mise-en-abyme

Librarians at Night

2010-08-22T08:04:00.003-06:00

A final farewell post for my defunct blog. This funked short features Candace, the Director of the library I worked at for the past year. It all came together when she received her Fluevog leather boots in the mail: time to break it down in the stacks. Shot with one light, one camera. I used a Sony PMW-EX1 HD cam with a fig rig for a hand-held long take.

Enjoy! Librarians really do have the most fun.

Librarians at Night from Michelle Lovegrove Thomson on Vimeo.

Feminist Film & Video Art Resources

2009-10-08T08:15:00.005-06:00

(Cindy Sherman)

Online Resources:

Video Data Bank features clips from Martha Rosler, Sadie Benning, Lynda Benglis, Peggy Ahwesh, and more.
UBU web film page full length film and video uploads from classic 20th century experiemtnal filmmakers, including Maya Deren, Lynda Benglis, Agnes Varda, Su Friedrich
Elizabeth Sackler Centre for Feminist Art in Brooklyn

Canadian Resources:

Fringe Online Canadian Experimental Filmmakers
CFMDC distributor of Canadian short film
Pleasure Dome film and video exhibition group dedicated to the presentation of experimental film and video, located in Toronto.
V tape distribtion of media works by independant Canadian Artists
Trinity Square Video An artist-run centre that continues to train and help develop many emerging artists. Several noted Canadian artists including John Greyson, Lisa Steele, Ed Sinclair, Michael Balser, Kim Tomczak, Vera Frenkel and Barbara Sternberg have created video at TSV.

Artists:

Allyson Mitchell a maximalist artist working predominantly in sculpture, installation and film. Since 1997, Mitchell has been melding feminism and pop culture to play with contemporary ideas about sexuality, autobiography, and the body, largely through the use of reclaimed textile and abandoned craft.

INAuntINA video "Lynda Barry" video featuring art by Allyson Mitchell

Barbara Sternberg Barbara Sternberg has been making (experimental) films since the mid-seventies; co-founder of Struts gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick, was a founding member of Pleasure Dome: Film Artists Exhibition Group in Toronto, and taught in Film and Visual Arts at York University.

Midi Onodera recent works feature a collage of formats and mediums -ranging from 16mm film to Hi8 video to digital video and “low end” digital toy formats such as a modified Nintendo Game Boy Camera, the Intel Mattel computer microscope, the Tyco and Trendmasters video cameras.

Midi Onodera film "I have no Memory"

Cindy Sherman creator of "untitled film still" photographs

Beginnings:
Maya Deren
Sadie Benning clips on VDB
Martha Rosler
Peggy Ahwesh
Joyce Wieland
Joan Jonas
Lynda Benglis
Cindy Sherman

Some Canadian Filmmakers and Media Artists:
Barbara Sternberg
Joyce Wieland
Allyson Mitchell
Midi Onodera
Deirdre Logue
Aleesa Cohen
Patricia Rozema
Mary Harron
Andrea Dorfman
Garine Torrosian
Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof
Janet Cardiff

Mainstream Feminist Feature Filmmakers:
Sally Potter(Orlando, Yes)
Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut, Bright Star)
Patricia Rozema (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, When Night Falls, Mansfield Park)
Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) excerpt from I Shot...

Recommended Texts:

Helen Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa” (Essay), “Portrait of Dora” (Theatre)
Sigmund Freud “Femininity” from New Lectures on Psychoanalysis and Studies on Hysteria
Luce Irigaray “The Blind Spot of an Old Dream of Symmetry” in Speculum of the Other Woman
Teresa de Lauretis Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema
Linda Williams “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess”
Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Donna Haraway “Cyborg Manifesto”
Chris Kraus I Love Dick; Aliens and Anorexia

NB’s Health Minister promotes anti-abortion stance at rally, should resign for conflict of interest

2009-05-19T13:46:00.003-06:00

May 19, 2009

NB’s Health Minister Must Resign

As elected official, Michael Murphy is imposing his religious views and failing to enforce federal laws

FREDERICTON – A national pro-choice group is demanding the resignation of New Brunswick’s health minister Michael Murphy, after he promoted his religious views against abortion at an anti-choice rally in New Brunswick last week. Speaking in his official capacity, Murphy said that because of his personal anti-abortion views, he’s not “entirely comfortable” with administering the provincial law that allows funded abortions at New Brunswick hospitals.

“After Murphy resigns, he’s free to preach at all the anti-abortion rallies he wants,” said Joyce Arthur, Coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “But as an elected official with a portfolio, it’s inappropriate for Murphy to publicize a direct conflict between his personal religious views and his ministerial duties. He risks losing the confidence of voters, not to mention the thousands of women in New Brunswick who’ve had or may need abortion care.”

“Actually, if Murphy thinks it’s his duty to enforce a law he doesn’t like, why doesn’t he enforce our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canada Health Act instead?” asked Peggy Cooke, an ARCC spokesperson based in Fredericton. “New Brunswick’s law is discriminatory and unconstitutional. We are the only province in Canada that forces women through unnecessary hoops to get approval, which results in delays, increased medical risk, and hardship.” (The Medical Services Payment Act states that Medicare will fund abortions in hospitals only if two doctors agree the procedure is medically necessary.) “These restrictions violate women’s Charter rights and the Supreme Court Morgentaler decision of 1988,” said Cooke. “Also, women who can’t wait are forced to pay out of pocket for an abortion at the Morgentaler Clinic. This contravenes the Canada Health Act because it discriminates against women, especially those who can’t afford to go to the clinic.”

Arthur pointed out that no doctor needs to decide whether an abortion is medically necessary, because all abortions are deemed medically necessary under the Canada Health Act, whether they’re done at a hospital or clinic. “There’s absolutely no difference between the abortions done at New Brunswick hospitals and those done at the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton,” Arthur said. “The only reason most women end up paying for an abortion at the clinic, is because hospitals don’t have nearly enough operating room access or abortion providers.”

“Murphy’s duty as Health Minister is to keep his personal views to himself when they conflict with his duties, and to repeal the discriminatory New Brunswick regulation so women can access abortion without paying,” Cooke concluded. “If he can’t do that, he must resign.”

Issued by Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada
http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/home.html

art a go-go

2009-04-01T15:24:00.005-06:00

SO looking forward to these big box gallery exhibitions!

The AGO's Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World much to excavate here.

Despite Yoko Ono's soft politics (as well as John's for that matter), after the AGO's YES Yoko Ono exhibit in '03, I will always love her conceptual art. Looking forward to the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal exhibition
Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko showing on the anniversary of their bed-in for peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Jenny Holzer at the Whitney!! So iconic, I can't wait.

Yael Bartana has her first NYC show at P.S.1.An Isreali artist based in the Nederlands, this exhibition will gather several of her media-based pieces that I've read so much about... I've noticed that one link that should lead to her work leads instead to a Refusenik site.
Also at P.S.1, this swimming pool looks amazing.

Judy Rebick Book Launch at UNB: March 27!

2009-03-13T12:57:00.006-06:00

Journalist, Writer, and Activist Judy Rebick will be at UNB on the afternoon of Friday, March 27th, at 4:00 pm as a guest of Women's Studies and Political Science. She is touring Canada to launch her new book, published this week, called Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political".

Location: Chancellor's Room, Wu Centre, UNB, Fredericton
Time: 4:00 pm
Date: Friday, March 27th
There will be a short reception after her talk. Her book will be for sale.
The event is free and open to the public.

Judy Rebick is a well-known social justice activist, educator , writer, and speaker. She currently holds the Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University.

Judy is founder of rabble.ca, Canada’s most popular independent online news and discussion site and the author of several books and articles, most recently Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution (Penguin 2005). Her other books are Imagine Democracy (Stoddard 2000) and Politically Speaking (Douglas & McIntyre 1996).

In her new book, "Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political", veteran activist Judy Rebick explains how globalization and mass communication technology are revolutionizing our understanding of power and producing profound new ideas about social and political life. Whether it’s the election of President Obama, the rise of democracy in Bolivia, or the success of Wikipedia, it’s the process that’s key: bringing communities of people together to produce something new; building a movement from the bottom up; sharing experience, knowledge and wisdom; emphasizing co-operation and consensus over confrontation and political partisanship.

Meaningful response to the environmental crisis and social injustice requires substantial, sustainable change at every level, which can only come through building power from the grass roots, from the people most impacted. In Transforming Power we discover the ideas, the people and the practices that can provide the paths to the change we need.

Visit her website: Transforming Power for more info on the book and Judy herself.

Action Needed: Pay Equity. Fight Bill C-10.

2009-03-11T10:30:00.001-06:00

Please contact a Senator in your area:

Don't use the budget bill to eliminate pay equity!

If Bill C-10 passes it will…
• Allow the Conservative Government to remove pay equity complaints from the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

“Canadian Human Rights Commission does not have
jurisdiction to deal with pay equity complaints in the
public service.” (Excerpt Bill C-10)

• Force individual women to make pay equity claims without any
support from their Union, and would impose a $50,000 fine on
Unions for assisting them.

“The bargaining agent…is strictly forbidden to
encourage or assist her in filing a complaint, and is
liable to a $50,000 fine if it does.” (Excerpt Bill C-10)

• Allow Private sector workers to continue to complain and defend themselves on paydiscrimination through the Canadian Human Rights Commission while Public sector workers will no longer have that option.

I am asking you as one of the N.B. senators to vote to remove the Public Sector
Equitable Compensation Act from Bill C-10. Pay Equity is a Human Right and Human
Rights are not negotiable!

Name: ____________________________
Signature: ________________________
Mailing address:____________________
__________________________________
___________

List of New Brunswick Senators:
Listes des Sénateurs et Sénatrices du N.-B.

Name/Nom Affiliation(Parti)

Bryden, John G. LIB (NB)
damphh@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont., KlA 0A4
Tel : 613-947-7305
Fax 613-947-7307

Corbin, Eymard G. LIB (Grand-Sault)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-996-8485
Fax: 613-995-8172

Day, Joseph A. LIB (Saint John-Kennebecasis)
dayja@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-992-0833
Fax: 613-992-1175

Kinsella, Noël A. CONS (Fredericton-York-Sunbury)
kinsen@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-992-4416
Fax: 613-992-9772

Losier-Cool, Rose-Marie LIB (Tracadie)
losier@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Honorary Co-Chair of the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity.
• co-présidente honoraire de la Coalition pour l’équité salariale du Nouveau-Brunswick.
Tel: 613-947-8011
Fax: 613-947-8013

Lovelace Nicholas, Sandra M. LIB (NB)
smithc@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-3635
Fax: 613-943-3637

Mockler, Percy CONS (St.Leonard)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-947-4225
Fax: 613-947-4227

Ringuette, Pierrette LIB (NB)
ringup@sen.parl.gc.ca
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-2248
Fax: 613-943-2245

Robichaud, Fernand LIB (NB)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-943-0675
Fax: 613-943-0677

Wallace, John D. CONS (NB)
The Senate of Canada, Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0A4
Tel: 613-947-4240
Fax: 613-947-4252

Las Vegas Vice Squad publishes photos of "50 most prolific prostitutes"

2009-02-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

THIS is outrageous.

Where's the top grossing pimp list? A roll call of the most frequent Johns? This stunt is not about keeping prostitution off the streets and out of the public eye, the usual goal of most criminalizing gestures like this. It is about thievery, of all things; about sex workers stealing from clients. Give me a break.

The majority of women on the list have multiple arrests in relation to exchanging sex for money, or prostitution-related theft charges, inside several Strip hotels, NOT for street prostitution. Making a photo-roster which encourages the public to look, to attempt to control these women through collective judgement, provides no real i.e. measurable outcome. It is simply a new way to brand a scarlet P on their fetishized bosoms.

Excerpt:

'...it is time to stop the revolving door of prostitution-related arrests, especially when those arrests involve "trick rolls," in which prostitutes steal from men.

"We're talking about girls who have been arrested repeatedly over the years, ones that we all know by face and by name," said Hughes, citing one woman who was arrested 18 times in a single year.

"If they get the message that Las Vegas is not going to ignore their subsequent arrests, then maybe they'll take their lifestyle to a different city."

Sally Potter's new film features Jude Law in beautiful drag

2009-02-03T18:35:00.002-07:00

Looking a bit like Peaches, Jude Law trades one beauty for another...

From Sally Potter's website:

"Part of the subject matter of RAGE is the ugly use of beauty in the pursuit of profit. Drugged by Marketing, sapped by fear of aging, conned by the cult of celebrity... image becomes all.

Jude Law, whose beauty has sometimes been held against him as an actor, made the courageous decision to accept the role of Minx - a “celebrity super-model” and took on a kind of hyper-beauty for this persona... a ‘female’ beauty which gradually unravels as the story unfolds.

Strangely, the more he became a ‘she’, coiffed and made-up - the more naked was his performance. There was great strength in his willingness to make himself vulnerable. It was an extraordinarily intense part of the shoot."

Call for proposals: "Capturing our History: Feminisms in Canada and Quebec 1960-2010"

2008-11-03T09:08:00.003-07:00

Capturing our History: Feminisms in Canada and Quebec, 1960-2010 /
Retracer notre histoire : le mouvement féministe au Canada et au Québec, 1960 à 2010

The project:
To publish a series of books - one per year beginning in 2010 - that depict the richness and diversity of feminist activity in Canada and Quebec between 1960 and 2010. They will be written by different authors and may include autobiographies, biographies, single- and multi-themed volumes, edited collections, plays, novels, etc.

The complexities of gender, race, class, geography, culture, dis/ability, language, sexual identity and age are central to the project. The topics may include:
· history of feminist groups (local, regional, national, service, topical etc.),
· autobiographies/ memoirs/ biographies of individuals involved in the movement,
· feminism in politics and the public service,
· feminists in business, the professions, the workplace, unions,
· feminism in art and sports,
· feminism in social and human sciences,
· feminism in reproductive issues and health,
· feminism in education, religion, science, international affairs,
· feminism and the media, etc.

We expect that all books will be published in both hardcover and paperback and intend to make some or all of the books available in digital format on the internet. The hardcover “collection” will be marketed as a series, like a “book of the year club.” We hope to sign up thousands as members of "Our Feminist History Book Society", a built-in purchasing group for the books, who for an annual fee of $75-100, would receive the “book of the year.” The paperback books will be sold separately in bookstores and outlets.

How to Participate:
Comment on how the project should be developed; propose writing a book, or part of one: M. Elizabeth Atcheson meatcheson@sympatico.ca
or Constance Backhouse backhous@uottawa.ca
or you can contact the NB Advisory Council on Status of Women for more info at acswcccf@gnb.ca

Who Is Involved:
The project is in formation and has benefited from the assistance of: Marguerite Andersen, M. Elizabeth Atcheson (Co-Editor), Constance Backhouse (Co-Editor), Monique Bégin, Mary Breen, Susan G. Cole, Margaret Conrad, Shelagh Day, Francine Descarries, Margrit Eichler, Ursula Franklin, Lorraine Greaves, Sylvia D. Hamilton, Danielle Juteau, Linda Kealey, Michele Landsberg, Tracey Lindberg, Meg Luxton, Diana Majury, Lorna Marsden, Maureen O’Neil, Francine Pelletier and Judy Steed.

hahaa

Bjork releases new single: Nattura

2008-10-22T17:13:00.004-06:00

Bjork's new single, featuring Thom Yorke, supports the Nattura iniative and can be purchased online here or at iTunes (search 'Nattura').

The official statement about the purpose of Nattura, and the song:

"The single was composed specifically to encourage active support for the Náttúra campaign, which aims at collating and providing sustainable and eco-friendly options suitable for Iceland, and generating alternative ways to utilize it’s natural resources. People will be able to submit their ideas on the website for sustainable green workplaces for Icelanders.

According to Björk, “It is now more important than ever before to emphasize a respect for nature… I believe that profits, technological advances and working together with nature can all go hand in hand. None need to be sacrificed at the expense of the others.”

The new single is written and produced by Björk and features Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on backing vocals, Brian Chippendale (Lighting Bolt) on drums, Matthew Herbert on synth/bass, and Mark Bell on additional electronic beats. Opening with a huge elemental swirl, “Náttúra” then fires up an incendiary and fierce tribal rhythm. The song sees Björk firmly on the march in celebration of her homeland, in hopes that Icelanders harness its energy in a sustainable way."

ENJOY!...

Something from Nothing: from Republican Barracudas to God Particles

2008-09-09T20:28:00.008-06:00

When bad news abounds, I like to find solace in particle physics (no, not quantum of solace—blech).

First the bad news: North America enjoys paternalizing, destroying, saving, and sexualizing women politicians (watch out, this Globe article is accompanied by an image of the front page that refers to Sarah Palin as a "Republican Barracuda”--Wow).

Also, apparently the province of NB has decided to appeal the ruling made in August allowing Morgentaler “standing” to launch a court battle to force NB Dept of Health do its job—provide free and accessible abortions to women who need them. Morgentaler hasn’t actually sued the province yet, because first he must prove his right, as a man, to represent the women of NB. The Province will apparently stop at nothing to prevent proper access, and continues to insult the women of this province.

With Palin, no matter how much I abhor her politics, it still infuriates me to see the simultaneous demonization and sexualization of her by so many media outlets; the media spin on her ultra-conservative anti-feminist
politics as being feminist; the assumption that women can be duped by a skirt; and the focus on her appearance. My quick google search of her name says it all:

The Good news: we’re close to discovering how to go from nothing to something.

Higgs boson (otherwise known as the “God particle”) is a hypothetical “massive scalar elementary particle” predicted to exist by particle physics (first theorized in 1964). Hypothetical as in, it has yet to be observed. This is where the Large Hadron Collider at CERN comes in. Basically, observing the Higgs boson particle would help explain how massless elementary particles somehow construct mass in matter—the difference between the massless photon and bosons with mass.
To be clear: How did the big bang happen? How do you go from nothing to something, from zero mass to particles/matter with mass. These are the thoughts that used to keep me up at night, clutching the bedcovers to keep from spilling out into space.

This brings us to CERN, where the Large Hadron Collider is housed. The LHC is in a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. The tunnel is buried about 100 metres underground between the Swiss and French borders on the outskirts of Geneva.

According to the official Large Hadron Collider website, the goal of the experiment is “to smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang”. Based on the results, the LHC experiments will try and map out what happened.
Though some people believe that colliding high speed protons in an underground circle of life will spark the bang to end all bangs, CERN continues to issue press releases to allay all fears.

The researchers at CERN (the birthplace of the WorldWideWeb (though not the Internet per se) thanks to Tim Berners-Lee) will be flipping the “switch” on the LHC tomorrow September 10th, circulating the first high energy beams, after months of preparatory actions. The first collisions at high energy are expected to happen about a month from tomorrow.

So, tomorrow the countdown is on to discovering how it all began on a micro and macro level simultaneously.

In case my explanation is too banal (or just plain wrong), here’s a thorough rap explaining all.

Large Hadron Collider:

Sweet Dreams!

Bill C-543 a welcome alternative to Unborn Victims of Crime Act (C-484)

2008-08-04T08:48:00.004-06:00

ARCC has just posted this brief explaining why the newly proposed members Bill C-543, “an Act to amend the Criminal Code (abuse of pregnant women) is a much better option than the existing Unborn Victims of Crime Bill, which opens legal pathways to affirm the personhood of a fetus (against the Supreme Court ruling that woman and fetus are one person) and punishing women/doctors who seek/perform abortions. I've already written about this problematic anti-choice bill here.

The last paragraph of the brief compares the goals of the two bills perfectly:
"Bill C-543 protects women, which was the stated goal of C-484, but it does not grant personhood to fetuses, which was the true goal of C-484. Anyone [who continues to] support C-484 instead of C-543 needs to acknowledge that they are not, and have never been, primarily interested in protecting pregnant women from abuse."

season of glass

2008-08-03T16:10:00.002-06:00

Spring passes
and one remembers one's innocence
Summer passes
and one remembers one's exuberance
Autumn passes
and one remembers one's reverence
Winter passes
and one remembers one's perseverance.

There is the season that never passes,
And that is the season of glass.

- Yoko Ono, Season of Glass 1981

On time, memory, and technology: La Jetee and a bag of tapes.

2008-07-23T17:17:00.010-06:00

From a used ghetto blaster* to French avant-garde film in four moves.

As a result of buying a wicked Philips boombox--complete with strap--at a yardsale on Saturday (in support of the NB Rebelles and their cause), I ran home and dug out my shoeboxes of tapes. Crammed in between Dee-Lite's "World Clique" and Much Dance '93 was a tape labelled "All About Me 1991".

Popping it in, I was immediately treated to a recorder solo, a 5 minute atonal rendition of "We are the World," and a song I wrote "with my friend Martha, she's REALLY into Peace" called Firebomb ("about a little war that just happened, not like, the Second World War, a small one that happened last year between Iraq and Saudi Arabia..."). The format is me talking to my future self, or rather, admonishing my future self on all the plans I've already made, via a genius future-telling game called "M.A.S.H.".

Apart from being side-splittingly amazing and teeth-gnashingly horrendous (I use the word fag in a song I wrote about wishing someone a happy birthday...?!), the tape is a time-travelling gem. I am reminded of my old constant fascination with time and communicating with my future self. Everyone did this I suppose, it's just amazing to have such a concrete example. And, task fulfilled as planned, here I sit 17 years later, imagined self and past self united in an onanistic continuum.

Thoughts of dialogue between selves made me think of French filmmmaker Chris Marker's 1962 film "La Jetee". It is a beautiful, clever, sci-fi short film that later became the basis for Terry Gilliam's feature Twelve Monkeys (His version is a great film, but try watching the trailer after watching Marker's film... yikes.)

Told through a succession of still black and white images and narration, the film follows a man in a post-apocalyptic world, who can move through time. He falls in love with a woman in the past, and her presence provides one of the most beautiful moments in cinema. Watch and see.

Now the tape recorder has been replaced by new technology, and the dialogue/monologue continues. Thank goodness blogging and youtube didn't exist when I was 9.

The film is 26 minutes, and can also be found here

*That's what I grew up calling a portable stereo not realizing the meaning, and feel no need to white-wash with new terminology. Acknowledge the origin and remember.

Excerpts from PM's Apology to First Nations People

2008-06-13T10:54:00.003-06:00

See also:
Video of PM Apology
Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Indian and Northern Affairs info on resolutions.

Excerpts from Harpers' Apology:
(More on what this means later)

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools. The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history.

In the 1870's, the federal government, partly in order to meet its obligation to educate aboriginal children, began to play a role in the development and administration of these schools.

Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.

These objectives were based on the assumption aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal.

Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, "to kill the Indian in the child."

Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.

Most schools were operated as "joint ventures" with Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian or United churches.

The government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities.

Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed.

All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools.

Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home.

The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language.

While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities.

The legacy of Indian residential schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today. It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors that have come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered.

It is a testament to their resilience as individuals and to the strength of their cultures.

Regrettably, many former students are not with us today and died never having received a full apology from the government of Canada.

The government recognizes that the absence of an apology has been an impediment to healing and reconciliation.

Therefore, on behalf of the government of Canada and all Canadians, I stand before you, in this chamber so central to our life as a country, to apologize to aboriginal peoples for Canada's role in the Indian residential schools system.

To the approximately 80,000 living former students, and all family members and communities, the government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions, that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this.

We now recognize that, far too often, these institutions gave rise to abuse or neglect and were inadequately controlled, and we apologize for failing to protect you.

Not only did you suffer these abuses as children, but as you became parents, you were powerless to protect your own children from suffering the same experience, and for this we are sorry.

The burden of this experience has been on your shoulders for far too long.

The burden is properly ours as a government, and as a country.

There is no place in Canada for the attitudes that inspired the Indian residential schools system to ever again prevail.

You have been working on recovering from this experience for a long time and in a very real sense, we are now joining you on this journey.

The government of Canada sincerely apologizes and asks the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly.

We are sorry.

In moving towards healing, reconciliation and resolution of the sad legacy of Indian residential schools, implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement began on September 19, 2007.

Years of work by survivors, communities, and aboriginal organizations culminated in an agreement that gives us a new beginning and an opportunity to move forward together in partnership.

A cornerstone of the settlement agreement is the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This commission presents a unique opportunity to educate all Canadians on the Indian residential schools system.

It will be a positive step in forging a new relationship between aboriginal peoples and other Canadians, a relationship based on the knowledge of our shared history, a respect for each other and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.

Film nostalgia: vampires, breakdance, androids, doll-women, and lusty femicide.

2008-06-02T16:42:00.011-06:00

During the summer of '94, I covertly watched B-films served up nightly by ASN at midnight. These films were pretty cheesy and bad by most standards, but transgressive to a 12 year old. Now everyone finds fringe and cult films online, or stumbles upon them, but I must thank ASN (a usually family-friendly channel) for bringing the films that taught me about technology run amok, taboo sexuality, vampire love, and of course, the dance battle:

Amantes (Dir. Vicente Aranda)

Have been haunted by this film since this one viewing. Follows a young man as he abandons his virginal fiance to be sexually educated by his Widowed landlord, with inevitable murderous ending. Innovative uses for a hanky are discovered en route.
Seeing Woody Allen's Match Point a few years ago reminded me of the film, though I had no idea what it was called or who made it. Today I tried many googling techniques, all which yielded nothing, and I finally typed in "spanish film about murder" and found this title halfway down the page. Bingo! Weird.
Levity aside, the final scene of this film has floated back to me many times in the 14 years since I first saw it. The emotional impact of understanding the intersection of sexual violence with domestic violence still resonates. This film was the first to give me that unsettled, morosely creeped-out feeling that comes from mixing death, sexuality, and trust, which I would later experience with films like Olivier Olivier!, A Ma Soeur (Fat Girl), My Summer Of Love, and more recently Red Road.

Full Amantes synopsis.

Beat Street (Dir. Stan Lathan, with Guy Davis, Rae Dawn Chong)

Stars a young Guy Davis (son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee) in his first and only movie role. I loved the film then, and it has since taken on new meaning, as Frederictonians now know Guy as a guitar-strumming storyteller who used to make frequent visits to Harvest and to Salty Towers to trade notes with Hot Toddy.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo(Dir. Sam Firstenberg)

A developer tries to bulldoze a community recreation center. The local breakdancers try to stop it by putting on a dance spectacular. Obviously they succeed, as the coffeegrinder overcomes all obstacles.
I believe in the beat.

The Hunger (Dir. Tony Scott with David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon)

Saw it once and never forgot it.

The Bauhaus over opening titles, the David Bowie, the lesbian love, the loneliness of the undead, the mutating hemoglobin, the Flower Duet, the eighties eye-makeup, the billowing gauzy curtains, the Ankh-necklace dagger, the crumbling flesh... Too much to unpack here, I suggest watching it as soon as possible.
Online.

Making Mr. Right (Dir. Susan Seidelman, with John Malkovich)
Woman falls in love with an android that looks like John Malkovich. Yeah, right.
Most memorable moment is when android Malkovich goes through his human lover's purse and finds her diaphragm. He pings it around wondering what it is, and my young self wondered the same thing.

Weird Science (Dir. John Hughes, with Anthony Michael Hall)

My parents are away for the weekend. Party? No. Initiate woman-making software.
Two nerds design a woman using their geeked-out custom IBM attached to a Barbie, and through the magic of a freak lightening storm, the doll turns into Kelly "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" LeBrock. Anatomically correct or plastic panties? We never find out, because a gang of punk biker aliens break up the party (Time travellers from Tupac's "California" video, who found themselves in the wrong 80s movie. Sorry dudes, Mad Max is in the other studio.)

Cinema's proto-nerd Anthony Michael Hall begins to lose his way after this film, never truly resurfacing until taking on the role he was born to play, pre-humanitarian Ur-geek Bill Gates in Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Murderous Merritt Father is NOT the Boogeyman. Really.

2008-04-16T14:25:00.008-06:00

The BC man suspected of murdering his three children has been caught by a local hunter.

The vigilante hunter's (brief) statements are great ("He's Got"). He tied the man to a tree....(his possible reasons for hunting him down are another column altogether).

What I'm interested in is how all the news items I've read focus on the community keeping their children indoors, checking under beds, and the like.

Excuse me, this man is not the Boogeyman!
He is not here to eat your children.

Schoenborn is an enraged, abusive, (reportedly mentally ill) murderous partner/father who carried out a targeted plan of violence against his own family. No one else is at risk, unless they are valuable to the mother.

How can the public STILL be so unfamiliar with domestic violence, when we have several cases a year in Canada of a man killing his children to punish his partner (not to mention the number of men who murder their wives/GFs). Schoenborn is not a monster in your closet or under your bed, he is a statistically re-ocurring type of person. Men like him will carry out these acts of violence again and again, unless restraining orders, peace bonds, and jail terms are taken seriously.

Come on. Get your heads up from under the beds, and into reality.

See GnM article here

Oulipian Horoscopes.... keep your brain limber

2008-04-05T09:17:00.006-06:00

An acquaintance of mine started a Facebook group called "Echo Spoor," an online workshop for literature in the style of the oulipians (those who've read Christian Bok will be familiar). They imposed strict rules on their writing, "believing that formal constraints were liberatory".

People can create "echo spoors" - poetry derived from horoscopes.

The rules: use only the letters, words and punctuation in your daily, weekly, or monthly horoscopes to write "your" poems. you may not repeat words or punctuation.

My poem is derived from Rob Brezny's Scorpio horoscope for this week. I had thought with all the talk of "workmen", "entering the body", etc this would be a bit more risque.... turns out Weil infuses all with her love of the Godhead ...

When waiting for passage,
Keep in mind the mystic and political activist,
Entering our tired world of
Order and beauty,
Suffering and hurt,
Redemptive pain.
His coming is the expression of love.

(Horoscope):
In her book Waiting for God, French mystic and political activist Simone Weil (1909-1943) wrote a passage I'd love for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks: "When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen have this fine expression: 'It is the trade entering his body.' Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves quite truly that it is the order and beauty of the world that are entering our body." I encourage you, Scorpio, to adopt this redemptive attitude about the suffering you have been experiencing.

Arthur C. Clarke Joins the Cosmic Dust

2008-03-18T20:05:00.006-06:00

Arthur C. Clarke, writer of the classics 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, and dozens of novels and short stories, passed away today. It's too bad that during his lifetime he didn't get to experience contact with another alien civilization, as he so desired.

Here are some excerpts from his 2008 "Egogram", reflections on his 90 years, and plans for the future. I love the Rudyard Kipling quotation. Prescient.

EGOGRAM 2008 - Sir Arthur C Clarke

Friends, Earthlings, ETs -- lend me your sensory organs!

I send you greetings and good wishes at the beginning of another year – and we’re getting closer to 2010, 'the year we make contact' (according to the movie 2010: Odyssey Two).

Making contact, or at least receiving some evidence of extra-terrestrial life, was one of three wishes I included in a short video released online in December reflecting on my 90th birthday. I said: “I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us – or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen – I hope sooner rather than later!”

Completing 90 orbits around the sun is a suitable occasion to reflect on how I would like to be remembered. As I said in my birthday reflections video:
“I’ve had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer – one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

I find that another English writer has expressed it very well.

So let me end with these words of Rudyard Kipling:

"If I have given you delight
by aught that I have done.
Let me lie quiet in that night
which shall be yours anon;

And for the little, little span
the dead are borne in mind,
seek not to question other than,
the books I leave behind."

Arthur C. Clarke
Childhood's End One of my favourite stories.
Arthur C. Clarke Foundation His projects, philanthropic endeavours, and bio.

Why the "Unborn Victims of Crime" Bill is a bad idea

2008-03-11T09:34:00.006-06:00

How did it pass under my radar that Parliament passed Bill C-484 last week, just in time for International Women’s Day? This is big news. This is a big issue. Everyone should be talking about it. I’m not even going to get into the fact that the NDP allowed this to pass, and that Stephane Dion wasn’t even present to offer a “yea” or “nay”. Really, you care that much?

Bill C-484, the so-called “Unborn Victims of Crime Act” is a private member's bill from Conservative MP Ken Epp. Its stated purpose is to change the criminal code to ensure that someone who has harmed/murdered a pregnant woman is also accountable and punishable for the loss of the fetus.

On the surface, this may sound like a good idea. All murder is tragic and disapproved of, but the violent murder of a pregnant woman in particular, a culturally constructed symbol of purity, beauty, and life, is always taken by the public as one of the most abhorred tragedies. Everyone agrees this shouldn't happen, and I'm sure we've all imagined vigilante justice against those calmly arrogant husbands who deliver teary-eyed pleas to news crews, then lead the search party to the body three days later.

It is notable that Epp is an MP from Edmonton Sherwood. Edmonton saw two pregnant women murdered by their partners in the past two years. It is an issue that touches everyone in a community. However, MPs should be pushing preventative measures, not adding more punishment for crimes already committed. I haven't even gotten to the MAIN glaring problem with the bill:

Bill C-484 is a reactionary, anti-choice band-aid that will do NOTHING to curb the occurrence of domestic violence, or stop men from killing their pregnant partners. The Bill directly contravenes the current Supreme Court of Canada ruling that a woman and her fetus are considered “one person.” Not only is it an unproductive paper-based policy, it is sneakily and smugly worded using anti-choice terminology that allows Harper’s government to underhandedly legislate abortion (something Harper has promised not to do) without actually having to go through the process of overtly re-criminalizing it.

This Bill WILL NOT protect women from violence and murder.
It will only allow for loopholes to challenge a woman's constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy (a pregnancy that often further endangers her if she is in an abusive relationship).

It enforces already existing stratification of victims, adding pregnant/unpregnant to a list that differentiates “high-risk” women (i.e. sex workers), whose bodies currently dot both urban and rural wildernesses, from other women (you’re telling me that living with a violent/abusive man is not high-risk?). We do not need a valuation system that says a murderer should get less time for killing an unpregnant woman.

Before couching protectionism in anti-choice rhetoric, we need solid measures taken
- to ensure that women can escape abusive relationships,
- to ensure restraining orders are taken seriously and enforced,
- to maintain funding of shelters for women and children,
- and to provide resources to social aid workers/physicians, etc, to spot the signs of abuse and prevent the escalation of violence once a woman becomes pregnant (which is often when day-to-day abuse and bullying turns to violence).

Bill C-484 is meaningless without these measures.

(image source Prevention Ads)

“Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.” source

"newseason" net art by Kristy O'Leary

2008-03-06T08:11:00.003-07:00

newseason is Kristy O'Leary's latest art piece, located on the web.

The piece is an online environment, based on deconstructed topographic maps, where one can listen to elders from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia reveal their memories of weather and their observations of climate change.

The site itself is a simple, one page affair. Hover your mouse over different parts of the map to activate the voices.

Kristy O'Leary (b. 1977, Perth Ontario, Canada) works in installation, audio, web design and single-channel video. Her work has been exhibited at The Kyber Centre, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery and The Anna Leonowens Gallery. In 2003 Kristy received a degree from Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario) in Political Science. She then went on to complete her BFA, Media Arts from NSCAD University in April 2006.

Kristy will be at the Eastern Edge Gallery in NFLD
Saturday March 8th
2-3pm IWD panel
Kristy O'Leary and Kristin Ivey discuss feminist, environmental and new media issues and thematics.

NB next of kin rules relaxed: excellent news for common-law and same-sex couples

2008-03-04T11:39:00.004-07:00

The New Brunswick Human Rights Commission announced Monday that all eight regional health authorities have agreed to allow a patient to give the person of their choice the power of attorney for personal care.

This action comes after a human rights complaint was filed in 2003, when a patient's same-sex partner was denied the ability to make decisions on his ill partner's behalf. Until 2000, NB common-law partners were also in the same illogical situation.

With the new process, a member of the NB Health Authority's quality and safety department will visit the patient in person, review the power of attorney, and oversee the signing of the appropriate documents.

It is so affirming to see changes being made that reflect the growing number of people who opt to form relationships outside the defined and legally approved roles.

See full Daily Gleaner article here

keeping up

2008-03-03T20:05:00.004-07:00

I haven't written personally on this blog in a while, and thought maybe I'd check in with an update.

On the horizon:

I have invited Canadian art filmmaker Bruce Elder on behalf of the NB Film Co-op's Experimental Film Program to deliver a lecture about his work and filmmaking process. He will be in town on March 27th at Marshall D'Avery Hall 8pm, with films in tow, to talk about his work and:
"Cosmological Themes and New Media Technologies: The Body and The Celestial Dance."

Bruce was one of the recipients of the Governor-General's Award for Visual Arts in 2007, and has an immense body of work starting in 1975. He currently teaches film at Ryerson, and is Director of the Communications and Culture Program.

Bruce Elder's Lecture will be the final one in a series that began in January and included Barbara Sternberg, Andrea Dorfman, and a screening of Canadian Short Experimental Films. The community's response has been so positive, and I'm hoping we can fill the auditorium for our final big event.

Our screening on January 11th included (from CFMDC):
Brakhage, Stan “Mothlight” 4 min.
Brown, Carl “Drop” 4.3 min. 16mm
Daniel, Mary J. “Confessions of a Compulsive Archivist” 7 min. 2004
Gruben, Patricia “Before It Blows” 1997 8.3 min video
Hoffman, Phil “?O, Zoo! (The Making of a Fiction Film)” 23min.
Hoolboom, Mike “in the dark” 8 min.
Mitchell, Allyson “Precious Little Tiny Love” 4.5 min
Pruska-Oldenhof, Izabella “fugitive l(i)ght” 9 min.
Sternberg, Barbara “surfacing” 10 min.

See also Fringe Online, an assortment of Canadian Filmmakers homepages.

Some of other excellent online resources for film art:
Ubu Film (got this bookmarked to Maya Deren...
Video Data Bank
NFB Animation dept.

Having just returned home from the face-creasing but amazing "There Will Be Blood", must add that two of my favourite features of the year were def The Secret Life of Words, Red Road.

Second Wave Archives Project: call for items

2008-01-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Second Wave Archives Project, Nancy's Very Own Foundation

Where are the stories, minutes, photos, briefs and buttons that tell the story of the women's movement in Canada since 1960?

Few such records are on deposit in public archives. This project aims to direct valuable materials into repositories where future researchers can find them, helping them to create an accurate and complete portrayal of this important period in Canada's history.

The project has four main objectives:
1. To locate second wave records and find them a home in a suitable public archives
2. To collect stories that are not on paper, through a pilot oral history project, starting in Ontario
3. To share information about second wave history with feminist activists, academics, archivists and researchers
4. To create an online resource that makes it easier to donate second wave records to an archives, and to locate and access these archival collections

We are looking for archival materials from individual feminists and from organizations that worked for women's equality. We want them to reflect the character of the movement - in all its diversity, drama, distinctiveness, influence and consequences.

Do you have records related to second wave feminism in Canada?
Have you already sent documents to an archives?
Do you know any second wavers who might be holding onto archival treasures?

Please contact Project Coordinator Mary Breen at 416-604-4620, archivesproject@sympatico.ca.

Convicted Pickton NOT guilty of premeditated murder?!

2007-12-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm relieved that Pickton has been convicted for the murders of six women, but why only guilty in the Second degree? How is it possible that the jury found he committed six unplanned, unpremeditated murders?

Or more specifically, why was the prosecution unable to prove that a man who seeks out, tortures, murders, and disposes of six (and twenty...) women has a very definite PLAN. A plan that includes knowing where to go shopping for future victims, a collection of homemade objects and weapons with which to torture and kill, and a methodical process for disposing of the accumulating bodies.

Pickton is a serial killer; a serial perpetrator of sexual violence. He chose his victims purposefully, he carried out their deaths purposefully and systematically over a period of years. Whether or not the Twenty remaining murdered women will receive a proper trial, isn't six murders enough to convince of his premeditation? To convict in the First degree, and thus secure a life sentence? to secure six life sentences.....?

Teddy bear teacher pardoned, what about everyone else?

2007-12-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

Gillian Gibbons, the British woman teaching in the Sudan who was sentenced to 40 lashes or 6 months in prison for allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear "Muhammad", has returned home to London:

"I'm just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher. I went out there to have an adventure, and got a bit more than I bargained for... "I don't think anyone could have imagined it would snowball like this."*

More than she bargained for? That's extremely generous of her.

Due to her Western privilege and connections, she has been able to leave, having served 15 days of jail-time. I'm thrilled that she will not be punished further, but I can't help think of all the other women in Islamic and Islamist states who are awaiting corporal punishment for their perceived "crimes".

*See Toronto Star's Teacher Safely Home After Teddy Bear Controversy

Finally, an Independent (of Irving) paper in NB!

2007-11-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Aha! One small victory, hopefully the first of many.

Story Here

As reported in Halifax (I wonder what coverage has been like in NB? I remember hearing a snippet abotu this before I left for France.... has it been written up in our papers?).

CANADA: Upstart Paper Cracks Irving Media Monopoly
By Chris Arsenault

HALIFAX, Nov 7 (IPS) - For more than two years, the Irvings -- the 129th richest family in the world, with interests in energy, construction, forestry and transportation -- owned every single English language newspaper and magazine in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.

In 2006, a Canadian senate report called the Irving monopoly a "media-industrial complex that dominates the province."

That total dominance ended on Oct. 30, when, after a court overruled an Irving attempt to halt its publication, the first issue of the Carleton Free Press hit news stands.

"I'm just a guy who wants to serve his community," William Kenneth Langdon, the independent paper's publisher, told IPS. But observers around New Brunswick are casting Langdon and his newspaper as a symbol of something more powerful.

"David fought Goliath and David won," said Erin Steuter, a professor at Mount Saint Allison University who has studied New Brunswick's media monopoly. "The Irvings lost this latest battle about crushing the alternative publication," Dr. Steuter told IPS.

The battle over the Carleton Free Press started on Sep. 27, when a team of four forensic accountants hired by CanadaEast News Inc., a media holding company owned by the Irving family, barged into Langdon's home in Woodstock, New Brunswick, a small town of about 5,300 people.

Under a little known criminal code provision related to industrial espionage, the private agents scoured Langdon's residence. "They even rooted through my wife's lingerie drawer," Langdon told IPS.

Days before the search, citing a poor relationship with his immediate supervisor, Langdon had resigned his post as publisher of the Bugle-Observer, a paper owned by the Irvings, where he had worked for four years. In his resignation letter, Langdon expressed his intent to start a new paper.

"During my last weeks in the employ of the Irvings, I consulted with a lawyer who advised me that I had grounds for a constructive dismissal suit," wrote Langdon in the Carleton Free Press' first editorial. "Subsequently I sent to my home files that I could use as part of that suit."

The Irvings allege those files contained confidential commercial information. They were able to secure a court injunction to search Langdon's home while attempting to block the publication of the Carleton Free Press.

Victor Mlodecki, vice president of Brunswick News Inc. and Langdon's former boss, issued a statement in early October saying that the Irvings welcome competition in the newspaper business.

On Nov. 2, Justice Peter Glennie of the province's top court blocked the Irvings' request to halt the publication the Carleton Free Press, while prohibiting Langdon from using confidential Brunswick News information.

The new competition was welcomed by some unlikely sources. "In this province, the Irvings are connected to their monopoly in the forestry sector," Jeannot Volpe, leader of New Brunswick's Conservative Party, the official opposition, told IPS.

"I've been to events concerning this sector with hundreds of people which no one from the Irving papers covered. People are starting to get frustrated: how is our voice going to be heard if the media won't report the message?" said Volpe, whose party normally takes the side of big business.

The Irving family's fortune is valued at 5.9 billion dollars and its 300 companies directly employ eight percent of New Brunswick's 750,000 residents, according to figures from Kim Kierans, director of the journalism school at the University of King's College in Halifax. The Irving companies are private firms, rather than publicly traded companies, so their internal information isn't reported.

"The whole idea of freedom of the press implies that media are a check on powerful economic interests," Isabel Macdonald, the communications director for the New York-based media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, told IPS. "When the media are incorporated into a powerful monopoly, it's very disturbing."

While media rights activists are hopeful about the Carleton Free Press, Irving still dominates the province's public sphere. The company has big plans in the works, including a seven-billion-billion dollar oil refinery and a new liquefied natural gas facility and pipeline in the city of Saint John.

These mega-projects have raised the ire of environmentalists who say the province should be decreasing rather than increasing its production of greenhouse gases. "There is no credible reporting by anyone who understands the science behind these proposals," said Inka Milewski, science advisor to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

"There is no credible capacity of any Irving media outlets to cover these stories," Milewski told IPS.

"Media concentration is worse in Canada than in other industrialised countries -- and in New Brunswick, way worse," Robert Picard, a U.S. media economics expert, told a 2003 conference in Moncton, New Brunswick.

According to 2003 figures from Enn Raudsepp, head of Concordia University's journalism programme in Montreal, 84 percent of Canadian media is owned by five companies.

As of 2005, one company, CanWest Global, owned by the Asper family, accounted for 28.5 percent of total daily newspaper circulation in Canada.

HERE Magazine, a tabloid style weekly, was New Brunswick's sole independent English language publication up until 2004, when the Irvings opened a competing "alternative" weekly called the Metro Marquee. While HERE had been publishing successfully for four years, the independent publication couldn't compete with the ad rates of the new Irving competitor and HERE's owners were forced to sell out to the monopoly rather than face financial ruin.

The Irvings closed down the Marquee upon purchasing HERE and changed the paper from a staff-driven organisation to a freelance model, with most writers receiving 25 dollars per article.

On Oct. 18, HERE Magazine, an Irving owned weekly which bills itself as "New Brunswick's Urban Voice", ran a cover story titled "Why not choose natural gas?" HERE normally requires its cover stories to be at least 1,000 words; the natural gas cover clocked in at 302. The article, which reads like a press release from a natural gas company, ran without listing its author, which also violates the magazine's normal guidelines.

"The Irvings sometimes just run press releases as their own stories," said Dr. Steuter. With citizens debating the merits of Irving's proposed natural gas pipeline, Steuter doubts the story was a coincidence.

"Time and time again we have seen that the media are really not very good at reporting on their corporate owners," said F.A.I.R.'s Isabel Macdonald. "If the corporate owners are the biggest player in the province's economy, that's a real problem from the standpoint of the public's right to know."

ho no mo: NYC councillors propose ban on degrading words

2007-10-13T13:14:00.000-06:00

The Following is a document submitted by New York City Councillors, it has not yet been approved. Symbolic, un-enforcable... but still worth proposing?

Resolution calling for a symbolic moratorium on pejorative use of the “b” word and the word “ho.”

By Council Members Mealy, Avella, Comrie, Dickens, Fidler, Foster, Jackson, Gentile, James, Liu, Mendez, Monserrate, Nelson, Reyna, Sanders Jr., Stewart, Vann and Vacca

Whereas, The Council of the City of New York strongly believes in promoting the equality of all of City residents and strives to foster an environment free from discrimination; and

Whereas, Acknowledging the great power of the spoken and written word, a power both immediate in its ability to inspire action and subtle in its far-reaching repercussions, the Council of the City of New York, responding to the concerns of constituent groups and the calls of civic leaders, seeks to join the national conversation about the appropriateness of pejorative use of terms like “bitch” and “ho;” and

Whereas, The Council believes that the repercussions of words can be constructive or can be insidious, and that words, when misused, can lay foundations to legitimize the illegitimate and codify the unthinkable, including, for example, the concept that it is acceptable to refer to women as animals or, worse, that women are these words used to describe them; and

Whereas, The Council recognizes that the word “bitch,” primarily defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “female canine animal, especially a dog,” carries a legitimately non-pejorative definition, but the Council further recognizes that in 1811, Francis Grose, in his “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” described “bitch” as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore,” thus documenting a long-standing tradition of the word’s use for purposes of degradation; and

Whereas, The word “ho” is commonly used to refer to a whore or woman of loose sexual reputation; and

Whereas, The Council feels grave concern at the derogatory use of the words “bitch” and “ho” in popular music, and wishes to express particular interest in working together with music industry executives to promote an atmosphere of professional responsibility and public accountability; and

Whereas, While some artists such as Queen Latifah make use of words like “bitch” and “ho” in contexts of strength and power, arguing “Everytime I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a ho/Trying to make a sister feel low/You know all of that gots to go,” even such reference is an incommensurate response to the verbal assaults of the words employed by artists such as 50-Cent, Eminem, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Juvenile, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, and Bow Wow, as well as the late Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.; and

Whereas, Calling “bitch,” “ho,” and the N-word “extreme curse words,” Hip-Hop mogul and Def Jam label co-founder Russell Simmons has called upon record executives to eradicate those words from their industry; and

Whereas, Simmons, joining together with fellow Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Co-Chair Dr. Benjamin Chavis, issued a statement reading, “Our internal discussions with industry leaders are not about censorship. Our discussions are about the corporate social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show respect to African-Americans and other people of color, African-American women and to all women in lyrics and images;” and

Whereas, The words “bitch” and “ho” are used in popular media other than Hip-Hop music in contexts just as insulting and cruel; and

Whereas, The Council believes that the use of this hateful language creates for all women a paradigm of shame and indignity, a paradigm equally applicable to every woman regardless of whether she is the direct target of such attacks or a tangential but equally impacted victim; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, The Council of the City of New York calls for a symbolic moratorium on pejorative use of the “b” word and the word “ho.”

BRS
LS# 3000
5.29.07

Original Document can be found here

Canadian Dimension: Radical Campaign Suggestions for upcoming election

2007-10-12T12:09:00.000-06:00

Visit Canadian Dimension magazine online to view the following articles:

Election Primer: Platform for a New Canada

In the absence of a radical program to campaign around for the upcoming federal election, Canadian Dimension suggests one.

12-Step Program to Combat Climate Change

We can have economic growth and decent living standards for all, so long as we develop the economy in harmony with the environment, with only a subordinate role for the market, write Cy Gonick and Brendan Haley.

Canada and World Order After the Wreckage

Imagining an alternate global politics could hardly be more pressing, says Greg Albo. Its success will depend upon social-justice movements agitating and demonstrating tirelessly, and building organizational capacities.

An Energy Security Program for Canada

Until Canada gets a “Mexican exemption” and exits NAFTA’s energy-proportionality clause, there is little chance of Canada fulfilling its modest, international Kyoto targets, let along going far beyond them, writes Gordon Laxer.

A Democratic Tax Reform for Canada

The two important functions of the tax system in a flourishing democracy are to raise revenue to fund government programs and to redistribute income and wealth. The Canadian tax system fails dismally in achieving both of these objectives, says Neil Brooks.

Toward a New Policy Paradigm for First Peoples

Peter Kulchyski writes that a new policy paradigm for First Peoples needs to be based on a substantive application of Aboriginal and treaty rights.

Ideas for Popular Assemblies

Can popular, community-based assemblies, which would bring various movements together into a democratic and permanent structure, become the first step toward building a larger project? asks Sam Gindin. Are popular assemblies the way to link these local structures into social forces of regional and national significance?

Outrageous: US places peace activists on international criminal database-- denied entry to Canada

2007-10-05T11:03:00.000-06:00

From the CODEPINK website:

Women Barred: Canada Refuses Entry to CODEPINK Cofounder Medea Benjamin and Retired Colonel Ann Wright
Contact: Medea Benjamin 415-235-6517 or Ann Wright 808-741-1141

October 3rd, 2007

Two well-respected US peace activists, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin and retired Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, were denied entry into Canada today (Wednesday, October 3). The two women were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. At the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Bridge they were detained, questioned and denied entry. They will hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon in front of the Canadian Embassy in Washington DC to ask the Canadian government to reverse its policy of barring peaceful protesters.

The women were questioned at Canadian customs about their participation in anti-war efforts and informed that they had an FBI file indicating they had been arrested in acts of non-violent civil disobedience.

WHEN: Thursday, October 4th at 1pm
WHERE: Canadian Embassy, 501 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC

"In my case, the border guard pulled up a file showing that I had been arrested at the US Mission to the UN where, on International Women's Day, a group of us had tried to deliver a peace petition signed by 152,000 women around the world," says Benjamin. "For this, the Canadians labeled me a criminal and refused to allow me in the country."

"The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies," says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. "The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country."

Both Wright and Benjamin plan to request their files from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and demand that arrests for peaceful, non-violent actions be expunged from international records.

"It's outrageous that Canada is turning away peacemakers protesting a war that does not have the support of either US or Canadian citizens," says Benjamin. "In the past, Canada has always welcomed peace activists with open arms. This new policy, obviously a creature of the Bush administration, is shocking and we in the US and Canada must insist that it be overturned.

Four members of the Canadian Parliament--Peggy Nash, Libby Davies, Paul Dewar and Peter Julian-- expressed outrage that the peace activists were barred from Canada and vow to change this policy.

Interviews available on request.

Harper's Government Votes against Aboriginals (big surprise)

2007-09-13T13:51:00.000-06:00

Canada votes Against UN Declaration on Aboriginal Rights....

The "Non-Binding" declaration was in fact passed in a vote of 143 to four. Can you guess the four countries that voted AGAINST a declaration in support of Aboriginal Rights? Easy. Those who are most afraid of losing natural resources and land: Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand.

As is typical, "significant concerns with respect to the wording of the current text" was cited as the reason Canada wouldn't support the declaration.

It's amusing and disappointing that even though the declaration is acknowledged as "non-binding" (at least in Macleans), those four governments are still having none of it. The declaration, as with most UN projects, is mostly symbolic, as a matter of good faith. The UN has policies on issues of equality, access to health care, access to education, elimination of violence and sexual assault, etc. These are symbolic gestures, and the issues they address will probably never come close to being truly dealt with on a massive scale. Are the governments of the four opposing nations really that numb? Can they not see this as a positive PR opportunity?

Canada respects its aboriginal population, read all about it!

Nope. Not a chance. No one cares about aboriginal issues anyway, unless you're aboriginal yourself, right?....
Oh Harper.

extry extry

Talk about Smart Mobs: Free Tibet activists use online technology to ensure message gets out

2007-08-08T07:36:00.000-06:00

Howard Reingold talks about Smart Mobs in current activism: the use of cell phones and the internet to organize actions, communicate with group members, and to disseminate info to the media. smart mobs, smart mobiles.

I am sooo impressed by the techno-savvy group of activists that unfurled a banner at the Great Wall of China this week, and who were subsequently arrested.

Some background first:
Today a third Canadian, Lhadon Tethong, director of Students for a Free Tibet, has been arrested, along with her colleague Paul Golding. Six activists were arrested on Tuesday, including two Canadians: Sam Price and Melanie Raoul from Vancouver.

It was Sam and Melanie who rapelled down the Great Wall to hang a large banner that read, in English and Mandarin, "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008". Tuesday marked the one-year countdown to the Beijing Olympics, and the group used the Olympic slogan to draw attention to China's occupation of Tibet.

What is so amazing about this action is the use of the internet to achieve global coverage, and as a means of keeping in touch while waiting to be detained by Chinese authorities.

An activist recorded the hanging of the banner on their cell phone and e-mailed the file to New York, where it was immediately uploaded to Youtube, and soon after was reported on in print and television media.

Since Tuesday, Lhadon Tethong (who was not present at the Great Wall action) has been travelling in Beijing where she has been a one-woman techno-firestorm:
- she has been blogging about the action at Beijing Wide Open
- To try and reach International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge, she posted a letter to him on her blog, then made a video of her talking about the letter while standing under a statue of Mao Tse-Tung. She then called the IOC to tell them about the video on her blog, then made a video of the call and added that to the blog. An IOC staffer agreed to meet with her.
- She talked with CTV news about the action via satellite, and posted this video on the blog as well

I just visited the blog, where a video has been posted of a Skype video-call Lhadon and Paul made at an internet cafe yesterday, before their imminent arrest. [Skype is a free web-based phone service].

What excellent use of these resources, these web-based technologies, for social action! I think today I'll be able to work on my thesis after all.

CBC article

"Belle" Statue Honours Sex Workers

2007-07-25T17:26:00.000-06:00

[Text from International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe ICRSE]
"There is a new girl in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Her name is "Belle", and she stands proudly and strong in a window. She, however, is not a real sex worker, it is a statue there to honor sex workers. The statue was an initiative of Mariska Majoor, founder of the Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam and herself a long standing activist for sex workers' rights. "Belle" is there to remind the world that all sex workers, men, women, transgender or not alike, have a right to respect, dignity, livelyhood and agency.

The statue was unveiled 31st of March, during the open day held in the Red Light District where she now stands. During the open day 20 businesses, ranging from brothels and sex theaters to flowershops and churches, opened their doors for the public. It was a unique chance to take a look behind the scenes. Visitors could take a look inside the windows and were given explainations about how the women work, they could take a free coffee in one of the caffees, they got a free 5 minute show (with clothes) in the Cassa Rossa, the biggest live sex theater in Amsterdam.

Of Course the main event that day was the presentation of "Belle". At 5 pm, Mariska and several other sex workers ceremonially unveiled her in front of a croud of several hundreds. She was received with much applause, the sense of the day was a positive one. While not forgetting that still there is a lot to be done in the Netherlands to improve the working conditions and specially the regulations, the Netherlands is one of those places where working at least is legal. "Belle" now stands among the real women in the windows in one of the most famous Red Light Districts in the world, to tell everyone that we deserve respect!"

Catholic Hospital Merger would end reproductive health services

2007-07-24T15:42:00.000-06:00

July 23, 2007 • For immediate release

Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada / Coalition pour le Droit à l’Avortement au Canada
______________________________

COMMUNITY RISES UP AGAINST CATHOLIC HOSPITAL MERGER THAT WOULD END REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES

TORONTO — A community is up in arms after two neighbouring hospital boards voted in June to amalgamate the secular Huronia District Hospital in Midland Ontario, and the neighbouring Roman Catholic Penetanguishene General Hospital. The merger would end several essential health services, including abortions, vasectomies, tubal ligations, and birth control options. The proposed merger, which has yet to be voted on by the hospital membership, was recommended mostly for economic reasons, as Huronia suffers from a $5 million dollar deficit while the Catholic hospital has a surplus.

At a packed public forum in Midland on July 19 to oppose the merger, over 500 members of the community showed up, including Huronia Hospital physicians, several Huronia board members who had resigned from the board in opposition, three mayors from nearby towns, politicians, and representatives from the Ontario Nurses Association, several unions, and pro-choice groups.

Carolyn Egan of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC-CDAC) told the crowd how critically important it was to maintain a full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, since the loss of such services hurts the community as a whole. She noted that many at the forum expressed dismay that Catholic religious doctrine might be imposed on an entire community.

“The overwhelming support from ordinary citizens for the pro-choice position was incredibly gratifying,” said Egan. “Women who used to be active in the pro-choice movement, some going back thirty years, came up and spoke to me. Also, young women in the community are providing support and leadership in the campaign, which is great to see.”

Every single doctor at the Huronia Hospital has come out against the merger. So far, local groups and volunteers have managed to sign up over 1000 new hospital members who plan to vote against the proposed merger. The energetic
campaign has attracted national media attention. “I am delighted that this struggle is now getting national coverage because it clearly has implications for women across the country,” said Egan. “This local campaign highlights the issue of health care cutbacks and hospital reorganizations, and their effects on reproductive health. Abortion clinics serve many of the needs in urban areas, but in rural parts of the country, women really depend on hospital abortions.”

“The planned merger undermines the right of Canadians to access health care under the Canada Health Act,” said Joyce Arthur, another ARCC-CDAC spokesperson. “A hospital can’t be allowed to withdraw essential medical services simply because it needs to clear a debt. We’re 100% behind this campaign to fight the merger, and want to congratulate the Midland community for its inspiring work.”

Carolyn Egan, Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, Toronto, 416-806-7985
Joyce Arthur, Pro-Choice Action Network, Vancouver, 604-351-0867
Judy Burwell, former director of the Morgentaler Clinic, Fredericton,
506-470-9049
Catherine Megill, ARCC-CDAC, Montréal (Elle parle français), 514-486-9669
Dr. Suzanne Newman, Abortion provider, Women's Hospital, Health Sciences
Centre; Women's Health Clinic Abortion Services, Winnipeg, 204-477-1887

Atlantica Protester

2007-06-19T10:29:00.000-06:00

i love this idea.

http://maritimes.indymedia.org/

New SWC Program guidelines are out, fists are up.

2007-06-10T16:39:00.000-06:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 6, 2006

NDP MP OUTRAGED AT CHANGES TO WOMEN’S PROGRAM

OTTAWA – This week, the minister responsible for Status of Women Canada, Bev Oda, released the new funding mandate for the Women’s Program. Despite opposition from women’s groups, the new mandate severely restricts women’s organizations and completely ignores the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

“This Conservative government didn’t listen to women and has officially removed equality from the mandate and eliminated any research or advocacy funding. This is an assault on the women’s movement in Canada,” said Irene Mathyssen, Status of Women critic for the NDP. “This government is side-stepping its role and forcing organizations to find funding from outside sources before committing any federal funding. This leads to organizations depending on charity, not merit, for funding.”

To be eligible for funding under the new mandate, organizations must have proof of another source of funding in writing. Organizations are also restricted from applying for funding for research, lobbying, and pre-existing programs.

“These restrictions make it impossible for organizations to plan, or to engage in any long-term projects,” said Mathyssen. “There is no room for capacity building, there is no core funding. If this government were truly interested in addressing women’s rights they would invest in core funding for programs that work to eliminate women’s inequality in Canada.“

“We are now taking steps backward on equality rights instead of forward,” said Mathyssen. “By shutting offices, changing the mandate and cutting funding, Bev Oda is not promoting women’s rights. The Conservative Government is not committed to promoting women’s equality,” continued Mathyssen. “They are abandoning women in this country.”

See also this previous post on the Status of Women council for background info. or this essay timeline of events.

Housing Takeover: Women Against Poverty Collective Toronto

2007-06-06T12:13:00.000-06:00

About 150 members of the Women Against Poverty Collective (WPAC) plus supporters took to the streets in Toronto earlier on Sunday to take part in an anti-poverty demonstration.

Saying their demands for safe, affordable housing for women have been ignored for too long, members of the group entered the abandoned house at 4 Howard St.

Once inside the home, the women hung a banner and pitched tents on the property, saying they will keep the building and provide their own affordable housing for women and their children.

"We are children of survivors, we are survivors, we are friends of survivors of violence and poverty," one protester shouted through a megaphone from a window. "For too long we've had to witness our mothers, our sisters, our friends live through violence."

The group says this action is necessary because the provincial and federal governments haven't followed through on promises for housing and childcare.

"This is necessary because those who are trying to leave violence are stuck in shelters for months instead of the few weeks they should be there with their kids," said protest organizer Anna Willats.

From CTV news.

A parallel march and occupation occured in Vancouver on the weekend in solidarity with the Toronto event.

Images from SmugMug

Fetal Consent for Abortions...

2007-06-02T11:40:00.000-06:00

New Abortion Bill To Require Fetal Consent

From The Onion.

Irving Oil to build another Refinery: Baird sees no problem

2007-05-24T10:51:00.000-06:00

Ivring Oil Refinery in Saint John- largest in Canada

It seems everyweek I discover a new reason to feel anxious for my sweet Maritimes:

Conservation Council of New Brunswick - News Release

May 24, 2007

Environment Minister John Baird Exempts Colossal Refinery Development From EIA

Following close on the heels of Environment Minister John Baird’s decision to exempt industry from hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions, the Minister has exempted the first Canadian oil refinery to be built since global warming became a concern, from assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Irving Oil plans to build a colossal $7 billion dollar, 300,000 barrel/day refinery adjacent to its existing refinery in Saint John. Irving’s existing refinery is the largest in Canada and therefore among the top 25 greenhouse gas emitters in the country at 3.3 million tonnes of CO2 per year. The gasoline is to be marketed in the northeastern United States. Six out of 10 cars on the road in Boston are already fueled by gasoline refined in Saint John, New Brunswick.
[Atlantica, anyone?]

“We are appalled that Mr. Baird does not plan to have Environment Canada assess the impacts of the new Irving refinery’s emissions on global warming and smog,” said David Coon, Policy Director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. “Clearly, the carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides will cross provincial and international boundaries, one of the triggers for a federal environmental assessment,” said Coon. "Clearly, the federal government has legal obligations for the impacts of increased greenhouse gas emissions on global warming."

“We raised these issues with Minister Baird in a letter three months ago and haven’t had the courtesy of a reply,” said Coon. “Yet the Minister found time in his busy schedule to fly to Saint John for a private meeting with the Irvings to discuss the refinery project,” he said.

Speaking on CBC’s April 27th edition of The Current, Environment Minister John Baird said the Irvings new refinery “ will provide great economic benefits for the province, a lot of jobs, a lot of hope, a lot of opportunity will be created with that. If we didn’t have an intensity-based system (for regulating greenhouse gas emissions) that wouldn’t be able to go ahead”.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced today that the proposed scope of the environmental assessment would be restricted to the potential impacts of the construction of a pier and breakwater to load gasoline and petroleum coke onto ships for export and the unloading of crude oil from supertankers. The public has until June 30th to comment on
the proposed scope of the federal environmental assessment.

For more information, contact:
David Coon, Policy Director: (506) 466-4033

CBC article from October about Smog concerns for current refinery, and Irving's plans to build another.

Afghan Parliament kicks Malalai Joya out

2007-05-21T14:08:00.000-06:00

See the following article about the Afghan Parliament ousting feminist activist Malalai Joya from parliament after 4 years of her challenging her fellow parliamentarians:
[see also RAWA]

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan's lower house of parliament voted Monday to oust an outspoken female lawmaker who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.

The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, compared parliament to a stable full of animals in a recent TV interview.

The video clip was shown in parliament on Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her from the body, said Haseb Noori, spokesman for the parliament. No formal vote count was held, but a clear majority of lawmakers voted for her suspension by raising colored cards, Noori said.

A parliament rule known as Article 70 forbids lawmakers from criticizing one another, Noori said.

Joya, 29, said the vote was a "political conspiracy'' against her. She said she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her, though she didn't say who told her that.

"Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga,'' she said, referring to the constitution-drafting convention.

Joya, a women's rights worker from Farah province, rose to prominence in 2003 when she branded powerful Afghan warlords as criminals during the Loya Jirga.

Many of the commanders who fought occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s still control provincial fiefdoms and have been accused of human rights abuses and corruption. After ousting the Soviets, the militias turned on each other in a brutal civil war that destroyed most of the capital, Kabul.

Some faction leaders, like former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a deeply conservative Islamist, have been elected to parliament. Others, like northern strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, were appointed by Karzai.

Sayed Alami Balkhi, a lawmaker from the northern province of Balkh, said the speaker of the upper house of parliament sent a letter to the lower house on Sunday saying that Joya had humiliated and attacked both houses.

"If the lower house does not take a decision about her, we will take a decision,'' Balkhi quoted the letter as saying.

Joya's outspoken ways have earned her many enemies in Afghanistan. In February, during a rally to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes, thousands of former fighters shouted "Death to Malalai Joya!''

Last May, Joya called some lawmakers "warlords'' in a speech at parliament, prompting some parliamentarians to throw water bottles at her. A small scuffle broke out between her supporters and detractors, and Joya later told The Associated Press in an interview that some lawmakers threatened to rape her as payback.

Joya said Monday that if she couldn't remain in parliament, she would fight against "criminals'' independently. She said if anything were to happen to her - a reference to a possible assassination attempt - that "everyone would know'' that the people she has criticized like Rabbani or Sayyaf would be responsible.

"I'm not alone,'' Joya told reporters. "The international community is with me and all the Afghan people are with me.''

NB will have a publicly-funded Midwives Association by 2008!!

2007-05-17T11:48:00.000-06:00

See Daily Gleaner article

Health Minister Mike Murphy has announced that Midwives could be helping New Brunswick women give birth by the spring of 2008. A committee will be formed in June to develop legislation to allow midwives to practice in New Brunswick (currently midwifery in NB is a grey area, not illegal, but not legislated either). Most important is that midwifery will be part of the NB health-care system, a viable choice for mothers who would otherwise have to travel to Nova Scotia for a midwife's care (or perhaps she might be able to access one of NB's six practicing midwives).

Only New Brunswick, P.E.I., Newfoundland and the Yukon don't include midwives in the public health-care system.

In other women's health news:
Morgentaler's lawsuit against the province for limiting access to affordable abortion began this week.
The province is arguing that Morgentaler doesn't have legal standing to challenge current regulations, that he cannot assert the right of women under the charter because he is not a woman, not pregnant and not seeking an abortion.

If men were not allowed to represent the interests of women to their peers/government, women would still not have the vote, be able to own property, and would still be considered minors in marriage law (going back to John Stuart Mill, one of the first to champion legislated rights for women).
Due to the social stigma attached to abortion, high profile nature of the case, and potential intimidation and retaliation by anti-choice protestors, no woman has yet come forward with the willpower and resources to mount a case against the province on her own.

Lawyers debate Morgentaler's standing
Abortion Lawsuit sparks rally

ATTN Atlantic Canadians: the cons of "Atlantica"

2007-05-15T12:39:00.000-06:00

Atlantica tide should be kept at bay
Chronicle Herald - May 15, 2007

By DAVE RON

In response to Charles Cirtwill's May 8 column, "Like it or not, Atlantica does exist, thankfully": I cannot recall a more rhetorical piece of propaganda ever gracing the pages of this newspaper.

Seeing as how Cirtwill spent the majority of his word count championing some false notion of inter-regional communion, erecting straw-man arguments, and speaking to what Atlantica doesn't represent, I thought it wise to elaborate on what Atlantica does, in earnest, represent.

To avoid any further confusion, Atlantica is not "the name that has been attached to the northeastern corner of the United States and the eastern portion of Canada." Atlantica is the abbreviated name for what's formally known as the Atlantic Northeast Economic Region (AINER), a cross-border trade concept spanning the Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland, southern Quebec, and the New England states (i.e. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and upstate New York).

Its main proponent and originator is a right-wing think-tank group called AIMS, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, of which Cirtwill is not-so-coincidentally president. The Atlantica tag line is "business without borders," which has a double meaning: business unhampered by the international border, but also unbound from social protections such as minimum wages, social program spending, environmental regulation, public ownership and unionization.

Contrary to the belief that Atlantica is concerned with increasing trade ties in the northeast region, it is actually about two very different things: First, developing a conduit to channel Asian goods to the United States through the Atlantic provinces. Massive container ships called "post-Panamax" are too large to pass through the Panama Canal and Halifax is the closest North American port for ships from Asia via the Suez Canal.

Second, Atlantica is about increasing exports of unprocessed resources, like energy and water, from Canada to the United States. The intent is to export oil and gas from the Atlantic offshore as quickly as possible on terms that favour industry and leave decisions regarding exports to deregulated markets rather than through direct public participation.

Sure, as Cirtwill remarks, "Atlantica is delivering benefits on the ground today" insofar as it primarily profits elite interests and foreign investors. For example, Atlantica prioritizes U.S. energy needs over Atlantic Canadian energy security.

Atlantic Canada currently exports 75 per cent, and rising, of gas to the U.S., without even meeting the energy needs of everyone in the Maritimes; under NAFTA's proportionality clause, Canada must supply the U.S. with the same proportion or more of total exports as it has within the previous three years.

A central flaw in the Atlantica scheme is in its being predicated on historical inaccuracies. Contrary to its claims of past inter-regional prosperity, the Atlantic provinces have not gained much at all, in the past, from integration with the U.S. According to a 2006 Micro-Economic Analysis completed by Statistics Canada, for example, the manufacturing sector benefited least in terms of output, productivity, employment and wages.

The environmental and health concerns we have to look forward to include the bulk of massive expansion in container traffic shipped onwards by "truck trains," resulting in increased greenhouse gas emissions, higher fatal-crash rates per mile, as well as the likely expansion of superhighways through communities, wilderness, and farmland.

Also, with increased pressure to deliver finite oil and gas reserves to the U.S., there is no regard given to the advantages of using cleaner-burning natural gas as a stepping stone to a more renewable energy future for the region.

And yes, Atlantica has caught the ear of labour unions; but what working individual wouldn't raise an eyebrow at Atlantica's flippant use of beguiling buzzwords, like "poor quality public policies" and "economic distress factors," to describe minimum wage and union density, claiming that their extremely low rates in the region are already too high.

Cirtwill's vilification of labour unions as a means of thwarting opposition to Atlantica doesn't account for the growing number of citizens' groups, environmental organizations, non-profit associations, and others in the region who are directly opposed to the undemocratic and destructive nature of this radical experiment in free-market fundamentalism.

Atlantica is rooted in a framework which aims to attract corporate interests to the Atlantic region by threatening to axe our minimum wage (which is already below poverty levels), our environmental regulations, our social programs, our public services and our workers' rights to unionize – things they refer to as "policy distress factors." This kind of language is eerily familiar to that of NAFTA and the FTAA, stemming from a neo-liberal agenda that aims to dismantle "trade barriers" such as social and public programs, environmental regulations and workers' rights.

Like it or not, Charles, Atlantica doesn't yet exist, thankfully. It's the public's role, however, and not just labour's, to ensure we keep it that way for the vitality of our children, our environment, and our energy security.

Dave Ron is executive director for the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group, a non-partisan policy think-tank based at Dalhousie University with 16,000 student members.

Women unite across party lines in support of childcare

2007-05-10T09:36:00.000-06:00

See the full story about women MP's joining forces across party lines over child care.

"New Democrat Olivia Chow, Liberal Ruby Dhalla and Bloquiste Vivian Barbot have joined forces to put child care back on the national agenda. Their goal is to force a parliamentary vote on Bill C-303, a private member's bill calling for a pan-Canadian
child-care system with dedicated federal funding.

Obviously, this runs directly counter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan. He is taking money out of organized child care to pay for his government's $100 monthly allowance to parents of preschoolers. No Conservative MP – male or female – is expected to support Bill C-303.

But that may not matter. If the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois vote solidly in favour of the legislation, it will pass.

Tomorrow, the parliamentary committee on human resources and social development will begin final consideration of the bill, introduced by New Democrat Denise Savoie last spring."

quickie toon

2007-05-06T22:09:00.000-06:00

I just found a site where you can make cartoons! toondoo.com
I just picked a background, and it all came together..... oh my.

Write letters to protect NB Morgentaler Clinic from anti-abortion interference

2007-05-03T00:43:00.000-06:00

From the NB Advisory Council on Status of Women:

BUBBLE ZONE LEGISLATION: PLEASE WRITE LETTERS!

The Morgentaler Clinic staff and other pro-choice organizations are pressing for the provincial government to pass “Bubble Zone” legislation.

A Bubble Zone bars anti-choice demonstrations in certain places, typically the immediate area around an abortion clinic and also around the homes and other workplaces of clinic staff. Such legislation provides a basis for police to act against the type of conduct described above. Ontario and British Columbia have had Bubble Zone legislation for many years. In those provinces the legislation has been effective in protecting clinic clients and clinic staff from precisely the kind of harassment they are experiencing here in New Brunswick.

The Minister of Justice is currently considering Bubble Zone legislation for New Brunswick. Please contact him to show your support for this important legislative initiative!

Hon. Thomas J. Burke, Q.C.
Attorney General, Minister of Justice and Consumer Affairs
Phone: (506) 462-5100
Fax: (506) 453-3651
T.J.Burke@gnb.ca

Mailing address:
Centennial Building
P. O. Box 6000
Fredericton, NB E3B 5H1

Constituency Office:
Phone: (506) 453-3365
Fax: (506) 453-5469
tjbconstituency@hotmail.com

Mailing address:
288 Union Street
Fredericton, NB E3A 1E5

ONGOING HARASSMENT AT THE MORGENTALER CLINIC

Tuesdays are ‘clinic day’, the day when women from around the province who have been denied publicly funded abortions come to the Fredericton Morgentaler Clinic. On arrival, they are forced to endure a gauntlet of anti-choice demonstrators in order to access their right to an abortion. Although the antis claim that they behave in a peaceful manner, they are in fact extremely aggressive. Here is an account of today’s events from a member of the Clinic staff:

“The "antis" were horrible today. The sign that the police once confiscated (very disgusting) is now in their hands again. They had another one as well. These are the same signs that the Show the Truth people used when in town. We saw close to 20 people today and many walked in crying and extremely upset. Needless to say, it creates a less than comfortable environment in here. People settle down once they get inside but it takes a while!

“I called … the police department and [the officer I spoke to] told me that there's nothing more they can do. They did try and apparently didn't have enough evidence or whatever they needed to make the conviction stick. A couple of people (not sure who they were) were involved in shouting matches with the antis and I said to [the police officer], that I was concerned this could lead to an incident. I believe he understood but said well if there's an incident, call the police….

Abortion Rights in NB: I'm tired of being angry. Heather Mallick joins the club.

2007-04-23T23:28:00.000-06:00

I have written more entries on women's health in NB than any other topic. And nothing is changing in that area. Now Heather Mallick has written an article for CBC about our emergency situation, and hopefully will draw much needed national attention to the issue (see below).

To date, I have sent letters to Brad Green (when he was minster of health), Bernard Lord (when he was premier), Michael Murphy (current min of health), Shawn Graham (current premier), and Tony Clement (Fed Minister of Health) on this issue. I have received one reply, from Minister Clement.

This is what he had to say, in response to my plea for him to FORCE New Brunswick to uphold the Canada Health Act, as is his duty:

"As Minister of Health, I have the mandate to ensure that the principles of the Canada Health Act are upheld. [Yes, Tony, this is why I'm writing to you] Under the Act, the provincial and territorial health insurance plans are required to provide coverage to their residents for all medically necessary hospital and physician services. Abortion services have been determined to be medically necessary by the provincial and territorial health insurance plans, in consultation with their respective physician colleges or groups, and are insured by every province and territory in Canada. [Thanks for the review. Let's get to work then!]

You may be aware that a court action has been launched against the province of New Brunswick seeking to have declared unconstitutional an amendment to the provincial Medical Services Payment Act to exclude public funding for abortions performed outside an approved hospital facility. [Yessir, very aware. It's not going very well]. The Government of Canada is not involved in this court case. [I am asking you to be]. Prime Minister Harper has made it clear that the Government will not initiate or support any legislation to regulate abortion." That's the whole letter.

Did your jaw just drop? Clement (or an aid) seems to have taken a policy statement about abortion in NB, then slapped on ONE SENTENCE in which he washes his hands of the whole affair. Fully admitting, in the one sentence, that Harper has a policy to be willfully in contravention of the Canada Health Act, and that he himself is not going to lift a finger for anyone on this issue. [Letter was received dec 16, 2006]

--

Abortion rights and abortion fights
Heather Mallick
April 20, 2007

Canada's abortion battle legally ended in 1988 when the Supreme Court ruled that women had dominion over their own bodies. Abortion became a woman's choice.

But ever since, the provincial anti-abortionists have continued their mean, small-time work by targeting working-class women. Thus, the problem for Canadian women is not abortion rights, it is access to abortion. And New Brunswick has become a tragedy in this respect.

Fredericton is an attractive capital city of just over 50,000 on the shores of the St. John River. The well-kept, beautifully painted big clapboard houses along the shore with their wraparound decks and intricate woodwork make the place seem healthy, wealthy and immensely appealing. The University of New Brunswick has a campus here and the presence of so many young people gives the city its energy.

But in 1989, the New Brunswick government, furious that women couldn't be denied abortions, made sure that women could not get timely access to publicly funded abortions and that poverty-stricken women couldn't get abortions at all. They set up regulations (thus bypassing the legislature and voters) saying hospital abortions had to be performed by a gynecologist, although the procedure is easily performed by a non-specialist. The abortion had to be approved by the gynecologist and one other doctor. Abortions in clinics would not be covered by Canadian health care (this is illegal).

Since almost no New Brunswick hospitals perform abortions anyway, women must discover their pregnancy very early, find a local doctor who'll refer them (difficult), and travel to a city to find another doctor to sign for them (expensive), and then book the operation (sometimes cancelled and impossible to rebook).

She must then go to the Morgentaler Clinic and pay for her abortion. Anti-abortionists bought the house next to the Fredericton clinic, where they try to lure women to change their minds, terrifying them with misleading photographs and false information.

When she escapes these people, she will get her abortion and then make her way home, often shamed and traumatized for what is a perfectly simple procedure elsewhere in Canada (except in P.E.I., where abortions are unavailable).

The obstacle course
Fredericton citizens often see Liberal Premier Shawn Graham around town. He is 38, but he looks 16. This is the man who has followed his predecessors in maintaining the obstacle course for pregnant women. Note that because these abortion rules are minor regulations passed by cabinet, they aren't approved by the legislature. Voters have no say. This is just a little act of cruelty by a cabal, and it could end next week if New Brunswickers made enough of a fuss.

They are starting to. This month, I spoke at a gathering sponsored by the Faculty of Law at the University of New Brunswick, Law Students for Choice, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and other groups. Law school dean Philip Bryden, a distinguished lawyer, moderated a panel where a nurse, a law professor and a physician all spoke passionately about the mistreatment of women seeking abortions.

I had expected 25 students to show up. Instead there were 290 people, not all of them students, and they overflowed into other rooms as the discussion went on. It was wonderful to hear Prof. Marilyn Merritt-Gray from the Faculty of Nursing, because medical matters are usually left to god-like doctors, not mere nurses. It was illuminating to hear law professor Jula Hughes remark how often one hears the word "shame" in anti-abortion circles. Women are shamed for their fertility, for their sexuality. It hadn't struck me before. I wonder how many girls and women internalize this "shame" that can turn to self-loathing.

A Frederictonian in the audience, who introduced himself to me later as Eric Wright, stood and addressed himself to anti-choice males: "If you guys are so opposed to abortions, don't have one."

I had to laugh. It really is that simple. It's not your business.

Morgentaler steps forward
The Morgentaler Clinic has sued the provincial government, and its court case will begin May 16. At the moment, the young premier's lawyers are arguing that since Henry Morgentaler is not a woman, he should have no standing in the case. It's difficult to find a local woman willing to go to court, so Dr. Morgentaler, 84-year-old former prisoner of both the Nazis and the Canadian government, has stepped forward once again.

The problem has spread across Canada. Since 2003, the percentage of hospitals offering abortions has decreased from 17.8 per cent to 15.9 per cent. That means you only have the opportunity to obtain an abortion at one in every six hospitals.

Read the rest, but avoid the comment section (too painful).

Mass Murderers and Women: What We're Still not Getting About VTech

2007-04-22T11:42:00.000-06:00

Worth Repeating, from Mother Jones:

Of all the lessons contained in the horror at Virginia Tech, the one least likely to be learned has to do with the deadly danger posed by the dismissive way we still view violence against women.

The first person killed by Cho Seung-Ho, a freshman named Emily Hilscher, was initially rumored to be Cho's current or former girlfriend – the subject of his obsession or jealous rage. It now appears that she never had a relationship with Cho, but the rumors were spread quickly, especially by blogs and by the international tabloid press. The UK's Daily Mail headlined the "Massacre Gunman's Deadly Infatuation with Emily," while Australia's Daily Telegraph published a photo of a smiling Hilscher with the line "THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history." (The page is still up.) Some accounts stooped to suggesting, with zero evidence, that the victim had jilted Cho, cheated on him, or led him on.

More significantly, local police and university administrators appear to have initially bought this motive, and acted accordingly. In the two hours between the murders of Hilscher and her dorm neighbor Ryan Clark, and Cho's mass killings at another university building, they chose not to cancel classes or lock down the campus. (They did choose to do so, however, in August 2006, when a man shot a security guard and a sheriff's deputy and escaped from a hospital two miles away.) Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the first shooting was a "domestic dispute" and thought the gunman had fled the campus, so "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur." The assumption, apparently, is that men who kill their cheating girlfriends are criminals, but they are not crazy, not psychopaths, and not a danger to anyone other than the woman in question. (Or, as one reader commented at Feministe sarcastically, "Like killing your girlfriend is no big deal.")

In fact, these attitudes ignore past evidence of both "domestic disputes" and a more generalized misogyny as motives in mass killings. Multiple murders in homes and workplaces often begin with a man killing his wife or girlfriend. Mark Barton, who in 1999 shot nine people in an Atlanta office building, began the day by bludgeoning to death his children and his wife; six years earlier he had been a suspect in the death of his first wife and her mother, who were also beaten to death. In another high-profile case, the December 1989 mass shooting at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique, Marc Lepine was after women, whom he hated, and had a list of feminists he wanted to kill. He murdered four men and 14 women, and wounded 10 more women. In September 2006, Duane Roger Morrison walked into Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo., and took six female students hostage, killing one. And last October, Charles Carl Roberts IV took over an Amish schoolhouse, let the boys go, and killed five girls.

One warning sign in such cases is a history of stalking and harassment of women. At Virginia Tech, in September 2005, poet Nikki Giovanni had Cho removed from her class at Virginia Tech after female students complained that he was using his cell phone to take pictures of their legs underneath the desks; some refused to come to class while Cho was there. In November and December of that year, two female students reported receiving threatening messages from Cho, and one said he was stalking her. But charges were never filed, and police and university officials didn't seem especially worried about the women. Yet, as Arlen Specter pointed out in comments on the VT shooting made during the Gonzalez hearings Thursday, Cho had been accused of a "crime against the state as well as against the students," and the local DA could have taken up the case.

According to the Stalking Resource Center, one million women are stalked in the U.S. every year. In two-thirds of the cases where a female victim asks for a police protective order, that order is violated. Earlier this month, Rebecca Griego, a researcher at the University of Washington, was murdered in her office by her ex-boyfriend after she had reported his threats to the university police and Seattle police, changed her phone number, moved out of her apartment, distributed photos and descriptions of her stalker, and sought an order for protection.

One third of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner (as opposed to about 3 percent of male victims). Of these, 76 percent had been stalked by the partner in the year prior to their murder. Murder ranks second (after accidents) as the leading cause of death among young women. And if the Supreme Court and abortion opponents really want to protect the lives of fetuses, they might consider this: Murder is the number one cause of death of pregnant women in the United States.

At least there is some recognition of such statistics in legislation called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, sponsored by Senators Kennedy and Gordon Smith. If passed (unlike earlier versions, which were blocked by House Republican leadership), this law would finally classify as hate crimes certain violent, criminal acts that are motivated by the victim's gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.

"Whatever helped bring on the Virginia Tech shootings, it certainly wasn't guns." That's the point gun advocates are scrambling to make; if anything, they argue, the shootings prove that we need more gun access. And President Bush fell in behind them after visiting the memorial service at Virginia (a state that is historically Republican turf, lost in the last two years to a Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, and a Democratic senator, James Webb). Bush didn't get into the gun control issue, saying it wasn't the time or place, but an aide made his position clear to reporters afterward. And Senator John McCain, whose imploding campaign has been seeking to recast him as a Bush lookalike, offered, "We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the second amendment except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people."

Having been committed to a mental health facility for being a danger to himself and others presented no obstacle for Cho Seung-Hui, who bought one gun at a Blacksburg pawnshop and another—a Glock 9—at a Roanoke gun store. Here's a bare-bones list of state gun rules.

- No limits on assault weapons
- State and federal criminal background checks
- No restrictions on concealed weapons-even snub nosed handguns
- Gun owners are held responsible for leaving weapons around children, but no safety lock requirements exist.
- Cities can't hold gun makers liable for gun violence.
- Can't give kids under 18 handguns or assault weapons, but kids can possess rifles and shotguns.
- Can't sell handguns to kids under 18, but any kid over 12 can buy shotguns, older rifles, and assault weapons, all without parental consent.
- You don't need a license to buy a handgun.
- There are no requirements that gun buyers register. The cops have no idea how many guns there are in the state.

Lax gun laws like these combined with precious little awareness of the role violence against women plays in psychopathic behavior have led to tragic results. Will they again?

James Ridgeway is the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Mother Jones.

Ontario Bill to add gender to list of protected groups under Criminal Code of hate crimes

2007-04-18T14:03:00.000-06:00

A Private Member's Bill has been introduced that will allow attacks on women to be treated as hate crimes under the Criminal Code. I am confused here though, are they asking to add gender to the list of protected groups, or to add women? :

On January 17, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), (a coalition of trustees, principals, teachers, students, parents, and police) made a public appeal to the Federal Minister of Justice to amend the Criminal Code public incitement of hatred laws to conform to Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, thereby granting protection to girls and women.

On Thursday, April 19, 2007, Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Etobicoke Centre) will re-introduce a motion in the House of Commons requesting all party support for Bill C-254, his Private Member’s Bill that adds gender to the identifiable groups protected under the Criminal Code law on public incitement of hatred. Currently, the law protects those groups identified by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.

In commenting on Bill C-254, Ken Coran, president of OSSTF said, “As an active member of the media violence coalition and as educators, we understand that prevention is key to stopping the effects of media violence but we also believe that leaving women out of the current law on public incitement of hatred is just plain wrong.”

Adding, “OSSTF is proud to add its name to the long list of individuals and organizations that have been calling for this change. We believe that leaving women and girls off the list compromises their safety and this amendment is long overdue.

From OSSTF website

Small Towns in Canada Making Huge Environmental Changes!

2007-04-17T13:44:00.000-06:00

Leaf Rapids Manitoba is the first municipality in Canada to ban plastic shopping bags! This is exciting, but there are only 550 residents in this town.... If only Toronto could take this on as an issue, perhaps with the help and advice of the Mayor of San Francisco, who announced just last month it will be banning shopping bags. Toronto recently joined San Fran's Digital City Network, which seeks to connect municipal government's in various hubs in matters of networking, media, film and economic exchange. Perhaps Miller could tap into San Fransico's already in place infrastrucutre for dealing with the plastic bag problem.

Wolfville Nova Scotia announced today it is Canada's first Fair Trade Town. It's a move that will have economic benefits for the town, and I imagine it will significantly reduce it's ecological footprint.
Importantly for the Atlantic provinces, this will mean that more money will be put back into the local economy instead of being invested in importing goods from other provinces or countries.
Mayor Bob Stead says "it's almost impossible to talk about fair trade without in this instance talking about buying local and fair price for local produce as well." When the community was considering supporting fair trade farmers in other countries, it realized it should also be supporting local farmers who are suffering major losses.
And of course, the less goods that are transported across Canada and imported form other countries, the less fuel that is used. Win win.

Good read: John Jacobs on the problem of "Atlantica" (trading scheme between Maritimes and New England).

Virginia Tech: no one is terrified

2007-04-16T13:50:00.000-06:00

An American news article about the murders at Virgina Tech yesterday, which resulted in 32 deaths (including the gunman) and 22 injuries, ended with this statement:

"FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said there was no evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, "but all avenues will be explored."

That is fascinating. The word terrorism is a brand name relating only to anti-US, anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist actions. Apparently, a Man on a violent rampage who shoots 54 people while hunting for his estranged girlfriend is NOT considered an to be comitting an act of terrorism! What shall we call it then?
Old hat?

Liberals will not run candidate in Elizabeth May's riding!

2007-04-12T23:50:00.000-06:00

Dion will not run a Liberal candidate against Green party Leader Elizabeth May in the next federal election. May, who does not have a seat, has chosen to run in the Nova Scotia riding of Central Nova, currently held by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

This is a very surprising move, and perhaps ill fated as that riding has long been a Conservative stronghold--can May really unseat MacKay? The move demonstrates how strong Dion's commitment is to environmental issues that he is willing to forgo putting forward his own candidate. (May is widely respected for her lobbying about climate change--though I have doubts about how left of centre she actually is given her surprising and disappointing comments about abortion).

The two leaders will hold a joint press conference Friday, and will stress the importance of action on climate change.

For full news see CBC article

Diabetic blogger challenges Apple to design a medical device (glucose monitor)

2007-04-10T16:02:00.000-06:00

Amy Tenderich, who writes an extensive blog about living with diabetes called Diabetes Mine, has written an open letter to Steve Jobs at Apple. Following the news that Apple has sold their 100 millionth iPod, she's hoping the company can devote some of their technological finesse to designing a sleeker, more effecient, more portable medical device for diabetics. What a great idea!

"Dear Steve Jobs,

I’m writing to you on behalf of millions of people who walk around wired to little tech devices and won’t leave the house without them. No, I’m not talking about the iPod — and that’s the point. While your brilliant product line enhances the lifestyle of (100) millions, I’m talking about the little devices that keep us alive, the people with chronic conditions.

Let's talk about diabetes, the disease that affects 20 million Americans, and I'm one of them.

Whether blood glucose monitor or insulin pump, thanks to the achievements of medical device companies, we can now live a normal life by constantly monitoring and adjusting our blood sugar levels.

But have you seen these things? They make a Philips GoGear Jukebox HDD1630 MP3 Player look pretty! And it’s not only that: most of these devices are clunky, make weird alarm sounds, are more or less hard to use, and burn quickly through batteries. In other words: their design doesn’t hold a candle to the iPod.

Most people on this planet can't agree on much, but most do agree that Apple knows how to design outstanding high-tech devices. It’s your core expertise. It’s your brand. It’s you and Jonathan Ive.

We are, of course, deeply grateful to the medical device industry for keeping us alive. Where would we be without them? But while they’re still struggling with shrinking complex technologies down to a scale where we can attach them, hard-wired, to our bodies, design kinda becomes an afterthought.

This is where the world needs your help, Steve. We’re people first and patients second. We’re children, we’re adults, we’re elderly. We’re women, we’re men. We’re athletes, we’re lovers.

If insulin pumps or continuous monitors had the form of an iPod Nano, people wouldn’t have to wonder why we wear our “pagers” to our own weddings, or puzzle over that strange bulge under our clothes. If these devices wouldn’t start suddenly and incessantly beeping, strangers wouldn’t lecture us to turn off our "cell phones" at the movie theater.

In short, medical device manufacturers are stuck in a bygone era; they continue to design these products in an engineering-driven, physician-centered bubble. They have not yet grasped the concept that medical devices are also life devices, and therefore need to feel good and look good for the patients using them 24/7, in addition to keeping us alive.

Clearly, we need a visionary to champion this disconnect. We need an organization on the cutting edge of consumer design to get vocal about this issue. Ideally, we need a “gadget guru” like Jonathan Ive to show the medical device industry what is possible.

What we need here is a sweeping change in industry-wide mentality — achievable only if some respected Thought Leader tackles the medical device design topic in a public forum. We therefore implore you, Mr. Jobs, to be that Thought Leader.

We have begun by brainstorming a number of actions that you and/or Apple could take to jumpstart this discussion:

* Sponsor a contest by Apple Inc. for best-designed med device from an independent party, and the winning item will receive a makeover from Jonathan Ive himself

* Conduct a “Med Model Challenge”: the Apple design team takes several existing medical devices and demonstrates how to “pimp” them to be more useful and cool

* Establish Apple Med Design School – offer a course on consumer design concepts to selected engineers from leading pharma companies

We need a creative mind like yours to help change the world, again. We, the undersigned, call upon you to take action now.

Yours Truly,

DDD (Digital Device Dependent)"

Faye Turner: one of these things is not like the other...

2007-04-04T17:00:00.000-06:00

Iranian President Ahmadinejad released the trespassing British sailors today on account of it being Mohammad's birthday, as well as the celebration of Jesus the Christ's passing in the West. How very clever.
This picture shows them leaving his presidential palace, waving happily to the media. Don't they look dashing in their shiny suits! Hmmmmmm.

Now, the Iranian public has been quite vocal about wanting to let "the woman" go home up to this point. It was reported that the public felt a woman and mother shouldn't be held as a prisoner, and that really she shouldn't be a sailor in general.
In President Ahmadinejad's speech, he says "How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don't they respect family values in the West?"
Despite the fact that she is, indeed, a sailor, we can see from the photo that she has not been provided with professional clothing like her male counterparts for her meeting with the President.
Really? Deny her profession, deny her professional attire?
I think the photo says it all.

No one deserves that much money

2007-04-01T18:20:00.000-06:00

According to a recent article by Naomi Klein, Conrad Black's lawyers had a hard time finding a jury that did not resent a filthy rich man who represented corporate America. The idea that all corporations and big businesses serve only themselves and line their pockets from the labour of underpaid workers is commonly held by, well, the common folk.

"Black has come face to face with the casualties of the boom's collapse and of the ideological revolution he so aggressively globalized.

As the judge questioned a pool of 140 prospective jurors in order to whittle the group down to 12, plus eight alternates, she found men and women who had "lost every dime" in the WorldCom collapse, whose pensions had evaporated on the stock market, who had been fired thanks to outsourcing and who'd had their finances ravaged by identity theft.

Asked what they thought of executives who earn tens of millions of dollars, prospective jurors answered almost uniformly in the negative. "Who could possibly do that much work or be that capable?" one asked.

A union mechanic's apprentice pointed out that no matter how much he works, "I'm barely getting by as it is, living at home." No one said, "More power to you."

Many appeared to regard North America's ultra-rich the way Russians see their oligarchs: even if the way they amassed their fortunes was legal, it shouldn't have been. "I just don't think anyone should get that amount of money from any company, example Enron and WorldCom," one prospective juror wrote.

Others said, "I feel that there is corruption everywhere"; anyone paid as much as Black "probably stole it"; "I am sure this goes on all the time and I hope they get caught." John Tien, an accountant at Boeing, launched into such an elaborate lecture about the accounting scams endemic in corporate America that Black's lawyers asked the judge to question him in private to prevent his views from influencing the other potential jurors.

Regardless of what else happens in the Black saga, the jury selection process has already provided an extraordinary window onto the way regular Americans, randomly selected, view their elites not as heroes, but as thieves.

As far as Black is concerned, this is all terribly unfair. He is being "thrown to the mobs" because of rage at the system and because, unlike American billionaires, he doesn't "dress in corduroy trousers" or donate his fortune to AIDS charities. Black's lawyers even argued (unsuccessfully) that their client could not get a fair trial because the average Chicagoan 'does not reside in more than one residence, employ servants or a chauffeur, enjoy lavish furniture or host expensive parties'".

Nope, the only way Black can got off on this one is if he is tried by his peers, that is, a group of elitest wealthy business people who know about the hardships of getting caught.

Equal Rights Amendment is getting a Second Push

2007-03-28T19:24:00.000-06:00

"Federal and state lawmakers have launched a new drive to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reviving a feminist goal that faltered a quarter-century ago when the measure did not gain the approval of three-quarters of the state legislatures.

The amendment, which came three states short of enactment in 1982, has been introduced in five state legislatures since January. Yesterday, House and Senate Democrats reintroduced the measure under a new name -- the Women's Equality Amendment -- and vowed to bring it to a vote in both chambers by the end of the session." - Washington Post

According to the article, the ERA was first proposed in 1923.... it's unbelievable the amount of time common sense takes. I mean really, how could it have failed to be approved? Who says no to equal rights? What do the nay-sayers believe equal rights are, that they would say "absolutely not!"?
Then again, what does passing the Bill accomplish? Is it just words that say women and men are equal? Could that really be contested legally--will the Bill affect the legal system, the hiring process, the payment of salaries..?

Read the full article at the Washington Post.

This follows so closely on the heels of a parallel struggle in Canada to preserve the function of the Status of Women Department. I've got a preliminary page up with a brief timeline following the dismantling of the agency by the Harper Government since September 2006. The article is incomplete, however the resources are excellent.

NB Gov thinks raising taxes will stop mass exodus...

2007-03-16T14:39:00.000-06:00

The Liberal Government of New Brunswick announced their $6.6-billion budget Monday, projecting a surplus of $37 million for 2007-08 (A CBC article called this a "small surplus". Is it? I have no idea what provincial-sized bank-accounts should look like, but it doesn't seem small).

The point of the budget is: New Brunswick is poor and spending more money than it takes in. This is due to fledgling natural resources/economy, and a mass exodus of workers and talent.

Premier Shawn Graham revealed that personal taxes and corporate income taxes (CIT) will be raised. Also, the New Brunswick Liquor Corp, always a big revenue generator for the government, has been ordered to boost its net income by $13 million. You hear that? The government will be stripping an extra percentage off your hourly $7.50, AND will be asking you to chip in some more money when you buy beer. You WILL pay for every last drop of pavement on the highway.

Effective Jan. 1, 2007, the province's personal income tax rates will be increased in order to generate an additional $50 million in revenue annually. The new rates will be 10.12 per cent on the first income bracket, 15.48 per cent on the second, 16.80 per cent on the third and 17.95 per cent on the fourth bracket.

For a one-earner family of two with taxable income of $40,000, this represents an increase of $42 in New Brunswick personal income taxes for 2007 compared to 2006.

2003-2006 rates were : 9.68% on first $33,450; 14.82% on $33,450 to $66,902; 16.52% on $66,902 to $108,768; 17.84% over $108,768.

Let's be clear: I'm NOT against taxes. I am for them. I live in privatized Alberta, where, for example, a public library card costs $12 (plus all your future fines). The community should take care of everyone through a pooling of resources. However, to ask an already impoverished community to pay even more out of their half-empty pockets doesn't seem fair. And to target them through leisure purchases!? There must be some other way to balance the budget. How much federal money do we get? There must be over-spending in an area related to special events/travel expenses and other frivolities. How much do we spend on landscaping provincial buildings?

Further, I don't see how raising taxes in a province with so little income and work is going to attract people.

A recent study by the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies reported that Alberta alone had drawn nearly 13,000 Atlantic Canadians away in the year ending July 1, 2006. Mr. Graham has promised to reverse the exodus and has set a target of attracting 5,000 immigrants a year by 2015.
Yeah, good luck with that.

Rebel Daughter Doris Anderson Dies/ Baudrillard becomes the static he desires.

2007-03-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

This Canadian feminist powerhouse (Editor, novelist, journalist, activist, chairperson) passed away in Toronto this week.

As editor of Chatelaine, Anderson combined typical women’s magazine fare with well-written, hard-hitting investigative pieces on abortion, birth control, discriminatory divorce laws and the wage gap.

Among some of the journalists she hired to write these pieces were June Callwood, Christina McCall (later Newman) Michele Landsberg, Barbara Frum, Sylvia Fraser, anf future governor-general Adrienne Clarckson.

One of her first editorials was an appeal for more women in Parliament -- there were only two female MPs in 1958 . She devoted many pages over the years to pushing for a Royal Commission on the Status of Women (she eventually chaired the SoW Council), and to exposing Canada's systemic social problems such as child abuse, racism, and the plight of our First Nations peoples. Some readers felt that she was turning "a nice wholesome Canadian magazine into a feminist rag." However, circulation, which was 480,000 when she became editor, had increased by the late 1960s to 1.8 million readers, the equivalent of one out of every three women in Canada (!!!)

Anderson eventually quit because they refused to hire her as Editor of Macleans, or to raise her salary of $23,000 to match that of the male Maclean's editor, who had less circulation and was paid $59,000.

While Chair of the Status of Women, Anderson contested the wording of Trudeau’s newly written Constitution. The fall-out from this led to her resignation, but finally, following an ad hoc conference on the subject, the wording was changed to: “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons”.

Lloyd Axworthy, who cancelled the first conference that had been planned to discuss the wording, appointed Lucie Pepin, one of the women on the CACSW board who had voted against holding the conference, as Ms. Anderson's successor. [why not get gwendolyn landolt?]

Anderson then become head of the National Action Committee, a coalition of 700 women’s rights organizations. She remained passionate about women’s involvement in parliament, and was a vocal advocate of Proportional representation.
She also wrote four novels: Two Women, Rough Layout, Affairs of State, The Unfinished Revolution

Quote:
“Every time Lloyd Axworthy opens his mouth, one hundred more women become feminists”

--
DIED TODAY:
Jean Baudrillard

A widely-read French Philosopher and cultural critic. He coined the terms simulacra and hyper-real to describe Western society's mediated reality through technology. I attended a packed lecture he delivered at York University in 2003. I thought I would be all clever and focus on his french delivery, ignoring the subtitles that flashed behind him on screen (weird--most conferences have head-phones and live translators).
Maybe this was his idea of a joke, but he began his french lecture, and the subtitles started too late, then had to speed up to catch up. the words were whizzing by, and a general twitter waved through the crowd as we contemplated our highly mediated and hyperreal moment with the Man himself.

Some quotes:

"The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real."

"Deep down, the US, with its space, its technological refinement, its bluff good conscience, even in those spaces which it opens up for simulation, is the only remaining primitive society."

My New Approach to Dealing with Assholes

2007-03-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

MisGuide to Mothering
Lampooned by Michelle Lovegrove Thomson

Here is an excerpt from a letter to the editor* printed in Fredericton's "Daily Gleaner" on Dec 28, 2006, equanimously titled
"Feels not all persons are created equal".

I have extrapolated five phrases in which the writer explains the facts and realities of womanliness, manliness, and mothering. Readers may re-arrange the letters or words of each section to create a new but equally entertaining phrase. Alternately, you may want to cut the quotes into fortune-cookie sized strips, and keep them in your wallet in case you ever need to fill an awkward silence with an even more awkward silence.

1. "It is incorrect to say that men and women are 'equal' ".

i.e. Loquacious man-tits are made into warts, ho!

2. "A man cannot look after a baby as well as a woman can."

i.e. A fart-boy (aka Sal) cannot, won't, see: a man can be a woman.

3. "Women should not compete with men, because men cannot be mothers."

4. "Only women who cannot be mothers, or those who have already performed the duties of motherhood, should work away from home."

5. "While machines and computers have made it possible for women to compete with men, it defies nature's plan."

--
* This was a letter from a mathematics professor at the University of New Brunswick, a prominent community-member with always harrowingly awful politics. I'm not printing his name here, though perhaps I could seeing as he always signs his letters (he has no problem with defaming himself, why should I hesitate?).

[This was originally a submission for the "Activity Book" issue of Kiss Machine. Read my rejected piece here for free!]

Women not quitting their jobs to breed like they used to

2007-03-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Statscan has just released a study showing that currently, men and women are equally likely to quit their jobs. This, of course, is in direct conflict with the common lore that a businesses should avoid hiring a newly married woman because she will just take leave or quit in a couple of years to have babies.

Worth Repeating: (CBC reports)

A Statistics Canada employment study suggests that women are no more likely to leave their jobs than their male counterparts, challenging the traditional view that women are more likely to quit because of family obligations.
The study, released Friday, says the notion that women are more likely to be absent or quit their jobs has been used to justify the pay inequity between the sexes.

But the federal agency says that while more women than men quit their jobs in the 1980s, levels evened off in the 1990s.
Statistics Canada analyst Xuelin Zhang says that today differences between the sexes are insignificant. The study also found that in terms of paid sick leave, women on average took one day more each year than men.

"Taken together, these results imply that, in Canada, the current gender differences in quits and absenteeism are not significant factors to explain certain gender differences in labour market outcomes, such as the wage gap between men and women," the study says.

For example, the study found that 5.5 per cent of men quit their jobs in 1984 as compared with seven per cent of women. In contrast, 7.7 per cent of women left their jobs in 2002, just slightly above the 7.6 per cent of men.

Zhang says outdated ideas about women's absenteeism may have been used to hold back women workers, creating a career gap between the sexes.

"One explanation for these differences is that women are more likely to quit, more likely to be absent and to take more days of absence than men, and since quits and absences are costly to employers … a cost-minimizing employer would hesitate to hire, train or promote female workers, and would also pay them lower wages," the study says.

The study also noted that 4.2 per cent of women took temporary leaves for pregnancy and maternity in 2002, creating a significant gap in temporary leaves between men and women aged 25 to 34.

--

See Full StatsCan report

saddest face ever sold (well, traded)

2007-03-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today every street corner in Edmonton had pictures of Ryan's sad sad face (newspaper boxes).
Well, my brief love affair with the Oilers is officially over.

status of women cuts update

2007-02-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

Read the Evidence from proceedings of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (February 7, 2007). This is the third panel convened to determine what the impact will be from the $5 million cut to Status of Women, including the elimation of 12 regional SWC offices. How will the removal of funding for advocacy, as well as equality as a goal of the agency, effect women and women's organizations in Canada.
It's a good read. It cleared up some finer points of the policy change for me, and it also provided some heated and jolting discussion once REAL Women (yeah right) spokeperson Gwendolyn Landolt so clearly and unabashedly outlined her hardlined right-wing ideas on "what women want".

Highlights of the REAL vs. reality debate:

MP Irene Mathyssen: I wonder, do you think that equal pay for work of equal value is a laudable goal?

Ms. Gwendolyn Landolt: No, it's a feminist concept. We do not agree with that.

Mrs. Irene Mathyssen: You talked about professionals in Canada, women having reached professional status. Were you aware that even in female-dominated professions in Canada, women still make less on average than their male counterparts?

Ms. Gwendolyn Landolt: Yes. And do you know why that is? Because women work differently from men. We have a different work schedule.... the vast majority of women are still going into the other fields of teaching, service industry, and nursing because it suits them because of family commitments. That's what women prefer. Most of the part-time workers are women, because it's what they want.

In a discussion of LEAF - Women's Legal Education and Action Fund:
Ms. Gwendolyn Landolt: Well, first of all, a lot of what LEAF has done--for example, the rape shield law--we don't agree with.

Hon. Maria Minna: You and I can argue all day about whether or not we agree with the rape shield and all of the other things that were accomplished by LEAF, a great deal of it not through the women's program but actually through the court challenges program [which has been eliminated], and thousands of volunteer hours from the lawyers themselves. But my question to you was what you do for immigrant women who cannot access programs. You say we should not have advocacy. . Providing services and assisting immigrant women with, say, the English program or project isn't enough. Equality is not attained by simply giving a service. You also need to change the system.

In Landolt's opening statement she says:
"We [REAL] reflect what women in Canada want... Times have changed. We have to move into the 21st century. We have to deal with what women want. We have to listen to women- but women are not all feminists. It's deeply troubling that the government is putting out $11 million each year to a variety of feminists to promote an agenda that is not a reflection of what Canadian women want or need. " (She clearly knows what women in Canada want and need, and is speaking for them at this panel).

In her closing statement she says:
"On September 21, MP Mrs. Minna got up in the House of Commons, addressed the government, and said, 'On behalf of all the women of Canada, I'd like to ask about the funding.' Who gave her the choice to speak for all of us?"

Who are you Ms. Landolt?

---
OTHER feminist happenings concerning the cuts to SWC:

New website - Put Equality Back on Track

Excellent blog and resource concerning the cuts and actions: F-email Fightback.
Go here to see some radical cheerleading, and dowload a postcard for Harper created by the New Brunswick Advisory Council.

A slave in a time of no slavery?

2007-02-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

From the Telegraph-Journal:

An ad in a NB newspaper in 1786 promised a reward for the return of slaves who had run away from their "owner", a Loyalist from what is now Fredericton. The runaways included "Nancy, about 24 years old, who took with her a Negro child, about four years old, called Lidge". Nancy was seemingly returned to that slave owner, since in 1800, she asked the Supreme Court of New Brunswick to set her free. The slave-owner said that Nancy had been a slave since birth.
Her two lawyers, who had volunteered their services, argued that she should be freed since slavery was not officially recognized in N.B. On Feb. 18, 1800, the court announced a split decision among the four judges. Nancy lost and remained a slave for another 15 years. Soon after that yearlong trial, one of the slave-owning judges set his slaves free. Nancy's case touched off such protest that it is said slavery became an unworkable institution in the province.

Nancy's story - and other stories of New Brunswick women in our history - should be better remembered. One effort in that direction is Nancy's Award.
Middle-school students can win one of 15 awards named after Nancy Morton. Nancy's Award is offered to students whose entry in the New Brunswick's Regional Heritage Fair touches on some aspect of New Brunswick Women's history. Heritage Week Is Feb. 12 to 19.

World Press Photo Awards

2007-02-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

Some of the winning photographs:

My favourite: Atmona outpost in the West Bank, by Oded Balilty -

The Winning photo, undeservedly so. It's a good photo, but it's not aesthetically nuanced. The photo says "hey look at the clash of opposites!"...yawn -

A fun photo -

Layton lays it out

2007-02-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

Jack Layton's office always replies to e-mails:

"Thank you for sharing your concern for Canada's performance on
protecting our environment.

After so many years of federal inaction, everyday Canadians say the environment is their #1 priority, and New Democrats are listening. The NDP has a comprehensive plan to improve our environment and fight climate change. Our action plan includes:

- Meeting Canada's commitments under the Kyoto protocol
- Developing a national sustainability plan
- Significantly increasing the responsibility of large industries to reduce emissions
- Legislating a mandatory fuel efficiency standard that meets or exceeds leading North American jurisdictions
- Ending subsidies to polluting industries

For detailed information on the NDP's plan for short and long term action, please read the following links:

15 tough amendments to Clean Air Act

NDP's Climate Change Accountability Act

A Green Agenda for Canada

I appreciate your efforts to register your views with me. I hope I can count on your support to make Parliament work on behalf of all Canadians. All the best.

Sincerely,

Jack Layton, MP (Toronto-Danforth)
Leader, Canada's New Democrats"

Well, I guess he won't be making a video for Suzuk.

stymied styrofoam

2007-02-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

I just wrote the NDP a note through their website, and suggested that since they are proposing bans on ATM charges, could they also propose a ban on styrofoam and plastic fast food containers (unrelated issues, but both ban something). Customers can bring their own re-usable containers, or, at the very least, only recycled paper products should be permitted to be used by fast food chains.

Imagine the savings, both economic and environmental: not producing the wasteful material in the first place; a reduction in garbage removal and dump space; a reduction in litter and clean-up costs (since most litter is fast food junk).

I know this is a hard sell, as bringing a plate with you kind of ruins the purpose of fast food. Perhaps there can be an incentive at first: a discount for those who bring their own container (i.e. how "No Frills" charges you extra if you want to carry your groceries in a plastic bag).

So, I thought of the idea because I was visiting David Suzuki's site, where he's promoting his "If I were Prime Minister" tour. He is asking people to submit 20sec videos through youtube in which they describe what measures they would take as PM to protect/clean-up the environment.

I think it would be righteous and hilarious if Jack Layton submitted a video. In fact, I told him so in my e-mail. Let's wait and see.......

txt msg nvl: "The Last Messages"

2007-01-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

A new novel by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala is written entirely in txt msg lingo. Released this month, the novel The Last Messages tells the story of a man who quits his job as an Executive and subsequently travels through-out Europe and India, keeping in touch w/ friends and fam by IM-ing on his mobile.
The 322-page novel --a quest? a techno-picaresque? shorthand epistolary?-- lists his messages and the replies (about 1000 altogether) in chronological order.

I've seen a few novels that make use of e-mail exchanges to tell the story, but this is quite an endeavour, for both the author and the intended reader. I'm behind the idea from a creative standpoint, but do I really want to read 322 pages of txt msgs, complete with broken grammar and slang? Does it make a difference that the messages are fictitious and therefore I can expect some sort of compelling plot? (Is that what I expect when I read a narratve?).

The novel makes me think of Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy, in which he transcribed every word he uttered for a week while living in NYC. It's a real-time monologue, an extended aside.

Which would you rather read? The Last Messages is a creative work that exploits contemporary technology and trends, Soliloquy is an "uncreative" artistic mirror held up to the idea of the monologue, the constructed narrative-reveal. It is pure doumentation. What do the different methods, fecund creativity or "nutritionless" uncreativity, offer? Could you tell the difference between a constructed narrative made to look like documentation, and an actual documented life that resists the tropes of dramatic monologue while still investing in them?

**"nutritionless documentation", and "uncreativity" are terms Goldsmith has used to describe his work.

Peaceful Protest

2007-01-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Today is the day: tens of thousands of protestors gathered in DC to make their point. Out of Iraq!

In addition to the Triad of Congresswomen who created the "Bring Our Troops Home Act", other members of congress were present, pledging their support and outlining what they would be willing to do to effect a policy change.

The Guardian reports that the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing,'' he said, looking out at the masses. "He can't fire you.'' Referring to Congress, he added: "He can't fire us."

"The founders of our country gave our Congress the power of the purse because they envisioned a scenario exactly like we find ourselves in today. Now only is it in our power, it is our obligation to stop Bush.''

Anti-war (or pro-peace) protestors displayed of a memorial of shoes to represent the civilians who have died during the war.

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy: "Alberta Beef" Drag King Cabaret

2007-01-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight's the big night! In honour of visiting speaker Judith Halberstam, a group of us have put together a drag king cabaret. It's my first time doing a drag show, and it seems as though the show is turning into a big deal... bigger than I initally imagined anyway. Author and visual artist Shani Mootoo (who wrote "Cereus Blooms at Night", and recently "He Drown She in the Sea") is filming our performance and dress rehearsal, as well as conducting interviews with us concerning ideas of female masculinity, performativity and gender.

I'll post pictures from tonight's performance soon.

Giddy-up!

Triad of Congresswomen Lead Fight Against Escalation of Iraq War

2007-01-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

"We are a triad to be dealt with," Rep. Woolsey said. "And we will be heard from."
Wow! Do go on.

Three Congresswomen are taking on Bush’s “plan” for escalation, and are proposing an Act of their own to bring the troops home. The women are Rep. Lynn Woolsey and Rep. Barbara Lee, co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the Out of Iraq Caucus. Together, they are introducing the Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act.

Rep. Lee has said “The administration and the President made a mess out of this war – it's illegal, it's immoral, it's wrong – and if they don't know how to bring our troops home and end it, well, we have some very concrete, practical, realistic suggestions."

It gets better:
"They are saying if you have a better plan come up with it," Rep. Waters said. "First of all, it is absolutely unthinkable that this President who led us into war under false pretenses, misleading information, distorted information… would now try to put the responsibility on someone else's shoulders to stop it. But we're up to it. Because we never believed in this war. We all voted against this war. And we are committed to ending this war."

Supporters of the Act are being encouraged to converge upon Capitol Hill on January 27. It's now up to the citizens of the US and members of Congress to fix this horrendous situation created by the Bush Administration.

Read a detailed article about the congresswomen and their plan at The Nation.

unbelievable

2007-01-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

The following is an image from the Globe and Mail's "24 hours in images" page.
Riot police in the Phillipines:

bad KIA bad

2007-01-15T18:42:00.000-07:00

The ad for the new KIA spectra is SO ridiculous and offensive.

It features a man and woman making out in a car parked on the side of the highway. When they're interrupted by the crackle of a police radio it seems they've been stopped by officers. Instead, the woman then gets out of the car, in uniform, tucks her long blonde hair under her police cap and returns to her cruiser.

"Life is better in a Spectra," says the ad.

Wow. The Quebec Police Association has taken offense and lodged a complaint, but KIA doesn't really care how "lady cops" are portrayed.

In an article in today's Toronto Star, Tony Ciccia from the firm that made the commercial (Publicis Canada), states:

"The ad communicates just the brand character intended", and
"Most advertising that goes on air has complaints and this doesn't strike us as out of the ordinary."
"We see no reason to pull the ads."

Perhaps they aren't receiving enough complaints.

Send KIA, and the ad maker a note:

consumer@kia.ca kia canada

mjc@kia.co.kr media relations

yeon@kia.co.kr investor relations

info@publicis.ca attention Tony Ciccia

Amazing!!

2007-01-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Leafy Bug!

Natural Selection aside, how is it that a bug can look so perfectly like a leaf? Like a leaf in the fall when the edges are turning brown? How is it possible that one organism can look exactly like another organism? What if humans needed to look like water to survive....? That would be impossible.

Evangelical Kirk Cameron, lampooningFlying Spaghetti Monster, you ain't got nothing. THIS is the bug that makes me question reality.

See also Deep Astronomy guy's Hubble Deep Field images on
Youtube...

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Pride & Prejudice

2006-12-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

As expected, Harper's motion to reopen the same-sex marriage debate was easily defeated in Parliament today.

Dion allowed a free-vote for the Liberals, and overall 175-123 MPs voted against the motion. Now Harper, can you leave it alone? Will you sink so low as to invoke the notwithstanding clause, or do you know when it's over?

So, now that everyone is assured of their right to marry, let's get on to the next item: Ban Marriage! [I saw the Hidden Cameras last night..... how i've missed them!] Back in 04 when gay marriage was first allowed, the band had to make more ban marriage pins, this time with a same-sex version. nice.

Dion is On

2006-12-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

How does one prepare parliamentary diatribes while spending the weekend sweating and speeching for votes? I have no idea, but somehow Dion has done his homework, and today he began his role as the new leader of the Liberals with exciting and important criticisms. Ignatieff also stepped up with excellent follow-up questions regarding the cuts to Status of Women.

As reported by the G & M:

“When the government is posting a multi-million-dollar budget surplus, thanks to the previous Liberal government, why has the prime minister closed 12 of the 16 Status of Women offices across Canada, if it is not to cripple those who dare challenge his government's neo-conservative ideology?” Dion said.

Mr. Harper responded by assuring the House that the funding cuts would be redirected and reallocated “to make it more effective for ordinary people, not to flow it into party coffers.”

Mr. Ignatieff picked up the baton, asking the government to detail the specific programs and commitments that would gain from the reallocation of funds. Minister for the Status of Women Bev Oda said $5-million would be made available to community organizations across the nation.

--

Maybe the Liberals could also ask Harper why he has refused to introduce equal pay legislation?

that's weird...

2006-12-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

A poll group has created a Relative Happiness Index (RHI) to gauge the level of happiness experienced by Canadians, with special emphasis on finding out whether money actually guarantees happiness or not.

Apparently money really doesn't matter, because New Brunswick scored the highest out of the whole country... We're the happiest! Followed by Newfoundland and PEI.

The Atlantic provinces were the happiest, with the score getting lower and lower in the western provinces. Oddly, Nova Scotia was unlike the rest of the Maritimes and scored the lowest in the country. Why so unhappy NS?

I find NB's results fascinating. How can this be? High unemployment, low wages, constant governemental complaining about the mass-exodus of workers to Alberta, the lack of daycare spots, the unattainable abortion situation (unless you can afford it/have medical approval), the obesity of the population.... and we're the happiest? I wanted to see what questions the survey agency posed, but they were not listed on the website.

Maybe the high Atlantic rating is the result of all that balmy Atlantic weather. It's hard to feel elated here in Edmonton when it hasn't been above -8 since the last week of October....

Happiness is freedom of movement, is being able to speak to the person you are walking beside without having to perform full-body turns because your neck and head are so bundled they won't rotate.

See the article below, or visit their website:

--
The New Brunswick Paradox

More than a paradox, New Brunswick shows all the characteristics of a distinct society and serves up a few lessons on life.
Despite having one of the lowest provincial GDPs and one of the lowest proportions of individuals declaring very high incomes, New Brunswick recorded the highest RHI in Canada.

The paradox is even more evident when you consider the fact that the residents of this province also have a number of the characteristics that normally are associated with a diminishing happiness index. More of them come from large families and, as we saw before, members of large families tend to have lower-than-average RHI values.

The same is true for people who generally find it more difficult to accept life today as it is and those who are concerned about the future. New Brunswick has the greatest proportion of people with these characteristics. A similar trend exists with technological advances: New Brunswick seems to have more trouble than the other provinces in keeping pace.
Then where does this optimism and greater propensity for happiness come from? Probably from the attitude of New Brunswickers, because their province is the place in Canada that agrees the least with the idea that modern society makes it more difficult to achieve happiness. Furthermore, New Brunswick has the greatest number of individuals who think that people in the past were just as happy as people are today and will be tomorrow. This is definitely a positive attitude.
Although they find it more difficult to accept life today as it is, more of them state that they are living the lives that they dreamed of.

Above all, New Brunswickers appear to be more in touch with their feelings and turned in the highest scores for most of the twelve happiness influence factors. In this regard, and perhaps this is where we should focus our attention, New Brunswick is the only province that did not rank spiritual life last among the happiness influence factors. In fact, they gave it a score of 80.50, which is 12 points over the Canadian average. Another positive attitude.

Will New Brunswick be able to hold its slot when the next RHI is revealed? Is it too early to talk about a trend? While these figures may be indicative of a trend, a number of signs are not very encouraging, including the province's low differential between improvement and deterioration of the state or happiness of people last year (24 versus 26 for Canada) and the fact that there are far fewer New Brunswickers (47% versus 57%) who indicated that they were satisfied with what they had accomplished in their lives up until now.

--

Interesting:
- that NBer's report feeling left behind by technology. Hmm?? Wasn't it Frank McKenna's legacy to entrench NB with IT and communications companies and programmes, and wasn't Fredericton the first "Wireless" city in Canada?
- being collectively happy makes us a distinct society?! sweet. better get rolling on our secession platform.
"Welcome to Irvingville, the capital of Happyland/ Terre de nos Joyeux; We accept Alpine as currency. Bring your own abortionists." [insert mi'gmag & maliseet trans here].

let me count the ways...

2006-11-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

See the following excerpt from a Toronto Star Article on how e-waste (a clever, sanitary term for piles of very real, physical garbage made up of plastics and metal) from wealthy nations* is poisoning and killing workers and residents in poor nations.

*Note, how to characterize the distinctions between these nations? Global South, Global North? Developing and Developed? Third and First World? Poor, Wealthy? Colonized, Colonizing? I'm trying to finds terms that do not generalize or automatically imply values.

--
OTTAWA — Canadians threw out 67,000 tonnes of obsolete computers, cellphones and printers last year, probably not aware that this junk harbours toxins that can kill.
Now the UN Environment Program warns that much of the rich world’s electronic junk is being dumped in developing countries where it can pose serious health risks to those who handle it.

Electronic trash is laced with arsenic, selenium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, mercury and other toxic metals.

Canada is among more than 160 countries who are meeting this week in Nairobi, Kenya in hopes of updating the Basel Convention on Hazardous Waste to deal with the problem.

Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Program, told the conference consumerism was driving a “growing mountain of e-waste” and a lot of it is being dumped in poor African countries.
He referred to a recent case in Ivory Coast, where fumes from European toxic waste killed at least 10 people and left more than 70,000 seeking medical treatment. Now the impoverished country is spending $30 million to retrieve the waste and send it back to France.

“This is a scar on the conscience of the international community,” said UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall.

“A poor country coming out of a civil war with little money, a country with many living on less than a dollar a day, is footing the bill for cleaning up toxic waste which has killed some of its citizens and poisoned thousands more.”

He cited a recent study of the marine environment that found heavy metals and other contaminants from obsolete electronic goods are starting to appear in coastal waters and marine sediments in Asia.

The Basel Convention, of which Canada is a signatory, was intended to prevent dumping of hazardous waste in poor countries. It requires exporters to obtain prior, informed consent of any country receiving waste. But that regulation is being thwarted, partly because of corruption in recipient countries, and partly because it is hard to distinguish toxic waste from second-hand equipment that could still be useful.

Developing countries have proposed an amendment to the Basel Convention that would place a complete ban on the export of hazardous waste to their shores.

About 65 countries, including EU members, now have ratified the amendment but Canada has not, said Sarah Westervelt of the Seattle-based Basel Action Network. She hopes Canada will support the amendment.

Joe Wittwer, an expert at Environment Canada, said Canada will support a strong resolution on dumping of e-waste at the meeting in Nairobi, but he defended the “informed consent” approach.

In the United States alone, some 14 million to 20 million personal computers are thrown out annually. The number of cell phone users will reach two billion by 2008, and studies say cell phones tend to be thrown out within 18 months.

--
*I don't throw out my cell-phones. I drop them in the toilet. Whoops!

suzuk creates pop posters

2006-11-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

Visit my boyfriend at David Suzuki Foundation

Take Back the Tech

2006-11-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

An online campaign calling for everyone to take control of ICTs [information communication technologies] and make efforts to consciously (and conscientiously) change the power relations between men and women.

For 16 days, Nov 25 - Dec 10, Take Back the Tech is asking people to engage with the communication technology around them ("internet, radio, telephone or even your camera") and take action concerning Violence against Women.

Now, you're probably thinking what does ICT have to do with domestic violence, sexual violence, and harassment in the community? There are several reasons to make this connection:
- All sexual violence stems from a base-level understanding in our society that unequal gender dynamics are acceptable; that women (and their bodies) are somehow communal property. [i won't get started on reproduction rights here...]
The mindset that permits a man to make unwanted sexual advances or even mildly annoying (but not physically threatening) cat-calls to me on the street is at its core the same as the mindset that allows a man to beat his partner to death. They stem from the same worldview, and are on the same spectrum of relation, though on opposite ends.

Specifcally, Take Back addresses online harassment and abuse, and also encourages us to use technology as a tool to combat V.A.W.

Some of the connections outlined are:
- Both ICTs and VAW affect our capacity to completely enjoy our human rights and fundamental freedoms.
- For example, websites can be a useful place for women in violent relationships to get information and help. However, tools like spyware and GPS tracking devices have been used by abusers to track and control their partner's mobility.
- Reclaiming women’'s critical participation and contribution to ICTs (e.g. Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper…)
- Echoing the "Take Back The Night" campaign
- Online Spaces - Right To Move Freely Without Harassment or Threat to Safety
- Maintain the right to Shape, Define, Participate, Use, and Share online.

Take Back the Tech has created a wiki through which users can actively participate in this intervention by uploading campaign ideas, stories and experiences, contribute campaign tools, materials, photos, and add resources. It's the perfect formal match for their goal.

So, use technology to make a statement about violence against women: create a poster or photo-collage; create a blog, research and send around a group e-mail, compile newspaper articles on the topic... and don't forget to contribute to the wiki to let the organizers know their network of activism is extending itself.

The shovel is brother to the gun

2006-11-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

A Canadian soldier with her national brand.
I wonder what she feels on this day that honours the fallen. Does she think about our collective idea of a veteran as a kindly old white-haired fellow with his war bride on his arm, accolades adorning one breast-pocket, and a poppy on the other? How does she incorporate herself into that image?

Is it possible for the image of the veteran to be supplanted by today's soldiers who fight under a different and ill-planned banner of justice? Soldiers who lack the ideological support of a large percent of the population? Afghanistan is not a sure thing. Citizens are confused, the government is bumbling, and our Foreign Minister will not apologize for his sexist "mistake" and therefore cannot be expected to be accountable for moral and mortal mistakes in warfare.

~Marge Piercy ~ Right to Life
[A Woman is] not a purse holding the coins of your
descendants till you spend them in wars.

~ Katha Pollit ~
Trying to Write a Poem Against the War

My daughter, who's as beautiful as the day,
hates politics: Face it, Ma,
they don't care what you think! All
passion, like Achilles,
she stalks off to her room,
to confide in her purple guitar and await
life's embassies. She's right,
of course: bombs will be hurled
at ordinary streets
and leaders look grave for the cameras,
and what good are more poems against war
the real subject of which
so often seems to be the poet's superior
moral sensitivities? I could
be mailing myself to the moon
or marrying a palm tree,
and yet what can we do
but offer what we have?
and so I spend
this cold gray glittering morning
trying to write a poem against war
that perhaps may please my daughter
who hates politics
and does not care much for poetry, either.

~ Wilfred Owen ~
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: "Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

~ Randall Jarrell~
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

~ Carl Sandburg ~
Iron

Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

      I ask you
      To witness-
      The shovel is brother to the gun.

~ ani difranco ~
to the teeth

the sun is setting on the century
and we are armed to the teeth
we're all working together now
to make our lives mercifully brief
and schoolkids keep trying to teach us
what guns are all about
confuse liberty with weaponry
and watch your kids act it out
and every year now like christmas
some boy gets the milkfed suburban blues
reaches for the available arsenal
and saunters off to make the news
and the women in the middle
are learning what poor women have always known
that the edge is closer than you think
when the men bring the guns home

look at where the profits are
that's how you'll find the source
of the big lie that you and i
both know so well
in the time it takes this cultural
death wish to run it's course
they're gonna make a pretty penny
and then they're all going to hell
he said the chickens all come home to roost
yeah, malcolm forecasted this flood
are we really gonna to sleep through another century
while the rich profit off our blood?
true, it may take some doing
to see this undoing through
but in my humble opinion
here's what i suggest we do:

open fire on hollywood
open fire on MTV
open fire on NBC
and CBS and ABC
open fire on the NRA
and all the lies they told us
along the way
open fire on each weapons manufacturer
while he's giving head
to some republican senator

and if i hear one more time
about a fool's right
to his tools of rage
i'm gonna take all my friends
and i'm gonna move to canada
and we're gonna die of old age

~ Moxy Fruvous ~
Gulf War Song

we got a call to write a song about the war in the gulf
but we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings
so we tried but gave up 'cause there was no such song
but the trying was very revealing
what makes a person so poisonous righteous
that they think less of anyone who just disagrees
she's just a pacifist
he's just a patriot
if i said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?

fighters for liberty
fighters for power
fighters for longer turns in the shower
and history seems to agree that I would fight you for me

so we read and we watched all the specially selected news
and we learned so much more about the good guys

won't you stand by the flag was the question unasked
won't you stand by and fight for the allies?

what can we say, we're only twenty five years old
with 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold
this kind of life makes that violence unthinkable
we'd like to play hockey, have kids and grow old

fighters for texaco
fighters for power
fighters for longer turns in the shower

don't tell me i can't fight cause i'll punch out your lights
and history seems to agree
that i would fight you for me
that us would fight them for we

is that how it always will be?

toy ideas...

2006-11-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

Very popular this year is the reclaimed Gun. Curious. These two models, Caroline and Svetlana, come from Antonio Riello's "Ladies Weapons" collection. Fascinating.

See also this reclaimed gun by Columbian musician Cesar Lopez called la escopetarra.

My personal fav is this Jimmy Carter doll from Toy Presidents.

He speaks! Some of his phrases are:
- “Americans did not invent Human Rights. In very real sense, human rights invented America.”
- “Every single American must stop wasting energy”

I wonder how many US citzens are wistful for the days of a President who said, in 1979 in his "crisis of confidence" speech:
"To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel." Though I suppose most from the US would be happy just to have peacetime.

On that note, once more with feeling:

iPod Man

2006-11-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

An intrepid nerd who spends hours combing the surface of the planet with Google Earth has uncovered a peculiar shape in the Rocks of Northern Alberta: a huge representation of an aboriginal man (complete with head-dress)....who appears to have an ear-bud in his ear.... presumably attached to his iPod.

in the doghouse (yeah, yeah...)

2006-10-24T13:00:00.001-06:00

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.

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

2006-10-19T23:57:00.000-06:00

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!

Action Overload: Harper vs. Canada

2006-10-16T16:08:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-10-05T12:15:00.000-06:00

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!

Dying for an Education

2006-10-03T17:58:00.000-06:00

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

Who needs real life when it can be filtered through film?

2006-09-25T23:03:00.000-06:00

In 1932, Huey Long said "Fascism will come to America, but likely under another name, perhaps anti-fascism."

I'm awaiting the release of "All the King's Men" a remake of the 1949 film of the same name, which was based on the Robert Penn Warren novel of the same name. At first I thought it was a remake of the classic 1976 film"All the President's Men" (Hoffman and Redford), but Tessa pointed out that THAT film title was a nod to the prior film/novel about political corruption and intrigue.

Ah the lineage... in an case, the character of Willie Stark in "All the King's Men" is based on Huey Long.... I await Sean Penn's impassioned portrayal.
Now, I wonder if he traces his lineage to Robert Penn Warren...

Also awaiting, popcorn and junior mints at the ready:
~Sophia Coppola's Marie Antionette;

~The Helen Mirren vehicle "The Queen" about how the Queen dealt with Diana's death;

~Dito Montiel's autobiographical "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" starring Hollywood's best and much-maligned actor Robert Downey Jr. (as well as the break-dancing hooligan from "Step Up" -say what?)

~Inarritu's Babel and Kevin MacDonald's The Last King of Scotland look stunningly shot and crafted, and promise intelligent writing, but they may be too depressing for me right now.

"Women's rights, but...". I can see we're going to have a problem.

2006-09-18T14:17:00.000-06:00

I've just stumbled upon one of the most corrupt-thinking, mind-boggling organizations ever. REAL Women of Canada (Realistic, Equal, Active, for Life) is a group currently lobbying the government to eliminate the Status of Women Council and Ministerial position.

Why would a group that purports to "promote equality for ALL women" (my emphasis) want to do away with Canada's main body for ensuring women's rights? Because REAL women feels the Status of Women has "discriminatory practices", in specific they criticize Bev Oda and the council for its "reprehensible policies of consulting with, promoting and funding only feminist organizations and continu[ing] to discriminate against all other women’s grass root organizations."
Their mandate is to promote equality for all women, EXCEPT feminists. Or more interesting, what is this distinction they are making between feminist and grassroots groups? Unless a group is working to limit or take away women's rights and freedoms (i.e. lobbying to ban abortion, to ban tubal ligations (Hey Humboldt!)), I consider it a feminist organization.

Part of REAL's project, in eliminating the Status of Women, would be to do away with funding for over 500 women's shelters across canada. How can they justify removing survival mechanisms? Do only their hated feminists need shelters? Who are the members of this group, and why are they attacking women's rights under the pretense of caring?

Read their Letter to Bev Oda
[They quote Minister Oda's response, which simply states, "This government is committed to promoting women’s human rights and eliminating barriers for women...there is still work to do to make sure women can enjoy full equality in their day to day lives. As Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, I will continue to work with organizations to attain concrete results in achieving full equality for women." REAL's response to Oda's reply? "We were furious. We wrote to Ms Oda on June 8, 2006 stating that her letter was deeply offensive to our organization in that she had either ignored and/or dismissed the main points of our letter of April 4, 2006."]

Women enjoying full equality as infuriating and offensive.
Fascinating, how so?
Who are you, really, for you cannot be sane women. (The president is indeed a woman, though I am suspicious of the membership).

Take their Humanist (I guess? very problematic) official motto:
Women’s rights, but not at the expense of human rights
There is no way to break that statement down in a way that makes it coherent and sensible.

Compare their motto with this popular slogan brought out at all four UN conventions on Human Rights in the Nineties:*
Women's Rights are Human Rights

What emerges is that REAL Women classifies women as extraneous to some human essence.
REAL: Campaigning for "women's rights" on the basis that women are NOT equal to humans. i.e. Uphold Human rights above all else. Who do they think could possibly be negatively impacted by achieving women's rights?.... oh, the Humans. Those neutral, default beings, men, or more accurately, Man. [That's them, not me!]

UN delegates: Campaigning for women's rights on the basis that woman ARE equal to humans. i.e. uphold women's rights because they are human.
Different understandings of Human, or different understandings of women?

Humanist? Feminist? Humanist? Feminist? Can you be one without being the other? Can you call REAL's policy Humanist, when it holds one genera of existence as more important? Can you separate Woman from Human? Have you ever felt yourself to be especially Human, more than you've felt Womanly or Manly???? (or somewhere in-between?)
I don't get it. When I read a novel about a Haixla teenaged girl in Kitimat, BC (Eden Robinson's "Monkey Beach") I enter her world, but I do so from my distinct identity as a Canadian WASPy Woman from the East Coast. I can't say I know what it's like to separate from my distinct existence, to transcend it and experience pure Humanity.

As for the name of the organization, I don't get couching misogyny inside of a friendly label. Why not call themselves Anti-Feminist Group? (or Anti-Women's Group for that matter)? Anti-feminism is clearly stated and upheld as a major tenet of their organization, why shy away from spelling it out?

I can't stand this sneaky proclivity right-wing and corporate organizations have for naming their lobby-groups, in which they create names that are opposite to their actual function. They KNOW they're trying to fool somebody. Groups like "Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions" (a group composed of Canada's trade associations largely opposed to the country's plan to adopt the Kyoto global warming treaty) and "Foundation for Clean Air Progress" (FCAP) (formed specifically to pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to adopt tougher air pollution controls).

So how about you? Are you feeling particularly Human today? Why not act on it and form an organization devoted to depriving a para-human (children perhaps? the blind? can Men be considered as Other than Human?) of their rights.

Begin your motto with "Man's rights, but...."

* World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna 1993; Intl Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, 1994; World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen 1995; and Fourth world Conference on Women in Beijing 1995. From Stephen Lewis "Race Against Time" Chapter IV: Women: Half the World, Barely Represented.

hey you ugly

2006-09-13T00:23:00.000-06:00

I've long avoided myspace because its so, damn, messy and unpleasing to look at. now that I've watched this video by zefrank, i see myspace in a new light. it's still ugly in the new light, but its a profound ugliness that says F-U hegemonic art-practices, I have the right to figure this out!

the show with zefrank

Thanks Stacy and Peter for sending this my way.
Watch on Zefrank's website: Ugly

Chile Provides free Birth Control and Emergency Contraception!

2006-09-07T11:09:00.000-06:00

At the behest of the Chilean Center for the Development of Women, who asked for greater accessibility to Emergency Contraception, the Chilean Health Ministry decided that contraception will be publicly available for all women over the age of 14 FREE of charge.

According to IPS, all public health centers must dispense birth control, including emergency contraception (EC), free of charge. The decree also ensures that younger women can without authorization from their parents obtain a prescription for birth control pills.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, (a former a pediatrician) has responded to right-wing and Catholic criticism by saying, "The obligation of the state is to provide alternatives, and the obligation of families, of each one of us, is to communicate with our children, explain things to them, and to teach them." Government Spokesperson Ricardo Weber expanded on the real need for Chile to provide these services, telling IPS that 14 of every 100 young people are sexually active by the age of 14.

I'm just so impressed. There's really been a reversal of leadership roles between North and South America.
For now, let's imagine a US in which zealot pharmacists cannot deny women their sexual and reproductive freedoms.

ah, the fairytale life of a prostitute.

2006-09-02T23:01:00.000-06:00

"Are you going to charge yours?"
"No - Tonight we are not prostitutes.... We are Princesses"

The final words in the trailer for Spanish film Princesas.
Let's watch these two gorgeous women grow close through their mutual hardships of working as prostitutes. It's not all that bad! There are fun times too! and sometimes, they have sex for free, when the men are really nice! [i.e. when they aren't beaten]how lovely.

How come some people get to make films, when I don't?

Maybe Disney can add these women to their Princesses brand.

Jessica Grant is my new favourite

2006-08-29T12:42:00.000-06:00

The final reader at this weekend's Calgary Blow-Out, St. John's native Jessica Grant blew me away with her witty, quick and quirky style.

"The first piece I'm going to read will take about five minutes, and then I'm going to read a second piece which will take about eight minutes.. just so you'll know exactly what is going to happen"

She began her first story, which she thinks, no, she is sure is the first chapter of a novel. We meet a woman who's pet tortoise Winnifred has died. She thinks it has died because Winnifred's head doesn't poke out. After deliberating, she wraps Winnifred in five paper bags and throws her in the garbage bin over the railing. She calls her friend to say that she doesn't have to look after Winnifred anymore, Winnifred is dead.
She arrives at the airport, and while waiting to board remembers hearing that sometimes tortoise's hearts can beat very slowly, about once and hour. Maybe Winniffred wasn't dead! But is dying now in the dumpster... should she go home?
But she can't miss her plane, she has to go see her father who is in a comma, no a coma. She made that mistake yesterday when writing an e-mail. Perhaps Winnifred is in a comma, not a coma. She is in a pause between heart-beats.....

I LOVE it. that's the basic action of the story but the details and tone were hilarious and bittersweet.

Jessica Grant's most recent publication is Making Light of Tragedy Porcupine’s Quill, 2004.

jaunt

2006-08-23T13:58:00.000-06:00

Well I'm off for a self-invented long-weekend. It was supposed to be my reward for having figured out exactly what I'm doing with my thesis.... That didn't quite work out, but I get to go anyway. A pre-reward for the work I'll do upon my return. uh huh.

First stop: Banff. Hot springs, hiking, and most importantly, the Banff Centre. Friday is open house day for the Visual Arts, and all summer-residencies are showing their work. Synchronistically, my search for Janet Cardiff lead me here. Her collaboration with George Bures Miller "Forest Walk/House Fire" is currently mounted at the Walter Phillips. The description is unclear, but I'm hoping for another hand-held camera/tour experience.

Then Saturday I'm on to Calgary, where through another bout of synchronicity filling station is hosting the second "Calgary Blow-Out", a who's-who roster of spoken word and sound poetry performances (I know, sounds like a blast right? quite).

Performing Saturday evening:
Paul Kennett
Jane Grove
Christian Bök
Neil Scott
(break, featuring short films by emerging Canadian directors)
Jason Christie
Nikki Reimer
Jessica Grant

Sweet! I'm hoping to be so inspired be the lush beauty of Banff, the multi-disciplinary creativity of Cardiff +Miller, and the intellect of the poetry that my thesis plans will fall perfectly into place.

QUEBEC ORDERED TO PAY FOR WOMEN'S ABORTIONS

2006-08-21T20:00:00.000-06:00

The government has been ordered to pay abortion bills for as many as 45,000 women who had abortions in the province. The Superior Court has ordered the Quebec government to repay more than $13 million billed to 45,000 women who paid $200-$300 for authorized abortions outside of the hospital system since 1999. The court said abortions are covered under the Quebec Health Insurance Act, and the women should not have been charged extra. The class-action lawsuit was launched in 2002 by the Association for Access to Abortion.

- Excerpts, Quebec ordered to pay for women's abortions, CanWes, 19 Aug 06.

2006-08-15T22:53:00.000-06:00

Very Nice, Very Nice

Classic Canadian short, made entirely of footage that Arthur Lipsett found on the cutting room floor at the NFB.

the anti-love letter

2006-08-14T17:34:00.000-06:00

Tired of hearing about how crappy New Brunswick is? Me too. Why are practices that seem so logical as to be automatic, entirely--systematically--overlooked by our Conservative government? (Is the answer in the statement?) Thankfully Lord finally called an election (er, well, he sort of did). I’ll be writing all candidates with a short concise list of the many ways the Conservatives have turned our province into an extremely unwelcoming place to live--for everyone.

1. Instead of legislating mandatory pay equity, they instead proposed a five-year “voluntary” plan, in which businesses can opt to pay women their fair share, if they want to (equal pay for equal labour). The government (a new one) will review the situation in five years to see if anyone actually changed their policies, once all momentum has been lost.

2. Planned Parenthood has just announced that after 34 years, it will be forced to suspend all services in September due to lack of funding, and a lack of doctors to keep the Second Story Health Clinic running. This one makes me sigh very exhaustedly and deeply. Why is women’s health so completely undervalued? no midwives, no abortions, no clinics, no free condoms, no free paps, and hell no there won’t be a free HPV vaccine...

3. Apparently, Saint John has the highest percentage of lone parents living in poverty (60%) of all Canadian cities! Most of them are single mothers, a huge percentage are teen mother’s who are unable to complete their high school education due to lack of daycare, and integrated programs in the schools to assist pregnant/parenting students.
See Influencing Healthy Public Policy For Pregnant And Parenting Young Women and Closing the Gaps: Ensuring Pregnant Teens and Young Women Succeed

4. Stop violating the Canada Health Act: PROVIDE abortion services. FUND abortions. It’s really that straightforward.

Funny how all our problems seem to be related.

on the importance of reading: tag, I'm it!

2006-08-02T10:57:00.000-06:00

I got this list of question off a. raw's blog:

1. one book that changed your life:
Daughters of Copperwoman “by” Anne Cameron

(I’m going to squeeze in Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Brave New World, and Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke). All read when I was 13-14, and pivotal in shaping my ideas on time, womanliness, and multiple realities. I must include them all; they’re a cocktail of my burgeoning.
Hmmm. I think I should scrap all of my theory-reading and get back to my beginnings in Sci Fi and Fantasy.

2. one book you’ve read more than once:
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion."

3. one book that has made you cry: (newly remembered question)
"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
I FINALLY read the Bell Jar this year. It's a phenomenal read, but I'm glad I didn't read it until now; I wasn't ready until now. You need to already know that you're of sound intelligence, that you're work/creativity/passions are valued (by you mostly, but also the community), and that you can do WHATEVER you want. These are things a woman must know. Plath only half-knew these things, in a time when all society told her the opposite.

The book affirms all we know about the relations of talented & brilliant woman and men, and who gets short-changed in that equation (for those who don't know, it's the one who drives herself nuts taking care of children in the remote English country-side [while hubby-poet snogs first-years] and solves the problem by sticking her head in an oven).
Multiply by Elizabeth Smart, and, well, its horrifying how mothering/creating/success was so stymied for so many women. At least Smart survived. Is it different now?

So, in answer to this question of crying: In "The Bell Jar" Plath survives her first case of suicide and institutionalization; I the reader know that after this novel was lived she entered two more time-tested institutions: Academia and Marriage.
They destroyed her. and I cried and cried.

4. one book that made you giddy:
Eunoia by Christian Bok, especially in performance, espacially Chapter U.
“Ubu cups Lulu’s dugs; Ubu rubs Lulu’s buns; thus Lulu must pull Ubu’s pud...Ubu stuffs Ruth’s bum (such fun).”

5. one book that you wish had been written:
“How to have Children and Tenure within the Next 10 Years of My Life: an Explanatory Guide and Timeline”.

6. one book you wish had never been written:
Science of Survival by L. Ron Hubbard (1951)

7. one book you’re currently reading:
Quantum Feminist Mnemotechnics by Carolyn Guertin (Ph.D Dissertation 2003). This is what I keep trying to start as research for my thesis.
I actually just finished Chris Kraus’s Aliens and Anorexia, and I Love Dick

8. one book you’ve been meaning to read:
Silence by John Cage - it’s been sitting neglected on my shelf since fall 2004.

Please listen to Cage's story about translating a Basho poem about Mushrooms. pine mushroom. ignorance. leaf of tree. adhesiveness.

9. now tag people.
Christina and Sean, Leslie, Martha, and Morgan

**All welcome to post their answers!**

anti-choice group plans to shock women into remaining pregnant

2006-07-28T11:56:00.000-06:00

(Daily Gleaner Photo)

For the past two weeks, Frederictonians have been confronted on their streets by a group of protestors from Burnt River, ON calling themselves "Show the Truth". Their truth includes displaying large posters depicting inaccurate and doctored photos of supposedly aborted fetuses (when in fact the photos all show images of fetuses and babies much too far along the development path). Wednesday night the Morgentaler clinic was vandalized with spray-paint.

The city is in an uproar over the images, which keep popping up at various intersections and at City Hall. The rhetoric behind the city's anger is quite troubling, as everyone is SO careful to state that the problem is with the images, not the issue.
Wrong!! The problem here is that a group of righteous religious zealots have decided they know what is best for every single woman in Canada. And they are taking their message to your town, and pushing their misinformation and shock tactics in your face. The cruel irony here is that New Brunswick is the only province that DOES NOT provide abortions!!! All women in the province must go to the private Morgentaler clinic and pay up to $700 out of her own pocket for this essential health service.

Truly, it doesn't matter whether their depictions of aborted fetuses are accurate or not--the point is that the anti-choicers are a group of self-appointed saviours who want to force women to bring children into the world, no matter the circumstances, quality of life, emotional and physical distress, or ability to parent.

This week Frederictonians decided they'd had enough, and a group of 30 protestors gathered in front of City Hall to block the anti-choice mob from view. Holding up their own posters, umbrellas, shirts, and blankets, this group demonstrated it's about both the images AND the issue. A young woman obscures a grotesque poster with her own, stating "If you can't trust me to choose, how can you trust me with a child?"

My sister Liane participated in the counter-protest, and will be posting a description of events here soon.

In the meantime, I'm putting up a letter I have written to Brad Green, Minister of Health, regarding the province's decision to STOP providing ALL abortions as of June 30. Please feel free to send it along to Hon Green, as well as your MLA, and Fed. Health Minister Tony Clement.

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Re: Immediate Action Required to Reinstate Abortion Services

Dear Honourable Brad Green;

I am writing you on the urgent matter of abortion availability in New Brunswick. Women in NB have not had access to provincially-funded abortions since June 30. This is a gross injustice and is putting the lives and health of women at risk.

Please act immediately to ensure:
1. The Chalmers Hospital begins performing fully-funded abortions at once
2. At least one other hospital in the province also offers this essential service
3. Provincial funding for the Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton.
4. The immediate repeal of Regulation 84-20, Schedule 2(a.1)) of New Brunswick's Medical Services Payment Act, which states that abortions can only be funded by Medicare with the approval of two doctors and must be performed at a hospital. This regulation violates women's constitutional rights, as well as all five principles of the Canada Health Act (comprehensiveness, universality, accessibility, portability, and public administration). In addition, NB is the only province in Canada that requires this unconstitutional process.

In the current emergency situation, all NB women are being forced to have abortions at the privately operated Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, if they are fortunate enough to afford this essential service. The cost is $600 to $700, and the procedure can only take place on a Tuesday morning. By forcing all women to obtain abortions at a private clinic the province is not only violating women’s rights, but is also discriminating against low-income women. Women from Northern NB or other regions must pay and arrange for transportation to Fredericton, obtain leave from work, and possibly arrange and pay for childcare on top of the unconstitutional clinical fee. This situation is unacceptable and must be dealt with immediately.

In closing, I would like to thank you for your efforts so far in reaching a resolution to this important rights issue. To have only one private clinic serving the medical needs of an entire province is disgraceful, and demonstrates how little the government of New Brunswick cares about the health and lives of its female citizens.

Please guarantee the province’s commitment to providing fully-funded, non-commitee approved abortions, to women of all incomes and in their own region.

This is not a wish-list; it is the province’s duty.

Sincerely,

Michelle Lovegrove Thomson

Honourable Brad Green, Minister of Health
Carleton Place
P. O. Box 5100
Fredericton, NB
E3B 5G8
Brad.Green@gnb.ca

Minister for Status of Women Joan Macalpine-Stiles: Joan.Macalpine@gnb.ca

Health Ministor Tony Clement: Clement.T@parl.gc.ca

Lebanese Bloggers

2006-07-20T11:18:00.000-06:00

while WWIII breaks out and we seem helpless to do anything about it, check David Bau's list of Lebanese Bloggers. (thanx to a. raw's blog)