on the VIA train Monday morning. And I don't regret it for a second. I helped out with the Green Party's election campaign last summer, and by the time it was all over I had got myself appointed Communications…
Today's the first day of the Green Party's biannual convention. Julia and I are in Ottawa and we're excited to be part of policymaking and seeing what this whole convention business is all about. Ahead of the actual convention, all the Green Party members were invited to vote on 13 policy resolutions that would be considered at this weekend's convention. The results of that voting are publicly…
Julia and I returned from our Colombian cycling adventure over a month ago, and I haven't shared any stories or photos of substance. The trip was an intentional break from our always-on culture. We took a film camera, and I didn't check Twitter the whole time we were gone. I filled two notebooks of diary entries. Freed from the instant-gratification of social media, we gave ourselves permission to…
In Spring 2016, Julia and I decided to take a 1,200-km cycling trip across Colombia. I'm slowly publishing entries from my journal that document our experience with slow travel — our precarious journey there, our month-long cycling tour, and finally our return home.
Growing up, I never learned much about American history. The event I can most easily recall is probably that we burned down their White House during the War of 1812. I know that a civil war happened. I know that it had something to do with slavery, and that Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. I had a thin veneer of knowledge -- just enough historical backdrop to not seem totally ignorant. I have…
Monday morning, I hopped on my bike and rode to work. I like to take Moore Avenue via Duke Street and Waterloo Street -- running more or less parallel to King, but without all the traffic. Narrow, leafy streets and cute homes with front porches welcome me as the hazy dawn breaks into full daylight. It's a pleasant commute. This route takes me close to Breithaupt Park, where I sometimes go swimming…
The line between websites and apps is becoming blurrier every day. What with entire operating systems being made with HTML5, and the recent influx of native adblockers on mobile platforms, there's all kinds of cross-pollination that is absolutely good for the industry and good for the web in general. Despite this, there's still quite a gap between native apps and the web. One glaring example that…
Strategic voting is a mirage. It's like gambling, or predicting the stock market -- there's a whole industry of people trying to figure out how to game the system, and most of them fail. Progressives have been hand-wringing for the last decade about how to unite the left (without actually, you know, uniting all the left-leaning parties). We really really want to kick Harper out this time, and…
Apparently, the University of Waterloo doesn't know what it means to be an ally -- but will gladly accept accolades and prestige for kind of thinking about it. Over the last few days, the UW administration has been trumpeting its partnership with HeForShe. It's a worthy cause and a necessary approach to address systemic sexism, but I can't find anything to suggest my alma mater is taking the…
Brutalist architecture is having a bit of a moment in the public consciousness. A surprisingly favourable one. I've long heard buildings like UW's Math & Computer building or U of T's Robarts Library described as oppressive, faceless, and institutional. I've always associated the style with a big brother-esque presence in the urban streetscape. They were built to stand as monoliths, and people…
We want to believe that the systems and institutions that govern our lives are mostly good. We want to believe that if we just keep our noses clean, we have nothing to fear. It's a lie you tell yourself because it's easier to ignore systemic injustice than to do something about it -- that is, unless you're the one being marginalised. Then it's impossible to ignore. There have been a few phenomena…
When I was fifteen years old, I came across a web design forum called Open Source Web Design (OSWD) and fell in love with the community there. Members would create XHTML/CSS templates that anyone could use for free. We gave feedback on each others' designs, chatted about trends in the industry, and the more experienced folk were more than happy to show the ropes to a young grasshopper like me.…
This most recent flare-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has echoed loudly through the streets of Paris these past few weeks. Among the French media and politicians, there is much hand-wringing over l’importation du conflit -- the risk of “importing” the conflict into France. It’s a turn of phrase that intrigues me for a couple reasons: The notion that a conflict can be “imported” suggests…
In June, I spent a couple weeks travelling around the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Of course, Dubai is far and away the poster child of the region, with its gee-whiz projects like The World and the 209-storey Burj Khalifa -- but neighbourhing Abu Dhabi, where I spent most of my time, is just as ambitious, if less flashy. In fact, the whole country (made up of 7 semi-autonomous Emirates, each…
Prague is called “The Fairytale City”, which is a pretty apt description of the atmosphere it exudes. Anyone who has been there tells me, “You’ve got to go! It’s so beautiful!” Breathtaking architecture in a hidden corner of Prague's old city It is beautiful. Prague has retained an architectural heritage spanning several centuries, from Gothic, to Renaissance, Baroque, and Art Nouveau. There was…
On April 24, the University of Toronto Students' Union (UTSU) made a radical change to the way its members are represented. Gone are the directors representing faculties and colleges. Instead, a lone at-large director will accompany ten representatives for various identity groups that are not divided along faculty lines: LGBTQ students, racialized students, indigenous students, international…
Less than half of Parisian households own a car. It's easy to understand why: you're never far from a Metro station, and the city gets nice bike-friendly weather pretty much year-round. Not to mention that it's an absolute pleasure to walk in Paris. A growing bikeshare network, dedicated bus lanes, and the annual transformation of the Georges Pompidou Expressway into Paris Plage reinforce the…
There's lots of advice around the internet for expats looking to settle in France (and Paris in particular). Before coming here, I read up on countless forums and blog posts about how to look for a place to live, set up a bank account, get a phone plan, and all that wonderful bureaucratic stuff. Still, when I arrived in Paris it was sometimes overwhelming and confusing to jump through all the…
Debate over the role of the automobile is a mainstay of urban politics. A quick scan of the last few months' headlines reveal a debate over surface parking in Minneapolis , Washington Metro's push for more transit-oriented stations , mixed messaging from Hamilton's downtown parking study , and Waterloo's propensity for buying up land to build parking lots . That's just a small taste of what's…
I first came across the word permaculture while looking for volunteer opportunities online. Melissa and I had our hearts set on visiting Portugal and we were finding lots of organic farms that were willing to host us in exchange for a few hours' work each day. At first I glossed it over as another sustainability-related buzzword, but after six weeks of permaculture experience, I was actually…
After turning off the highway, we travelled for a couple of minutes down a dirt sideroad and arrived at the entrance. A man in a neon green vest waved us through a set of gates. It sure didn't look like a medieval town -- all I could see were large sheet-metal storage sheds and, as we cleared the gates, a vast parking lot. However, past the sea of vehicles I could make out a jumble of pointed…
Starting next week, I'm going to be teaching English to kids in Paris. So it only seems fitting that I should hone my language skills at the same time. I've made it my new years' resolution to improve my skills in four languages. By the end of the year, I want to be able to: Read a Henning Mankell novel in the original Swedish without having to reach for a dictionary Build a web app from scratch…
There are few things quite as irksome as watching someone type "www.google.com" when they can just search from the address bar. It's like counting out a hundred pennies to pay for a pack of gum. Why would you do that?! My internal monologue screams. My grandparents and parents approach technology in a fundamentally different way than I do. When personal computing became mainstream, they had…
After deciding to slowly make our way up through Europe to arrive in Sweden for Christmas, we also decided that we would slowly make our way through Morocco before we arrived in Europe. We'd been living in Casablanca for a month, but hadn't made time to visit Marrakech, Fes, Tangier, Essaouria, the Saraha desert... all the touristy parts of Morocco were still as foreign to us as the day we…
See my previous post, Rabat conference notes -- Part 1 , for my notes from the Les Ateliers de la Terre conference. The second conference I went to in Rabat was hosted by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), a global association of municpal policymakers, academics, and political figures. Held on October 1-4, this conference was branded as a "World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders", with…
In mid-September and early October, I attended two conferences in Rabat, a short train ride from Casablanca. As Morocco's political capital, it's a comparatively sleepy government town where lots of important people decide important things. Playing host to dignitaries and heads of state certainly gives Rabat an edge in the cleanliness department. The comfortable, tree-lined streets are a welcome…