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1. Driving around with a yellow decal on your car and wearing red on Fridays has no effect on the mission in Afghanistan.
2. Jack Layton understands the current situation in Afghanistan as well as does Hamid Karzai which is much better than does the current New Conservative Government of Canada under the leadership of Stephen Harper which is still not really very well at all:
KarzaiMakesAnOfferTheTalibanCanRefuse
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"The Taliban will never negotiate with the Afghan government in the presence of foreign forces," Ahmadi told the Associated Press. "Even if Karzai gives up his presidency, it's not possible that Mullah Omar would agree to negotiations."
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3. Peter Mackay is a dork.
Well... what do MEN want?
All I know is, I like being respected, appreciated, wanted - for being who I am. And, unfortunately (or fortunately - depending on your point of view), many women (my age, anyway) come to that realization during marriage. I mean, many of us married whomever we were hooked up with in our late teens and early 20s and, well, women can be pretty fake about who they are at that age. It takes years of fakery practice, but we can even fake out ourselves to make those relationships last for years - certainly long enough to have children.
Until suddenly - we can't keep up the fakey anymore and it all comes crashing down.
And really, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
Oh - and society, of course. Which brings me to my point that the real enemy of marriage is a society that encourages women to hide who they really are because society simply can't handle the truth that women aren't the nurturing forces of nature our own propaganda has led us to believe we are.
I mean, just look at Obama and Hillary. Obama gets to go out there and be real, while Hillary STILL has to be the woman - even though... well... c'mon. Oprah being black has nothing to do with why she isn't running. It's because she's single and childless and the Mother of all Career Women.
Meanwhile, in Canada, female politicians have to act like men or they don't get anywhere. And they aren't anywhere, are they. We're so afraid of women in this society that it's still an issue in the year 2007 that women are under-represented in Parliament.
But simply increasing their numbers won't make a difference because if women are just going to act like men, then what's the point? And they won't get elected if they don't, anyway, because our society is afraid of women being themselves. Look at all the fear and loathing expressed by the Right about women choosing to not have babies, to not get married, to go after careers instead. Women doing what they actually want is seen as a massive threat to social stability - not progress - by all our pundits on the right - you know, the ones that appear daily in the MSM.
We're still having a debate that young women aren't a part of because they're too busy being themselves to engage in it. It's so beyond relevant to their lives that it really is an anachronism. Of course, they don't read the MSM anyway, so I suppose it won't stunt their growth any to know that all these middle-aged and beyond pundits are desperately trying to put the genie back in the bottle. For reasons I cannot fathom, but - whatever.
Look at all these studies that read like warnings about women not getting married, women putting off childbirth, GIRLS DOING BETTER IN SCHOOL THAN BOYS, FERCHRISSAKES! It is the stuff of a society that is afraid of women ditching the fakery in favour of doing what they want and being themselves - instead of hooking up to complete some young fellow and playing the role of wife, then mother.
As far as I can tell, there is no real sense coming from established society that the more women are ourselves, the better society will be for it. It's all alarm bells and red alerts that we are on the slippery slope to something bad/wrong/evil.
Really, we still aren't very far from Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden in our thinking, are we.
Well, we knew it was coming, I suppose:
AccursedInvadersVsUngratefulBastards
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Hundreds of enraged Afghans chanting "death to Canada" blocked a highway Wednesday following a raid by foreign troops that left two religious leaders dead.
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Gawd. And we can't even say, "But it wasn't us! It was the other foreign troops!" Or we could, but, I guess it isn't done. Nope. We'll just have to suck it up, carry on up the mountain pass, deliver them from evil.
Or deliver them to paradise, whatever the case may be. I notice the two dead are described as "religious leaders", at least.
But I won't even argue about the Afghanistan mission with its supporters anymore. The other side always gets to act all Jesus-like with this, "Forgive them, they know not what they do", crap when we've lost soldiers to roadside bombs planted by whoever (I mean, they can't ALL be Taliban - can they? Or who's gonna take over when all the Taliban are dead?) and then all Betty Crocker-like with this, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" crap when Afghan civilians are killed in the fighting, cross-fire, house to house searches.
I'm not a supporter of euthanasia for a couple of reasons:
1. I don't like the slippery slope idea introduced by the expression "Death with Dignity". I think it puts just that much more pressure on all of us to "behave" right up to and including death. Take your death with dignity and shove it. I'll squawk and ballyhoo as much as I want. Turn politely away, if you don't want to watch me go kicking and screaming.
2. Until the countries that have groups agitating for legalized euthanasia also have legalized marijuana and mandatory publicly funded universal healthcare, forget it. They need to meet those two Sooey conditions first - before even a discussion of legalizing euthanasia can take place.
Because that's just it, isn't it. I mean, read this article stating there is no slippery slope to legalizing euthanasia:
NoSlipperySlope
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In Oregon, people without health insurance - in theory a far greater burden on their families - were not more likely to be helped to die.
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Sure, but I bet they were a lot more likely to die poor, too.
I mean, what the hell is a society without publicly funded universal healthcare doing arguing about assisted suicide, anyway? First things first, people. That's how you make sure people aren't offing themselves just because they're sick AND poor. Geez Louise. Of course there's a moral dilemma if you've got this officially legalized free for the asking doctor assisted suicide program and sick and dying people who can't afford medical treatment.
Gawd. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
And for disabled people and their families and friends? Well, yeah. Before any talk of assisted suicide, how about we make sure people of all degrees of mobility and ability are looked after, their needs met, their pain managed AND that doctors aren't going to any extraordinary bordering on frankensteinian methods of PROLONGING painful and degenerating lives - first - before we start talking about legalizing euthanasia - for anybody.
Tracy Latimer's father didn't do what he did because he was a big ol' meanie. He killed his daughter because doctors had done nothing but prolong and intensify her suffering and he couldn't stand it anymore. He was driven to a point of such despair that he took matters into his own hands because the system that was designed to do no harm has been so compromised that we actually have to have a public discussion about legalizing something that... well... let's face it - it used to be that terminally ill cancer patients could count on a goodly dose of morphine to help them shuffle off this mortal coil.
Anyway, my point is, there would be no need for the discussion if the care systems we have were better and the care systems we don't have we did. And until those systems are both improved and new (depending on where you live) I say we hold off on any discussion of legalized euthanasia.
Just in case we get it.
Apparently, Liberal MP Raymond Chan has filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission over what he calls discriminatory remarks made by a top music promoter.
Bruce Allen, who represents singers Michael Buble and Bryan Adams (Sooey fact: I don't actually know who Michael Buble is, except that he's Canadian and has hit the big-time) - during a daily editorial (no good EVER comes of daily editorials) said the usual bigoted things doofii say on hate radio during their daily editorials, essentially that "immigrants should stop seeking special treatment in Canada or not move here".
Oh - and Mr. Allen, super-agent to the Canadian stars, is also on the team that will organize the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
His rant mostly focused on the usual target out West - Sikhs and Turbans - with a more up-to-date doofii-at-large inclusiveness that also tagged Muslim women and THE VEIL!!
Seriously, do you ever wonder if bigotry in Canada could be eliminated altogether if only these new-fangled religions that aren't Christian would can the foreign-looking headgear and switch to something Her Majesty the Queen would wear on a day out meeting the mourners outside Buckingham Palace or the Masai in Africa or perhaps even on one of her anonymous excursions to the Dollar Store for cheap underwear and glow-in-the-dark candy?
Anyway, Mr. Allen led into his bit of immigrant bashing with this head's up: "If I didn't know any better, I'd say there has been a lot of immigrant-bashing going on in recent months," before proceeding to damn the torpedoes.
And remember - this was all on the radio. It's not like Mr. Allen, Olympic Organizatian, went into his closet to say this stuff. He said it on the radio for all and sundry - including the alluded to much bashed immigrants - to hear and be so apprised of his gratuitous bigotry.
He went on about immigration officials refusing to admit Sikh immigrants who used only Singh as their last names "to avoid administrative mistakes," (a policy that has already been reversed), and, of course, to attack the oh-so-done turban-wearing Mounties, etc etc (you know, because that signature dork hat is so effective in fighting crime).
But by way of updating his bigotry, he then carried on about Elections Canada allowing VEILED WOMEN!! to vote in elections, yaddayaddablahblah. (Sometimes I think if there weren't VEILED WOMEN!! trying to vote in elections, the New Conservative Government of Canada would have to invent them to deflect attention away from its election advertising irregularities.)
But this somewhat incredible bit, given that it's the year 2007 and it was said in Canada on the radio, is what caught my eye when I read it on my forum courtesy one of the posters there:
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"This is all very simple," he said. "We have laws in this country. They are spelled out and they're easy to get a hold of. If you're immigrating to this country and you don't like the rules that are in place then you have the right to choose not to live here.
"But it seems more and more that we are being pilloried by special interest groups that just want to make special rules for themselves. This is easy to solve: these are the rules, there's the door. If you don't like the rules, hit it. We don't need you here. You have another place to go - it's called home. See ya."
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Okay. That, Dear Reader, is typical of the pointless bigotry that passes for political commentary on hate radio. Because, in fact, when one is Canadian, if one doesn't like the rules, one has every right to challenge them. It's part and parcel of being Canadian - no matter when you got here or how you arrived. That's how women's rights were advanced in this country - by Canadians challenging existing rules. It's the same thing with our laws. Laws can be challenged in court - that's how we became the democracy that we are.
Discriminatory rules and laws can be challenged and defeated and we are the better society for it.
It's called progress.
And the very fact that someone like Bruce Allen has a voice in this country - on the radio, no less, and not to mention being on the organizing team for the 2010 Olympics when he isn't also representing Canadian pop stars - tells me that, in fact, we DO need recent immigrants to challenge our rules and laws - or whatever word you want to use for the status quo. If we aren't accommodating new Canadians because we have discriminatory rules and laws in place, then those rules and laws need to be canned. There simply is no place for discrimination in this country - anymore.
It was previous generations of Canadians who got the ball rolling and it's not up to Bruce Allen or anyone other Canadian to stop it just because he already has all his rights now, thank you very much.
We evolve. It's what we do best.
The 2007 fact is, Canadians cannot have one system for people already here and another system for all the people who will come here. Democracy and the right to freedom from discrimination are for everybody, not just Judeo-Christians.
So yeah, those days are over and Mr. Allen will be censured for his opinions, not because he has them, but because he splattered them all over the airwaves.
Have you ever noticed how weird rich old people look when you see them in newspapers or magazines or on television and they're smiling for the cameras because they've just donated a hospital wing or or an opera house or an art collection and snagged a huge taxbreak for their bottomless pits of wealth?
I mean, look at regular old people. Say... your parents or grandparents or... well... I guess or go look in the mirror, maybe, and tell me they (you) look anything like rich old people.
They (you) don't, do they (you)? And I'm not talking about actors and actresses in the United States, I mean the corporate elderly here in Canada. I don't know what they do look like, but they don't look like any old people I know.
So what is it? Is it the money? Do rich old people in our society have so much money that it actually makes them look... weird? Because, really. I think that's wrong, that we have homeless people begging for money on street corners on the one hand, and rich old people with so much money that it's making them look weird on the other.
So Bill Murdoch has decided to tell the voters in his riding that he doesn't support John Tory's plan to publicly fund private religious schools:
EtTu,Brutus?
Good idea. In fact, I bet a lot of Tory MPPs could get elected in their ridings if they told constituents: "Well, I know Mr. Tory supports this idea, but, quite frankly - and I'm going to be honest with you - I don't."
So, what's being called a campaign disaster by some, SooeySays could be a campaign saver. And I think NDP candidates should do the same thing to get elected in their ridings. Say at the door, "I don't actually support the public funding of Catholic schools. Howard Hampton does, for some reason, but I don't."
It would be especially effective up North where financial resources are scarce and cities are struggling to maintain the dual system to just sort of do your own thing, and, you know, kind of cup your hand to your mouth like you're letting the voter in on the down low, "Look, I don't support it and I'll do what I can once elected to eliminate it, but we gotta get lots of guys like me elected to get it done."
I mean, Liberals can't really say much one way or the other about education because their guy is actually the Premier and will in all likelihood be the Premier again, so - what the hell. In politics, you go where the votes are.
So yeah - good strategy Bill Murdoch. Get yourself elected, first, and worry about the details later.
(Subtitled: "Toppling the Taliban is easy, it's comedy that's hard...")
So, I guess this is what Mark Steyn reads like on drugs? (Uh... him on drugs, not me...):
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FDR didn't take America to war in 1941 with the "disinterested intention of liberating others". He took America to war not to end the Holocaust or free Belgium or build a democracy in Japan but for reasons of hard-headed national self-interest. All the rest was the happy consequence of victory. Likewise, America didn't topple the Taliban because it was suddenly overcome by a burning desire to see more women legislators in the Afghan parliament: That, too, was a happy consequence of a war waged for selfish reasons.
When a democracy goes to war, there ought to be a moral component to ultimate war aims, which is why the end of the first Gulf campaign was so shabby and unworthy of America. But Senator Thompson's line is a gross sentimentalization.
Furthermore, it's not just sentimental, it's only effective retrospectively - for the war you fought 60 years ago, not for the war you're fighting now. An awful lot of Americans see Iraqis waving purple fingers at the polls and shrug, "Nice. But not worth dead Americans." To sell this struggle to the electorate, you have to frame it in terms of the national interest. It has to be a war consistent with American ideals but fought for selfish reasons.
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Personally (and I'm not a REAL pundit) I think Bush Inc. should just have said the War on Terror was all about vengeance and oil. Although, Americans were pretty quick to buy the whole "liberating their women from burkas and bringing them freedom" line, too. I can't see where Bush Inc. went wrong, really. It completely had its way with the American people by telling them it was all being done in order to fight terrorism, spread democracy, free people from their tyrannical leaders - and in general make the world a safer and better place.
Oh - and let's not forget the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction line. I mean, even the New York Times bought that one. Sort of. Kind a. Well, let's put it this way - it bought it enough to stay mum on any reservations it had until it was way too late to do anything but issue a grovelling apology to its readers for unequivocally buying what turned out to be a big whopper by Bush Inc. in order to justify invading a sovereign country that had not much to do with the attacks of 9/11.
Let's face the facts - Americans are still signing up to fight in Iraq and the War on Terror continues unabated with lots of reconstruction contracts up for grabs by Haliburton and security provided by Blackwater and...
HEY! WHY THE HELL IS MARK STEYN BACKPEDDLING NOW?!
I mean, Geez Louise, Mark Steyn - Bush Inc. is way better at selling the War on Terror to Americans than any old FDR was on selling them WWII.
What do supporters of the war in Afghanistan actually do to support the war in Afghanistan?
How is it possible for Canadians who do NOT support the war in Afghanistan - to not support the war in Afghanistan?
Wait a minute... Did this really happen:
Was there once a Reform party made up of people who had moved out to Alberta over the years because the Right in Ontario and other provinces just wasn't Religious and Republican enough, that had splintered away from the Progressive Conservative Party (heheh - PCP) because it was too progressive and not conservative enough, that had even wanted to separate from the Rest of Canada to make the point that it was Right in its direction and the Rest of Canada was Wrong, that was considered by most Canadians to be a fringe political element much like the Montana Freemen down in the United States, that dropped its Reform Party name to become the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party (See CRAP), that adopted the less hilarious Canadian Alliance Party name before taking over the once mighty PCP left reduced to just two seats, that removed the Progressive from Progressive Conservative and added New instead - that was elected the New Conservative Government of Canada?!
Call me "ahead of the curve", but I really like how Britney Spears' act is evolving. I mean, let's face it - you can only take that slick polished routine so far before your fans notice something amiss: "Hey... Britney didn't do that two-way head shake after the third "Whoops, I did it again" this time!"
But this stuff, man - it's really different. I mean, "take that", Christina. Haha! And Madonna couldn't pull off an act like Britney's if you paid her double time and a half.
That's because Madonna's a perfectionist. Sure, she CALLS herself an artist, but she's not - she's just a perfectionist.
Britney's an artist. And she doesn't need to cut off her right ear (left ear?) to prove it. She's Modern Art in the Flesh. Admit it. Her performance was riveting. You couldn't take your eyes off her. And you thought about what she was trying to tell us, whether it was, "I'm having a nervous breakdown", "This is how I really feel about show business", or "I shouldn't have taken those drugs before the performance". Then you took it from there to wonder, "What does Britney's performance (art) say about life?"
Well, SooeySays - a mouthful. It's all there. She's living breathing art. Right now. Britney - "America on Stage". I mean, sure she's over or will be over soon. Or she'll go into rehab and get in shape and go back to doing her routine. But that will only increase the value of this performance as true, blue American art:
LoveMe
The new season of America's Next Top Model has started. It's a tradition that I watch it with my girls - both of whom entertained notions of modelling at one time while my ex and I would offer, "You should get parents who would pay for modelling lessons and drive you to them" and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc until they gave up. I believe the final word on the subject was daughter number two exclaiming in exasperation, "Mom, I want to be a model!" and me responding delightedly, "Ooh. Great idea. Go be a model and make millions of $$$s so Dad can expand his Star Trek action figure collection!"
Oh my - parenting. It's never done, I tells ya.
Anyway, now we all watch ANTM and make fun of the wannabe models and Tyra and the over-the-top panel of judges.
Well, yesterday's debut featured a girl who was obviously not in the running to be a regular model, but yet - she wasn't "big-boned" enough to be a plus size model, either. So, we were sitting there, laughing about how she wasn't even gonna make the cut for Tyra's nod to The Big Girls, when daughter number one said, "Hey... how come there are super skinny sized models and plus sized models BUT NO NORMAL SIZED MODELS!!!!!
So yeah - what's up with that? I mean, we've all accepted that modelling is for insane people (Exhibit A: Tyra Banks) but what's up with the nod to plus sized women but no nod to everybody... normal?
I mean, really - if men only knew the obstacles women have yet to overcome. Like plus sized models getting in on the modelling action before normal sized women. Really, women can't win for losing. Unless you lose so much you're likely to slip through a crack in the catwalk.
Now that we know how badly the right here in Canada (and the U.S.?) has taken the news that - thanks to Feminism (i.e., progress) - girls are doing better in school than boys, perhaps we should pull out of Afghanistan before the same thing happens there.
Afterall, if it's causing such a fuss here (with the inevitable anti-Feminist backlash that will continue to go on for years in our rightwing media by our rightwing pundits) it's bound to cause a fuss when the same thing happens in Afghanistan.
But isn't it interesting how the right ballyhooz against girl power when we actually have some but pretends that's what it wants for Afghanistan?
And sadly hilarious how they seem themselves as the good guys but men everywhere else as the bad guys - especially men here on the left who DON'T whine about girls doing better in school than boys, women working outside the home, girls and women having reproductive rights, etc etc etc.
It's all too ironic topped with a shitload of hypocrisy. Ever since girls and women acquired human rights equal to boys and men in this country, the right has been emitting one long ceaseless whine about it.
Take a gander at this column, if you will, and ask yourself: "Why is the assumption made - by anyone - that there must be reverse discrimination going on if girls are doing better in school than are boys?"
Then ask yourself: "And why is it assumed an automatic negative if, indeed, there IS reverse discrimination going on that is resulting in girls doing better in school than are boys?"
DamnedFeminists!
I mean, maybe girls doing better in schools than boys - is a good thing. Or maybe it's just - a thing. Maybe it'll be women who run all the corporations in the future. So what? Men run them all now and it turns out that they may not be as good at it as women will be. Why is it a bad thing if women take over from men in making more money, making more decisions - and generally having all the best jobs and all the power in society?
Interesting where the whining originates from, too, eh?
Flat?!IThoughtYouSaid"Fat"!
So, is Sherri Shepherd stupid because she's Christian? Or Christian because she's stupid?
And having said that, why can't the Church of Scientology get those much coveted tax breaks other REAL religions get? I mean, it has a belief system and stupid people flocking to it. What's really the difference between it and a Church that teaches against science and evolution and all the other facts of life?
How is science fiction any worse than regular fiction? I mean, c'mon - God didn't write the Bible. We know that for a fact - riiiight? And yet, the Bible is the whole basis for Christianity. And the money thing isn't really any different with the C.S. than it is with say... the Catholic Church and the notion that Catholics should give 10% of their income to the Church. Blackmail? Well... what about confession and the Priest knowing all your dirty little secrets because you've been programmed since birth that if you don't confess your sins, you'll be in trouble with God when your soul rises up to Heaven and tries to sneak past the Pearly Gates.
I dunno. I'm just sayin'. Goose/gander. It seems to me the Church of Scientology is no less kooky than any other religion except that it hasn't been around as long messing with people's tiny minds.
Honestly, what does it say about "The View" that a woman as stupid as Sherri Shepherd is on it? What does it say about Feminism in the United States that "The View" is even on television? What does it say about the state of humanity in the United States when Barbara Walters can't even move her face any more she's had so much plastic surgery?
I was thinking about this Ann Coulter quote this morning:
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We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.
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Everybody and his crazy Aunt disassociated himself from Ann Coulter's remarks at the time, in spite of the fact that the Bush Administration embraced the first third of her remark almost immediately, and, as luck would have it, was able to follow through on the second third of her remark in due course and with relative ease.
So what about the final third of "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"?
Because if you read any rightwing pundit these days, you will notice that their great fear is the spread of Islam. As you know, Dear Reader, rightwing pundits support the War on Terror and the Mission in Afghanistan and do not for a second believe the Americans should pull out of Iraq until the job is done, any more than Canadians should pull out of Afghanistan in 2009.
But really, if Islam is the enemy, does it not follow, then, that the job will not be done until we have "converted them to Christianity"? Because I really don't see the point, if Islam is the enemy, of pulling out of anywhere until we can rest assured that we have followed through after "invading their countries and killing their leaders" with "converting them to Christianity".
And I can't imagine any rightwing pundits would disagree with me. Afterall, they will insist, column after column, Islam is a spreading menace. Its mission is to take over - not just THE world - but OUR world - the Western Judeo-Christian one.
Sure, it's easy to dismiss Ann Coulter as a nut, but is she any more of a nut than, say anybody who supports the War on Terror and the Mission in Afghanistan? Of course she isn't. In fact, she said very clearly right off the bat what every rightwinger has taken a few years to say, over and over and over:
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We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.
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And she's right, from every angle of a rightwing pundit's point of view. And since her government is every bit as rightwing as she is (and ours is now in lockstep), we have invaded their countries, we have killed their leaders, and now - given that the people who support the War on Terror believe Islam to be the enemy - it follows, logically, from a rightwing nut point of view, that we must now convert them to Christianity.
Only then will the War on Terror make any sense to them (its supporters) and to us (sane people).
The same "principle" really must apply, as well, to the Mission in Afghanistan, in my opinion. If every time we leave a region, it falls back into Taliban hands, well - we maybe we need to convert Afghanis to Christianity before we leave the region so that they have a counter position to defend against the Taliban when it moves back in to take over again. I really don't see any alternative. It was Islam that was the reason given for why women could have no rights in Afghanistan, and freeing those women from tyranny is the reason constantly given for why we are there, and the Taliban follows Islam - as do most other Afghanis - so why is everybody pretending that Islam won't just be used all over again to oppress women?
Men + Islam = Oppression for Women. Right? Isn't that what I keep reading? Over and over and over?
I mean, if our rightwing pundits are right (and they're in every newspaper, and on every news station - so there must be SOME legitimacy to their opinions) - how can we leave Afghanistan without first converting Afghanis to Christianity?
The War on Terror? Of course it's a waste if only parts one and two of Ms. Coulter's assertion are followed through on and part three is left unaccomplished. Read any pundit on the right - any one - and you'll agree that they are very definitely saying that in order for the War on Terror to be in any way a success, Islam will have to be eradicated in Iraq and Christianity imposed in its place.
If Islam is truly the enemy, and that's what these rightwing pundits are saying - all of them - then Islamic countries need to be converted to Christianity or the War on Terror is and has been - pointless - and we in the West will always be at risk of Terrorist attacks and Sharia Law and all manner of Imperialistic Islamic Menacism.
Ann Coulter told it like it has to be done - from the right's point of view: "We should invade their countries" - done; "kill their leaders" - done; and "convert them to Christianity" - not done - yet.
It's only logical, afterall.
Subtitled: Hideous and Unedifying
Sooey phone in questions that didn't get asked:
1. What the fuck's a "working family"? Why aren't the kids in school, at least? Are we really that impoverished that the whole family has to work to pay for the kids' glasses?
2. Does Dalton McGuinty just say anything/something and think it's coherent because it's words. When he cites a number, does he think it doesn't matter which one?
2. Why does John Tory just say over and over that Ontario is last on the list? What list? Should I care?
Where is this list? Who has it? It's not one of those publicly funded private religious school or publicly funded private healthcare lists - is it? Is John Tory's sole constituency The Bridle Path?
3. If you all care so much about autimism and autistic kids, why are you politicians? I mean, c'mon. How much could you really care about autistic kids? They don't even want to shake your hands.
4. Where is Howard Hampton's neck? And why won't he attack John Tory? Doesn't he know that if John Tory looks to be doing well, even if well is just that he's still on the ballot come election day, that soft lefties will skitter to the center and vote in another Liberal majority - just to be safe? Are NDP strategists PAID FOR THIS SHIT?!
I was thinking about the whole race relations thing in the United States as it played out during the OJ trial and it really was pretty amazing how that "Not Guilty" verdict took the wind out of everyone's sails.
Serendipity was that glove what didn't fit.
Because, initially, none of it had to do with black and white. Everybody wanted OJ to be innocent, or, at least, to get away in his Ford Bronco. I mean, it was pretty obvious from the getgo that he brutally murdered, in cold drugged up blood, Nicole Brown Simpson and... the other guy... - but still, he'd been the cutesy co-worker in The Naked Gun movies.
He must have been a better actor than we thought, too, because he seemed so... smart opposite Leslie Nielsen.
Oh - and the football hero bit. Of course, there was that, too. Even *I* knew OJ Simpson had been a football star. And not just a football star - a recognizable one. Like Joe Namath (I had to google his name to get the correct spelling - do you believe it?)
So, here was this likeable actor/sports hero who was clearly guilty, trying to escape justice in his Ford Bronco, and pretty much everybody was rooting for him. What the hell. What had Nicole Brown Simpson ever starred in?
Later, when we found out about her repeated calls for help, and that the LAPD, instead of charging OJ would party with him, most of us decided he was one pretty repellent guy surrounded by depraved hangers on and some of us even refused to watch the trial. (I was at home with toddlers at the time, though, and did catch every episode of Sharon, Lois & Bram. Bram did it. He stole the cookies from the cookie jar.)
Anyway, I remember a defence lawyer friend even saying in OJ's defence (defence lawyers - ya gotta luv 'em) "Oh, what was Nicole Brown Simpson, anyway, except another parasite". To which a non-defence lawyer might say, "Well, that doesn't give him the right to kill her, ferchrissakes". But such were the arguments in those days - between white people, anyway. I don't know what black people were arguing because, well, I didn't know any to argue with about OJ. I'm guessing a couple of black co-workers I'd had would not likely feel any differently than I did. They were both women, though.
And I had a friend, a white friend, who still believes OJ was innocent. But she's a woman, too - and crazy.
So I really think it was the LAPD people were reacting to, and not OJ. Nobody in their right mind could possibly believe that OJ wasn't guilty as charged. No one. But the LAPD was guilty, too. In a way, the LAPD had been so negligent, that maybe a good lawyer (not Marcia Clark) could argue it was as responsible for Nicole Brown Simpson's death as if it'd backed over her in a cruiser leaving one of OJ's coke parties. Afterall, she had called in a few 911s and they had responded essentially by partying with OJ. Mark Fuhrman? I've heard people argue, convincingly, that he was in on it - the killings, I mean. Maybe, even, that he murdered them, contract-style, for OJ.
Whatever. The thing is, it only became all about race relations because that's where the media steered it. Had that trial not been televised, there wouldn't have been any racial tension. It would have been a celebrity found guilty - or not - of murder. So it was doubly delicious to me (having missed the whole damn thing) when the jury came up with "Not Guilty".
"Okay, everybody. Put down your molotov cocktails. Party's over. Go home. Nothing to blow steam off about here. We're all not guilty now."
And, of course, there was the added bonus of the celebrity outrage, black on one side, white on the other that went on for months afterward. Not to mention the civil suit that was so "justice NOT denied" that - gosh - sometimes I think the OJ Simpson trial was the one thing Americans DID get right.
And now this. Caught again. Oh my. If CNN didn't have OJ, it'd have to invent him.
It occurs to me, given the advertising for "soon to be in theatres" movies featuring torture scenes, that all of the people who subsequently answer the call and go to see those movies can't all be closeted psychotic rapists/torturers/killers.
And my companion - who thought that seeing torture on the big screen, if anything, sensitized him to it MORE (as in the idea of it being condoned in any way by governments is pretty terrifying to him given what torture actually is - torture) didn't exactly say that he didn't LIKE seeing it in movies, either.
So, Dear Reader, I may have leapt someone prematurely to my conclusion that because *I* don't like watching torture scenes - or even knowing that they're there, to be honest, and that anybody and everybody can watch people being tortured (on celluloid, lest we forget what we're talking about here) - that other decent human beings don't like them, either.
In fact, I'm willing to wager that, if many people (men) were honest, they'd admit to... liking(?) watching movies with torture scenes?
Be honest. It's only the Internet, afterall, and no one's judging, but - Do you? I'm curious. Because maybe THAT'S what makes men different from women. OR, maybe I'm speaking out of turn as a woman and lots of women out there ALSO enjoy watching people being tortured - on celluloid (again, lest we forget what we're talking about here - movie torture, not real life torture).
Because that's the other thing - and a whole different topic - but people who are honest about such things, about enjoying such things, I mean, tend to be men, too. Women, even if they feel the same way, are much less likely to admit to it. Even using the expression "admit to it" reveals my bias as a woman. Yes. I think it's "wrong" to enjoy watching people being tortured - even if it's only a movie - but that's just me. Is it really wrong? No. It just is. Right/wrong. It just is. In fact, my companion gave me a new perspective on it by suggesting he'd become MORE sensitized to it (in real life) by viewing it on the big screen.
As a woman, I hadn't even considered that possibility. That for most (many?) (some?) (a few?) men, seeing people being tortured on the big screen provokes both pleasure and displeasure, pleasure that they're seeing it without it actually happening, displeasure that it actually happens.
Personally, I can honestly say that my reaction to torture on the big screen is undeniably one of regret - regret that I saw it. I get no pleasure from it. None. Even if it's the bad guy getting his just desserts. In fact, that just negates any positive feelings I had for the good guy. You're only the good guy... well... maybe you're only the good guy if you're... if you're... a woman!
AHA! BREAKTHRU!
Take that, Hollywood!
I think I really just have one thing to say to this article:
MargaretSomerville
Genetics, to my mind, are something to be overcome - no matter who your parents are.
I'm boycotting movies and television shows that feature torture scenes. I finally realized, I can't stand watching it, so why am I?
Well, mostly because of the people around me - left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't turn on the TV. Unless maybe the "How Not To Decorate" guys were doing a marathon (they currently are - at a housing project in Glasgow, if you're interested). Otherwise, I'm not much into the habit of watching television.
But I was having this discussion with my companion and sister the other day. While she felt that watching torture scenes could possibly de-sensitize one to them (and not in a good way, she meant), I offered up that watching torture scenes over the years had only made me MORE sensitive to them. I mean, I haven't seen ANYTHING by Tarentino et al (the darlings of torture movies - in more ways than one - i.e. "ENUFF - KILL BILL ALREADY!") that is as bad as what I know has happened to raped and murdered girls in real life.
"Yabbut", she said, "You're a woman".
Aha. That explains it. Because I could so easily be a victim of what is being depicted on the screen, I don't want to watch it.
"But I am sensitized to it, too. And I think I've become even more so, the more of it I've seen."
That came from my companion. But he's the most decent human being I know, so, well... okay... I suppose most of the men I know are not the types to get off on torture scenes, or worse - real life rape and murder.
So... who are torture scenes for then, exactly? Because I think that psychotic people probably DO get off on torture scenes. And, I'm telling you - outside the romantic comedy genre, you'll be hardpressed to find a film today that doesn't feature at least SOME torture. And TV - the best of TV ferchrissakes - features it so prominently, well, let's just say Deadwood and The Sopranos are off my viewing list - that's for sure.
But speaking of Deadwood, it had come recommended to me by a female friend, so I thought, "Oh... Okay...", remembering she once gave me a book "Credo" which I read only a couple of pages of before putting back on the shelf it was so gruesome. Anyway, I watched one episode and thought, "Hm... I can see why men might like this. The women are portrayed as being completely dependent on the good graces of the men." - which is why I had no desire to watch any more episodes, quite frankly. In your wild wet dreams, Feminized Modern Man. And the "tossing the recently tortured and murdered to the pigs"? Well - no comment. But obviously Deadwood's writers are NOT Canadian or they'd know it's been done - recently.
Anyway, I'm sort of putting my foot down, I guess, because I've watched too many torture/rape/murder scenes that end up staying with me and I don't see any reason for it. I don't need to see torture to know it happens - cripes, it's been legitimized by governments that still call themselves democratic. It's not that I'm shocked by it - I just don't want to see it. And it seems to me it's so de rigeur in movies and dramatic television shows that, well, I'm going to be boycotting a lot of movies and television shows this year, I guess.
No matter, if women aren't being tortured, raped, murdered in Hollywood - they're waiting for their boyfriend/husband to come home from work so they can ask, "What's happening to you?", so, it's not like I'll be missing anything insightful.
And I've had enough of real life misogyny, thanks. I don't need any more from Hollywood.
I was thinking on my walk in to work about an argument my co-worker is always trying to have with me regarding my essential Canadianness and why I won't concede to him that Canadians are Americans because we watch the same television, rent the same movies, read the same books, yaddayadda blahblah.
He's a rightwinger, British, and a great and true believer in all things Republican American - as well as an admirer of Mark Steyn, David Warren, and Lowell Green (ahem... Canadians all, I believe...).
But isn't it always the way that Canadians who see themselves as Americans are rightwingers who believe in the War on Terror and Bush Inc. and private schools and private healthcare AND FORGET ALL ABOUT THE TIME WHEN BILL CLINTON WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?!
Anyway, I keep meaning to read it, but probably won't as I'm almost exclusively a fiction reader these days, but Andrew Cohen, a favourite columnist of mine, recently wrote a book called, "The Unfinished Canadian", which got a lot of media play around these parts (Ottawa) because, well - HE'S CANADIAN AND HE WROTE A BOOK ABOUT CANADA, DAMMIT!
It'sTrue.I'mCanadianAndIWroteABookAboutCanada
As did Professor Cohen's previous book (get a lot of local media play, I mean), "While Canada Slept", which would seem to lament Canada's less than enthusiastic support for the American "War on Terror" - specifically under Chretien's rule - at a time when many columinists - specifically if they worked at CanWest newspapers - felt we should be jumping in with both boots to join up with our American neighbours to fight their version of the good fight -The War on Terror.
ReadMeBeforeTheInvasionOfIraqGoesBad
Me? Well, define "terror" first. Then pinpoint where it is - exactly. But, of course, I don't see myself as in any way American.
Indeed, I have always seen myself as Canadian, never American - even when the President is a Democrat. No thanks. Their politics is repellent to me, the level of ignorance surrounding it alarming, the hypocrisy involved in it abhorrent, the religion behind it terrifying, yaddayadda blahblah. Oh - and their culture is like a giant gooey wet spot on the sheet of humanity.
I am Canadian - in spite of our rightwingers, because of them - whatever.
I do not see myself in any way as an American, as a citizen of the United States. Not. At. All. Not. One. Bit. Not.
But it's one thing to say that, write that, know it to be true - and another thing to win the argument so here's the slam dunk for all you Canadians who work with rightwing American wannabes who are constantly telling you that Canadians are Americans.
Here it is:
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And yet, you would never in a million years say that Americans are Canadians - would you? Why is that? Well, it's because they AREN'T Canadians. Americans are NOT Canadians. Not even a little bit. Americans are 100% American.
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See? It's very simple. Like the rest of the world, we are exposed to all things American - which a rightwinger will say makes us American but which I will say makes us more like the rest of the world. Because we aren't American, we're just exposed to all things American - in the way same way that Americans are exposed to all things American.
Except Americans, aren't exposed to anything else.
I think that really puts the nail in the coffin of the rightwinger argument that Canadians are Americans - just by noting the very obvious fact that Americans aren't Canadians. It's the stark reality of the inverse not being true that reveals the undeniable flaw in their argument. As Canadians, like the rest of the world, we are inundated with, exposed to, surrounded by all things American with a very keen awareness that the reverse is not true - that Americans have virtually no awareness of us.
And that, Dear Reader, is precisely what makes us NOT American.
Ah, but then - what makes us Canadian, you ask?
Canadiana makes us Canadian. It is uniquely ours. We can rest assured that the rest of the world - and especially Americans - are quite unaware of it.
I'm a terrible hoarder of money. For some reason, I have such an insecurity about not having enough of it to last me to the bitter end of my miserly life, that, no matter how little I make, I manage to sock away some of it to add to the little pile I've always had on hand.
Not that I would ever in a million years dip into it - but it's on hand. And if I'm ever living in a cardboard box in the middle of the road, it'll still be on hand.
So, I would not be someone you'd want in charge of the Treasury because, well, I'd just keep piling your taxed dollars onto the existing mountain of money and telling you to get out there and earn more money so we can keep that treasured Treasury treasuring.
You never know what's waiting around the corner - but the roads could get pretty crowded with cardboard boxes before it hits us.
Luckily (for me and Scrooge and Simon Legree) most people have a more "money's for the living" attitude towards spending it and since I'm a firm believer in a certain amount of everybody's income going into a big pot in order that we all do what we can to keep the country running in the manner to which we've all become accustomed - I have no problem at all parting with my share for that very purpose.
I also figure it gives me a say equal to the guy who makes a lot more money than I do simply by virtue of his birth. Because at the same time that we're a country where anybody can make it, we're also a country where, well, it's pretty hard NOT to make it if you're born into a certain class.
It's something I've always been very aware of, having gone to working class schools with kids from families where the same opportunities available to me were not available to them, if only because it was always expected of me and my brother and sisters that we would go to university - regardless of any economic obstacles that may arise - because my father had gone to university and then law school after he returned home from WWII.
That he died a decade or so after he started practicing, may have changed the actual economics of my family's situation, but it didn't change where we saw ourselves in the class pecking order. Having been born into a family where the breadearner was a lawyer made all the difference in our lives. I might even argue that we saw ourselves as a family as that much better than the families with actual living breathing lawyer breadearners, because, in spite of having had a great big economic setback - we all managed to get through university just the same.
But I won't argue that because it would reveal what an egregious snob I truly am. Yeah. Sure. The rich are different than the rest of us - they've got money - they don't need brains.
So imagine my surprise when I was actually at university to feel firsthand the sting of the very real class divide as seen by those whose fathers were living breathing lawyers who were themselves descended from... (and so on and so forth and more of the same...) back to whoever made the money that defined those kids down to this day as "rich".
Because it's real, that class divide, and you need only read the engagement pages of the Globe & Mail to know it's real. Rich kids, even today, do not date/marry outside their class. I was there to discover it for myself at university. Not intentionally, of course. It just happened. I came, I saw, I could have conquered but for the fact that I was a middle class girl from Sault Ste. Marie. And in spite of being friends with a couple of rich party girls who, for a while, took me everywhere with them, I never once got beyond, "Hey", with the boys - or any of the other girls for that matter.
They could sniff out the class divide, even if I couldn't. (Although, to be honest, I could, too, and in a way that is not at all flattering to their class. Stupid, shallow, with copious appetites for drugs - but not women - would best describe how they came across to me back then.)
Anyway, my point is that, in my experience, education goes a long way in closing a class divide because, while you may not ever be considered "one of them" (and to be "one of them" you've got to be born into the money) - you can be in the same professions as them - no matter where you started out in life - IF you can afford to get the education that'll put you there.
So... long post ended, I think I'd make my priority in spending the Treasury the freeing of education right on up the chain. No matter where you come from, if you can get the marks (and I'd give kids lots of tries - some people take longer than others to get the knack of academia) you can go to law school. I'd free up trade schools, too. You name it - you want to do it for a living? - here you go, get trained on the Treasury's dime and then go out there and start earning money to help top off the Treasury for the next generation.
The class system may or may not always be with us in one way or another, but having educational and training opportunities available to everybody, no matter whether or not they can afford it, would make us all the better for the Treasury money spent, I think.
There's an absolutely hilarious provincial Liberal campaign advertisement on television right now. It features Dalton McGuinty smiling maniacally (the smile seems designed to inspire fear, as in: "Vote for me or I'll come to your house and bite the head off your kitten - if you have a kitten. Otherwise...) and delivering an impassioned dissertation on our public school system, our public schools, public public public. He goes on about how this is what makes Ontario - Ontario - our public school system that is for all children. (He mentions all the things kids do together in our public schools and somebody has clearly tacked "singing" on at the end of the list. My son scoffed, "singing?!" So I offered up, "Maybe he has public schools mixed up with Catholic schools. I dunno. They must sing hymns or something at Catholic schools.")
Really. You have to see it to believe it. Watching him say the words, you almost believe he thinks they're true. By omission, like, anyway.
And, by the way, Premier? We know this is what makes Ontario - Ontario. We're just not sure anymore why we can't be a province like one of the ones that actually HAS one public school system. If only so our Premier wouldn't come across as a total eedjit maroon on his televised election campaign advertisements talking as if we do when in fact, we have one public system more than seems right, really. Or fair, even. We have TWO public school systems. Two public school systems that duplicate each other in the kind of way that only costs taxpayers money, with one of those public school systems actively discriminating against non-Catholics.
Lucky for you one candidate has gone off his nut and recommended that taxpayers fund all manner of private religious schools and the other one, well, I dunno - is in favour of taxpayers funding private Catholic educations, too, I guess.
Because that's the system we actually have, Premier. Just because you don't mention it in your televised election advertising campaign doesn't mean it isn't there.
In all the Liberal Party hand-wringing over the by-election in Outremont, have any of the movers and shakers considered the possibility that voters simply prefer the NDP candidate, Thomas Mulcair?
Please read this ridiculous bit of hysteria from TheChronicleHerald.ca:
OhWhatHaveWeDion?
I mean, really - if you're going to suspect someone of sabotaging Dion, I'd suspect a New Conservative first, an NDPer second, a failed Liberal leadership candidate third.
And lest Liberals second guess themselves too much, Dion was your best bet - by far. But maybe, just maybe, it's Jack Layton's and the NDP's turn for a kick at the Federal can. Besides, what do you guys care if Layton becomes Prime Minister? The NDP had all your best ideas first and none of your crooked weasly bad ones that finally did you in with voters, anyways.
Surely Stephane Dion would be pleased as punch to have an NDP Prime Minister. Afterall, the NDP had a sound environmental policy long before anybody else on the Federal horizon. Afghanistan? We'd be out of there on time, if not well before. The Bloc would certainly have nothing to complain about with an NDP Federal government - heck, it might just as well give it up and stop fielding candidates like it said it would if it lost the referendum - which it did.
You know, I think Stephen Harper and his New Conservatives would do well to have an NDP Prime Minister, too. We all would.
But read how these hysterics refer to the NDP:
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The Liberals are alarmed at the prospect of the NDP winning the seat.
"Our concern is that if they get a riding in Montreal, then there's a risk that they're like a cancer" and will spread, said one senior party official.
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Hey, senior party official - SooeySays: "Go fuck yourself and yo mama".
Meanwhile, here's the real reason why everybody's so afraid of an NDP win:
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And if the NDP wins the traditionally Liberal riding of Outremont, it may make Liberals hesitant to vote to bring down the government.
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Yeah. That sounds more like the Liberals we all know and loathe. Gawd. If I were Stephane Dion? I'd switch parties and run under the NDP banner - leave that desperate machiavellian bunch of smarmy power brokers behind to machinate themselves into oblivion.
What is the word for that time in civilization when E! Entertainment JustSayNo,Jesus! is deciding what's offensive and what isn't?
"Kathy Griffin's offensive remarks will not be part of the E! telecast," an academy spokeswoman said on Tuesday. An "abbreviated version" of her acceptance speech will air, instead, she said.
Although, I suppose there's a chance it'll be the version abbreviated to, "Suck it, Jesus".
C'mon D-list acceptance speech censors - now's your chance to break into showbiz!
I dunno, it's not "ironic", really. Or "hypocritical", exactly.
What is the word...
So, what happens to the War on Terror if/when Americans pull out of Iraq?
Read this article:
FunnyGirl
Now, tell me what would be funny about Kathy Griffin making a joke re award winners thanking Jesus in their acceptance speeches - by yelling, "Suck this, Mohammed!".
That's right. Nothing.
So what is that Catholic League guy's point?
That's right. Nothing.
Now that the Ontario provincial election campaign is underway and all that hypocrisy re education funding is out in the open and we've all agreed "it may be stupid, but it's the status quo, so..." - what about our dual healthcare system?
And no, I'm not talking about all the private profit operations being funded with tax dollars that a little kick of the public purse will reveal. I'm talking about Catholic hospitals. And communities where there once may have been both a public and Catholic hospital where there is now just a Catholic hospital.
Why, in 2007, is religion playing any kind of role at all in medicine? Gud Gawd in Hevin. That's what we need, voodoo mixed with science to treat patients.
And if John Tory et al are so concerned that there be religious fairness to square away religious unfairness in publicly funded education, why not insist on the same for publicly funded healthcare?
Islamic hospitals anyone?
When people refer to "broken homes" and "single parent families", what the hell are they talking about? All of the separated and divorced parents I know provide two homes for their children and both mom and dad parent. I don't know of any "broken homes" or "single parent families". Not a one. I only know of formerly married couples sharing children and often getting along better with each other in separation and divorce than they ever did in marriage.
So there, all you family valuers. Value our families. Who knows - they may be working out better'n yours.
I had to take the #2 bus today (and no - that's NOT a euphemism) to go to a doctor's appointment on account of my doctor moved offices. I used to be able to just hop on the #95 (which uses the Transitway) to get to her office, so now, even though she's technically MUCH closer to downtown (she's a suburban doctor) she's MUCH further away by bus.
Anyway, the #2 is a pretty urban experience and today, as it went down Rideau Street, I saw lots of regular sorts of people (civil servants abound here, making Ottawa seem very solid, upper middle-class, and they use the transit system because it's very specific to government buildings downtown from houses out in the suburbs) and a range of commercial ventures from upscale shoe stores to trendy tattoo parlours to pawnbrokers. Then I saw a pretty reddish blond haired girl of about sixteen with bright glassy blue eyes and a crazy grin staggering down the street, her motor control completely compromised by whatever she was high on and it just was the sort of thing that punches you in the gut, stabs you in the heart, jabs you in the eye.
And you spend the rest of the day wondering about the well being of that person.
Pretty soon you start wondering about the kind of people who sell drugs to other people but then you think maybe it was glue she was on and it becomes pointless to try and figure it out and the only thing left is to hope there are other people out there who try to help people like her.
And you know what? There are. I was talking to one such person last night. It's her job, she's paid (not well, not poorly) through our tax dollars and works with other people, also paid (not well, not poorly) through our tax dollars, to provide a program (for lack of a better term) to help people with mental health and other issues get it together enough to keep it together for however long it stays together. They can come in high, whatever, and it's the job of these people to try and help them in meeting the sorts of basic needs that people who are messed up can't meet on their own.
I was trying to get a sense of what exactly is provided and then she laughed and said, "Hope"?
Which I guess can be a little or a lot - depending. But it sure is better than nothing, that much I know.
I was going to post an entry, a pokey bit of philosophizing, on all this incoherent turmoil regarding Muslim women and the veil (you know, the veil that is supposed to represent the subjugation of Muslim women by Muslim men that has Canada's mostly white male Christian Parliament in a right royal flipflap):
VeiledThreats
But then I came across this:
InOutInOutInOutElectionAdvertising
And I realized, "Oh. Okay. Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government of Canada is going into attack mode at Marc Maynard:
HeSeemedLikeSuchAQuietGuy
Because of that election advertising stuff.
And then, of course, I stumbled across this and completely lost my train of thought:
Aha!BehindTheVeil!
Oh, who am I kidding? Why let Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government's manipulation of Elections Canada:
Quick!CauseADiversion!
Get in the way of a bit of PhiloSooey on the nature of freedom, multiculturalism, and tolerance.
I'll be brief. Eventually.
As I was frying myself up some scrambled free range eggs (I don't bother with organic - free range is good enough - and half the price) to have on some "must eat today" rye toast, it hit me: Muslims are arriving to our shores at a time when individual rights and freedoms are at a peak in this country - and, like all good and longstanding Canadians, they are exercising their rights - unilaterally - and without waiting for those same good longstanding Canadians to grant them leave to do so. THAT is why so many "born and raised here for a handful of generations" Canadians are reacting so... intolerantly to the customs of Muslim newcomers. It's not so much the Islamicismness (if that even is a word.... yet...) of the newcomers as it is the flaunting of it.
Anyway, I figure all this intolerance getting so much media play these days (and that's what it is when you cannot abide an individual's choice of dress, food, prayer - where they choose to wash their feet, perhaps - it's intolerance) is a result of "back in my day" Canadians feeling like Muslims are benefitting from hard won rights and freedoms fought for by generations of Canadians (none of them involved in this debate, by the way) - just by coming here - and then, instead of saying, "Wow. It's so free here" and smiling joyously through the Christmas season, they go that one step further and say, "I think I'll exercise my rights and wash my feet in the sink before going for a good ol' country prayer to Allah giving thanks for making Canada so free".
To me (a secular humanist feminist on the left who would happily put a sign over the sink saying, "Don't thank our socially and politically progressive forbears - they did it for all of us"), that's a good thing because it means the system is working, that we are free as individuals to exercise our rights, that rights are for everybody, not just a few who were here before the many who will come here. And while previous generations of newcomers may have felt keeping a low profile, adapting to the ways of the majority, keeping their cultural differences under wraps - was the way to adapt, newcomers now adapt right away by feeling feel free to flaunt their culture. I mean, people SHOULD feel free to flaunt - or they're not really free - are they?
Naturally, of course, something's gotta give to make room for all this freedom and what it is, Dear Reader, is that longstanding Canadian Judeo-Christian "WASP" belief that, since we jumpstarted this country's Judeo-Christianism - we get first dibs on flaunting. Forever and ever. Amen.
Well, you either have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and a Multicultural society and social progress and freedom of expression - or you have whever many of our newcomers are from. So yeah, they're taking advantage of our free country by becoming us while staying them - right off the bat. And it's people who think there should be a time delay before newcomers tell us who they used to be in hopes that maybe they'll just adapt in the meantime and start celebrating Christmas like we do in our little houses on the prairie, instead of washing their feet in the sink and praying to Allah, that will have to adapt.
Because that's who we are now - whoever gets in. We're a free people with individual rights and freedoms who can't impose one culture over another just because it happened to get here first because some other free person is going to say, "Hey - I'm not telling you YOU have to wash your feet in the sink and pray to Allah - now am I? So what's your beef? That I'm doing it? Tough nuts, fellow citizen."
This is an interesting perspective on the school funding issue:
DamnYouInfidels
Interesting haha, I mean.
C'mon, dude. The same media that is printing your rant in favour of public funding for private religious schools is the same media that has printed column after column after column pointing to the cultural divide between Islam and, well, everything Western.
See, nobody REALLY wants Catholic school funding, either - but at least it's got the BNA Act backing it up. Jewish schools? Well, I know three kids who go to Hebrew school - after regular public school hours, of course. I know a couple of girls who go to a private girls' school - full time. But their parents are both doctors and don't want their daughters to get cooties, I guess.
Let's see... I know there's an elephant in the living room somewhere in this whole religious school funding debate...
Oh yeah - 9/11 and the constant and unrelenting media attention that has been focussed on this thing called "The Islamic Menace". Not to mention an ongoing and seemingly endless "War on Terror" and its subsidiary, "The War in Afghanistan Against the Taliban" (you know, the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist Taliban). Also, the training schools in Pakistan, etc, for future Islamic terrorists who want to attack the West to destroy our freedoms.
But yeah, I mean, what politician today is going to come out and say, "Look, no public funding for private religious schools because that will mean MORE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORIST TRAINING CENTRES. Or even more unlikely, "Public funding for MORE ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORIST TRAINING CENTRES".
Oops. Except John Tory, your fearless Conservative party leader running for election as Premier of Ontario. But when he's talking funding for private religious schools, well, he's not really talking about the religious part at all. He's talking about private schools - like the one he went to because his parents wanted him to marry up, I guess. Or, at least, not down?
I dunno. I have no idea why parents send their kids to private schools. Snobby? Stupid? Just like I have no idea what John Tory's talking about. Snobby? Stupid? Both?
But trust me. After jumping into this campaign with that howler about people wanting to spend public money to fund private religious educations, he really really really needs your support. So get out there and encourage all of your Muslim friends who wouldn't in a million years vote Conservative - normally - to vote for John Tory. Because you're right, there aren't huge ethnic voting blocks. There are people who believe in public funding for private religious education and public funding for private healthcare and then there is the rest of us. And we'll be voting either Liberal or NDP (ignoring completely the fact of Catholic school funding and the employee healthcare tax).
So get out there and rally your troops. Try this, "Elect John Tory! He wants public funding for Islamic schools!" And don't confine yourself to... like... well... wherever newly arrived Muslims live. Go to Rosedale, Forest Hill, North York. Spread the message - all over Toronto. And then move on to the rest of Ontario. Brockville, Sault Ste. Marie, you know - really follow it through to wherever there is a daily newspaper.
You're welcome.
It turns out that tape of Osama Bin Laden worrying about climate change AND high taxes is probably a fake. Which doesn't really matter since, once everybody suspects a tape of Osama Bin Laden is fake before it's even proven to be fake, it's pretty much over for anybody using a tape of Osama Bin Laden to sell the War on Terror to Americans. I dunno. Did he even say "Death to America" in this one?
Anyway, I'm thinking of taking up his suggestion and converting to Islam, though. Like, in a New Age way, of course. Islam without the Is. Lam. I'll convert to Lam. And instead of covering my head I'll boycott stuff made in China to cut down on my consumerism.
It was funny how he sounded a bit like Al Gore, though, eh? I mean, I was starting to wonder if Osama Bin Laden has invested in one of those carbon emissions trading schemes or something. Climate change? Yikes. We can't even get recycling programs right, pal. Used to be, poor people picked through your garbage and sold empty bottles of pop back to the store to get a full bottle of something mind altering. Now it's all recycled. Maybe. We don't really know once we drop it off at the curb in a big plastic blue box.
That bit about high taxes was weird, though, eh? Still, it's funny how all the Rightwingers go on an on about the Left causing high taxes when, well - hasn't the Right mostly been in power for the past little while?
Anyway, it was all a big fake-a-roo tape.
Say, has anybody told Bush yet? Because last I read, he was taking Osama Bin Laden at his word and telling Americans that this was why they needed to have resolve and finish the job in Iraq.
I refer to myself as being Pro-Israel because, as I've said before, for lack of a better term, I am - Pro-Israel. Not that I believe one can really be Pro a country, but, as the Internet is all about semantics, I'll go with Pro-Israel for $1,000 Alex.
And ignore how stupid it sounds - I guess.
Now, because I in no way support the politics of The Right - no matter the country - I don't support the current government of Israel. And because I believe that this current rightwing government and previous rightwing governments of Israel have made a series of tragic mistakes in how they have treated the Palestinians (tragic both for Israelis and for Palestinians, I think) - I have no qualms about saying so.
In fact, I delight in it. I find it invigorating. It makes me... feel good. Holy, almost. Like how Jesus would feel if he played an Irksome Git on the Internet.
Because, Virginia - this is the Internet, afterall. (And here is where you may notice I have turned off my comments - again - on all my other blog entries except this one.) Would I criticize the policies of leftwing governments of Israel? No. No I would not. I would just hum along with the socialist chorus in my head assuming all was well and that tragic mistakes that in no way better the lives of anyone were NOT being made.
Over and over and over.
I'd probably never even post about Israel. NOT THAT I WOULDN'T STILL BE PRO-ISRAEL, YOU UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!! I'd just be quieter about it. To the point of probably not paying any attention whatsoever to Israel, because, really - what would there be to say except "My but that Israel is looking good these days".
Sadly (or hilariously, I'm never sure...), one cannot criticize any aspect of the policies of Israel's current and previous rightwing government(s) without rightwingers here (and they monitor blogs like mine that allow comments both very supportive of Israel and very critical of Israel - truly, madly, deeply - except without making eye contact) running all over the Internet labelling one an Anti-Semite, either directly or through anonymous comments - it doesn't matter. They know not what they do except that they enjoy the freedom the Internet affords them of making drive-by character assassinations for no purpose other than to roll around in the shitstorms they cause, running back and forth to each other's blogs, leaving telltale shit tracks all over the Internet.
Human shit tracks. No one has stepped in doodoo, you understand. They shit, roll in it, and head out on the Internet.
After a while, you can smell them coming - it's the smell of human shit, you can't miss it - but I have a bad cold, so... I missed it this time.
Anyway, they do it for partisan political purposes or because they are just crazy and yes - it is pretty base behaviour and every once in a while I feel it necessary (for personal reasons and because I suffer from a persecution complex and delusions of grandeur) to clarify for the casual reader of my blog that my personal political views are very solidly on the side of Israelis and their right to live in Israel relatively free of the constant threat - real or rhetorical, quite frankly, because words DO matter - of annihilation that comes from the Arab Brotherhood, such as it is. A brotherhood, I mean. Which is really to say that it isn't.
So, I can't help but feel somewhat vindicated in my view that rightwing governments are bad, wrong, not good at all - no matter the country - when an article like this pops up in the news:
AtLeastTheyAren'tPalestinians
Interestingly, you won't find much comment on this reality from all those rightwingers on the Internet who spend their days monitoring the blogs of people with whom they disagree politically (you'll know them by the number of times they can use "Taliban Jack" in a sentence) or just personally (you'll know them by the number of times they use "hag, shrew, skank" when describing her) leaving nasty - and often, actionable - comments in the dead of night in the comments sections of their blogs.
I mean, what's to say about that article and now this one:
AndNotAPalestinianAmongstThem
Other than to point out the much-criticized-by-The-Left fact that a series of rightwing governments in Israel engaged in a deliberate domestic policy to crowd out the Palestinians who were living and working there and being decent Israeli citizens in spite of being systematically stripped of their civil rights - by bringing in Neo-Nazis from Russia.
I call it ironic. I imagine the Palestinians who have been shot trying to slip into Israel from Gaza to find employment would call it schadenfreud.
Whatever. It's one thing for which the Israeli government has only itself to blame - the rightwing Israeli government. Because even I could have foretold that one backfiring in the worst way on the citizens of Israel.
So yeah, I feel pretty good about my Pro-Israelness today. Of course, just like all those rightwingers (who no doubt luvvvvv the rightwing government of Israel for bringing in Russian Neo-Nazis to crowd out the Palestinians), I don't have to actually live there and suffer under the policies of its rightwing government - do I.
Whoops! I almost forgot!
{{{Hugs, Israel}}}
We re-watched Apocalypse now last night. Although, when I say "re-watched" I should admit that the last time I saw it would have been when it was released in theatres, and, being d'une certaine age... it was pretty much like seeing it for the first time. In any case, I watched it with my two daughters, who both said it was the best movie they'd ever seen.
It is good, isn't it. But what struck me was, well, switch the jungle for the desert and Communism for Terrorism and - Voila - you've got Apocalypse Now, The Sequel.
Anyway, the difference, I suppose, is that I came away from watching Apocalypse Now wondering, "What the hell were Americans doing trying to fight Communism in Vietnam?" - whereas, I/we know pretty much why Americans are fighting Terrorism in Iraq. So when the movie is eventually made (and it'll take some gutsy Americans to make it, that's for sure) about the American experience fighting Terrorism in Iraq, I figure, instead of basing it on Heart of Darkness, it'll want to be based on... what? The Prince?
What do you think? Please put your suggestions in the comments below. I tend toward books by new Canadian female writers so I really don't have any idea what book Apocalypse Now - The Sequel should be based on.
Interestingly, too, my sympathies were completely with the Vietnamese no matter what side they were on - even though Apocalypse Now doesn't even go into that - the whole movie being focussed on the American soldiers making the classified journey down Vietnamese waterways to Cambodia in search of the A.W.O.L. Kurtz. The incidental destruction to another people's country, the complete disconnect between the American Army's mission and the reality of life for the Vietnamese people, the wanton disregard for human life - it's all happening now in Iraq, isn't it. And because it's the United States that is at war, the most important and influential critics of this fact are themselves American.
So, how does it happen that his powerful country that is at the same time so polarized internally in terms of its foreign policy can continue to make the decisions to bomb other countries and kill thousands of people and tell themselves and the rest of us that it is for the greater good when we know, we absolutely know, that it isn't - that it isn't even for the American good?
It's baffling, it really is. But what's more baffling to me is the fact that there are people here, in Canada, who genuinely believe that the War on Terror is a good thing, that Americans have a reason to be fighting it, and that there won't, in a few years time, be books and movies about the people who started it confessing to the American people that it was all a big and terrible mistake.
Okay. Even if Osama Bin Laden is using reverse psychology, he's convinced me that Americans should stay in Iraq until the job is done:
AppearingLiveAtTheSandCastle
That's right. I'm doing an Internet 180 on the War on Terror. So, too, with Canadians in Afghanistan. I think we should stay there until the job is done.
Why, you ask, Dear Reader?
Well, I just don't think it's fair to the countries you've invaded to start the job, whatever the job may have been at the time you invaded, and then leave without finishing the job, even if the job that you're left to finish is a different job than the one you started. Or isn't. It doesn't matter.
Finish what you start even if it isn't what you started. Or is.
Anyway, Osama Bin Laden is right, even if he's wrong.
The War on Terror must live on, just like Osama Bin Laden does. Or doesn't. Whatever.
Okay. So we all know NatPost pundits love the New Conservatism of Stephen Harper and wouldn't want anything to jeopardize his rule. Hence the support by default of Dalton McGuinty (a Conservative Liberal in the same way that Bill Davis was a Liberal Conservative) via the non-support of John Tory.
But how does Colby Cosh square this:
Haha!JohnToryMisspokeHisself
With his, I'm sure, hot throbbing support for Stephen Harper and his New Conservative Government of Canada and one Stockwell Day, Minister Responsible for Public Security and firm believer in Creationism?
Eh? Eh?
Goose/gander?
Gawd. NatPost Pundits. There otta be an evolutionary law. Or, at least, a bigger barrel for those fish.
I really don't know what to think about this very aggressive and sudden marketing campaign for a new drug that will supposedly prevent cervical cancer. The drug itself is called "Gardasil" and a quick google for information about it will get you this result:
Hunh?Guardawhat?NeverHeardOfIt
Another google search brings up this:
Hunh?TheCananwha?Group?
Whatever this drug is really all about, the marketing campaign for it has definitely become a news story worth pursuing. (Of course, I'm not a REAL journalist, so what the hell do I know - right? It's just that, given the record of Big Pharma, it is truly something to witness its representatives and spokespersons react as if they are not only shocked and appalled by the public's reluctance to take them at their word that this is a good thing they're doing here - but hurt, genuinely hurt.
I don't know about you, Dear Reader, but I find that even more "suspicion arousing" than usual.
In the meantime, another thing that has me wondering, is that Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government seems to be solidly behind this campaign to innoculate girls PRIOR to sexual activity against what is essentially an STD - the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)
SexIsASin
WITH FUNDING AND EVERYTHING!!!!
SkipTheOtherLinks - READ THIS!!
Anyway, I'm all for ways to protect women from cervical cancer, but it used to be that we could count on Pap Smears. Unfortunately, thanks to all the contracting out to private labs that goes on in our publicly funded healthcare system these days, we PROBABLY no longer can - American women being the guinea pigs in this case:
PapSmears?WhatPapSmears?
I'm not a REAL doctor, but my understanding of cervical cancer is that, caught early through Pap Smear screening (and everybody I know goes once a year for hers and has since she was "of age" - if only to get her pill prescription renewed) - it is highly treatable.
In other words - as long as the testing is being done and the results reported back to your doctor, it is very unlikely you will die of cervical cancer.
So, okay. Merck Frosst says it has a better idea, a drug that can be given to girls in three installments that will protect them from four strains of the virus that can lead to cervical cancer - if left untreated. But whoa, just don't question them on it:
Okay1forMacleans0forMerckFrosst
See? That's just the sort of thing that makes me think, "Hm... maybe I don't WANT to have this stuff injected into my daughters, afterall..."
But I don't really know what from what - I just know I'd no more take Merck Frosst's word for anything than try bungee jumping at the Landsdowne Ex. Because ever since HPV became the STDs of STDs, I've had a couple of abnormal Pap Smears that then are normal again the next go'round and one very hard sell recommendation after an abnormal one that I be vaccinated against HPV. My response was, "But surely I've been exposed to it already (some 99.9% of sexually active people have been, it seems) and besides, I come for regular Pap Smears to detect early signs of cervical cancer in order that it can be caught early and treated."
Well, that was met with a heavy sigh, I can tell you. But not wanting the doctor to feel I was dismissing his medical expertise out of hand, I posed a question to him I had been meaning to ask someone in the know for a couple of years, "I'm on a low dose birth control pill so I don't get pregnant, but I was wondering - how will I know when I don't need to be on it because menopause has happened while I was taking it?"
And I kid you not, this is what he said - pleased to be asked (I could tell) for his medical opinion about a popular drug for women d'une certaine age who are sexually active with non-vasectomied partners and who don't want to get pregnant because they're too damn old: "Ooh. Good question. I don't know the answer."
And yes, you may wonder why I am taking a drug that yaddayaddablahblah - well, here's why: Our family doctor is on it and she's a few years older'n me, leads a more stressful life, and carries a little more weight. I figure, she hasn't dropped dead from a stroke - enh. I'll take my chances. But I've had half a life already. My daughters? I dunno. I'm just not comfortable enough taking Merck Frosst's word for it that Gardasil is safe.
You know what I really wish would happen? I wish some journalists would devote themselves to this story for a month or so and get the straight skinny - as straight a skinny as they can - and let me know: Should I have my teenaged daughters innoculated against HPV? Or not?
I'll take your best advice. I really will. Because I'm not against having them innoculated, I just honestly haven't trusted anybody connected to the healthcare system to be straight with me on Gardasil.
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