Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
@blackwellmerlin.bsky.social
820 followers 470 following 1.1K posts
Mayor/ Politician with great concern for our civil society and the future of our planet. Bizarrely also a Japanese automotive historian, who will move that work to another Bluesky account.
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Such a remarkable performance. I didn’t think much about that song until I saw that one live performance.
Added you to the Electeds starter pack. Have heard you on NW.
A reminder that this exists…
If you are a B.C. local elected representative and want to be added, comment below.

go.bsky.app/UU5rr3i
The Transit police? That has got to be an all time high for them.
American politics has officially jumped the shark on a jet powered unicycle.
you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
Violent threats against government workers and businesses and a shocking physical attack on an elderly neighbour of the farm have highlighted how tensions around a CFIA-ordered cull of hundreds of ostriches have taken a very dark turn.

@jenstden.bsky.social reports. #canpoli
How the Ostrich Farm Cull Has Unleashed Threats of Violence | The Tyee
The CFIA union head says members and their families are being threatened.
thetyee.ca
Yup. Cars as riprap.

There’s a road up a sandy hillside near Little Fort built on flattened 50s and 60s cars.
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
We have also seen the degradation of compassion because we all have our own- sometimes questionable -“news” sources that should really be called “opinions”.

Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan get more airtime in some people’s heads than traditional media now.
Exactly.

“I’m happy you are happy to be knee deep in WEF conspiracy theories and to rage against vaccine mandates, but that doesn’t get the pipes fixed or the roads paved”.

My job as an elected official is to work in the same basic “reality” as other muni’s and the provincial government.
Yes. I had a conversation with Patrick Johnstone of New Westminster about this.

Clearwater still has our local paper, but just barely.
The discussion… I get a couple quotes in this one.

Two points to shine more attention on.

1. Recall legislation needs to happen.

2. Covid, combined with the Facebook news ban and the deregulation of social media platforms, has done huge damage to municipal democracy.

thetyee.ca/News/2025/10...
Mayor of Chaos: How Kamloops Politics Became Infamous | The Tyee
Car dealer Reid Hamer-Jackson won office with charisma and ideas. Then the wheels came off.
thetyee.ca
Political experience is a must in my books. The first 18 months in political office is a very steep curve.

I’m 14 years? into it and I’m still learning things.
We aim to please.

Does this qualify as a “Tyee restaurant review”?
Let me know next time you’re here, I’ll buy “the starving writer” a coffee.
It may not be you, but someone is or will be writing a book about this.

And yes, the publishing industry ain’t what it used to be. I have 20 copies of my dad’s book on a shelf here somewhere.
Fantastic read.

I’ve had a seat in the bleachers for this game, with many “front row” interactions with Kamloops Council via our time together at the regional district and at conferences, etc.

@tyolsen.bsky.social nails it. I feel a book coming on.
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
9-yr-old Ukrainian Sasha Paskal has won gold&bronze medals at the All-Ukrainian Rhythmic Gymnastics Competition "Black Sea Cup"

In the summer of 2022she was seriously injured by a Russian strike and underwent a leg amputation

Sasha didn’t give up.She went through rehabilitation
📹bokareva.solovey.m
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
Did you know the first thanksgiving celebrated by Europeans in North America happened in Canada?
Or that the Indigenous celebrated autumn harvests long before Europeans arrived?
Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving a month earlier than the United States?
This is the story.

🧵1/10
New York, Montreal, San Francisco… loved them all.

Tokyo and Kyoto are two of my favourites if they were to do Japan or Asia.
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
cry havoc and let slip the frogs of war
Reposted by Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater🇨🇦
This has become way more political in light of what is going on in Portland
important new signage