Viceless in Left Field

Top Ten

2006-01-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

This has been going around the net, and I think I lifted it off ... Amp at Alas or Bitch Phd, I can't remember. Anyway, here it is for those of you who might not have seen it yet.

Top Ten Reasons Gay Marriage Is Wrong

1. Being gay is not natural. And as you know Americans have always rejected unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because, as you know, a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed. The sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Yikes!

2006-01-19T21:18:00.000-05:00

update Federal prosecutors preparing to defend a controversial Internet pornography law in court have asked Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online to hand over millions of search records--a request that Google is adamantly denying.
In court documents filed Wednesday, the Bush administration asked a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., to force Google to comply with a subpoena for the information, which would reveal the search terms of a broad swath of the search engine's visitors.

Prosecutors are requesting a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's popular search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google over a one-week period.

Google said in a statement sent to CNET News.com on Thursday that it will resist the request "vigorously."

The Bush administration's request, first reported by The San Jose Mercury News, is part of its attempts to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which is being challenged in court in Philadelphia by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says Web sites cannot realistically comply with COPA and that the law violates the right to freedom of speech mandated by the First Amendment.

The search engine companies are not parties to the suit.

An attorney for the ACLU said Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL received identical subpoenas and chose to comply with them rather than fight the request in court.

From CNET

Bad. Really bad. If the Bush administration's intent is to search and destroy pedophiles, this isn't the greatest way to go about it. But if the Bushies want to get their dirty little hands on a cyber-public-sphere where we can all have our say, this would be a good way to start. Regulation of the internet is bad for all of us. If you're worried about your kids on the net, put the pc in the living room so that you can view the screen from your sofa. Or get rid of the computer if you can't handle your kids. DO NOT give the government permission to hunt you down for looking up articles on Freud and infant anal eroticism for your term paper.

My day in pictures

2006-01-15T00:25:00.000-05:00

The Love of My Life in 1978

2006-01-04T19:56:00.000-05:00

The other love:

They were wrong in 1978 and they're wrong now

2006-01-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

Ringing in the New Year in a Brand New© Way

2006-01-01T11:04:00.000-05:00

In starting 2006 I thought I'd look at my stats, which I don't usually do. The number one keyword that brings visitors here is "pimp" and I still get visitors from that American Women Suck website.

So I thought I'd extend a special "Happy New Year" to misogynists all over the world!!!

Friday Freak Flag

2005-12-31T18:58:00.000-05:00

I'm a freak about Jesus. Not the way most people are freaks about Jesus, but I'm a little baffled by it. I discovered the Nag Hammadi aka The Gnostic Gospels. The gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene fascinate me. It's this whole other new perspective of what Jesus was saying. I still don't think Jesus was/is divine (the gnostics did) but I find his life to be fascinating. The Nag Hammadi was found in 1945 in several clay jars buried in a desert in Egypt. They were found by a goat herder whose mother burned the first three chapters in the family hearth. Gnostics believed the way to salvation was through self knowledge. This is part of a prayer believed to be from a female deity:

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/thunder.html

News from an Alternate Universe

2005-12-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES - A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday there is enough evidence
to put a man on trial for allegedly robbing "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe
Francis and forcing him to partially disrobe and pose for a demeaning
videotape.

Too funny.

For the rest of the article, check out the Mercury News

Doctor Doctor, Give Me the News

2005-12-29T07:19:00.000-05:00

I had to go for tests at the hospital a couple of weeks ago. Specifically, a barium xray. I am not going to mention the symptoms I was having because the highest hits I currently get are for orange bowel movements and that's because of a post I wrote about a medication's side effects. So I just ain't goin' there this time. Anyway, it was an extremely unpleasant test and they had to make sure that the images were clear before they let me off the table. I actually heard the radiologists say, "What a perfect study! This is good, I'm pretty sure the patient isn't going to want to do this again." So with great relief, I shuffled outta there. Well. They want to do the test again and nobody's really telling me why. I mean, I suppose they could have spilled a coffee on the xrays or something. Somehow, I don't think that's it. Anyway, I was so fucking pissed at the news, I swore up and down that I wasn't going back there.

Yesterday I had a voice mail from my doctor's nurse, Betty. Betty is Asian and the best venipuncturist I've ever met. And I would know, because I was a junkie and my veins are shit, everyone else makes a giant mess when they have to draw blood. Anyway, Betty called me yesterday and she has this sorta hyper/concerned tone all the time (except when she's laughing her ass off). So I'll be returning her call today and I'm going to find out what the fuck. ???

And then I'll consider making another appointment with fucking radiology.

Christmas didn't kill me

2005-12-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

But it sure did make me cranky. I don't know if I'll do Christmas once Matthew is grown up. It's hugely a pain in the ass. Me and my brother went to the movies on Christmas day with all the Jewish and Jehovah's Witnesses in the GTA. We saw Wolf Creek, which scared the shit out of us, but the plot was blarg.

Once I make it through the New Year (me and a friend are hiding out and watching movies) then I have to start all that shit up with the doctors and the hospitals again and I would rather eat bugs.

I found out last night that people have been talking shit about me. Nobody even said anything, but you know when you walk up to a group of people and all of a sudden the conversation is stilted and weird and they make little passive aggressive comments? Anyway, I guess people are finding out I'm not the SAVIOUR-perfect person they imagined I was, and they are getting ready to nail me to the cross. I hope they let me choose. I am kind of partial to teak.

Roofies

2005-12-13T21:53:00.000-05:00

Furniture Porn

Supply Side Jesus

2005-12-13T17:46:00.000-05:00

By Al Franken and Don Simpson, found on Buzzflash

How to tell that a Full Moon is approaching

2005-12-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

Today I received a call from a man who was complaining about his neighbour's snow. He was Eastern European. I thought maybe his neighbour hadn't plowed. He mumbled something about being a sorry a woman had to take the call. Apparently, the snow was shaped like a penis. He thought it was offensive.

I told him that he would have to contact the police and he said that he had but that they hadn't been out yet and he wanted to know what the city would do about this monstrosity. I said that city workers cannot just go onto people's properties and change things that other people don't like and we had a big discussion about private vs public property. He got upset about the kids seeing it (probably the same buggers who made the damn thing.) I suggested he contact the police again to find out when they would come and he was reluctant to do so, so I put him on hold and called over to the City police. They said if he wanted to know, he'd have to call himself and that it was on a prioritized list. They're busy dealing with stolen cars etc.

The caller wasn't pleased with me and asked for the Mayor's number, which I gave him. I can picture Mr Mayor now, pouring hot buckets of water on a snow penis. Maybe he'd just whip his own out and take a leak on it. Or take a hair dryer to it.... The possibilities are endless really.

So that was the highlight of my day. That and getting my essay back (A-) and writing my final. Fuck. The Full Moon is still two whole days away. Lots more time for batshit crazy stuff.

Insomnia and London bombings?

2005-12-11T01:47:00.000-05:00

There has been a large explosion followed by two smaller blasts in the
St Albans area, around 25 miles north of London.
Sky Correspondent Sky Meade
has said he can see flames about 200ft in the sky and there appears to be
burning fuel.
Speaking by telephone from his home, Meade described "burning
tongues" of flames in the sky.
The first blast happened at 6.03am - the other
explosions followed about 20 minutes later.
Meade, a seasoned war reporter
said he can see what looks like "burning aviation fuel".
"This fire is
extremely intense. It is a bright orange glow on the horizon," he
said.
Witnesses have told Sky News they heard the blast near Junction 8 of
the M1. It is thought to be centred around Bunsfield fuel depot, near Hemel
Hempstead.
The blast was felt at Sky Centre - more than 20 miles away in west
London.
It was so powerful it blew out the windows at a hotel in Hemel
Hempstead. There are reports of injuries there.
And one witness has told how
the explosion shook his mother's house and lifted the roof.
Witnesses have
told Sky News that emergency services are converging on the area.
Sky News
producer Anwar Tambe heard the blast from his home in Luton and is currently
stuck in traffic on the M1.
He said blasts are "going off regularly" and
debris has blown onto the motorway.

Sky News

I just woke up ... probably stomach flu. I'm listening to BBC5 live. Casualities have occurred... not sure how many. Three bombs. I'm listening to people talk in the neighbourhood. Surging flames in an oil tanker depot. Flames can be seen from 5 or six miles away.

Freak Flag Thang

2005-12-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

I've had a strange weekend so far, that's why this is late. I didn't get home from work at all yesterday, I met with friends for a birthday dinner/palm reading/art gallery ... thing. I had met this palm reader a week ago at the historical merchant fair thing and told my friends who were all eager to have their palms read. So the birthday girl is about to meet the man of her dreams and I'm definitely NOT dying any time soon. I have one major love affair to go and several small flirtations after my betrothed dies on me. My married friends both had their palms done and his marriage is short lived and hers isn't. He's having one child and she is having two. So that made for some awkward dinner conversation.

After we ditched the husband, we all drove out to wine country to this art gallery. The curator has the hots for the birthday girl. This gallery was filled with all sorts of art. They do performance art shows and poetry readings as well. When we got there, some prof was finishing up a talk on the "yamamamas" who live in the Amazon. We all chilled out in the main display room (as opposed to the spooky room upstairs) and just chatted. The curator has decided he's sick of Canadian politics and he's going to use this to drum up some press for his gallery and he would like me to do a mock press release for a new party in Canada: NO MORE. And to celebrate our first campaign, we'll have a NO SHOW. It was pretty funny, but I think he's actually serious and wants me to write this ... thing.

Blaaaaaaaaaaarg. Okay, I think I have a stomach flu or something. this sucks, I am trying to study.

Um, freak flag things. I am OCD about my coffee pot. Sometimes, I'll be locking my door and then I'll think, "Oh shit, I think I left the coffee pot on." And back in I go. Sometimes the coffee pot IS on, which reinforces this stupid shit EVERY goddamn day. Sometimes it's not on which makes me feel creepy. I occasionally wonder if I'll have to tap my nose three times, click the switch off, on, and off and walk out the door backwards or something as some kind of ritual to stop me from going back in. I get that it could be worse and that I could be washing my hands 5000 times a day, but it really bugs me, especially when I'm late.

You amuuuuuuuuuuse meeee

2005-12-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

This website was fun to toy around with and sucked up about 5 minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Project Euh

You'll have to allow popups.

huzzah!!

2005-12-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

Check out hollabacknyc. A blog dedicated to confronting and exposing street harrassers.

I haven't been exposed to street harrassment in quite a while. I do a fair bit of walking around downtown but for some reason I just don't invite those comments very often anymore. Maybe it's because of my age, maybe because I look like someone's mom, or maybe it's because I'm oblivious. Anyway, this blog got me to thinking about all the dorky sexist shit that's been shouted at me by men in my lifetime, so here is my little grocery list of abuse that I remember.

The last time I remember any uninvited comments, I was actually in my car. With my boyfriend. I was stopped at a light and I had a map open because I was trying to find something (and my stupid boyfriend wouldn't touch a map because ... fuck, I don't know why men won't touch maps) and this white van full of guys pulled up. "Hey miss, want us to help you show you where to go??" Admittedly, they didn't ask if they could lick my pussy but it was still weird. Then they noticed my boyfriend and pulled away.

As a teen, working in a cookie franchise outlet, two thirtyish men were purchasing cookies, said they liked my jeans and could I turn around for them.

On a crowded bus, this guy got on, started insisting that I knew him and that he was so wounded that I didn't remember him. He wasn't abusive but he would not let up until I got off the bus. He kept asking me out and I kept saying no and the people on the bus kept chuckling, like it was so cute.

In a car, as a passenger, at age 17, my best friend driving. We were downtown, and an unmarked car flashed a dashboard cherry at us so we pulled over. The guy walked up to the window, asked for a driver's license and scolded us for nothing. Then said he wasn't really a cop and would we both like to go for a drink with him.

Sitting alone in my car at a stoplight near my parents place a few years ago, a car pulls up beside mine and honks. I look over and some forty-something man is leaning out his window and waggling his tongue at me.

At the age of sixteen, while watching a music act at Yonge and Dundas, I hear some guy say, "Holy shit look at that ass." I am wondering if he's talking about mine. A minute or two later, a guy in his late twenties hands me a bunch of cheap carnations which I later gleefully shred.

Looking back on it all, I see that most of the harrassment occurred when I was between 12 and 18, and after that it gradually tapered off. And generally, it wasn't boys my own age doing it, it was grown adult men, presumably fathers and husbands. I think we should teach our daughters to respond to shit like this with, "You loser, aren't you someone's dad?"

This little piggy called a lawyer, this little piggy posted on blogs

2005-12-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

I have an online friend in California who is a cop watch dog. She writes about the corrupt police department in her city and she has a blog. And some cops are participating on it, and I must say, it's fascinating. The grandiosity of the cops is just ... way too fucked up. One of them basically justifies brutality and says there's no point in exposing it because the "Middle Class" (he capped it, I wouldn't) expects that their employees (ie. cops, sanitation workers, nurses etc) will take care of everything so that they can get their Starbucks and get to little Billy's baseball game on time. The "Middle Class" just don't give a shit. So yeah, beating the shit out of crack addicts is really helping society because Mr Suit can still get to work on time. What.The.Fuck.

If you want to check it out, here ya go: http://rivercitycopwatch.blogspot.com/

Happy Anniversary to Me

2005-12-01T20:34:00.000-05:00

Today is the one year anniversary of my not having cable.

Why I'm a Loner

2005-12-01T20:07:00.000-05:00

So HT's blog reminded me of a website I used to hack around on. Free tarot readings, runes, numerology, everything else. I tend to lean more towards using runes because ... well, they usually seem to relate to whatever situation I'm looking into. Tarot cards usually piss me off. Anyway, my question for the Runes was, "Why am I a loner?" And here is what I got:

The left rune represents an important element of the past. Eoh refers to the Yew tree. The Yew does not go dormant and therefore represents endurance. Even the wood of the tree is strong, resilient, and pliable - the Yew bends, but does not break. The evergreen nature of the Yew is present even in the rune itself, as it cannot be changed even by reversal. This rune is historically symbolic of death, but, as in the Tarot and as suggested by the nature of the Yew tree itself, death is seen only as a transmutation of something eternal and unchanging - the spirit.

Hmmm.

The middle rune represents a deciding element of the present. Ansuz is the spoken word of God. This rune is reversed, indicating that you are misunderstanding the divine voice or failing to hear it all. The word is always correct, so you must strive, whatever the difficulty, to hear correctly. Be wary of the advice you are given, for it may prove incorrect. Do not attribute infallibility to fallible sources...

This isn't that surprising. I think my hearing is defective.

The right rune represents the critical element of the future. Ger is one of the runes that touches on the cycles of the year, in this case the fall harvest. These cycles are eternal, which is represented in the rune by the fact that it is unchanged by reversal. Ger can represent pregnancy or other forms of fruitfulness, and is especially indicative of the cycles of providence and karma - that which has been sown is now being reaped. This rune can also represent the cycles of wealth, for crops were frequently a sign of wealth.

Well, I ain't pregnant, but I did slave my ass off for years and I feel like I'm sort of coming home. My aunt used to tell me a woman came into her own when she was 35 and I'm beginning to get what she meant. I thought at first it only meant money, but it means a whole lot more than that. It means really truly doing what I want and not giving a shit about societal, parental or social expectations are and NOT just paying lip service to that. I used to swear I didn't give a shit what other people thought about me, and in the next instant be throwing myself down in front of doors.

Anyway, I guess I'm a loner because I've always been one, deep down, even in the moments when I wanted so badly to belong to ... something. Well, I guess I finally figured out (through a bloody shitty process) that I belong to me.

And yes, yes, I do have PMS right now. :P

Sometimes the yellow brick road goes BOTH ways

2005-11-29T07:14:00.000-05:00

So I got a permanent job at the City. I had interviewed for three jobs, one of which I'm already doing but on contract. The other two were at Ontario Works. I got the one I'm already doing and Ontario Works rejected me, and I'm thanking my lucky stars for that. I work in the info call centre for the city and we have this guy who calls us, no shit, 25 times a day (at least) looking for his OW check. We keep explaining to him that he has not reached the OW department and that he should contact his case manager, which is when he starts in about how his workers a racist fuck, etc etc. Some of the older ladies have lectured him on his use of language, some of us have exasperately told him to stop calling. I got him twice yesterday. Anyway, I'm pretty fucking happy that OW rejected me and all I have to do is talk to this guy on the phone, not sit across a desk from him.

Anyway, during the interview process, a couple of city employees made it clear to me that I didn't have any right to go for that job because I have no seniority, and the other applicants should get it first. I'm from "OUTSIDE" the city, so I'm some sort of cheating interloping ne-er-do-well I guess. So, now that I did land the permanent job, I am pretty damn popular, let me tell you. I have three friends who don't hate me because I'm beautiful. So that's good. I won't have another starving Christmas with a crazy roommate. I keep thinking about last year at this time. Ugh.

So I just finished writing an essay on the representation of gay men in mainstream Hollywood (I know it's an oxymoron) movies. It was good, but it was hard. I watched a lot of crappy movies and hung out at the Werx every damned Friday (that was fun though. Gay men don't fare well in Hollywood, but lesbians usually do worse if they show up at all. I feel fairly good about this paper. I've also signed up to go another round in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory in term 2. Fuck my family and their wimpy little trust fund. I've got a civil servant salary!

Sony Bots

2005-11-11T07:04:00.000-05:00

No no nooooo. Not bottle tokes. Bots. As in, "online robots."

zdnet news

Sony's software, installed when playing one of the record label's recent copy-protected CDs in a computer, hides itself on hard drives using a powerful programming tool called a "rootkit." But the tool leaves the door open behind it, allowing other software--including viruses--to be deeply hidden behind the rootkit cloak.

The first version of a Trojan horse spotted early Thursday, which aims to give an attacker complete remote control over an infected computer, didn't work well. But over the course of the day, several others emerged that apparently fixed early flaws.

"This is no longer a theoretical vulnerability; it is a real vulnerability," said Sam Curry, vice president of Computer Associates' eTrust Security Management division. "This is no longer about digital rights management or content protection, this is about people having their PCs taken over."

Methinks Sony is in deep shit. But still, don't play their cd's on your computer. Today's warning has been brought to you by the concept of progressive news. :)

Reason #3120938 that I'm glad I'm not a Yank

2005-10-31T18:00:00.000-05:00

Hetracil

The latest, greatest cure for homosexuality. How disappointing now that I've decided to formally pitch for the other team.

1-800-ITS-OKAY

2005-10-16T06:11:00.000-05:00

I'm still resolute in never speaking to my family again and my mother says she doesn't want to either but she's not like me. She's emotionally high strung. I spent Wednesday night telling her everything would be okay, as it has always been. N Beaver gets hurt and has to explain to mother that it's okay. I'm so fucking tired of that retarded role, I can't even begin to describe it. I've decided to start my own business: "1-800-ITS-OKAY - for all the people who never had emotionally supportive parents, we'll tell you what you need to hear. It's okay."

I'm so sad

2005-10-12T06:30:00.000-05:00

My mother called me Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend to tell me that she was off to her sister's place and that there would be no Thanksgiving dinner. I had a few feelings about that, but not being SERIOUSLY traditional, made other last minute plans with a friend and wheedled some dinner out of her (steak!). So then I get home from work yesterday to a message by my mother on that shitty cell phone of hers that cuts out every few minutes, but I did get the gist of the message.

The Trust fund is being closed down on the 18th of October.

No more money for school.

Fifteen of my cousins have received degrees through that estate, some of them have gotten two degrees. My aunts have gotten degrees. The executor of the estate knew I was in school because I submitted my receipt for last semester and had received a cheque. Now, apparently, my mother's siblings have decided, at the beginning of my degree, that the trust fund is to be dismantled and divided up amongst them all.

I'm still in shock that my family would actually be that blatant and discriminatory, but they always have been because my mother (the dummy) got married for love and not money and ended up with a blue collar guy. I'm trying to decide whether or not there's any point in me even finishing a humanities degree at the age of 35. My best friend says I should consult a lawyer but I'm undecided about that. There is one thing that I do know for sure though.

I'm never ever speaking to those people again. No more family. Buh-bye.

Mona Lisa Smile - eating your cake without having it

2005-10-10T09:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm about to watch this crap again. I saw it in the theatres when it was released and I've just rented it again so that I can analyze the representations of class, race, femininity and feminism in the movie. Upon seeing it, I recall thinking, first of all, that Julia Roberts was horribly miscast as a free-spirited, free-thinking, non-conformist arts history prof. I also recall thinking it was bullshit because if Katherine Watson (Roberts' character) was supposed to be encouraging these students to throw off the yoke of oppression, by embracing the philosophy that "work will set you free" then that isn't really revolutionary and underlines the importance of capitalism. The film seems to suggest that women either choose work or matrimony/motherhood with no prospects of having the ability to choose some combination of both or neither.

Did anyone else see the movie? What did you think of it?

The Blogosphere

2005-10-06T06:13:00.000-05:00

The other night in my tutorial, we had a discussion about blogs. The TA and a few of the other students described blogs as narcissistic diaries for people who were basically shut-ins. I'm studying visual culture and I found this completely shocking. I volunteered that blogs were also an alternative means of dispensing alternative news. I volunteered that Gannon was exposed because of a blog (I think
Andrew Sullivan, no?) and the TA looked at me with that deer/headlight thing and just simpered, "Ohh. I'm sorry, I didn't know about that." My first question is, how can you NOT know about Gannon and be teaching in a university? And my second question is, how can you be teaching VISUAL FUCKING CULTURE and not get the importance of blogs? Yes, I know, most of them are crap, including this one, but the phenomena itself in this age, with a media that's been bought, is a miracle.

A History of Crap

2005-10-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

So last night I went to see A History of Violence (spoilers ahead). It was quite possibly one of the worst films I've ever seen. Seeing as how I'm studying semiotics and codes in film, I am finding this film to be chock full of them, as well as about a dozen cliches. The code I find most fascinating in the film is the one where pissed off and abused women are actually horny and just need to be pounded on the stairs. Let me lay it out for you a bit. Tom Stall gets his cheesy small town cliche diner robbed and he heroically and literally blows the shit out of his would-be robbers and gets his unexpressive face plastered all over the news. Mob guys show up and announce to the town (and the police) who they are and why they are interested in Tom Stall. They go to small-town diner and start calling Tom by the name Joey. The lead mobster has a mangled face. Tom and his family walk around looking sort of moody. Tom mostly looks stunned. Wife gets upset, decides husband is a freak. They get into an argument, he grabs her by the throat and throws her up against the wall. She hits back. He hits her. She tries to run up the stairs, Tom/Joey grabs her by the ankle and yanks her back and then they have furious bonking sex on uncarpeted wooden stairs. The rest of the plot is equally stupid and Viggo Mortensen seems totally unsure of whether he should be using an Indiana or Philly accent. There is a shot of Bello's character sitting up, doubled over in bed with moonlight enhancing the bruises and abrasions that run up and down her spine.

Anyway, I was actually moved by the film's utter crappiness to go see the reviews on imdb and people LOVED it. They're talking about it like it's a brilliant piece of artwork with a passionate message about life! There were one or two people who wrote about what total shit they thought it was, but for the most part, it's getting great reviews. Then I went to the message board, where people are talking about how realistic and sensuous the scene on the stairs was. Excuse me? Rape? Sexual assault? Domestic violence? Bueller? It was the unsexiest thing I've ever seen, and to my mind, is on a par with that scene in Paris Trout where Dennis Hopper shoves a glass bottle up inside Barbara Hershey. Fusing violence with sex is a dangerous game. Need evidence? Just read your local paper and keep an eye out for the latest murdered woman. I'm fucking sick of it, and tired of irresponsible media mongols making violence look like orgiastic adventure. No more Cronenberg films for me. I promised myself I wouldn't watch any more Hollywood tripe, but I love movies and I can't seem to kick the habit, goddamnit. I do video rentals but the small screen doesn't engage me like the large screen does. I mean, even if I wanted to just see films directed by women, that'd get me to the theatre, what ... twice a year?

Meh. Major disappointment. Maybe I'll go make my own frickin' movie.

Pimps up Ho's Down

2005-09-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

Some facts I found on the net.

Men call up the image of the whore when they are abusing their partners. The accusations in between the kicks and slaps: "You slut....whore...." Historically, the words mean "subhuman," "having no rights," "invisible," and "wicked." As recently as 1991, police in a southern California community closed all rape reports made by prostitutes and addicts, placing them in a file stamped "NHI." The letters stand for the words "No Human Involved." (Linda Fairstein, Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape, 1993, New York, William Morrow.)

Women in prostitution are purchased for their appearance, including skin color and characteristics based on ethnic stereotyping. Throughout history, women have been enslaved and prostituted based on race and ethnicity, as well as gender (Kathleen Barry, 1995 ,The Prostitution of Sexuality, New York University Press).

"Prostitution isn't like anything else. Rather, everything else is like prostitution because it is the model for women's condition." (Evelina Giobbe, 1992, quoted by Margaret Baldwin in "Split at the Root: Prostitution and Feminist Discourses of Law Reform," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, 5:
47-120).

The average age of entry into prostitution is 13 years (M.H. Silbert and A.M. Pines, 1982, "Victimization of street prostitutes, Victimology: An International Journal, 7: 122-133) or 14 years (D.Kelly Weisberg, 1985, Children of the Night: A Study of Adolescent Prostitution, Lexington, Mass, Toronto). Most of these 13 or 14 year old girls were recruited or coerced into prostitution. Others were "traditional wives" without job skills who escaped from or were abandoned by abusive husbands and went into prostitution to support themselves and their children. (Denise Gamache and Evelina Giobbe, Prostitution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation, National Coalition against Domestic Violence, 1990)

80% of prostitution survivors at the WHISPER Oral History Project reported that their customers showed them pornography to illustrate the kinds of sexual activities in which they wanted to engage. 52% of the women stated that pornography played a significant role in teaching them what was expected of them as prostitutes. 30% reported that their pimps regularly exposed them to pornography in order to indoctrinate them into an acceptance of the practices depicted. (A facilitator's guide to Prostitution: a matter of violence against women, 1990, WHISPER - Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt Minneapolis, MN)

The prostitution market is driven by customer demand for sexual service. During WW II, the Japanese military forced from 100,000 to 200,000 Korean women into prostitution to service their military. (Kathleen Barry, The Prostitution of Sexuality, 1995, New York, New York University Press).

In 1974, police estimated that there were 400,000 prostitutes in Thailand, procured primarily for the U.S. military on R & R from the Vietnam War. As of 1993, an unofficial estimate is that there are 2 million prostitutes in Thailand, whose national economy is dependent on tourism. Prostitution is the largest commodity for the 450,000 Thai men who purchase prostitutes daily as well as for a large percentage of the 5.4 million tourists a year who arrive in Thailand for "sex tours." (Kathleen Barry, The Prostitution of Sexuality, 1995, New York, New York University Press).

The answer to the question "why do prostitutes stay with their pimps?" is the same as the answer to the question "why do battered women stay with their batterers?" (Melissa Farley, 1996) Humans bond emotionally to their abusers as a psychological strategy to survive under conditions of captivity. This has been described as the Stockholm syndrome (Dee Graham with Rawlings and Rigsby, Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men's Violence, and Women's Lives, 1994, New York University Press, New York.)

62% reported having been raped in prostitution.
73% reported having experienced physical assault in prostitution.
72% were currently or formerly homeless.
92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately.
(Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, "Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" (1998) Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426

A Canadian Report on Prostitution and Pornography concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average. ( Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, 1985, Pornography and Prostitution in Canada 350.

Like combat veterans, women in prostitution suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychological reaction to extreme physical and emotional trauma. Symptoms are acute anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and being in a state of emotional and physical hyperalertness. 67% of those in prostitution from five countries met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD â€“ a rate similar to that of battered women, rape victims, and state-sponsored torture survivors. (Melissa Farley, Isin Baral, Merab Kiremire, Ufuk Sezgin, "Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" (1998) Feminism & Psychology 8 (4): 405-426

In prostitution, demand creates supply. Because men want to buy sex, prostitution is assumed to be inevitable, therefore 'normal.' Here are quotes from three different johns:

"It's like going to have your car done, you tell them what you want done, they don't ask, you tell them you want so and so doneâ€|" (McKeganey, N. and Barnard, M. ,1996, Sex Work on the Streets: Prostitutes and Their Clients. Milton Keynes Open University Press, Buckingham, Scotland.).

I am a firm believer that all womenâ€| are prostitutes at one time or another" (Hite, S. ,1981, The Hite Report on Male Sexuality. New York, Alfred A. Knopf)

Discussing his experience in a strip club, one man said, "This is the part of me that can still go hunting" (Frank, K. (1999) Intimate Labors: Masculinity, Consumption, and Authenticity in Five Gentlemen's Clubs, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, Durham, N.C.).

Ho's down, indeed.

7 Things

2005-09-22T18:42:00.000-05:00

I just realized that I got tagged on the 7 things bit about three weeks ago by Petunia. Holy shmoly I'm slow. A whole lot was going on back then, so here it is now.

7 Things I plan to Do Before I Die
Pay all my taxes
Finish a degree or two
Travel to Europe and possibly Taiwan
Learn to speak better French
Hit each Canadian coast one more time
Fully experience everything I can in the moment
Visit an art gallery in every city I visit

7 Things I Can Do
Fix Computers
Nurse
Calm down extremely aggressive people (when I want to)
Make a mean Pad Thai
Listen (when I try to)
Persevere
Understand that I do not understand

7 Things I Cannot Do
tolerate airheads
tolerate misogyny
tolerate racism
algebra
tan (hahaha)
eat north american grain products
figure out the appeal of the WWF

7 Things That Attract Me to The Opposite/Same Sex
Voice/Diction
Bum!
Kindness
Patience
Compassionate
Eyebrows (don't ask)
Intelligence

7 Things That I Say Most Often
Holy Shneike
Aw Crap
Shit
Fuck
life may not get better, but we can
Tell me a story...
Eat me

7 Celebrity Crushes
That guy who played Joe, Brenda's lover, in Six Feet Under (Eyebrows)
Rick Mercer
Dave Foley
Jon Stewart
Bill Maher
Ashley MacIsaac
Harry Connick Jr

7 People I Want to Do This
I think most of the bloggers I know have already done it but I'd say Top Dog and Flatline Girl and Natalia (if she hasn't done it.) Miss HT Psych. And Rick Mercer, cuz I know he reads my blog EVERY DAY. Shut up! He does so!

It's Not ahhh Tumahhhh!

2005-09-21T17:08:00.000-05:00

So my brain is ok. Yay!

I have an assignment to do for school and basically what I have in mind is analyzing the images and representations in ads and thought I'd put it out there to see if there were any ads that really struck them as sexist, racist, or violent and I'd see if I could sink my teeth into them.

So. Got ads?

Judge Wapner's on at three mmyeah

2005-09-19T20:51:00.000-05:00

Early this morning, around 4:30am, I woke up with sharp stabbing pains in my head. It was bizarre. Woke me right out of a dead sleep. I barely recall staggering into the washroom and eating some tyelenol. I was feverish too, I guess I turned my fan on at some point because when I woke up it was on.

Kinda don't want to go to sleep tonight. :|

Confession, Redemption and Speaking in Tongues

2005-09-18T07:47:00.000-05:00

So I sent a postcard secret and it's not up yet. Now I'm thinking that it was too sick to share and Frank immediately burnt it before he went blind from reading it. Or maybe some guy at the Post Office is jerking off to it. This is horrible, but it's still not as bad as going to confession. I mean, I totally get the appeal of going to confession, that's probably one of the things the Catholic Church got right except confessing to someone who doesn't regularly sin is a bit odd. I think the Church shoulda put repentant whores and killers on the other side of the booth so when you confessed to cheating on your wife or taxes, you'd hear, "At least you didn't kill someone - that'll be ten hail marys, now get the fuck outta here." Talk about redemption.

I was born and raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools and had lots and lots of Catholics at school, in my parish and in my family try to save me - which I only resented anyway. I have great big huge beefs with the Catholic Church and so I know I can't go back. Once you know, you can't not know. I mean, if there's a wedding or a funeral, I go, but I don't accept the Eucharist, nor will I kneel to pray, nor will I confess my sins to someone who quite possibly finds children sexually attractive. Sins. Don't even get me started on how I feel about that concept. So, I'm a little disconnected spiritually, which is kind of a shitty way to live. I've tried going to other congregations, but pious people generally piss me off and a LOT of Christians are pious and can't wait to tell you about it. And I might spontaneously combust when I say this, but I don't think Jesus was divine. I think he was a spiritual human leader, yeah, historical evidence paints a decent picture of the guy, but Immaculate Conception, Walking on Water, Resurrection? Not so much. Myth and allegory, people - it adds to life. Anyway, I found this Quaker meeting a couple of miles away and I think I'm gonna go check it out. I forget how I found out about the "Friends" but they don't really get in your face with their stuff, which I like, and you don't have to be Christian with a capital C. They basically get together to meditate on things of a spiritual nature. Now, I don't meditate all that well alone, so being in a room of silent people could be weird and I will definitely run out screaming if someone falls into the aisle, writhes on the floor and starts speaking in tongues. That's if I go. I still have two hours to convince myself it's a stupid idea.

Totems, trees, hell and tragedy

2005-09-14T15:28:00.000-05:00

So about my trip to Van. Yeah, I did have one morning to myself when my friend had a report that needed to be done for work so I bamfed off to the Vancouver Art Gallery where I saw what seemed like the entire Rodin collection. I saw The Thinker:

I'd only seen him in pictures before, so getting up that close was pretty cool. I could see how Rodin worked at his features and his posture to imply thinking. Not much of Rodin's work involves movement, many sculptures are posed or are simply busts. They had one piece by Camille Claudel
who was Rodin's "assistant." Back in those days, women were not allowed to attend L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts so she would have been very fortunate to work with him. She first met him at the age of 15. She soon became his lover and you can see the influence of the other in their works. Rodin was actually married to Rose Beuret who I supposed tolerated his affairs. Eventually, Camille came to realize that Rodin had no intentions of leaving Rose for her, and she dropped his ass like it was on fire. She then destroyed most of her own work and was committed to an asylum for the duration of her life (30 years) and never created another piece. I've seen the one piece by Camille, and pictures of a few others and her work is more detailed and delicate and much more attractive. Rodin's figures are often ungainly, with overly large hands and feet. There are some who say that Rodin claimed some of Camille's work for his own but I'm not sure that can ever be proven. Regardless, it is a tragic story.

I came across Rodin's "Gates of Hell" and stood there for a few minutes before the thought, "I've been here before" ran through my mind and I smirked inwardly. It's not a pretty sculpture, but then, Hell isn't pretty, according to Dante's Inferno, which is was modeled after.

Up on the fourth floor of the gallery I found the Emily Carr exhibit. She's probably not well known to non-Canadians. She hung out with Lawren Harris of the Group of Seven but was never formerly invited to join them and become the 8th. Much of her work involved painting the totems and houses of the Haida, a group of Natives who lived (and some still do) on Queen Charlotte Islands, off the coast of BC. She has a couple of paintings that are well known to Canada, but I came across two that really struck me, but that I realized later wouldn't have, if I'd seen them in print. The first one was called, "Strangled by Growth," which is haunting yet instructive. The second one, "Scorn of the Timber, Beloved of the Sky" blew my lights. The web doesn't do these pictures justice. Standing in front of them, looking at the way the swirls of oil paint on the canvas create the movement, is breathtaking. I could have stood there all afternoon but I had to meet my friend for lunch.

Later that day we went to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of BC, and I saw tons of Haida items and learned a great deal about their culture, but that'll be another entry.

And yes, I'm considering taking a course in Art History. ;)

Public Service Announcement

2005-09-11T00:15:00.000-05:00

This blog has a tracker, your IP is logged publically. Please take that into consideration if you will be making idle threats to blogspot community members on this page or your own.

Misogyny on the Net

2005-09-04T08:12:00.000-05:00

I found this guy accidentally, while cruising through the comments on someone else's blog and ... it's just so hard to resist. Check out the "American Women Sucks" websites "philosophy" - I am sure Plato and Aristotle would have been impressed.

Healthy men must rebuke American women to save our souls and to prevent
ourselves from becoming extinct. We are being assaulted daily thru television,
politics, music, movies, and magazines. Corporations are brutally guiding men
towards a life of hopelessness, slavery, debt and despair.

Assaulted DAILY? (sounds like a wicked newspaper) And I suppose it's a bunch of AMERICAN FEMINIST PIG BASTARDS that are all the network execs running the media and the corporations. Like corporations discriminate the souls they consume by gender. Get a freaking clue. Oh, but there's more.

American women have willfully lost their privilege to date or marry decent men. I'm a decent man who is willing and able to fight in constructive ways. What will you do in the face of the feminist's challenge? Will you self-destruct? Will you soon be feminized to the point where you are required by law to take estrogen injections to act more feminine?

I think it's more like many American women finally figured out that ownership kinda sucks and are looking for equal partnerships. Often, that doesn't happen because a lot of guys buy into "philosophies" such as this. Feminized by male-constructed law to take estrogen injections. That's a good one. Chief, you gotta hole in that there tinfoil hat of yours.

Our fight requires no bullets or bombs. Ours is a cultural exodus using discipline, self-respect, self-restraint, logic, and reason as our weapons. There is no need to lay even one finger on an American woman. They should be shunned and left barren to date and marry drug users, scoundrels, diseased, abusive and dishonest men only.

Get this straight Chief. The reason women want nothing to do with you is that you're nuts, self-absorbed, resentful, and childish. I'd take a junkie over you any day of the week.

If we do nothing, we lose our souls and livelihoods. If we act in meticulous, emphatic, and forthright manners...our battles will be supplely won.

Most American women are both physically and emotionally ugly. I suggest that men take trips to other parts of the world if they want to meet truly beautiful women.

What Chief is really suggesting here is that bassackwards men like himself might find it more feasible to go to a Third World country and BUY a wife because a relationship with someone who is his equal in terms of financial power doesn't leave him with enough control over another person. By buying a third world wife, he can convince himself that he's being altruistic by "saving" this woman from whoredom, when what's he's really doing is purchasing a domestic servant and personal sex slave. Chief, you can do that in America - just call Molly Maid and your local escort service. Oh, right, that's not very Christian is it?

Below are my suggestions on how decent men can effect cultural change in America. Keep in mind that I will make adjustments to my philosophy as I continue to fully experience life.

He's gonna make some adjustments as he continues to experience life. Ah yes, the joys of life, like BUYING PEOPLE. Yes, that's a wonderful philosophy. Be sure to let us know how that works out for you. I didn't put in all his suggestions, because, well jeez, his cup runneth over, but they are all there on his website to ridicule.

Your wife should school your children
A marriage isn't a marriage without children. And women shouldn't be working outside the home anyway. They need a good christian schooling and the public school system is full of EVIL SCIENCE.

Enjoy being a spiritual man in God's light

Buying people is definitely spiritual. It's what built America!!

Use the Internet to discuss current events

And use the internet to spread hate speech against other genders and races! It's fun AND educational!

Take accredited school courses via the Internet

Learn how to fix that Pinto that's taking up space on your front lawn today! Act now!

Do not date or marry an American woman

How about you keep your DNA out of all gene pools forever?

If you are a skilled lover, you will realize that sex is naturally more enjoyable for the woman

Women shouldn't actually participate in pleasure, yours OR hers, because that's slutty. Men are totally responsible for the pleasure and orgasms of women.

Treat women as unique but not as your equal
Don't go without sex for long periods of time.

I put these two together for obvious reasons. Good luck with that.

The symmetrically balanced female form is God's most beautiful and complex piece of living artwork

Of course, women were created as toys for men. The Bible says so, so it MUST be true.

Well, that was amusing. It's been awhile since I did my cat & mouse routine with some poor unsuspecting mouthbreather on the net. I may end up with a troll or two from linking to that idiotic website, but I'll deal. And it got my mind off of death and dying for about half an hour, so for that, thanks a lot Chief. Good luck with that philosophy of yours. Be sure to let us know when your dissertation is completed.

Mayor of New Orleans, telling it like it is

2005-09-03T16:24:00.000-05:00

Nagin mp3

I think America is well on her way to being gone now

2005-09-03T08:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't had too much of a chance to get into all the gritty details of what has happened down South, but what I have managed to glean has been pretty eye-opening. Most of those people down there, swimming around in feces and corpses, are not white. White people done got out of town right away because they had money. The people left there are the sick, the disabled, and the black. And with Bushes cuts to FEMA, it's all right out there for the world to see. What's that shit written on the statue of liberty or whatever? "Send us your weak.." - all that is just blather now. They should change it to, "We will put your weak, your ill, your downtrodden and your minorities into a ghetto and watch them drown while drinking martinis in our helicopter overhead. We will send in the army to ensure they don't get to loot any free bandaids or water, even though all those goodies are all written off anyway." No wonder people are shooting at medical personnel and helicopters. Like they don't have an ACUTE fucking understanding of why they are in the situation they are in. This could translate into civil war. I see Bush didn't run in and have a photoshoot of himself in fatigues, standing on a pile of rubble. Know why? 'Cause those people would rip him to shreds.

America is over. We have hit Peak Oil (and amazingly, people are still in denial about that). The rift between the haves and the have-nots will grow wider. There will be no in-between. It's going to get uglier.

Yikes

2005-09-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

Linky linky

AAAAAGH

2005-09-01T06:17:00.000-05:00

I got the job. I now am an official employee of the City. Well, I will be once I formally accept the job. My first thought was, "Yay! Now I can afford to smoke!"

Yeah, that's not gonna be happening.

Anyway, so yeah, my aunt is dead and I spent yesterday afternoon watching my mother bounce off the walls. My aunt (who just died) had told me that when their little sister died, my mother had to be sedated. She's wound up tighter than a clock, and my father, in his usual manner, just sat there quietly, agreeing with everything she said. He spoke up once to say that he had to go to Sunnybrook on Friday for his cancer blood screening test before they could jet off to Alberta. I don't think I will be going. I am going in to work this morning and tomorrow but I will be quitting. I want a week off before I start back in job training with the city, and I start school on Tuesday night too, and with the family upset, I need some downtime. I have no money to go anywhere decent so I will just be hacking around at home and possibly in Toronto. My friend was set to fly me out to Vancouver on her points, but I don't know how that would work, unless I flew out Tuesday after class.

I'm totally scrambled. All I really know is that I'm going to work today and giving one day notice. I have never done that before. I feel terrible and like I want to lie about it, make up something dramatic. And then I have to ask myself whether I will EVER use this job as a reference or even leave it on my resumé and I'm not sure I want to. To be honest, this job has been an embarrassment to me since the day I accepted it. I know for sure that even if I do get a degree in Communications I never ever want to work for that company again. My friend Heide says I should have some fun with it and just rip it up with a "take this job and shove it" sort of deal, but I actually do like my manager. I detest all the other fake, fake-tanned, bleached hair, rode-hard-and-put-away-wet managers (male and female) but my manager actually had some class, so I would like to leave with some.

I'm still scrambled and this hasn't helped. Bleh.

Sometimes I don't believe myself

2005-08-30T16:55:00.000-05:00

So I got home today and there was a voice mail from my brother. He never calls me...

When I was about 24, I got into a spot of trouble and got myself hooked on heroin. I checked myself into a detox ... well, actually a friend coerced me into it. I stayed there for about a week, got violently sick, but managed to sweat it out. Until this dealer showed up in the detox. He'd walk around, with the tips of a hype sticking out of his jeans pocket, and he was blatantly high the whole time. I wasn't sure what the fuck was going but I knew he wasn't in there to get clean and that I was going to get high if something didn't happen. A kid in there got me some pot so I smoked that and my roommate gave me her psych meds which made me a total zombie, but I still wanted the junk.

I'm not sure where the idea came from because I really don't think I had enough wits about me to even think it up but I managed to find my aunt's phone number in Alberta and I rang her up. She knew something was wrong right away and asked me where I was. After I'd told her, she asked me if there was a chair nearby and there was so I said yes. She told me to sit in it for half an hour and she was going to call me back. So I sat down and spaced out or whatever until she called back and told me there was a plane ticket waiting for me at the airport and I was just to show up with my ID and I'd be on my way. I had a friend come and get me and drive me to Pearson and I got on that plane and flew to Alberta. I stayed with my aunt for four days and then got myself checked into a residential treatment centre where I lived for about three months. They made me get a job and get checked out at a doctor and go for assessments. I got my life back, which I subsequently threw away again when I returned to Toronto a year later, but I believe that that taste of normal life is what gave me the desire for more, and that's why I'm clean today.

My brother called to tell me that my aunt is in a coma.

And in all my self centred fucking drug addict ways, I never once said thank you to her.

I suck.

International Buffoonery with Pat Robertson - Quelle surprise!

2005-08-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

So this morning I caught a glance of an article on the Star's website about Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela. Then I also caught a story about Venezuela's response, which was pretty smart. I went back to the star, and the story is gone now, but I found one similar to it:

News Story

Venezuela's government reacted angrily on Tuesday to calls by Pat Robertson, the US televangelist, for President Hugo Chávez to be assassinated.

José Vicente Rangel, vice-president, said that how US authorities responded would demonstrate their commitment to fighting terrorism. “It's deeply hypocritical to talk about fighting terrorism while at the same time, within that country, there are obvious terrorist statements,” he said.
Mr Robertson made his comments on Monday on The 700 Club, a programme broadcast by his Christian Broadcasting Network. The preacher said killing Mr Chávez would prevent Venezuela becoming a “launching pad” for extremism.

“If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Mr Robertson said in reference to a claim Mr Chávez made in June that he had evidence that the US wanted him dead. “This is a dangerous enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil.”

If this isn't a huge embarrassment to America, I don't know what is. This is a religious leader??? Advocating assassination? Y'know, the US is shitting all over it's international trade deals, first with this fiasco with Venezuela, fifth largest supplier of oil to the US. AND, simultaneously, they've told Canada to fuck off with their soft lumber disputes and Ottawa is pissed. I wonder if Americans even get what you have to do to piss off Ottawa. I'm personally going to buy the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" from amazon.com and send it to Bush and his cronies. Or maybe I'll just save my money and support my government in seeking trade deals with a country that isn't fascist and completely insane.

Nice shoes, wanna f*ck?

2005-08-21T08:54:00.000-05:00

This reminds of a scene in the movie, "Big Fish."

When Stonemasons get their way...

2005-08-21T08:52:00.000-05:00

One of my favourite buildings in the city. Some lawyers have purchased it and are bringing it back to life. I still wouldn't bank with BMO though.

Trust me, this cat always looks this ... simpleminded

2005-08-21T08:50:00.000-05:00

Max, the super groovy cat, sitting on my not so groovy but super comfortable Ikea chair, next to the "library."

My favourite museum/home

2005-08-21T08:44:00.000-05:00

Whitehern.

Secret Garden behind Whitehern. Sometimes I hang out in here. It's hard to believe this is in the middle of the city. When you find out what the McQuesten family endured, you realize how much they loved their home and their city.

Pictures!

2005-08-21T08:42:00.000-05:00

These are swans that hang out in Burlington Bay. There are several in the area, I have seen them as far over as Hamilton, in Bayfront Park.

Pieces of my Childhood

2005-08-20T13:51:00.000-05:00

Mrs Collard used to hatch baby chicks every year in an incubator in order for her grade 1 students to learn about life.

Timmy Fox peed his pants in the middle of his art project in Mrs Collard’s class. I ran into Tim Fox years later and reminded him of this. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did.

At the cottage, I used to take the clams and open them without smashing them, and perform delicate “brain surgery” on them.

I fell off the climbers in Grade 2 and my mom had to come and take me to the hospital for stitches. Some black boy in Grade 5 had picked me up and carried me to the nurse’s office. I never found out his name or thanked him. Thanks Bud.

My brother had this Batman figure and for some reason, Batman had a hole in his hand. We strung a string across to Brian Griffith’s window and ran it through the hole in Batman’s hand. Batman flew between our homes, sometimes carrying things, at all hours of the day and night.

Whenever I played “Charlie’s Angel’s” with my friends, I always had to be Chris, which I thought sucked, because Chris never really did anything great like Kate and wasn’t as smart as Sabrina.

I wore Road Runner jeans with those crappy blue shoes with the yellow stripes. I had an Andy Gibb t-shirt.

My brother and I went splits on our first LP. It was Blondie’s Greatest Hits. Still love Debbie Harry.

Me, my brother, and the neighbourhood kids used to make bombs out of matches, pens and electrical tape. We set fires a lot, but never burnt anything down.

In grade six, I was the teacher’s pet, but I didn’t know that until much later. That only happened once.

My cousin Don, was my best friend on all holidays. He was ten years older than me, and used to dress me up and do talent shows where I had to lip-synch marie osmond songs. He came out later, when I was a teenager.

I went to the mall by myself once when I was about 7. I didn’t understand why the shopkeepers and patrons kept staring at me. When I got home, and told of my adventures, I got in trouble and I didn’t understand that either. What’s so wrong with going to the mall?

My biggest dream was to grow up, have an apartment, and wear high heels. There was no husband or children in the picture. Nor did there seem to be a job. High heels were a big let-down.

Bleh

2005-08-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

Fuck it. I hope no one read what was here before I edited it.

I have pms and should be quarantined. It's bad this month. I think I should probably unplug til it's over.

Dear Mr Conservative/Republican/George Bush/UberChristian

2005-08-17T06:34:00.000-05:00

I am not really a Bible scholar and I understand that you probably have keener insight into the Bible than I do because of your hours of poring over it, all the catechisms you went to as a kid - oh sorry, only dirty Catholics do that, um, anyway, you seem to have touted yourself as an expert on Jesus and I have a few questions.

I've been reading bits and pieces of the Gospel according to Matthew and found some puzzling things. Check this out:

Matthew 19:8-9

8Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Wow! You guys get divorces like there is no tomorrow! How come you didn't heed this piece of advice?

And then there is Matthew 19:16-24

16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
17"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
18"Which ones?" the man inquired.
Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,'[d] and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'[e]"
20"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

So, uh, that doesn't sound much like conservativism or republicanism or bushism. Sounds like Jesus doesn't want your kind in his Kingdom of Heaven. Thaaaat's gonna be problematic for you later I think. How do you reconcile your ways of taking money from the people and giving it to your buddies? Did you miss this part? I'm curious to know what you guys think Jesus actually was saying back then. "Fuck everyone else, it's all about you?" Is that the message you get from the Bible?

Anyway, that's all the questions I have for now. I'm sure I'll have more and that you'll be more than receptive to answering my ignorant and secular questions.

Regards,

Nuclear Beaver

Is it me or is Mr Horizon being a dick?

2005-08-15T16:59:00.000-05:00

So Mr Horizon and I have been emailing back and forth and had a great discussion about Catholic propaganda. I mentioned that I had read Elaine Pagel's "The Gnostic Gospels" and he expressed surprise. Actually, what he said was, "I don't mean to sound patronizing but I am surprised. That's great that you got into that." From which I immediately inferred, "Gee Beav, I thought you were an airhead. It's so nice to know you read more intellectual fare and are not the Archie comic book connoisseur I thought you were."

I have no clue how to respond to that. "Gee thanks, I'm glad you now know you're not just hitting on any dumb blonde, you're hitting on a dumb blonde that reads" or should I just let that go over or what? Am I reading too much into that? Is my insecurity about my current lack of a degree showing? I mean, even if I had a grade 8 education, what the heck is so surprising that I might read a book about the history of religion? I just can't stop asking myself why he thinks it's surprising. Is it because I live in Hamilton? Is it because I have a pink collar job? What? I don't want to ask because, this early in the game, I might seem a bit ... hypersensitive. Which is, I suppose, what I am.

Dating sucks. Why can't I just go straight to the part where all my negative shit is out there in the open? Why can't I just be the damned difficult person that I am? Why must I feign ... passivity or agreeableness or whatever?

Oh Hell, she's talking 'bout abortion again

2005-08-13T07:52:00.000-05:00

This week has been weird and stressful and has been wreaking havoc on my immune system and I have found myself sick, fatigued and somewhat burnt out. In between trying to get another job while doing training on a job I detest, I've been planning school in September, etc. And ... um, there's a man on the horizon. That's all I'm sayin' bout that. But here's the thing: I'm taking all this stuff into consideration, then this thought pops into my head, "What if I was pregnant right now?"

So then I started thinking about the pregnancy I did carry to term - when I was 21. I was SICK. Wait, let me bold that. SICK. That's right, pregnancy made me sick. I know the media tells us that women glow, give birth in fields and then keep right on with the pickin' of the beans but I was SICK. And I was 21, perfectly healthy otherwise. I had to be induced because my son, love him to bits, was making my blood pressure rise, making me vomit and pass out. So then I think, "shit, if I got pregnant now by mr horizon, and I lived in America and Roe had been overturned I'd probably have to quit school, and probably my job and go on welfare. Actually, I'd probably die and take the zygote with me." That's not hyperbole - I do have at least one autoimmune disease. It's conceivable that I wouldn't make it through an entire pregnancy. And then I thought about how odd it was that a GOVERNMENT would decree that a clump of 16 cells inside me had more right to live than me. And then I felt profoundly sad, because my life holds a lot of meaning for me and I like to think it holds meaning for my son, my parents, and my close friends. I think a lot of the pro-life argument is actually based on a moral judgement of the woman, rather than an exultation of life. I think people assume that the women who have abortions are sluts and whores. The women who have abortions are your wives, your girlfriends, your sisters, your mothers, your coworkers.

I really do understand that people disagree with abortion. They don't have to have one. No one has to have one. But it's important to me, being the woman that I am, that I have the choice. It's important to me that all women have that choice. I am glad that I live in Canada. Abortion is a health care issue, not a religious one. Health care is a RIGHT in North America. Let's not fuck that up.

They think they want me

2005-08-11T16:44:00.000-05:00

So I did the civil service test thing today. I'll admit, it was tougher than I expected. I found it challenging and the hour went by rather quickly. I consider that to be a good thing. I had to proof-read and correct three articles and I had to compile correspondence in response to a mock letter written by a mock citizen requesting real information about our city. If I wasn't familiar with using the search feature or how to really nail search terms, I probably would have been fucked. Anyway, they already called me and want to interview me on Tuesday, which I'm thrilled about but that does present a dilemma, namely how on EARTH will I get more time off? I think I might have to just quit and take that leap of faith, and hope I get through okay. Financially, taking two weeks off will not kill me. The company I work for is definitely not going to give me another morning off. I am thinking I will either have to give very little notice or just call in sick and see if they fire me, which I'm positive they will. Of course, I will ask the interviewer at the city if they can meet me early or late. The company I currently work for has put me in training for a new job so I feel badly about the upcoming "fuck you" which they really don't deserve. I dunno. I'm brain dead from doing this test and trying to figure out what the hell I'll do next.

I don't do well with leaps of faith. Leaps of stupidity I can do, leaps of faith, not so much.

Linguistics, the art of napping and canine colostomy

2005-08-06T23:11:00.000-05:00

I meant superior, not superlative. And I'm choosing not to edit it because editing is for losers. So I'll be a loser on Thursday morning when I go do my test, proofreading and editing my brains out.

I had a killer nap today. I spent the night at a friend's place and I don't sleep well in other people's places, no matter how comfy they try to make me so I got home, ate some lunch, and then had this killer 3.5 hour nap. Naps are so decadent. They make me feel like I'm living the good life. Same as going to a matinee on a weekday. I'm a Libra, and sometimes I get convinced that I'm not living the good life if I don't have the "bling" (man that word is so not me) but lately, it's the simple stuff that I love. Yeah, I can go off on what sort of furniture or artwork I think I need to have, but when it comes down to it, I'm okay with visiting a gallery or hiking on the escarpment or watching a great film. My father used to tell me that I had "champagne tastes on a beer budget" which is probably the fate of every Libra. I can be an aesthete without actually having to own the aesthetic. So anyway, it was a great nap. I think I'll do that again tomorrow.

My parents used to have this dog that had this really wicked digestive problem. They never found out what was wrong with it, it eventually just died of old age. But the thing would barf and get the shits all the time, even though it pretty much just ate the same food from day to day. I remember one time my brother and I were sitting in the living room and the dog walked into the middle of the room, paused for a moment, and then began spurting from both ends. My brother heaved the back door open, and I grabbed the dog around the middle and got it out the door and hosed it off (causing it much humiliation) after it ended it's imitation of a fire hydrant. And I've been thinking, y'know, they'll do orthopedic surgery on a dog, they do all sorts of things but I've yet to see a dog with a colostomy bag.

I am aware that this entry is a bit unlike my others. I'm not stoned or drunk. I'm malnourished and tired and thinking about canine digestion and the importance of art, all on a Saturday night. I just don't feel like having an opinion today.

Now that's superlative customer service

2005-08-05T16:54:00.000-05:00

Today when I got home from work, there was a piece of paper jammed halfway under the door. It was a denial notice from Cogeco cable saying they are going to cut my cable service as they have no record of payments from my service address. If the dummies figured that out, wouldn't they be able to FUCKING CHECK TO SEE WHETHER OR NOT I ACTUALLY *HAVE* CABLE?! They are threatening to cut the cable service I don't even have or want. That's just so stunningly perfect. I should pretend to be one of my customers, call up their rep and shout, "Shove yer service up yer ass ya cunt!"

But then, I'm not as batshit crazy as most of my customers, so I won't be doing that.

Job Angst

2005-08-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I got a call yesterday about a job I applied for waaay back in May. The reason they are calling three months later is because it is a government (municipal) position. So I called the woman back today and they want to do testing on me next Thursday. That is not the source of my angst though, I'm fairly certain I can ace their little proof-reading and pc test without even raising my blood pressure or losing one minute of sleep over it. The problem is my current job and the timing of the test. I'm still technically on probation even though I've been employed for six months there, and I suspect I may be let go. The last time I took the morning off (for a different job interview which I obviously did not get) they said if I did it one more time, I could be let go. So I emailed my boss this morning with a grandiose lie about having to take my father for chemo treatments in Toronto (which he did have waaaay back when he did have cancer a few years ago) and my damned boss never even responded with a yes or no. So I'm going to have to go face the bastard and ask him in the morning, and if he says no, I am not entirely sure what to do. The civil service position wouldn't start until September, so I could end up out of work for two weeks, assuming they like me and actually want to hire me. There is the chance that they'll think I'm an ass and not hire me, in which case I'd be fucked and have to go live with my parents in Toronto if I couldn't find another job immediately.

So I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do tomorrow if my boss says no. This job is waaaay more money than what I'm making, and actually has to do with communications, which is what I'm trying to study in University, so forgoing the test would really suck, for a job that I fucking hate.

I'm thinking that if my boss says no, I'll do it anyway, and make him can me for it, that way I could still collect EI if I had to. I've never been on it, but I sure have paid enough into it. Do you guys think I'm nuts? What would you do?

Hey Beautiful Day

2005-08-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

Go here and listen to "When the Night Feels My Song". I love this song. I cannot get enough of it. Good ol' Canadian music. Ska and reggae influence, so if you don't like those, maybe give it a pass, but it's infectious as hel so maybe don't pass itl. Listening to it while driving down the "mountain" here in town while looking out over the lights of the city gives me goosebumps every time.

Independent World Television

2005-08-01T18:47:00.000-05:00

Media that doesn't bow to corporations.

I ran into these guys running a booth at Ryerson U on Media Democracy Day last year. They've come a long way since then. People say money is power. So is control of information.

http://www.iwtnews.com/

Pieces of Me

2005-07-29T20:49:00.000-05:00

There didn't seem to be a template or anything so I'm just going to wing it. I'll probably delete it in the morning!

People in the real world call me Heather.

I have white-blonde hair that I don't bother doing anything with because it's pointless to even try.

I come from a working class background but some rich great great great aunt left a trust fund for education purposes so that's how I pay for my degree studies.

I own a car but I live in an urban area so I don't have to drive it. I lost my vision in the dark about a year ago and had two car accidents so I decided to work in the city I live in and landed a job I can walk to.

I have been single for about two years and for the first time in my life, I don't feel odd about that, or obsessed with "finding someone."

I have an autoimmune disorder. I go in and out of denial about it. I have refused all medications from doctors and try to manage with natural foods and supplements.

I am a recovering heroin addict, and I gave up drinking, smoking dope and smoking cigarettes, mostly because it really made me sick and I got scared that I'd die. It's easier not to start again, then start and try to control it.

I have a son who is 13 and lives with his father. He was with me but when I got all into the heroin I had a friend who OD'd and her kids found her body. I got scared my son would be traumatized in a similar manner so I sent him to live with his dad. By the time I cleaned up, he had his life and routine there and I didn't want to fuck his shit up again. He visits often.

When I was a kid I was transfixed by my Easy Bake oven.

People are often surprised to find out that I'm sensitive.

My prized possessions are my bookcase and my book collection and my laptop.

I do not have cable tv and I do not miss it.

I can't paint but I did make a postcard for postcard secrets that I'm sending this weekend. This has launched a new interest in collage and I've half-finished a normal sized picture. I've started drawing with ink and prisma coloured markers. I'm not half bad but it's fairly cartoonish.

I can fix computers, my last job was at Hewlett Packard. My friends and coworkers all bug me when shit goes wrong.

I love museums, any kind of museums but I can't stand reading about history.

I would like to have a dog but I'm not around enough to be a good owner so I have two cats, Max and Hannah. Max is a big sucky baby and Hannah is a cold hearted bitch to everyone but me.

I could go on and on but I'll say way too much and make myself feel weird and raw, so I'll stop now. That was good. Whoever started that, thank you. :)

Handy Tip o' The Day

2005-07-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

Do not call in a bomb threat to a telephone service provider without blocking your number. Call from a payphone if you can.

Stupid ass.

Poor woman had a panic attack and had to go to the hospital.

Hope the guy has a nice time in jail over the long weekend.

I have a new course of study

2005-07-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

BitchPhd

This woman rocks. As I was reading, I was like, "oh yeah. Tell it." Check some of her writing out:

Let me unpack a bit, because I know this sounds polemical, since I am clearly stating a bottom line. When pro-choice feminists like Wolf, or liberal men, or a lot of women, even, say things like, "I'm pro-choice, but I am uncomfortable with... [third-trimester abortion / sex-selection / women who have multiple abortions / women who have abortions for "convenience" / etc.]" then what you are saying is that your discomfort matters more than an individual woman's ability to assess her own circumstances. That you don't think that women who have abortions think through the very questions that you, sitting there in your easy chair, can come up with. That a woman who is contemplating an invasive, expensive, and uncomfortable medical procedure doesn't think it through first. In short, that your judgment is better than hers.

Right on. Right fucking on.

Soccer Moms and Pakistani Princesses

2005-07-27T16:59:00.000-05:00

So, I consider myself to be ... well, open-minded, yet cranky and opinionated. I strive to not buy into stereotypes, and feel like any criticisms I make of my government or that of the US is totally and completely well deserved. That said, I ain't no Ghandi. Anyway, so I work with these people and have gotten to know them fairly well. One woman is a Muslim Pakistani. After the bombings in London she was worried about how people would react to Muslim Pakistanis, which I can dig, but she didn't mention the victims. Today she got off the phone and said, "I just talked to a woman who is married to another woman. That's disgusting." To which I responded, "I don't think it's disgusting, I have many friends who are gay" or something to that effect. I didn't rip her face off but I did get my point across in a fairly succinct manner and she ended by saying that her "culture wasn't used to that." That's fine, and I'm thanking my fucking lucky stars I'm not a gay Pakistani, but I wanted to say, "Y'know, people say that sort of thing about *you* and your culture. How about a little understanding?" But I thought maybe that would be over the line.

And the soccer mom is sort of the same but different. Every now and then when the weather is crappy she gives me a lift (and I never abuse that, she often comes to my desk wanting to know why I walk home every day and I do that because I like walking.) Anyway, she's a soccer mom, married to some French unemployed guy with four bratty kids, or three or something, I don't know. She listens to punk and hardcore metal and often makes racist remarks. I'm sure she thinks I'm some sort of sappy treehugger because I usually refute her remarks.

I like both of these people. I like them a lot. I respect each of them on many different levels, I just wish that they could respect each other. Anyway, I got to thinking (and this is by no means an original thought) that fundamentalist Muslims and Christians really fucking deserve each other. It's too bad that it's the rest of us that get blown up in the crossfire.

Inducing Abortion 101

2005-07-23T16:47:00.000-05:00

For the American women who may find themselves in the family way with nowhere to turn, I present my new course, abortion induction 101. Now, as we've seen in the press, having your spouse/boyfriend/illicit lover jump up and down on your belly is not the most efficient means, as someone usually goes to the big house for murder. Now, in ridding oneself of that annoying little clump of cells and inviting Aunt Ruby from Red River to visit, there are a number of things an immoral slut can do.

1. Vitamin C. yep, it's abortifacient. Apparently, taking 6-10 grams of ascorbic acid a day for 5-10 days will get rid of those nasty dividing cells. Of course, that's a LOT of fucking ascorbic acid. Your insides will probably feel pretty shitty. But not as shitty as they'd feel with a coathanger, because those things could puncture bowel walls and THEN you'd know the meaning of "feeling shitty." Can you say "perforation"? Goood. Now say "sepsis".

2. Pennyroyal (often combined with Mugwort). It's not just a Nirvana song! Drink the tea and rumour has it that pennyroyal causes uterine contractions. Do not use the pennyroyal essential oil, it's extremely toxic and can kill you. Mind you, if you can't get that damned thing out, you're probably going to want to die, so keep it in mind. Contraindicated in women with kidney problems.

3. Tansy tea - actions are similar to Pennyroyal. Often used in tea, essential oil is extremely toxic.

4. Blue Cohosh. Uterine tonic, often used with other herbal methods. Nourishes and revitalizes uterine tissue after pregnancy or abortion.If all of these methods fail you (they work 40-45% of the time) then you know what to do:

Antonia Zerbisias slays Bill O'Reilly

2005-07-21T06:46:00.000-05:00

Check out Antonia's blog. She's the media watchdog for the Toronto Star and I'm always sending her dorky emails and she ALWAYS responds to me. As a communications student, I have created an altar adorned with her likeness. Okay, maybe not so much, but in this world of crap journalism, she is a bright spark. Common Dreams often posts her articles. Anyway, on her blog she links to Crooks and Liars, who have hosted a clip of her time on O'Reilly air. I'm amazed she went, to be honest. That man is batshit crazy. O'Reilly will definitely be calling for boycotting all things Canadian, which is pretty stupid. Boycott your major trading partner? Boycott all that Alberta oil? Methinks not.

How mortifying

2005-07-18T17:47:00.000-05:00

The number one search term that refers search engine users to my blog is "orange bowel movements."

I've been watching, hoping it would change, writing about other odd things (I thought for sure mentioning Karla Homolka would knock the poop off the top spot), all to no avail. I had NO idea that many people looked up shit on the internet. And since this post will doubly refer more people (not that shitlookers is the audience I am aiming for) let me say this: Unless you are on medication or ate twenty yams, orange shit isn't normal. Call your doctor.

The Male Privilege Checklist

2005-07-17T08:12:00.000-05:00

If my Dad read my blog, right now he'd be rolling his eyes and saying, "How to win friends and influence people..."

Anyway, Ampersand wrote it, and he's a guy so that makes it ok. :P Amp has a blog if you want to go read it. I hung out and had coffee with one of his housemates a year or so ago, and have participated in discussions with him on political message boards. When he came out with this list years ago, I was stunned. Here it is:

In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called
“White Privilege:
Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S.
are “taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible
systems conferring dominance on my group.” To illustrate these invisible
systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites benefit
from.
As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be unaware of their own
privileges as men. In the spirit of McIntosh’s essay, I thought I’d compile a
list similar to McIntosh’s, focusing on the invisible privileges benefiting
men.

...

The Male Privilege Checklist
1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.

2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex - even though that might be true.

3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.

4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black
mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.

5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.

6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.

7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.

8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.

9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.

10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.

11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.

12. If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.

13. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to
take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press.

14. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more
prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be
true.

15. I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see “the person in charge,” I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.

16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.

17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.

18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.

19. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.

20. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented, every day, without exception.

21. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.

22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.

23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.

24. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won’t make me an object of contempt or derision.

25. There are value-neutral clothing choices available to me; it is possible for me to choose clothing that doesn’t send any particular message to the world.

26. My wardrobe and grooming are relatively cheap and consume little time.

27. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car.

28. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.

29. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.

30. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)

31. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.

32. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

33. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if i don’t change my name.

34. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.

35. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being male.

36. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me.

37. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.

38. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she’ll do most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive and unrewarding parts of childrearing.

39. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.

40. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are much rarer.

41. I am not expected to spend my entire life 20-40 pounds underweight.

42. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.

43. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street
and tell me to “smile.”

44. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men.

45. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

(Compiled by Barry Deutsch, aka “Ampersand.”
Permission is granted to reproduce this list in any way, for any purpose, so
long as the acknowledgment of Peggy McIntosh’s work is not removed. If possible,
however, I’d appreciate it if folks who use it could tell me about how they used
it; my email is barry-at-amptoons-dot-com.)

He has a most excellent blog that I really need to add to my list. Have a look at Ampersand.

Culture of Life: Hah!

2005-07-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

Link!

(Tampa, Florida) A 21 year old Tampa man is charged with murder after his 3-year old son was pummeled into unconsciousness and then died.

Ronnie Paris Jr. went on trial for his own life this week in a Tampa courtroom. The toddler's mother, Nysheerah Paris, testified that her husband thought the boy might be gay and would force him to box.

Nysheerah Paris told the court that Paris would make the boy fight with him, slapping the child in the head until he cried or wet himself. She said that on one occasion Paris slammed the child against a wall because he was vomiting.

The court was told there had been a history of abuse by Paris. Prosecutor Jalal Harb said that in 2002, the Florida Department of Children & Families placed the child in protective custody after he had been admitted to the hospital several times for vomiting.

He was returned to his parents Dec. 14. A month later he went into a coma and was rushed to hospital. Six days later he was removed from life support and died. An autopsy showed there was swelling on both sides of his brain.

"He was trying to teach him how to fight,'' Nysheerah Paris' sister, Shanita Powell told the court. "He was concerned that the child might be gay.''

Following the child's death Tampa police Detective Anthony Zambito thought there was something suspicious. He testified that he questioned both parents closely at the hospital. But it wasn't until investigators questioned them separately Feb. 1 that the boy's mother talked about the abuse.

Paris was charged with capital murder and Nysheerah Paris was charged with felony child neglect and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

I can just see this idiot at the gates talkin' with ol' St. Pete.

Paris: Um, yeah, I'm here. Prayed real hard, sacrificed my faggot-baby. Where's mah welcome partay?
St. Pete: You fucking asshole. You murdered an innocent child! You tortured him before he died! WTF are you doing here??!! You're supposed to be downstairs.
Paris: Well uh, sir, I did my Christian duty cuz God don't like no fags.
St. Pete: God has never issued any statement whatsoever on homosexuality. Murder, however, He was pretty damned clear about. Remember that bit about Moses on the mountain...burning bush...ten commandments???
Paris: Huh?
St. Pete: Oh fuck off.

Neener neener

2005-07-13T07:06:00.000-05:00

we're not afraid

It could always be worse

2005-07-11T19:48:00.000-05:00

Check out aboutmyjob.com. If nothing else, I'm not the only one with a less than satisfactory j-o-b. I'm finding the nursing stories to more than validate my being a nursing school dropout(loved the bio and anatomy and physiology - hate crappy red tape and poor treatment from doctors.) The McDonald's ones are interesting. If nothing else, maybe mcjobs inspire kids not to drop out of high school and aim a little higher. Mind you, not all of us can be doctors and lawyers. Some of us have to be the grunts at the bottom, collecting the garbage and minding the children of the wealthy. That's how our wonderful capitalistic society works - someone has to be on the bottom in order for others to be at the top. If there's no bottom or top to the food chain, then nobody's really winning, right?

I wish these guys were speechless

2005-07-08T17:01:00.000-05:00

The picture turned out to be really small. Brit Hume, the guy in the top right corner, is particularly compassionate.

"My first thought when I heard - just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, 'Hmmm, time to buy.'" - Fox News's Brit Hume, 7/7/05

Brian Kilmeade, the guy at the bottom, said that the attack "works ... to the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together. "

Now, tell me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't these two have been screaming bloody murder liberals supporting terrorism if anyone, anywhere in the world said something as dense as either of those two statements on 9/11??

That's not journalism. That's fascist hypocritical insanity. Read more at mediamatters.org

For once, I'm speechless

2005-07-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

The news out of London is awful, I can't even wrap my head around it. I tried all day to get a chance to read up on it but was so busy I am still in the dark. I know that Al Quaida (from out of Eqypt) has taken responsibility for the bombings. I saw pictures of people running through dark tunnels. I can't even begin to imagine the horror. I don't have anything decently angry to say about, I'm still trying to catch up on it all. Perhaps I'm in a slight bit of shock. Maybe I'll have more to say later. For the moment, I want to catch up on the news, check out kos and a few other opinion sources. This is horrible. Those poor people.

No Gnus is Good Gnus with Gary Gnu

2005-07-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a vacation from the news today because it makes me batshit. I've purposely NOT written about Karly Kurls because hell, everyone else already has and she's vomit-making anyway and I refuse to go there at the moment. I have piles of opinions about her but I can't be arsed to write about them.

So today I'm writing about the Park's Furniture store dude. I think he's a janitor actually. All I know for sure is that he works for Park's Furniture store because the tag on his shirt says so. Anyway, I walk by him every morning on my way through the bus depot strip thing on my way to work. Actually, I walk behind where he sits because he gives me the creeps. He's probably in his fifties, somewhat pudgy, with greasy slicked back hair and thick glasses. His appearance doesn't really factor into his ... personal ambience, but it doesn't enhance it much either. Anyway, the reason he creeps me out is because of the way he openly ogles and leers at the women walking by. And it doesn't even matter, young, old, fat, thin, he is clearly assessing the fuckability of all women who parade before him. Sometimes I think he actually thinks that these women are on display for him, his own personal Park's Furniture Store janitorial fashion show. Or maybe he's creating porn in his head. I don't know what he's doing but he's gross about it. And believe me, contrary to popular belief, I'm not a prude. I check people out ALL the freaking time. I'm a libra, I'm constantly looking at other people of both sexes. But there's just something blatant and a wee bit off about this guy. Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw him some day on CHCH with handcuffs on while the cops lead some poor tied up girl out of his basement.

And there's a homeless guy who stands at the corner of Main and McNab who always asks people for change and I always decline because usually I never have any and I'm relatively busted these days but he always thanks me for being polite to him. I thought that odd until one day I had to stand at the light and wait to cross Main and we had already had our exchange of my declining and his statement of gratitude so he was asking the other passersby who completely ignored him. What the fuck is that??? Where you don't even respond to a human who is speaking to you. Get over your damn shame or survivor guilt or whatever the hell is wrong with you and ANSWER the man. Say no if you have to but fuck off with your aloof ignorance.

Bah. I guess I may as well read the news. Not reading it doesn't seem to improve my mood much. Perhaps I should just change my outlook on my outlook and call it sarcastic social commentary instead of crispy ranting.

Academic angst

2005-07-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

So I'm trying to figure out what course I'm going to do in September. I'm only doing one because that's all I have time for and also all that I can afford. Actually, I can't afford it but I'm doing it anyway. So there's this course in peace studies that I wanna do. Check that. Peace studies. But it involves group work and I DO NOT WORK WELL WITH OTHERS. And I'm afraid I'd work even less well with someone who is not an age peer so I'm hesitating on this course. I hand my work in on time and I usually have read all my readings, so I'm having these visions of me being frustrated with a 19 year old alcoholic who is A-ok with handing assignments in a week late. Then again, I don't know how long I'll be able to put off the group work thing as it is, so maybe I should just get in the pit and try to love someone. (That was a Fred Durst quote and yes, it was pretty bad and he's ... just wrong.)

Anyway, it's peace studies or psych or labour. And tomorrow my selections are open. So ... um, all you academics, and you know who you are ... any advice?

Peak Oil aka The Sky is Falling

2005-07-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

I guess everyone has heard about Peak Oil now. If you haven't, apparently we are going to hit our Peak of Oil production some time around 2008. When they first started throwing this term around, they were saying 2020 ro 2025. Now it's three years down the road and we're feeling it. Economists are predicting oil is going to hit $100 bucks a barrel by this winter. It's now at $60/barrel and we're griping. Already, I think twice about driving to my parents place in Toronto. When it hits a hundred, I probably won't be driving anywhere. But it's not just the driving though. It's everything else I take for granted too. Like heat in January. Like the rubbermaid containers I pack my lunch in. Industry is run on oil. If the cost of production rises, guess what else rises? The price of all the products of course.

So I was reading this article from the Guardian UK and some of it was pretty alarming.

Like this:

The real problem, however, concerns the longer term. There is a strong possibility that what we are facing now is not simply a temporary mismatch between demand and supply that can be sorted out by Opec pumping more oil or by exploiting marginal fields in the world's most inhospitable places. Rather, it is that we are in the early stages of an energy crisis that will fundamentally affect our lives over the next few decades. If that is so, western policymakers need to be thinking hard - and thinking hard now - about what life is going to be like when the oil and gas run out.

From what I can tell with the news, the policy makers over here in North America aren't really concerned with much more than making the other party look worse than them. Mind you, I think the Bush administration is working feverishly behind the scenes on peak oil and have plans they've put into effect. It's just that they call it liberation when it's really murder for oil.

The world as a whole has yet to reach that point. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, consider this. If the experts are right, global peak oil could arrive in 2008.

The estimates cannot be precise. It could be that a big fall in demand or the exploitation of new reserves could push the date back, but the experience of the US is that the opening-up of the Alaskan fields and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico merely shifted the date of peak oil back a few years.

Once peak oil has passed, the models suggest stocks will dwindle over a period of three decades at a time when, on current trends, demand for energy will be rising strongly. In 30 years, oil production could be down by three quarters.

Considering the fact that only about 5% of the world is wealthy and privileged enough to drive a car, this little fact is astonishing. This is really going to carve up the territory between the haves and the have-nots. I know which camp I'll be in.

When we fret about whether the economy is growing by 2.5% a year or 3% we are ignoring the gorilla in the room: our way of life is unsustainable without a cheap and reliable form of energy. We may soon be waking up to lower growth, falling populations and a reduction in living standards. Indeed, without urgent policy action we are likely to get all three.

My generation is not accustomed to hardship, nor are the generations after me. My father came of age during The Depression and it sounds ghastly to me. I think what's coming for my generation is going to make The Depression look like luxury. I'm not saying it will be all doom and gloom. I'm just saying our way of living will change and we will have no choice. Right now, we have a choice and we aren't, on the whole, electing to do anything with that choice. Soon, this freedom will be gone and our choices will be reduced and we will deal because we will have to. We won't all die or have our flesh melting off our skins, but we will be uncomfortable, and quite frankly, I'm sure everyone in Rwanda will think that's fitting.

The conceptual failure is to assume not only that business as usual is possible, but that it is also desirable. Peak oil is likely to be the point of diminishing returns for the entire big-economy, growth-at-all-costs, free-trade, globalised model of capitalism. Factor in a 75% drop in oil production and the current strategies for production, distribution, transport and town planning don't look so clever. As energy prices soar, it will seem ludicrously wasteful to cart goods halfway round the world. Countries that do not have their own local supplies will have to pay through the nose. Protectionism will cease to be a dirty word. Localisation will be all the rage.

Well, we got water up here. And we got wood. Of course, we'll be American by then so the world will detest us too and we'll be subject to terrorist attacks.

Stuff like this makes me question why I even bothered to quit smoking, until I remember how much it costs to kill myself slowly and that I dislike coughing up crap in the mornings. I think it's peculiar that humans are so stupid that they render themselves extinct. I try to have faith in humanity, to believe that when it comes down to the crunch we'll all share our goods and treat each other well, but I know that won't happen. War will happen. We've not learned a lot in the time we've been on this planet, we haven't evolved much. Occasionally someone decent comes along and gently chides us into being nice to each other (Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Ghandi) and we listen politely for a few minutes before we slaughter them. If there is a god, it must be thoroughly disgusted with us by now. We must be like a pack of retarded dogs with rabies, god must be thinking, "just shove 'em in a sack and throw them in the water."

Someone tell me I'm wrong. Please?

Shout out to Canadians, expats and Americans who don't comprehend the idea that Canada is a sovereign nation rather than a place to test nukes

2005-07-01T08:36:00.000-05:00

Things I dig about my country:

The landscape. Every province and territory is unique.
The food.
The language eh?
The quilt of multiculturalism. We don't throw our cultures in a pot, melt them and make them the same.
Our wacky government. I know, I know, I bitch about it a lot, but I'm Canadian. It's what I do.
Rick Mercer.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Margaret Atwood. (You love her or hate her. For me, it's love.)
Atom Egoyan
Lawren Harris (not a big fan of the rest of the group of seven but ... oh, must add Emily Carr.)
The CBC
Newfies!!!
Montreal! Poutine! Latino gay bars on Ste Catherine! White Beer! Frites Alors!
Today I even love crispy Albertan cattle ranchers! But only today! Tomorrow they will be fodder for sarcasm and ridicule!!

Tonight I am going over to my former roommate's (who I ran into yesterday and was bitching about his new roommate who doesn't do jack shit around the place and advised me to have a good karmic laugh (yes yes I did)) place to watch the fireworks from his balcony. After that we're going to The Werx where I will watch former roomie sing very badly as Damien rakes him (and everyone else over the coals.) I will take a camera along. It's time for a picture extravaganza.

Ad from the Globe and Mail classifieds

2005-06-28T17:40:00.000-05:00

That's fantastic, taking that crazy bastard's money for this shite. Well then, there's an address on the ad and I've got a litter box just filled with cat poo, so I'll be a busy girl. The Globe will just get angry email. This guy is in for the gift that keeps on giving, til he cancels his postal box.

Toronto:Unlimited cash for stupid marketing gigs

2005-06-24T17:18:00.000-05:00

The city of Toronto spent 4 million dollars on marketing and came up with a catchy slogan and logo. The slogan? Toronto Unlimited. The Logo?

Y'know, I could have done way better with four million dollars. Meanwhile, the city has planned to charge people a buck a bag of garbage over the four-bag weekly limit. Which means unsuspecting, composting, recycling do-gooders are going to have their vigilante consumerist wasteful neighbours tossing their bags onto their lawn and they'll have the privilege of the bill a few weeks later. I predict mayhem. I also predict that this lame marketing ploy draws zero in tourism to Toronto. How about playing up the cultural aspect of the city? Oh that's right, they tore everything cultural or historical down. People from Japan and Germany will definitely pay thousands to get here to look at ... a shitty 70's style sign. I would like to start a petition to change the slogan to, "Have a logo. It's all we got and it's on us."

Time to make fun of Canadians

2005-06-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

According to this article, a pile of Canadians are signing up for the privilege to work with the Minutemen on the Ontario/Michigan border. The article doesn't really say what the issues with the border are, but I think they're probably because of all those pesky Canadians who are running down there for an MRI pronto. Or maybe it's for the chainsaw-murderers who ... oh no, they are accepted at border crossings. Must be about the thousands of terrorists residing in Toronto who are waiting to run across the border to blow up ... uh ... really important building in Detroit. Yeah.

A coalition of civilian volunteers in the United States and Canada yesterday said it has begun the first stages in developing internationally supported citizen patrols along the U.S.-Canada border patterned after the Minuteman Project in April in Arizona.
The American-Canadian Conservative Coalition, in concert with Minuteman Project organizer Chris Simcox, said it is preparing for its first vigil along the border in Michigan, south of Ontario, and is actively working to expand the watch to every state and province along the northern U.S. border.
This first project will be called the Michigan-Ontario Minuteman Border Neighborhood Watch.
"Our Canadian neighbors have been very supportive of helping us encourage citizens, and civic organizations of both countries to be more informed and involved to help us protect the brotherhood of nations on the American and Canadian border," said Art Roselle, a founding American member of the new coalition.
Matt Ford, founding member and the coalition's Canadian co-chairman, said, "Canadians are committed to working with our American brothers and sisters on common issues and projects. We are honored to do our part to help make sure all border crossings between our two countries are safe and legal."
Coalition officials said the group was formed as a citizens watch organization that will actively promote, influence and strengthen common moral, political and economic issues. They said it grew out of "a common mission to address issues that are of import to both countries."

Good one! Where can I write to ask them about when they plan to vote their chimp out of office? Will they be addressing health care? How about third world debt? How about Kyoto? Oh. Not those important issues. I say we take all these idiots and house them in ... hm, somewhere north of Edmonton. I don't know what's up there, but we could put them in a range, fence them in, and furnish them with paintball guns, housing, and we could helicopter in parcels of food and drop it right out of the sky. We wouldn't even have to talk to them or anything. They'd be relatively at peace, shooting each other down with paintballs, eating kfc and we could even supply them with network tv. They really shouldn't be out in society with the rest of us, especially not when they own guns that fire bullets.

Dead peasants, McJobs, and snowboards

2005-06-17T06:12:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been on this McJob bent - mostly because I feel that I work at a McJob. I was watching a bunch of archive clips from the cbc website last night about Generation X and how we'll never get anything because the boomers have sucked up everything in sight. That's especially true in Canada. It used to be that we Xers could look forward to the day that the Boomers left the workforce like a drove of lemmings off a cliff, so that we could enjoy 5 or ten years in management or doing a job other than cleaning up other people's shit. Then the Liberals said that retirement is no longer mandatory at 65, so we Xers really do have a life of shit-keeping to look forward to. There's 7 million Yers (or global teens) behind us filling in their parents spots. So with those happy thoughts in mind, I started looking for news of people who had jobs worse than mine, in order to boost my own spirits a litte, and of course, the first place I googled was Walmart. Here are some choice quotes I nabbed (forgot the source for the first two, some dude's blog):

A recent article from Reuters reports that Wal-Mart has been shaving hours from employee timecards in violation of state and federal labor laws. This is not a mere allegation. According to the Reuters article it is fact. A federal jury has found that over 400 employees had been bilked out of a portion of their meager salaries by Wal-Mart management. Moreover, the article reports that at least thirty other similar cases are pending against the "worlds largest retailer". If any more of these cases prove to be true, then it will clearly establish that stealing from employees is corporate policy at Wal-Mart.

In violation of Texas law, Wal-Mart has been taking out life insurance policies on its employees without their knowledge and naming the company as beneficiary. Another prominent user of these "dead peasant" insurance policies is, you guessed it, Enron. The difference between the Enron and Wal-Mart in this matter is that Enron didn't break Texas Law as did Wal-Mart. In Texas, it is illegal for any person or company to take out a life insurance policy on any other person without telling the person first. Wal-Mart chose to ignore Texas law when it took some 350,000 dead peasant policies on employees, including Texas employees, without telling them.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp

Right now, your company could have a life insurance policy on you that you know nothing about. When you die -- perhaps years after you leave your employer -- the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldn’t go to your family. The money would go to the company.

What’s more, the company might use this policy to pay for retirement benefits and other perks not for you or your fellow workers, but for your company’s top executives.

Sound outrageous? Such corporate-owned life insurance is also big business:
Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.

The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.

Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won't let them write off the interest). And the death benefits are tax-free.
Hundreds of companies -- including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie -- have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers.

...

Mike Rice was a 48-year-old assistant manager when he died of a massive heart attack at the Wal-Mart store in Tilton, N.H. His widow, Vicki, became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the company after she discovered Wal-Mart collected $300,000 from a life insurance policy it owned on him. Vicki Rice believes job-related stress contributed to the heart attack and says it is “totally immoral” for Wal-Mart to profit from his death.

What they fail to mention at msnbc is that Mr Rice was carrying 27" (and larger) tv's out to the customers car because his store didn't have any young stock boys to help out because you save money by being understaffed. So basically they killed him and collected 300K.

Holy sinister. My great grandfather helped form the Scottish Miner union with Keir Hardie in Scotland. That fact alone is pretty much why his forbears were all Canadian. There are rumours that he ... um ... had to leave Scotland. He sent his kids and wife over first. He lost his leg in a mine and I guess the mine owners were all "fuck you and your missing leg, no benefits, fuck off" in his face. I'm not sure - but knowing what I know about Scottish Miner history, that seems to be a pretty reasonable assumption. Anyway, looks like Corporations have figured out a way to fuck us over doubly without even having to say so to our faces.

I know that GenerationX is an 80's term but I have no other word for the demographic I'm in. And I have noticed this weird thing amongst my peers. Most of us don't care about buying crap. Mostly because we can't care about it because we can't buy it because we don't have the money and the boomers bought it first. A lot of us realize that university educations other than law or medicine don't guarantee shit (and we still educate ourselves because we like being educated and it's better than having 40K worth of disposable crap). One of the films had this Economics prof from the UofT talking about how the employment is set up so that you have this large rectangular block of people (boomers) trying to scale a pyramid of employment to the top. It's gonna bottleneck and the people behind it go nowhere.

A lot of my peers work in the field of helping others. Or they are artists. One of the CBC films I watched last night said that GenX figured out that it was better and more fun to create than consume. That we all take the deal of the McJob so that in our free time, we go produce what we want. Snowboards. Music. Photos. Blogs. (Thousands of blogs!) So I'm gonna think on creativity. And what it is that I produce really well. And I'm going to continue learning what I enjoy learning. But first, I'm going camping on the side of a river.

Have a nice weekend. :)

Full moon and your ovaries getting to ya?

2005-06-13T20:37:00.000-05:00

According to Reuters, Calcium and Vitamin D will cure your pathological quest for making all others completely miserable when in your presence. I can personally vouch for the calcium thing. Make sure you take magnesium with it.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A diet high in calcium and vitamin D could reduce the risk of getting premenstrual syndrome, according to a report published on Monday.

Women with an intake of vitamin D and calcium equivalent to about four servings per day of skim or low-fat milk, fortified orange juice or low-fat dairy foods such as yogurt had a "significantly lower" risk of developing premenstrual syndrome, the report from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst said.

And an article in the Christian Science Monitor details the moves the Right is making towards eliminating abortion in the U.S:

We've seen more bills [related to abortion] enacted in the first five months of this year [16] than in all of last year," says Elizabeth Nash, state monitor for the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights policy group. "It's hard to measure the impact. But every time we get one of these laws, we say it's just another way to chip away at Roe."

Among the recent efforts:

• Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a law last week that requires minors wanting an abortion to get written parental consent (as opposed to parental notification, which was previously required). It also bans a woman from getting an abortion after 26 weeks of pregnancy, unless her life is threatened or the fetus is brain damaged.

• Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently signed legislation giving the state increased oversight of clinics that offer second-trimester abortions. While Governor Bush and others have stressed that it is only intended to ensure safety and quality care at clinics, abortion-rights groups see it as singling out facilities in hopes of closing them.

• A Georgia law approved last month requires a 24-hour waiting period and parental notification for minors. More unusual, it specifies that the doctor must inform the woman of the fetus's age, alternatives to abortion, and the likelihood that the fetus will feel pain during the abortion.

• In a similar focus on the fetus, Indiana now requires abortion doctors to notify patients that they can see an ultrasound image and listen to the fetus's heartbeat. The Michigan House recently passed a bill that requires an ultrasound be done before every abortion.

I could respect this if I thought that Bush and his cronies actually gave a shit about the so-called "sanctity of life" that they trumpet on about, but I know it's simply because they need more cannon fodder. It comes as no surprise that the efforts to abolish or at least severely restrict abortions are occurring at the same time reports are coming out about how the military recruiters have hit 42% below their recruitment targets for the last several months. Coinkydink? I think not. It's nothing but cruel that the government plans to coerce young women into giving birth to babies who will eventually get sent to the Middle East to die for oil. If you look at the populations of young men in the Middle East, there are hundreds of thousands of young men there, willing and able to enter their militaries. Over here, not so much. I've been hearing for years about the declining birth rate in North America. Hollywood and other media still have not sold North American women on the joys of motherhood and domestic bliss, no matter how many mommy track articles and wedding shows on TLC they put out there. This creates a problem for a militaristic society with no soldiers. I don't even have anything smartassed to say about it, it's just too frightening.

Excellent Cross-Canada Adventures

2005-06-12T08:48:00.000-05:00

David Graham from the Star drove across Canada in a blue Saturn, engaging Canadians in talks about same-sex marriage. Graham is gay himself, but did not advise his interviewees of that fact unless they asked. Some of the responses are truly fascinating, and I'll quote them here. The rest can be found at:
Canada Gets Ready For Gay Marriage

I'm feeling jittery as I amble toward two burly men at a McDonald's in Lloydminster, Sask. This is a town divided, literally. Situated smack on the border, it is half in Alberta and half in Saskatchewan, which I suppose means gay marriage is legal on the Saskatchewan side of town and illegal on the other. They are two hard-assed truck drivers, tough-as-nails road warriors who make the Trailer Park Boys look like the Boys in the Band.

As I cross the floor to where they're sitting, I start wondering, do I get gayer when I get nervous?

During the opening moments of our conversation, as I'm stammering through my introduction and fidgeting with my pen, I realize I am not so much a visible minority as I am an audible minority. When did my esses become so sibilant. (Note: Contrary to popular belief, a genuine lisp does not involve an elongated "th". Rather, it requires a very sharp snake-like "s".) By the time I utter the words "Toronto Star" and "same-sex marriage," I feel very exposed.

"I'm against it big time," says Jerry Bluda, 46. His buddy Ross Gundersan, 51, agrees.

"Marriage is for a man and a woman," adds Bluda, who admits he has a "queer" cousin in Ottawa with whom he does not communicate. "We have nothing to talk about," he says.
"I think it's disgusting," says Gundersan. "And my wife feels the same way."

I get back in the car and lock the doors.

What a sad sad family this guy must come from. While it's not articulated anywhere in the article, I've heard this "disgusting" and "unnatural" statement from bigots before and I can't help but think that these are the same guys who buy Barely Legal and All Anal Action and call that natural. I think the hypocrisy bugs me the most. I can almost wrap my head around the ignorance, but the gleeful way people like that flaunt their ideas that they deserve rights that others don't really really pisses me off.

I discover that there are Canadians who feel strongly that same-sex marriage should not be legalized, and on this they are unmovable. But even those who think homosexuality is unnatural and that gays should be barred from marriage often concede they wouldn't seek out a politician who supports their views or punish one who doesn't.

Mighty white of them.

As I randomly approach people, I begin to realize that I could never predict how anyone would react to my questions.

In Marie Joseph, N.S., I greet Jim Langille, a beleaguered-looking, 55-year-old lobster fisherman. He's a weathered, postcard-perfect old salt, who I'm sure will fulfill my stereotype of a homophobic good ol' boy. I'm wrong. (I shouldn't have been surprised. Support for gay marriage is actually higher in Atlantic Canada than it is in Ontario.)

I was astonished by his lilting voice as he let out an "oh my dear" and beamed.

"Whatever floats your boat. It's a free country. People should live and die as they choose. I think men around here feel they have to do the whole he-man, workin' in the woods, workin' on the water thing," he says. "Even if they agreed, they wouldn't say it."

It's true, what the writer said. One of the only reasons I bother engaging with people I've just met is that they are often surprising. I do pigeonhole people A LOT, especially people from Alberta, but guys like this lobster fisherman help me with my faith in people.

`If I had livestock that didn't breed,

I would have to destroy it,'

KEN CAMERON

Red Deer, Alta.

Thank you, Mr. Cameron, for proving my point about Albertans. Go have a drink with Mr Klein.

What resonates is the sheer complexity of life experiences that help Canadians determine where they stand on same-sex marriage. This is not an isolated debate. It touches some deeply and some not at all. It is connected to who they are.
I didn't have to put many kilometres on my rental car before I realized that tolerance doesn't have a face. Behind the columns of tidy poll results lie messy, even contradictory opinions that don't fall into perfect columns according to geography, age or gender.

I think our lived experiences make us better people. And you don't need money for lived experiences, you just need courage and a little faith. Like the courage to drive across the country alone and walk up to truckers and ask them how they feel about gay marriage. Of course, that might also be a little crazy, but I'm glad Graham did. It's a great article. I hate the Star a teensy bit less now.

Conclusions I have come to

2005-06-09T21:02:00.000-05:00

Oprah has that stupid "Things i know for Sure" article in her magazine. No, I do NOT buy O's mag. I find it a leetle weird that she graces the cover of her own magazine. No one else ever has. Ego problem perhaps? Anyway, I digress.

Conclusions that I have come to:

Thursdays are the worst days for customer service. I don't know why, I just know that on Thursdays, the clientele are all a little shithouse nutso. I have asked other friends who deal with the public about Thursdays and first they looked puzzled, then say, "Gee ...now that you mention it...some guy did threaten to kill me and everyone who looks like me."

Today was and still is freakin' hot. During my last move, my air conditioner got dropped out a window, and this summer is going to be bad. Badly hot.

Cats don't care how hot it is. They still want to get on you and snuggle when you are blogging.

I can grow flowers and plants and stuff.

My job isn't as shitty as I initially thought it was. Mainly because Thursdays are HIGHLY entertaining. Oh and here's a clue. Ever call up a company and get passed around departments like a birdie over a badminton net? It's because you're an asshole and they're having fun with you. Call back when you have less of a problem with yourself.

A very high percentage of people (of all ages) never learned that it is very rude to interrupt people. I honestly didn't know that before.

If you are trying to pass yourself off as Gangsta don't show your fake bling to someone who knows about jewelry and watches, or they will bust you and you will deserve to look like an ass.

Fridays are good. Not quite as funny as Thursdays, but they're up there.

No whammies no whammies

2005-06-07T17:19:00.000-05:00

Big bucks big bucks no whammies no whammies .... STOP!!! Remember that lame game show from the 80's called Press Your Luck? Everytime the bloody phone rang today, I mumbled "no whammies no whammies ...STOP!!!" whenever I went to answer it. Makes the day go by faster. Actually, no, it doesn't, but it makes your fellow employees shut up when they are near you.

If a UFO landed in Canada today ...

2005-06-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

And a Martian got his hands on a Canadian newspaper or he went down to the nearest internet cafe and had a look at some internet news, he'd probably wonder why Canadian men are so bent on killing Canadian women. Hell, I live here, and I find it puzzling.

First, we've got the lovely and charming Robert Pickton, pig farmer extraordinaire-wannabe biker.

Of course, there's a publication ban on what's going on with the preliminary hearing but there's some tidbits to be gleaned from the Seattle newspapers. If you have a look at missingpeople.net, there are a series of articles and profiles of the Vancouver women Pickton is suspected of killing. There are now a total of 22 charges. The reason there are 22 charges is because the police have found DNA of 22 of the women. I didn't mention body parts. DNA. Pig farm. You do the math. There was a wood chipper on the farm. Bikers. Parties. Pickton regularly dropped off "entrails" at a rendering plant around the corner from the Vancouver low track. The police tried to discreetly inquire into the contents of many freezers in the Port Coquitlam neighbourhood. When this goes to trial, prepare to be disgusted. Don't be prepared to hear about how the Vancouver Police sat on their laurels for years while women continued to go missing (ten in the year 1997). Bernardo and Homolka are going to look like babes in the woods compared to this guy.

And then we have mild mannered hotel worker by day, vicious sadistic child rapist and prostitute torturer by night Don Bakker:

The prelim trial is not til September but so far, there are sixteen charges. Here are some excerpts from the ctv website

The charges involve six separate women and include sexual assault with a weapon, sexual assault causing bodily harm and unlawful confinement.

Court documents say the weapons include electrical cords, and file and metal clips and the assaults date back as far as January 2000.

The case has again brought attention to the plight of sex trade workers in the city's Downtown Eastside.

Police have said Bakker could eventually face more than 30 charges involving 40 to 50 women.

Yet police never received a complaint.

Bakker was arrested after an investigation began in early December when a woman was heard screaming in Crab Park, on the city's waterfront.

Officers arrived to see a man walking out from behind a bush, followed by a sex trade worker who was obviously in distress. The man was carrying a bag containing a video camera and tape.

Police searched his home twice and found 70 video tapes.

Const. Sarah Bloor told reporters earlier this week the footage shook even some of the most hardened investigators.

Wow, caught red-handed. Good luck with the trial. Specially when people hear about the video tapes of him raping Asian children. Spectacular in Canada because this is the first case of charges laid for sex tourism. The Lawyer, McCullough seems to think that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should give scumbags like Bakker the privilege to go rape children who aren't Canadian. Not even to mention the assaults the Star described of one prostitute, with alligator clips attached to her genitalia. Give me five minutes alone in a room with him and a vise grip.

Bakker, a hotel worker who is married and has one child, has been in custody since Dec. 2.

A diminutive, balding man, he stood in the prisoner's box impassively Thursday, his chin just reaching the rail.

McCullough said his client is having a "difficult" time in custody. The lawyer would not comment on how Bakker's family is doing.

The investigation has also drawn international police attention.

Some of the alleged assaults on the tapes involve at least nine children from Southeast Asia.

McCullough's client is being raped in prison. If he hasn't been yet, he will be. Those guys don't fuck around. I don't condone that, and I don't think it's funny or entertaining either, but the karmic aspect of it is astounding.

That poor Martian, all fucked up by our news and by what happens in our society. Picking off prostitutes because the cops don't care and they are disposable people anyway. Imagine trying to explain to a Martian that men like sex, they like so much that they entice women to sell it, and the highest paying job certain women can have is being a stripper or a prostitute, so these women sell sex to these men who want it. Then explain that some men then kill the women who are selling them the commodity that they want. And then also elucidate how it is that other men take those women selling their commodity and imprison them because it's wrong.

Our society is certainly sick, has some fucked up ideas about gender, sex, and violence to be sure. But at least we're keeping the Martians out.

Hrm

2005-06-02T16:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently I don't exist again. I just tried to write a note about my previous post. Now, I had a link to the article, but it fucked up my template so I took it out, promptly lost it, promptly found it in my browser cache, and then realized the article is gone. I'm leaving the bit I quoted though because as far as I know, I can't get sued for not providing a source, it's just extremely bad manners. Back to charm school for me. :P

Hard-on? Mmm. I'm gonna go with the vision

2005-06-02T07:06:00.000-05:00

Of course, that's easy for me to say because I don't have a penis.

Apparently, Viagra might be causing blindness. Oh noooo! Thousands of wrinkly grey hairless old men might not have erections anymore!! What is the world coming to??!

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drugs Viagra and Cialis, a disclosure that comes at a time when the drug industry can ill afford negative publicity about another class of blockbuster medicines.

The Food and Drug Administration still is investigating, but has no evidence yet that the drug is to blame, said spokeswoman Susan Cruzan.

This is interesting. Particularly the use of the word "rare" and the FDA lady's proclamation about no evidence. Googling around, it's very unclear and it makes me wonder just how much of the media the drug companies own now. Anyway, this Viagra/blindness bit will certainly put an end to that bullshit penis-envy crap that Freud concocted in a cocaine induced frenzy. Besides, I still think that a lot of guys are gonna choose hard-ons over sight. As a friend of mine said, "sometimes you don't want to see who you're fucking anyway."

Apparently I'm not really here and I don't have a blog

2005-05-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

I keep getting "blog does not exist" messages. It's a good thing this shite site is free or I'd be ranting and raving right now. Fat lot of good it'd do, on a blog that doesn't even exist.

Ooh hoo hoo hoooooo - He gave me head

2005-05-22T22:55:00.000-05:00

Can you tell what's on my mind
She's with him it's driving me wild
I'd like to hit him on the head until he's dead
The sight of blood is such a high
Ooo hooo hooo hooo
He gives me head

We made it on a Ballroom Blitz
I took his arms and kissed his lips
He looked at me with such a smile
my face turned red
We booked a room into the Ritz
Ooo hooo hooo hooo
He gives me head

Jet boy jet girlI'm gonna take you 'round the world
Jet boy I'm gonna make you penetrate
I'm gonna make you be a girl
Ooo hooo hooo hooo
Jet boy jet girl

And I'm homosapien like you...

2005-05-22T22:47:00.000-05:00

I'm the shy boy
You're the coy boy
And you know we're
Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser
You're the loser
Me and you sir
Homosapien too
Homosuperior
In my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

Today's blog was brought to you by the word ...

2005-05-21T23:46:00.000-05:00

Autoimmunity: Loss of tolerance to self.

heh.

Hocus Pocus! SSSSS!! BOOM! Bahhh!!

2005-05-15T15:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not even sure about the title on this post, so don't go askin' any high-falutin' questions about it.

Found this numerology link.

My destiny path is a 7. Check this shit out:

Thought, analysis, introspection, and seclusiveness are all characteristics of the expression number 7. The hallmark of the number 7 is a good mind, and especially good at searching out and finding the truth. You are so very capable of analyzing, judging and discriminating, that very little ever escapes your observation and deep understanding. You are the type of person that can really get involved in a search for wisdom or hidden truths, often becoming an authority on whatever it is your are focusing on. This can easily be of a technical or scientific nature, or it may be religious or occult, it matters very little, you pursue knowledge with the same sort of vigor. You can make a very fine teacher, or because of a natural inclination toward the spiritual, you may become deeply emerged in religious affairs or even psychic explorations. You tend to operate on a rather different wavelength, and many of your friends may not really know you very well. The positive aspects of the 7 expression are that you can be a true perfectionist in a very positive sense of the word. You are very logical, and usually employ a quite rational approach to most things you do. You can be so rational at times that you almost seem to lack emotion, and when you are faced with an emotional situation, you may have a bit of a problem coping with it. You have excellent capabilities to study and learn really deep and difficult subjects, and to search for hidden fundamentals. At full maturity you are likely to be a very peaceful and poised individual.

If there is an over supply of the number 7 in your makeup, the negative aspects of the number may be apparent. The chief negative of 7 relates to the limited degree of trust that you may have in people. A tendency to be highly introverted can make you a bit on the self-centered side, certainly very much self-contained . Because of this, you are not very adaptable, and you may tend to be overly critical and intolerant. You really like to work alone, at your own pace and in your own way. You neither show or understand emotions very well.

Sounds like Asperger's syndrome to me. Or borderline. I don't actually say much about myself or my inner workings beyond my opinions here but this was actually kind of scary. Specially that last bit there.

And I'm a number 1 Life Path. Get a load of this:

The Life Path 1 drive in this life is characterized by individualist desires, independence, and the need for personal attainment. The purpose to be fulfilled on this Life Path is that of becoming independent. This is a two part learning process; first, you must learn to stand on your own two feet and learn not to depend on others. After you are indeed free and independent, you must learn to be a leader. Many of our Generals, corporate leaders, and political leaders are men and women having the Life Path number 1. The 1 always has the potential for greatness as a leader, but they may fail as a follower. Many 1's spend most of their lives shaking off their dependent side. When this happens, there is little time left for enjoying the rewards to be gained through independence. The individual with Life Path 1 has to overcome an environment in which it is very easy to be dependent, and difficult to be independent.
A person with positive 1 traits abounds in creative inspiration, and possesses the enthusiasm and drive to accomplish a great deal. Your drive and potential for action comes directly from the enormous depth of strength you have. This is both the physical and inner varieties of strength. With this strength comes utter determination and the capability to lead. As a natural leader you have a flair for taking charge of any situation. Highly original, you may have talents as an inventor or innovator of some sort. In any work that you choose, your independent attitude can show through. You have very strong personal needs and desires, and you feel it is always necessary to follow your own convictions. You are ambitious, and either understand or must learn the need for aggressive action to promote yourself. Although you may hide the fact for social reasons, you are highly self-centered and demand to have your way in most circumstances.

When the 1 Life Path person is not fully developed and expressing the negative side of this number, the demeanor may appear very dependent rather than independent. If you are expressing this negative trait of the number 1, you are likely to be very dissatisfied with your circumstances, and long for self-sufficiency. This is defined as the weak or dependent side of the negative 1 Life Path. On the strong side of this negative curve, the 1 energy can become too self-serving, selfish and egotistical. Over-confidence and impatience mark this individual.

I'm thinking these two numbers here must make me a real pain in the ass to live and work with. I'm an ambitious antisocial bitch, in a nutshell. Well, obviously not THAT ambitious because I'm still working at 310-HELL. Speaking of which, I went to a job interview at Randstad on Friday and they said I was "over-qualified" and "too expensive" for the local employers. Hmmm. 310-Bell. 310-2355 is a 1. Maybe I'm in the right place after all.

Thank god I'm not American: Episode 3295667918

2005-05-15T07:03:00.000-05:00

Dr. W. David Hager is an ob-gyn and a Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the FDA. Apparently he's some sort of stand-up Christian Family Values Man.

Um. Not according to The Nation.

Check some of this out:

In both his medical practice and his advisory role at the FDA, his ardent evangelical piety anchors his staunch opposition to emergency contraception, abortion and premarital sex. Through his six books--which include such titles as Stress and the Woman's Body and As Jesus Cared for Women, self-help tomes that interweave syrupy Christian spirituality with paternalistic advice on women's health and relationships--he has established himself as a leading conservative Christian voice on women's health and sexuality.

Well, so far, that's seems in line with his public persona. Women are breeders. Yeah, got that, heard it lots lately...

In December 2003 the FDA advisory committee of which he is a member was asked to consider whether emergency contraception, known as Plan B, should be made available over the counter. Over Hager's dissent, the committee voted overwhelmingly to approve the change. But the FDA rejected its recommendation, a highly unusual and controversial decision in which Hager, The Nation has learned, played a key role.

Okay, so the man is affecting change in terms of women's accessibility to birth control. Now he's not just refusing female patients in his own practice, he's refusing access to all American women. Well, mostly teens and young women as they'd be the most likely consumer of Plan B. And I can hardly fault the man for this, after all, he is a leader in the great spiritual war and they are definitely gonna need some more Christian soldiers to get us fags, lesbians, feminists and intellectuals into line. Forcing children to have children is the best way to make more soldiers. Hey, it worked in Africa. STFU.

Back at Asbury, Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."

Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.

What's this? This is not congruent. Something does not compute....

According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

You mean George W. Bush hired a rapist to manage American women's reproductive choice and agency? Say it ain't so! There must be something wrong here. It must be a mistake!

Sex was always a source of conflict in the marriage. Though it wasn't emotionally satisfying for her, Davis says she soon learned that sex could "buy" peace with Hager after a long day of arguing, or insure his forgiveness after she spent too much money. "Sex was coinage; it was a commodity," she said. Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say, 'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"

This is what happens when you make people repress their sexuality. It comes out, all fucking bent and sideways and shit. And this guy really honestly fucking believes that raping one's wife is more moral than ... I dunno, using the Pill or having an abortion or two men who have sex with one another. I think there is a fine line when denial becomes psychosis and I do believe this man has crossed it. And he's in a position of great influence and power. And these people are leading us into a Dark Age. I ain't goin'. Fuck that shit.

By the 1980s, according to Davis, Hager was pressuring her to let him videotape and photograph them having sex. She consented, and eventually she even let Hager pay her for sex that she wouldn't have otherwise engaged in--for example, $2,000 for oral sex, "though that didn't happen very often because I hated doing it so much. So though it was more painful, I would let him sodomize me, and he would leave a check on the dresser," Davis admitted to me with some embarrassment. This exchange took place almost weekly for several years.

...

These financial atmospherics undoubtedly figured into Linda's willingness to accept payment for sex. But eventually her conscience caught up with her. "Finally...I said, 'You know, David, this is like being a prostitute. I just can't do this anymore; I don't think it's healthy for our relationship,'" she recalls.

Even prostitutes had more agency than that lady. Even hookers can turn a trick down.

As disturbing as they are on their own, Linda Davis's allegations take on even more gravity in light of Hager's public role as a custodian of women's health. Some may argue that this is just a personal matter between a man and his former wife--a simple case of "he said, she said" with no public implications. That might be so--if there were no allegations of criminal conduct, if the alleged conduct did not bear any relevance to the public responsibilities of the person in question, and if the allegations themselves were not credible and independently corroborated. But given that this case fails all of those tests, the public has a right to call on Dr. David Hager to answer Linda Davis's charges before he is entrusted with another term. After all, few women would knowingly choose a sexual abuser as their gynecologist, and fewer still would likely be comfortable with the idea of letting one serve as a federal adviser on women's health issues.

Can I get a witness???? Hallelujah Praise the Lord!!!

Meanwhile, David Hager's stock has been rising among conservatives. Though his term on the FDA panel is set to expire on June 30, observers on both sides of the political divide anticipate his reappointment. In March I spoke with Janice Shaw Crouse, executive director and senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the research arm of Concerned Women for America. She is one of Hager's staunchest advocates in Washington (some credit her with engineering his FDA appointment); Crouse sits alongside Hager on Asbury College's board of trustees. In May, when informed of the allegations against him, she declined to revise her earlier statement. "I would not be at all surprised to see Dr. Hager elevated to a higher position or to another very influential position when it comes to women's care," she told me. "Because he has shown that he does care about women regardless of...the [religious] issues that people want to try to raise.... When people try to discredit him, he continues on. He hasn't caved in, and he hasn't waffled. He has been a gentleman. He is a person of character and integrity, and I think people admire that."

Waffling and flipflopping. Resolute rapists are better than ...what? People who change their damn minds from time to time? What I don't get is these Americans who sit around idly, while their rights are eroded by ignorant headfucks like this ignorant loser. Think that would happen in South America? Or maybe would Columbians march down to the guy's house and dismantle it brick by brick?

Wake up America. I try to imagine that if America really does launch itself eagerly and lustily down the path of ignorance to another Dark Age, does the rest of the world have to follow it? Or can we still enjoy our internet, our birth control and great sex and uncensored books?

And you thought Geocaching was geeky

2005-05-14T22:34:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of Mandragora. It's a plant often used in homeopathic remedies and is also called Mandrake. Back in the olde days, people had many stories and uses for it. Anaesthesia. Driving out of demons. Emetic purposes. (yuck) Rumor had it that when unearthed, the Mandragora plant emitted a high pitched scream that killed any and all listeners. People then tied a rope to the mandrake plant, with one end attached to the dog, and would run down to the end of the road and then call the dog, which would follow. Of course, the dog dropped dead instead of the person but hey, what's a few canines when Grandma's head is rotating 360, spits green shit at the priest and calls herself Lucifer?

2005-05-14T22:26:00.000-05:00

This is a boy cardinal. The girls are sort of brownish. I'm seeing these things all over the place. There's a spot over in the RBG where they'll fly down out of the trees and eat out of your hand. Well, only if you have bird seed in it ... they probably don't enjoy catnip or steak tartar.

2005-05-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

And here is a blue heron. Saw one of these sitting on a rock in the grand river. Dorky looking birds, on land and in the air.

2005-05-14T22:23:00.000-05:00

This is a cormorant, which I spotted today while geocaching. Apparently they get blamed for eating piles of fish and are considered scavengers. They often perch in trees or on rocks with their wings spread because their feathers aren't waterproof and have to drip dry. That's gotta suck, for a diving bird.

How to keep a geek preoccupied

2005-05-09T19:26:00.000-05:00

This site is really cool, I got all hypmotized by watching the shadows run across Earth.

I also have a new geeky addiction.

And my favourite online comic.

Whenever I get in a fit about losing my former job...

2005-05-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

I seem to come across an article like this one from the Star (yeah, I still read it but I don't pay for it):

Police are investigating whether to lay charges against a driver injured in a collision yesterday, the OPP confirmed today.
Sgt. Rob Kobayashi of the Toronto detachment said that police are considering several charges, including dangerous driving.

Police haven’t interviewed the woman yet because she is still in hospital recovering from serious head, leg and hip injuries.

“The charges could range from unsafe lane change, careless driving and dangerous driving,” Kobayashi said.

The victim’s Ford Explorer collided with a Plymouth Voyageur van, struck a barrier on westbound Highway 401, travelled across several lanes and rolled down an embankment. Fire crews and paramedics worked for more than an hour to free the woman before she was taken to hospital.

The accident happened at about 7:45 a.m. yesterday at Kingston Rd. in Pickering.

A 47-year-old Toronto woman driving the Voyageur has been charged with dangerous driving causing bodily harm and failure to stop at the scene of an accident.

She phoned police about 10:30 a.m. from work and turned herself in.

Police won’t say who bumped whom first, but Kobayashi said the victim’s Explorer was trying to merge into traffic and that’s where the trouble started.

“They were vying for the same spot,” the Sergeant said.

(snip)

The collision has sparked renewed concern about road rage, although police are not sure whether this incident falls into that category.

There was no pursuit by either driver, so Kobayashi is using the term “aggressive driving” instead of road rage, although the OPP admit that road rage involving women is on the increase.

Sgt. Cam Woolley said road rage incidents have doubled since 2001 and traffic volume is leading to the increase.

More incidents involve women, mainly because there are more women behind the wheel.

And after reading about these incredibly mature idiots on the road, I am reminded that I don't miss that stupid 1.5hr drive each way, each day, that I used to do to get to my previous place of employment. Notice that the two vehicles are an SUV and a minivan. I don't know if I can really articulate just how much I detest people who drive really big gas guzzing vehicles that kill other people because the drivers say "they're safer." Fuck that noise, lady. In my daily drive home from over near Pearson International, the on ramp was CRAZY. Traffic would be at a standstill and for the sake of maaaaaaaaybe 5 seconds on the drive, people would would grip their steering wheels and stare straight ahead while they got so close to the person in front of them that you couldn't get in. I'd sit there and wait on the shoulder until some transport or beater car who couldn't keep up left enough of a space. I totally get road rage though. I mean, what is it about being in a vehicle that brings out the worst in people? You don't see people in the grocery store or crowded malls shoving each other out of the way (though I've been temtped to and is also why I do any shopping on Wednesday.) There's a really simple solution to all of these for these stupid suburban idiots. Get a job in the goddamn city you live in and reduce your consumption of everything you don't NEED. THEN you won't have to drive from Pickering to fucking Mississauga every day. I want to be the Dr. Phil of Toronto drivers. "WHAT YOOOOOU NEED TO DOOOOOO ... IS PUT DOWN THE KEYS AND GET AWAY FROM YOUR CAR."

Holy Moses I passed!

2005-04-29T06:02:00.000-05:00

And yeah, I also got a B+ in my uni course, my grade report went online today. Weird, I could have sworn I botched the third essay question on the exam. Apparently knowing that John Logie Baird invented colour tv saved my ass

2005-04-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I talked on the phone with Moses Znaimer. Well, he talked, I gushed and said yes sir, no sir. To a communications student in Southern Ontario, answering the phone and having Moses on the other end of it is like being Christian south of the Mason Dixon Line and having Falwell on the line. Or something..