Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Nicole Brossard, toujours deja

Tonight I'm going to attend Nicole Brossard's launch of her new essay collection Fluid Arguments at "This Ain't the Rosedale Library" in the Village. I've hopscotched the country in hopes of hearing her read, and though I missed her breakfast at York because the TTC doesn't run until 9am sundays (what about those worm-earning early-rising church goers?)(not to mention how I didn't attend Congress yesterday cuz of the strike), I did catch the thoroughly multi-lingual seminar Sunday evening. What an asset it is to speak french and move effortlessly between mental spaces of language, following tonalities.
I've bought her new paperback edition of Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon, and look forward to digging into it next week while sitting on a bench in Vieux Port.

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Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Sexually active woman? Stay away from New Brunswick!

I'm so angry it's hard to type. The Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, the primary facility in New Brunswick that provides abortions, has just announced it will no longer be performing this procedure as of June 30. That's right: NB only has one major facility serving the needs of all the women in the province. And now, ahem, it has none.

Let me break it down:
Only abortions performed in a provincial hospital are covered by Medicare. In order to have an abortion a woman must get the approval and signatures of TWO doctors. This "committee"-style process is unheard of in other provinces. In fact, this practice was thrown out by the Supreme Court in 1988! And NB still requires it!

Women unable to get signatures have the option of visiting a private clinic, such Morgentaler's in downtown Fredericton, where they will pay between $500 and $750 out of their own pocket. [As you can see, women from Northern NB or other regions must therefore pay and arrange for transportation, leave from work, possibly child-care, and make the trek to the River Valley Region to have this procedure.]

NB is the only province in the country that forces women to pay for this essential procedure. It is in direct contravention of the Canada Health Act.

But this is all in the past! Now, not only will the province refuse to pay for most abortions, it will not be providing them at all! Ladies, you're gonna have those babies! And in the mean time, we're going to stop teaching safe sex practices in middle school, and misinform kids about the efficiency of condoms. How about a dose of cervical cancer and STIs with that unplanned pregnancy, slut! [cf Dan Savage]

In 2002 and 2003 the rate of abortions in NB were lower than those for the rest of Canada, especially in the teenage demographic. Obviously, this is not because less young women are getting pregnant, but because the province makes it cruelly and un-necessarily difficult to attain an abortion.

Compare that stat with the fact that NB has the highest occurrence of C-sections in Canada. Nope, it's not a case of "too-posh-to-push." Try "too-poor-to-protest". NB Hospitals are just too under-staffed, under-funded, and over-worked. If you're taking too long to push that baby out, they're just gonna go in and get it. Unable to become a mother right now? Too bad, there's no one here to perform an abortion. They're all down the hall inducing labour and performing unnecessary ceasarians.


**Update: CBC article> states Health Minister Brad Green is looking for other options.
The article notes that "Last year, Morgentaler wrote Premier Bernard Lord, offering to sell his clinic to the government so it could become part of the hospital system and fall under the medicare umbrella, but he said he never received an answer."
That sounds like a solution to me; come on New Brunswick.

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Thursday, May 18, 2006

Visualeyez 2006



Friday marks the beginning of Edmonton's Visualeyez, a performance art festival hosted by Latitude 53. This year's roster of artists looks impressive, and performance veteran Margaret Dragu will be screening several pieces and keeping a festival blog. As for the rest of the performers, I'm completely unfamiliar but am hoping to be inspired.
I'll be volunteering Sunday for Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa's performance "Mariachi Histrionics"; and on monday I will be documenting a performance at the City Hall reflecting pool by dancer Tanya Lukin Linklater.
I keep unearthing more Edmonton treasures...

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Friday, May 12, 2006

cyberfeminism & community-building



As a follow-up to Panel #3:

VNS Matrix - Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century
Donna Haraway - Cyborg Manifesto
Shelley Jackson - my body & wunderkammer
Caitlin Fisher - These Waves of Girls
Feministe Blog
Skawenatti Tricia Fragnito - Why I Love WWWriting
Documentary on sexual assault - Searching for Angela Shelton
Frances Power Cobbe (1822 - 1904) - Wife-Torture in England, Other Writings

Please feel free to leave other useful feminist resources! And add anything I've forgotten!

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Tuesday, May 02, 2006

aural laurels



Last night Whyte ave was INSANE! Starting at 9pm, just after the Oilers won, total chaos erupted. Actually, it wasn't chaotic, just packed, loud, and belligerent. I opened the front door and was hit by a wall of sound, reverberating cheering and horn-blowing. The streets were packed with slow-moving cars that waved makeshift hockey stick-flagpoles bearing oilers flags. Crazy fans ran into the street, high-fiving drivers and passengers. Everyone was wearing oilers jerseys, some men wore tiny blue speedos, others wore worker oil-rig gear.

Sheri and I went for a stroll, and felt like cultural tourists, quietly and carefully walking arm-in-arm, sometimes reaching up to smack a strangers outstretched hand in a high-five. Crossing the street was risky, it involved negotiating cross-currents of throbbing fans, waving limbs, flags, and effigies of the Detroit and Calgary logos. "Hey! Hey Oilers Girls!" someone yelled from their car. Who us? Swaddled in wool and winter trench-coats? We did see some oiler-girls, shivering and hooting in their clever make-shift tube-tops fashioned from oilers bandanas. There were also plenty of women sporting big oilers jerseys and face-paint.

We settled in at Julios for beer. We opened the door to a rousing conclusion of "Sha-na-na-na Goodbye", not what I expected in a mexican resto. People ran by banging the windows and yelling madly. Everyone had video and digital cameras. A young woman ran by and flashed the restaurant, to raucous applause. As we walked home by the huge crowd assembled at the intersection outside Chapters (pictured above by the Edmonton Journal), I saw another women atop her friend's shoulders, shirt lifted up. Doesn't she see that they will soon come to demand flashing? From her and other women?
It was definitely time to head home.
Winning adrenaline+testosterone+over-running public spaces+constant bodily contact+women flashing flesh = potential nightmare.

Sexual aggression scariness aside, I love it when a community spills into the streets. Just like the blackout when I was in Toronto, the carnivalesque of latenight revelling and celebration is intoxicating in its energy. It's abnormal, it's exciting, and you actually meet, touch, and smile at strangers in the street. I wish we had more to celebrate than a hockey series.

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