Category: Law

Marijwhatnow?

The Seattle PD responds to marijuana legalization. pOp you MUST read this, it is the single funniest statement to the public evar by any PD.  The tone, the tone.

A friend who’s otherwise entirely left wing doesn’t support legal marijuana on facebook.  I disagreed with him, but not by taking issue with one substance.

My response:

 

Legalize everything.

The problem with marijuana legalization is that the state removes a tariff (essentially) and the profit from a wildly lucrative trade.  It is lucrative for those who build prisons and put disproportionate numbers of POC in them, lucrative for bad people with automatic weapons, and lucrative for state sponsored terrorists from foreign climes.

When you pull insane amounts of profit from the hands of bad (mostly) men, their response is not to roll over and play dead, it’s to find something else to profit from.  In this case it would be refined opiates and meth that they would now be trying to extract value from. Or they’ll push human trafficking instead, since the demand by men for teenaged girls seems to be entirely limitless.   I will be fascinated to see if the rates of meth use and reported human trafficking bump up, along with intergang carnage, in the places marijuana has been legalized.  It may be the revenge of unintended consequences all over again.

The Portuguese model of across the board treatment of drugs as a HEALTH issue has been running for 10 years and their HIV rates have plummeted, their societal costs for drug use are minimal, they’ve unclogged the courts and drug use across the board has been reduced especially in young people, and what sane human being doesn’t want to see drug use rates in teenagers fall.  I would be willing to hazard a guess that human trafficking is worse though, although I have no proof of that.

(That’s what I put on facebook – I could have said MUCH MORE).

RIP Herbert Lom

Died in bed at 95 in London.  May his memory be blessed with laughter and tears.

Stupid bill re recriminalizing abortion did not pass; the Minister responsible for the Status of Women should be escorted from the Commons in the electoral equivalent of chains.

Although the title and the illo are THOUGHTLESSLY hyperbolic, this is a good article about privilege. 2020 says Hugo Schwyzer turned out to be rillllly problematic, but I’m leaving this here as evidence of progress, and it’s amazing given the drubbing he took that this writing is still available

I have a very heavy day of appointments and church related work in front of me.

VCon starts, I’m not going.  All I will do is spend stupid amounts of money on clothes.  Hilariously, RobW called me last night to complain about the Vcon website; this does not bode well for how good the con will be.

Paul and Katie and I had a lovely walk in Deer Lake Park on Wednesday; we saw a dozen frogs, a juvenile eagle, a Douglas squirrel and possibly a baby bunny, who did not linger to make our acquaintance.  I got some video of the frogs but it’s basically a streak heading for the rushes.  I also got a pic of the Douglas squirrel but not at very high resolution, even though the little guy POSED in TWO SEPARATE POSES for me.  We also picked up a hawk feather, which I stuck in Margot’s fur when I got home and resulted in a couple of charming pictures, one of which I posted to twitter. 2020 says that was a flicker feather, not a hawk feather, no kidding.

I’m going to ask Jeff to help me figure out how to post pics directly to my blog through WordPress, although possibly not today.

After many months of being okay, my temperature regulation at night has gone off the rails.  I have acceptably ordinary physiological reasons for this but waking up poaching in my own bed a couple of times a night is harshing my mellow.  This too shall pass.

Yet another sports figure is being accused of sexual and physical abuse of youngsters in his care.  The way it’s being reported in the press is quite bizarre.  I guess we’ll let the courts sort it out; the reporter had more than half a dozen affidavits detailing misconduct in hand before writing the story, and while we all know that there are false abuse allegations, it’s not the way to bet, especially since we’re talking about a Catholic residential school for falsely imprisoned young aboriginals.

Raincoaster just tweeted that an alarm went off close to her and a stern voice is speaking in German.  Helluva way to get woken up, unless of course she was already awake.  She and I trade tweets in the middle of the night fairly often.

What’s up on facebook:  18 billion reposts from reddit, mine among them, and people commenting about the things that make them upset – relatives dying abruptly in car accidents leaving young children, angst about how this is the first time her only child is out with the non-custodial parent on a football game day, the fact that 27 million people globally live in slavery, and me attempting to get a copy of (this poster). 2020 says it was something cool by Matt Danger but now it’s gone.

The RCMP have nothing better to do?

Here’s the item.  (RCMP attempt to ticket woman in Nanaimo for leaving her windows down).

http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/LOC/freeside/–%20M%20–/45_Motor%20Vehicle%20Act%20RSBC%201996%20c.%20318/00_Act/96318_05.xml#section191

And my response….

I left my car running in Toronto back in the day while I dropped the kids off at daycare. (It was 25 below among other mitigating bs – I make no excuses, it was a dumbassed thing to do and it’s one of the *many* stupid things I did while feeling time pressured as a parent.) Came out to find a cop writing a ticket for the same offence (me wah wah I’m already late for work bitter tears). Took the kids to the court date to show them how justice was done and the judge was so anxious to get them out of there (they were noisily inquiring if I was gonna go to jail) I got off with the frowning of a lifetime. The cop was CHOKED. I wished her a pleasant good evening and showed her most of my teeth.

what?

Dear Mr. Kenney, and by copy to Mr. Julian,

Look, it’s really very simple.  If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.  If you don’t have the equipment to ever need to make that decision, stay out of it.

Do not attempt to legislate the recriminalization of abortion in Canada.  Although there is a substantial minority of Canadians who would applaud the recriminalization of sodomy, gay marriage and abortion, we live in a modern pluralistic liberal democracy and the majority of Canadians don’t support those stances.

Recriminalizing abortion is regressive, mean-spirited and an assault on women’s rights.  It’s bad medicine, bad politics, and bad social policy.

I say this as a woman, a tax-payer, a church-goer and a voting Canadian.

Kill M-312 as soon as possible.

 

Yours truly,

 

Allegra Sloman

phone and address redacted

May ludicrous things happen to Jason Kenney

O, FFS.  Jason Kenney is trying to recriminalize abortion.  The war on women has officially moved north of the border, kids.  You’ve got a day to move on this.

If you have had an abortion WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY.  If you think women have the right to legal safe abortions, as well as the contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY.  If you don’t want to live in a country where your daughter or friend or sister or coworker is forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term after she’s been raped WRITE YOUR MP AND COPY JASON KENNEY. TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON BILL M-312.  http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html#mem is how you get hold of them. FOLLOW UP WITH A MAILED LETTER – you may send it at no charge to http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/Addresses/ParliamentaryHOC.aspx

The war on vegans continues

Holy flaming balls of purulence.  I inherited John Caspell’s entire library of anarchist works – if I lived in the US I’d be subject to a Grand Jury indictment just because I lived close to some government building that was vandalized.  Here’s the link.  Or should I not be worried because I am not young?

Andrew, you are brilliant

One of my filking fen has this to say on facebutt this morning:
Insurance lawyers were put on earth so that we would learn to love the honesty and ethics of Plaintiffs’ lawyers.

 

Made Peach and blueberry glop for pamcakes.  Which reminds me I should make them.

Happy sigh.  Katie over yesterday, and as is traditional, broke something, in this case the clothesline – full of laundry – onto freshly cut grass.  We will now consider how to restring it.  Spoke too soon.  Jeff doesn’t have to consider, he’s up there rehanging it.  I’ll stay handy in case he comes off the ladder.  AND HE SHALL HAVE PAMCAKES FOR BREAKFAST!

I am going out to Maple Ridge to do something musical today – if it is successful I’ll report back.  If not I’ll slink home a few dollars poorer but happy to have gone for a ride.

I’m probably going to miss meeting up with Patricia today as she was coming into New West, but o well.

BREAKING BAD OMG it is going to a VERY DARK PLACE.  People gwine die.

Roundup

Gotta love the Germans: circumcision declared child abuse/harm to child.

There’s a fine line between narcissism and self esteem.  What facebook is good for.

Don’t even get my brother started on dark matter/energy.

Now that mOm is watching SG1…..

Yes, wish I had some.

Fire up some way cool google search techniques.

Without TOO much detail

Let’s just say I haven’t been this concerned with a family member’s bowel movements since Katie was in onesies.

Keith is coming for lunch today.

Those two statements have nothing to do with each other.

PS.  If you are over 40 and don’t have a will, f(kk  you.  Poor Tom lost another friend this past week and he died intestate.  And now Tom is getting sucked into yet another emotio-legal friend dying intestate mess, with a side of ‘and he owned a business’.

That’s better

Katie is fine…. thanks, but she has visited the police and detailed her current woes, with a witness in tow, and so hopefully the unhelpful behaviour will stop.  I am very proud of her – she dealt with it as an adult, with no fanfare and no pissing and moaning.

 

Tonight I’m going to go home and COLLAPSE. I am so tired, and the constant changes in the weather do not help.

octopi vancouver

Care package for the demo.  2 blankies, including a hand made quilt donated  mOm; batteries, a drum and a penny whistle and an egg shaker; two pairs of socks, a complete rain outfit men’s medium, a yoga mat, reusable tie wraps, a metal portable desk with paper, a granola bar, a nice name tag, and some other little things.

Brilliant day of sunshine!  Jeff’s coming too.

Various thoughts.

Anarchism is now a thoughtcrime in England.  Have to wonder when that will happen here too.  The shellacking of free speech continues throughout the naughtily monikered ‘free world’.  I can just HEAR John on the subject.

I came back from Katie’s place last night after I took her shopping and took Government Rd, because that tunnel of trees reminds me of coming back from Jericho on a warm summer night on the back of John’s scooter.  Christ, I miss him.  I keep waiting for it to go away, but grief mocks timetables and stalwart resolutions with a cascade of neurotransmitters.

One of my longest term friends and noted poet Lucile Barker recently came up with these two gems: “Intermiliating…an experience that is simultaneously humiliating and interesting.
Entermiliating…when it happens to someone else.”

I’ve been worrying and fussing over Pride day, off and on the last little while, but I finally put all my errant thoughts together after posting this to facebook :

After participating in half a dozen Pride parades in Vancouver, I’m starting to feel very conflicted about it.  It’s not that I think that there isn’t more to be done to encourage love and understanding for the genderqueer, non-normative folks among us and inside us, or that we can’t do more to support young people coming out, it’s that I’m starting to feel less celebratory.

I’m having a hard time with how awkward the massive influx of sponsorship cash makes me feel when Ugandan gays are getting killed.  I’m dying a little inside about how transgendered people get treated as they get lumped in with the gay spectrum, and dumped on by “women born women” (I’m still recovering from that disgusting tshirt that was on sale at the michfest) while fending off queries as to whether they have a website nudge nudge wink wink….  I’m not saying that queer bashing in Vancouver is dead or that hosanna sexism stepped out for a beer, or that white and other interlocking  privileges have quit working their evil magic on everything. We all know that’s bs.  The millennium came and went and things have improved in quanta and fractions and lumpy little increments.  I see more freedom on the horizon, and I don’t want it sponsored by a fucking brewer, thanks.  I want to be part of a human movement powered by human love, human dreams, human actions, not a pasted on smile that gets cleaned up by the sanitation department later that day.

Of course we need to celebrate victories and agitate for better and fewer laws.  But I’m not feeling celebratory.  I am mourning for the person I used to be, believing that Pride was a sign of how advanced we are.  I’ve watched the banks and breweries opt in, and that’s the point at which I want to opt out.  It felt transgressive, asskickingly, gloriously transgressive and liberating, to participate in years past.  Now it feels like a chore, so that I, a nominally straight woman and Unitarian, can have some street cred.

This weekend I’ll try to unpack a little more of my invisible knapsack; I’ll try to engage straight people I know in that discussion; I’ll find a queer charity in town to support.  But I’m not going to Pride.  It feels like someone else’s party now, and I don’t want be the jerk that crashes it for the cachet of saying I was there.

And so since my irritation right now is directed towards oppression of transgender people, I’ve been wracking my brains for a charitable organization I can give money to that will express my values.  And all of a sudden it occurred to me that the answer has been staring me in the face.

Purpose.

Which school in the lower mainland supports TG kids the most?  Purpose!  How do I know?  Because I was at a graduation and heard it from the mouth of a TG kid (FTM) that he never would have made it without Purpose.  And because, without education, a TG kid can’t escape the employment ghetto and build himself a life of meaningful independence.  Because I know from my kids that they can be out and proud at school and their teachers, support staff and principal will raise hell if they are bullied or maltreated.  So I will support education, transgender rights and young people with one donation, and now I can feel like my Pride weekend has actually meant something.  I feel better!

We celebrated Jeff’s bday with takeout Schnitzel and the final episode of Season One from Breaking Bad.  What a hell of a show.

Wackdoodle Wednesday

Oh my.  There be lots of crazy for you this am.

This is a very special kind of Canadian crazy.

Ya gotta be effin kidding me.  Lady Liberty is a minion of Satan?

Star Wars Crafts?  Ok,

Put your hand over your crotch – gently.  Now open this link.

A life of infrequent contact with the police is not likely in the cards for this gent.

Fox – where mammon collides with art.