University Canada West- 181 Conestoga College employees laid off ahead of the holidays - CBC December 18, 2025
- B.C. allocates one-third of international undergraduate seats to private institutions. Here's why that matters - Vancouver Sun November 14, 2025
- B.C. student sues his teachers over plagiarism, judge strikes case - Business in Vancouver November 13, 2025
- Costly Fumbles by a BC College Left Me Stuck, Student Claims - The Tyee November 3, 2025
- University Canada West - UCW Professor Dr. Jafar Heydari Named Among the World's Top 2% Scientists - Education News Canada September 23, 2025
- The rise, fall and rise again of Peter Chung’s private-school empire - Vancouver Sun August 22, 2025
- Scenes From Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Los Alamos Daily Post August 7, 2025
- Foreign student cuts hit Vancouver office leasing market - RENX July 11, 2025
- Social Media Policy
- UK schools to go phone-free as government considers Australian-style social media ban - completemusicupdate.com January 20, 2026
- This Airbnb in Colorado was the ‘most loved’ listing on social media in 2025 - kdvr.com January 20, 2026
- Trump takes to social media, targets NATO allies over Greenland - USA Today January 20, 2026
- Using innovative methods, Army recruiter finds success in the social media age - Audacy January 20, 2026
- Supreme Court Reviews Trump’s Fed Firing of Lisa Cook via Social Media - filmogaz.com January 20, 2026
- Opinion | A proposed Homeland Security rule could empty U.S. stadium seats - The Washington Post January 20, 2026
- Can anti-doomscrolling influencers change how we use social media? - Indulgexpress January 20, 2026
- ‘Mindful consumption’: What would an under-16s social media ban mean for brands? - Marketing Week January 20, 2026
Author Archives: Robert Basil
Sure Why Not
God. The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.” (The title is a fine … Continue reading
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Almost time to go
Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been at or near the centre of my life for more than two decades. We’ll keep the newsfeed here up into my retirement years, though.
Bryan Garner’s “Tip of the Day”
You really must subscribe. Today’s was delightfully humbling: racket; racquet. For the implement used in net games, racket is standard in American English and British English alike. The variant racquet appears in some proper names (e.g., the Palm Springs Racquet Club) seemingly because the “fancy” … Continue reading
Welcome them in.
In a piece for The Conversation Canada, my Kwantlen Polytechnic University colleague Jeffrey Meyers writes about Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, two eminent American scholars who fled Yale University and the United States, taking positions at the University of Toronto, … Continue reading
Pope Francis
“When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.” “A little bit of mercy makes the … Continue reading
Amtrak’s social-media marketing
My favourite way to travel is by train, so I follow all of Amtrak’s accounts. They are very witty: When Southwest Airlines announced they were charging for bags, Amtrak posted on X, “Guess we’re the only ones doing free baggage now.” … Continue reading
Fake friends
In his article “Enshittification, artificial intelligence, and the privatization of public education,” Dr. Chris Samuel warns that artificial intelligent’s infiltration into education (AIED) will likely mimic the same depressing “enshittification” users saw in platforms like Facebook, Google, and X/Twitter. First, … Continue reading
Happy Public Domain Day!
From The Public Domain Review: Another year dawns… and another bevy of works dust off their copyright and emerge fresh-faced, full of hope, into the elysian plains of the public domain! On this year’s Public Domain Day (which falls each January … Continue reading
Pernicious Balance
Scholarly journals hide everything from people who can’t afford to read them. Large language models steal everything from people who can’t afford to lose anything.
Retirement
Reposted from basil.CA: 2025 Next year, at summer’s end, I will be retiring from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I will remain open to other contract opportunities elsewhere after that, but this will be it for me as a full-time prof. The … Continue reading