Category: Old blog

Justice for Cindy Gladue

I am very sore today because merely standing triggers my pelvis pain to the point where I drag both my feet.  Also, Paul very efficiently tricked me into mowing the back lawn, so I was really, really sore by the time I was done. 2.0 hours on the cpap – keep forgetting to put the mask back on.

I wrote this in my notebook over a rather lavishly irrigated lunch yesterday.  I went to the rally, which was triggered by this.  As is my custom, I did a square search count of the crowd. It was never fewer than a hundred people and swelled to 150 around 11 am.  Knowing that we were gathered in 20 cities across Canada (including Saint John’s NFLD, where it was ass freezing cold and blowing snow) made me very proud.  And sore, as I mentioned.  I am going to pick up another one of those mini-chairs from Lee Valley, I simply cannot stand for an hour and a half without problems.

So I was angry when I wrote this.  I am still angry, but it’s the quiet, smoldering kind.

Edited for errors in usage and kindness Feb. 20 2021, the day I learned Bradley Barton is going to jail.

April 2, 2015 unceded Coastal Salish land. MST LAND

Canada is the kind of country where a sex trade worker deserves to die for being a sex trade worker.  If she’s Indigenous, and ‘somehow’ ends up with an 11 inch stab wound which is paraded through the courtroom in a specimen jar in a grotesque parody of a ceremonial object, she had it coming.  Somehow the fact that a misogynistic piece of sh*t named Bradley Barton murdered her in a drunken stupor gets dropped from the equation, and he left the trial a free man.

I’ve been angry at the Canada ‘justice’ system before. Lots.  But I don’t normally get off my ass to protest.

Cindy Gladue did not deserve to die.

She didn’t get justice.

Her children and her family and loved ones did not get justice.

I am enraged that Cindy Gladue and her 1200 and counting indigenous sisters are being treated by the justice ‘shitstem’ as entirely disposable human refuse.  The UN has asked Canada to investigate.  Harper says it isn’t even on his radar.

F*CK THIS RACIST SEXIST ENTIRELY HORSESH*T SYSTEM.

It’s gotta come down.

Let it come down.

With unity of purpose and steel in our veins, let us BRING IT DOWN.

There were 150 of us in front of the Courthouse yesterday. Indigenous and white and mixed and ‘other’.  We were men and women and non-binary and children. We wept and drummed and sang and screamed our disappointment and anger that Indigenous lives are forced to be so far from justice, or even its prospect or possibility.

Justice for Cindy Gladue.

Stellar nursery

2019 sez I got a DRESS WITH THAT PATTERN.  at the bottom of the post

enough sleep
2005-04-25— Posted by: allegra

What the hell would I do without Fark? I only discovered it a year ago and now it’s difficult for me to conceive what I’d do without it. I mean I freaking hate the conservative bias, but even so…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4477845.stm

I want to be a mystery worshipper when I grow up!!! I wish I could get paid for that!!!

Unexpected treat
2005-04-25— Posted by: allegra

One of my readers – who doesn’t normally comment on my posts – had this to say about yesterday’s political rant. Needless to say I had a good chuckle:

We sure have a great choice in the next federal election. We can choose either the mafia, the taliban, or the fuzzy headed socialists who couldn’t run a lemonade stand, much less a country.

There ya go. I am somewhat at odds with the Mafia comment… they look more like Goodfella wannabes. As for the Taliban jibe, well, I had a sudden urge to Photoshape Steven the Not Very Musical Harper into a button down turban and beard. I don’t feel comfortable commenting about socialist haircuts, so I will leave it at that.

Calendar Check
2005-04-25— Posted by: allegra

Attention Buffy fans! We are having the Singalong Buffy the Vampire Slayer at my place on the 13th of May. (Friday the 13th being the perfect evening for such an event.) Snackies available; followed by Pirates of The Caribbean and Munchkin, if people are still awake.

What happened today. Hosed down the back deck; helped Mike move; saw Tom U drink bubble tea for the first time and would KILL to have a picture of the expression on his face; ate pho; retinted my hair (Garnier 60); sang and played at Tom and Peggy’s (different Tom). The weather was excruciatingly nice.

John went to Show and Shine and went on at great length about how wonderful it was. It sure was the best day possible for it. The cherry trees are all losing their petals. I contemplate it from the back deck and think sad thoughts about the impermanence of things. But then I go back to planning the Buffy sing along, and I feel more chipper. Must have something to look forward to….

enough sleep
2005-04-24— Posted by: allegra

Today my life consists of yard work, helping Mike move and domestic arguments. In no particular order. I would like to thank Paul for making all of this possible.

Katie has volunteered to do yard work. I made coffee and now we can all think, although at very low speed.

I’m kinda cheesed about the federal election. On one hand, I think PM squared is as slimy as a two day dead squid (sorry, squids) and on the other hand, I don’t want Stephen Harper, the pol who puts the man in manboobs, getting any more seats in Parliament. I will be keeping abreast of breaking developments.

I would really like to watch PM squared stand back and let Chretien take the richly deserved crap. Let’s face it, Chretien did almost as good a job of enriching himself and his cronies as Brian Mulroney.

I also don’t want to watch the BQ (the Bathos Quebecois, also known as the Blockheads) go on about how the feds tried to buy Quebec with their own money and how Quebec would be much better off going it alone. Yeah, you dingbat, you jackasses – you knobs lost two referenda – and I VOTED in one of them, please thank me, Canada, for my role in keeping the country assembled – and because of the reverse engineered Revenge of the Cradle you WILL NEVER WIN a referendum.

Okay, a little history here. Once upon a time, Catholics in Quebec didn’t use birth control. In the old days, they fought against cultural assimilation into the sea of Anglos by having a remarkably high birth rate. All that changed in the 60’s. Quebec women took to birth control with more assiduity than any other group of females in the overconsumptive portion of the planet, with the possible exception of the Japanese. I’d say the Japanese are doing better (lower) on the birth rate thing, but apparently the Quebecois have sex (sometimes IN MOVING CARS on DECARIE BOULEVARD) and don’t get pregnant (okay, the car swerved at a vital moment), and the Japanese just plain don’t have sex, so it’s hard to get preggers under those circumstances. (I should clarify… married Japanese people don’t have much sex. Saw that in a Japanese newspaper article, so it must be true). So right now, Quebec has (among pur laine Quebeckers) by which I mean any pink (white), nominally Catholic Quebecker with a last name like Chartrand or Francois or Bergeron, the lowest birthrate in North America. Oh by the way, I am now officially offended if you ever dare to call me white again. I am pink. Goddamnit! I am so very very pink! Pink power! Pink Pride!!!! And I get pinker, when I’m mad, too. I’ve been told parts of me are extremely pink, but you’ll be rilly happy that I don’t provide documentary evidence.

Ah, but at the same time that Quebeckers were learning that you didn’t have to pull out to prevent pregnancy, the demographics changed. You see, they started letting les noirs et les arabes into the virginal spaces of Dollard Des Ormeaux, and hella hella, they breed! And around the same time the government of Quebec said, we need more people, and put in the most amazing baby bonus money in all of Canada, and basically subsidized the birth of many many brown children. (Note. I don’t have a problem with this. I have other problems with immigrants, part of which is due to residual racism on my part (unlike a LOT of soft left leaners, I KNOW I’m a racist) and part of which is my disappointment that some of them don’t get the notion of the ‘rule of law’ and the value of our constitution – and part of which is my objection to their bringing their internecine quarrels from furrin lands into my nice peaceful pink Canada. And the biggest one isn’t even racism. I just wish, whatever the hell colour they were, that they spoke English. Talk about yer cultural imperializm….)

Where wuz I. While the Nicoles and Chantals kept the reproductive pipelines, as ’twere, resolutely shut, immigrants had families. You have to wonder why pink Quebec women don’t want to breed… but they are currently way below replacement rate. All the brown people who came to Canada essentially came from places where there was no strong central government… and just think about all the places where the colonial language is French (or one of the colonial languages). Paradises like Mali, Senegal, Rwanda. Shangri-La’s like Haiti. And Lebanon, once the jewel of the Mediterranean. These are not places where citizens feel like there’s nothing but opportunity for their children. Once they felt safe – and sure, the cops are racist as hell in Quebec, but they look like Mahatma Gandhi compared to the cops in Beirut or Port au Prince – and found out they were $1500 on the upside to have that third kid, well, woo hoo. And the policy wonks in Quebec are tying themselves in knots. How do they get Nicole pregnant without subsidizing the birth of little brown children? I just sit back laughing. I lived in Quebec for two years – on the west side of the island, in the anglo enclave – and the racism of the place, after Toronto, never failed to boggle my mind. And remember I was married to a black guy and living in Toronto for a couple of years, so I got my nose rubbed not only in my own racism, fa la la, but everybody else’s as well.

The result of immigration and the differential birth rate between pink Quebeckers and immigrants is that the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc do not have a Bonhomme Carnival’s chance in hell of winning a referendum and separating from Canada. (Bonhomme Carnival is a snowman, for those of you who don’t get the reference). Immigrants are pretty consistent about supporting the status quo; it was Canada that let them in and Canada will get the vote.

It may be emotionally honest for a member of the Bloc Quebecois to say Quebec would be better on its own, but it doesn’t make sense from any other perspective. Without Quebec, Canada has its guts torn out; alone, Quebec will turn into an old drunk whose children all leave town. Sorry boys, it’s like this. We’ve been married a long time. It’s cheaper to keep her. And besides, if you leave me now, I’m changing all the currency. Didn’t you say you’d keep the currency? Screw ya! The chintziest 3rd world dictatorship has its own currency (even if the richest 10% only use Euros these days). Wouldn’t it be grand if we had currency that showed say, the kidnapping of Pierre Laporte on the 5 spot, the conscription riots on the 10 spot, the War Measures Act on the 20 spot and the hanging of Louis Riel on the 50 spot?

Hm, I sure get bloodthirsty in a hurry. Must be my European heritage overcoming the peacefulness of my Mennonite and Quaker antecedents.

Or maybe it’s just thinking about the yard work that gets me so upset.

Pic is of a star nursery. Our problems are very localized, and very small. But entertaining as hell, right?

enough sleep

I can now post any picture and it automatically resizes. The ghost in the machine has spoken!

Things are cruising along nicely. I could complain, but who’s listening?

I had a really good email exchange with a customer a couple of days ago. I think most of my job is figuring out how smart the customer is and tailoring the response to his or her particular requirements. I wish I could be loving and tolerant toward stupid people – I’m working on it but it’s a hard, hard slog.

Pete Seeger quote on 12 string guitars…. “You spend half your time tuning, and half your time playing out of tune.”