Tuesday, October 24, 2006

in the doghouse (yeah, yeah...)


Harper has chosen to defend Mackay in his latest sexist comments, rather than acknowledge a gross error in judgment and behaviour.

How does Harper handle questions from the Liberals on this issue? By asking MP Helena Guergis to respond on behalf of... the party? Uh, no, I'd say all women. That's such a classic move, "See? She's a woman and she wasn't offended, therefore NO woman can take offense!"

Her comments:
"I have to say that I do believe that Canadians are probably sick and tired of being dragged into a high school romance gone wrong,"

Agreed.

She defends MacKay as "a gentleman, in every sense of the word (who) has always treated me with the utmost respect."
How totally irrelevant. We aren't talking about how he treats you. Oh wait, you're the Conservative's appointed universal-woman, I guess the way he treats you reflects his treatment of all women???...

As CBC reports: "Guergis also cited MacKay's upbringing as 'a man who was raised by a single mother, who has a number of sisters.' She did not add that MacKay is the son of former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Elmer MacKay and remains close to both parents, by all accounts."

1. Nice editorial contextualization CBC.

2. Ooooooh! We misunderstood. Mackay grew up around woman.
Some of his best friends are woman!!! Well that's settled I guess, our mistake.

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Thursday, October 19, 2006

Mom Market... and here I thought it was the Tweens who were the major targets....

I was googling "canadian conferences" to see if anything on hypertext, online communities, feminist activism came up...
Check out the conference below, brought to you by "Canadian Family" Group ??




Amazing!

Reading this I thought they were weirdly applying an animalesque analysis here. This is what happened when I googled the suspiciously capitalized (huhuh) terms:


For those without magnifying glasses, those are pages on Thermophilic fungus, long-period gratings in amplified wave-guides, something called coccoides in the spleen of infected mice, ending off with the songbirds of Saskatchewan, and the bison herds of Parks Canada.... how beautiful and suitably sweet.

Why don't we start a group for responsible consumers and call ourselves the Songbirds of Saskatchewan!

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Monday, October 16, 2006

Action Overload: Harper vs. Canada


A Coalition of Canadian non-profits have banded together to protest the deep cuts announced by Harper's government this month.

This month Canadians have learned that we have a $13 billion surplus, and.... so the Feds are slashing $1 billion from social programs. According to economist Ellen Russell from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, because the Tories are making tax cuts ($9.9 billion in the first budget), increasing defence spending ($4 billion), and putting money into other initiatives, the government is actually short $17 billion.

We all know who gets axed in circumstances like these. The unrepresented get pushed even further away, the only means they/we had for intervention and voicing concerns effectively eliminated.

According to the Coalition's website (linked above), the following programs have received cuts, some of them debilitating, most severely hampering the organization's ability to even function:

- Court Challenges program (assisted CUPE in its successful fight to achieve pension benefits for same-sex spouses; Has provided women, First Nations and other equality seeking groups with funding to mount court cases against larger, well-funded groups).

As an aside, I must mention Edmonton columnist Linda McQuaig's article in See Magazine "Budget as Bludgeon". She enlightened me to the fact that in 2000, the Court Challenges program was instrumental in defeating.. Stephen Harper! At the time, Harper was head of the National Citizen's Coalition (NCC), a right-wing business-funded group trying to strike down the federal law that puts a spending limit on groups like itself when funding candidates during election campaigns.
"Democracy Watch," a citizens group (without the corporate backing) took on the NCC in the Supreme court, challenging them on the grounds that limits on funding are needed so groups like NCC cannot hold heavy influence on election outcomes. Democracy Watch used funds from the Court Challenges Program to defend their case, aptly and presciently called Harper vs. Canada! Democracy Watch won the case. Well, Harper has now had his final ideological and practical revenge, and from now on groups representing those of us without corporate backing will not be able to challenge the "big guys".

- Law Commission of Canada: ELIMINATED to save $4.2 million.
The Law Commission of Canada advises Parliament on how to improve and modernize Canada’s laws.

- Status of Women Canada: $5 million cut from $13 million budget.
Already the government’s smallest department, Status of Women Canada now has no mandate to fund groups that do advocacy, lobbying or general research, which is convenient, because they also now have $5 million less to spend every year.
Also missing from the organization’s new mandate is the word “equality”. Please visit Status Report to find out all the detials regarding the cuts, and ways to take action.!!!!

- Community Access Program ELIMINATED as part of $42 million in cuts to Industry Canada technology programs.
CAP provided funding to allow libraries, post offices and community centres to provide low-cost public internet access, mostly in areas of the country where internet use is well below average.
Now those without home access won't even be ablwe to protest further cuts by taking action online!

- First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Control Program ELIMINATED to save $10.8 million.
Part of Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit health program, this program sought to reduce the 60% smoking rate amongst Inuit and First Nations people. It had had an external evaluation which had shown it was effective. That this program was somehow deemed not to provide “value for money” has rather striking racial overtones.

- Health Canada Policy Research Program: $7.5 million elimination of program

- Environment: $7.6 million cut to grants and contributions to environmental groups.
Does anyone remember those videos I made for the One Tonne challenge programme? On the side bar over there on the right? Gone. There isn't even a federal website on Climate Change anymore. It's been removed; it's not an issue in any form for this government.

There are several more cuts, I haven't listed them all here. But I think we get picture of what Harper prioritizes, and what is expendable, eliminate-able.

Please visit the sites mentioned, spread the word, support the groups, and most of all, write letters.

*In further news regarding REAL Women of Canada who I wrote about a few weeks ago as the main proponents of destroying Status of Women Council, DAWN Ontario has set up a REAL watch. Visit (un)REAL Women to see some of the unbelievable ideological pap the group spreads through the news media.

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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Sarah McLachlan & Ana Gastayer - "Basted in Blood"

I had this on VHS back in tenth grade. Some wonderful soul has put it on YouTube.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Dying for an Education



Oct. 2 - West Nickel Mines Amish School, Pennsylvania: 5 girls wounded, 5 girls executed
Sept. 27 - Platte Canyon High School, Colorado: 6 young women molested, 1 young woman killed
Sept. 13 - Dawson College, Quebec: 19 students wounded, 1 young woman killed

Do shootings take place in schools because they are convenient gathering spots to trap, assault, and murder women?

Are the Misogynist Alienated Men who commit these murders specifically enraged at the thought of women learning, as was the case with the 1989 Montreal Massacre?

With N. American papers flooded with images of mourning and sensational tragedy, it's easy to forget that educating girls is a global crisis. From the remnants of the Taliban regime to the child-headed households of an Africa devastated by AIDS, girls are punished for or prevented and forbidden from seeking an education, or are simply neglected by the national administration for various reasons (as is the case in many African nations--in which getting both girls and boys to school is an emergency).

How can we talk about these "senseless" murders in a productive way? Is senseless even the right word, or would systematic be more appropriate?
What about these suicidal misogynist alienated men? Where do they come from, what creates them? There is much that separates the life-circumstances of the three predators. It's no longer vampire-website frequenting, knife/gun loving, mohawked rejects (as the media, with typical over-simplification describes the usual murderers), but grown men with unacceptable sexual urges and a death wish. There is more at work here than a hatred of girls, or of schools and all that they represent.

My aim with the target-girl image I've created is to engage communities in a dialogue, or rather a heteroglossic exchange. I'm interested in more than two viewpoints/speakers. My first emotions were more in the "it's impossible to even talk about this. we all agree. we all agree that these things should not happen. why discuss? what is there to say?" But now I think it's the only way I can deal with the reality of living with the systematic hatred and sexualization of women, of girls.

Contact me at public.worx@gmail.com to participate in this heteroglossic exchange. If there is enough response, and I seriously hope there is, I will start a discussion forum through gmail to foster more conversations.

in solidarity,
creating communities of resistance,
Michelle

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