The Long Nineteenth Century

I'm sorry but I am so morally disoriented by the concept of 'fake cheese' that I have trouble focusing on any other aspect of your message. What is fake cheese?? You say that like it's a perfectly understandable and emotionally neutral combination of words. I feel like I've just been handed a koan.

Then you add the phrase “tiny weenies" like it's the logical next step rather than a new psychological event. From my (very French) perspective the sentence "fake cheese to dip tiny weenies in" sounds like such a unique cultural artefact in itself, like a linguistic diorama to be displayed in a vitrine. This is not meant as a negative judgment of you or your country! just my earnest ethnographic confusion as I try to grapple with the concept of "tiny weenies" from a place of "fake cheese" trauma...

I had no idea fondue was seen this way in the US—I thought we (as a species) had a collective working definition of it, a sort of global consensus like the commutative property of addition, so the idea that in some corners of the world "fondue" means “fake cheese to dip tiny weenies in” has made me remember that you can just flay language off reality like skin. There's also a non-zero chance for this phrase to have activated a sleeper agent in Lausanne and authorised targeted elimination under the Académie Française’s emergency powers.

Like when people argue whether warhammer 40k is fascist propaganda that says that fascism is good, or if it's actually a satire of fascist propaganda saying that fascism is bad. When it isn't really either of those things. That's not what it's going for and that's not what it's doing. It's got satirical elements floating around in there in varying degrees depending on era and author, but the point of them isn't to instruct the audience whether fascism is bad - it's for drama, and mood, and weird interestingness, and humour, and all the other reasons why things are in art other than political and moral instruction. It portrays a bunch of fucked up stuff connected by in-setting circumstance and lets you make your own mind about it, or just let yourself think "damn that's fucked up" and leave it at that.

It's not even, like, complex, by almost any literary standard. It's the same thing with them being unable to understand marvel movies, literally the most accessible movies ever made, when they crack out the most basic #101 nuance for teenagers where a villain has a sympathetic motive or a hero makes a mistake, and they can't really understand it, thinking that because the villain has a sympathetic quality then the movie is trying to demonise that sympathetic quality, because they assume that the film is operating at the level of basic propaganda, when it's, like, even slightly above that.

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food