The Ballad of Larry O.

In Ottawa, Ontario
A city justly famed,
A man called Larry came to try
And play polit'cal games.

Refrain:
Sing hey-down-derry for Larry O, Larry
Confident, certain, and true
"If I can run a business, I
Can run a city too!"

He said, "I think that I'll be mayor,"
And set about to win.
But did he say "Kilrea, retire,
And I'll get you somethin'"?

(Refrain)

He told the people all forlorn,
"No taxes will you pay!
"For I'm a businessman, you see,
"And I've a special way!"

(Refrain)

"I'll keep your services entire,
"Nor cut a single job,
"For business management will save
"You money by the gob!"

(Refrain)

His words were sweet upon their ears
For zero's zero yet.
The right-wing vote belonged to him
No Kilrea ran to split.

(Refrain)

So soon he had the jewels and robe
And rule (not absolute)
The wand of business management
He'd wield to bring us loot.

(Refrain)

He cancelled transit plans because
They weren't quite right, he said.
And then there was a lawsuit raised
Upon the city's head.

(Refrain)

For cities are not businesses
And Larry's magic failed
And soon police investigate
If they should have him jailed.

(Refrain)

For it turns out in politics
You're not supposed to say
To your opponent, "Please withdraw,
"And here's what I can pay."

(Refrain)

But Larry still is resolute,
The city's on his side!
At least his friends and family are,
And some in the wool dyed.

(Refrain)

While zero, it turns out, is not
Quite zero after all.
At least we didn't vote for one
Who'd tax us one and all!

(Refrain)

So what will be our Larry's fate?
It's too soon yet to tell.
But to the end he's resolute
That he has led us well.

(Refrain)

If others disagree, it's that
They're biased against him.
If they don't see our Larry's light,
They must be slightly dim!

(Refrain)

Violence against women isn't cultural

One of the things that's so distressing about the death of Aqsa Parvez (and there's plenty to be distressed about) is the way it's being interpreted in the media. Reading the stories, listening to the radio, you'd think this was all about culture -- speficially, Muslim/immigrant/'other' culture.

It's not. This is about violence and control.

Muhammed Parvez didn't kill his daughter because she wouldn't wear a hijab; he killed her because, for whatever reason, he felt he could. That's not a characteristic of Muslim culture. That's a characteristic of all patriarchies. There are plenty of white, 'western' men who've killed or hurt women because they felt they could.

It would be nice to talk about the fact that Aqsa felt threatened by her family, that she said she was being beaten, that she had to flee her home more than once. It would be nice to talk about the background and how we can stop this from happening again.

Instead, all the stories lead with this idea of a cultural clash.

This isn't about a hijab. This is about patriarchy and violence.

It's also like banging your head against a brick wall, over and over again

Watching Ottawa city council talk about transit planning is like watching an eternal game of ping-pong.

• Expand the O-Train!
• Cancel the contract!
• Build a tunnel!
• Don't build a tunnel!
• Assess possibilities!
• Reject the assessment!
• Buses!
• Trains!
• Cars!

So I'm hard-pressed to put much faith in yet another proposal to improve the transit system in Ottawa.

There's no question the transit system needs improvement, especially in the downtown core. And I'm as big a supporter of transit as anybody. I ride the bus, even when OC Transpo's bizarre scheduling and inability to cope with inclement weather* makes it really annoying to do so. I love the O-Train, and wish it went somewhere useful so I could actually ride it.

But I'm getting awfully cynical about transit plans that seem to get scrapped almost as soon as they're proposed. And hearing Alex Cullen on the radio this morning saying Siemans should just hold off on their lawsuit, because hey, maybe there'll be a new contract soon... forgive me, but if Siemans buys that line, they're way more naive than your average moneymaking corporation.

* due, I understand, to the age of the buses and their state of repair

National Day of the Obesity Panic

Today is National Child Day, and UNICEF Canada has released an appropriately-timed report.

And among the many ways we as a country are failing our children (the most vulnerable), they list obesity rates. Canada has too many fat kids, according to UNICEF.

And, you know, when the same report goes on to say that life expectancy is increasing and that infant mortality is decreasing (albeit not as quickly here as elsewhere), I have a hard time being overly concerned about fat kids. And it saddens me that UNICEF Canada felt they had to include obesity rates. Because it's far too easy for people to focus on the fat kid problem and ignore the real problems: the many kids who live in poverty, seven years after we were supposed to have eliminated child poverty (remember that?); the kids in isolated communities or on reserves who don't have access to the resources and the health care that they need; the kids who really need our help.

Childhood obesity -- hell, obesity in general -- is an aesthetic panic. It's not some dire end-of-the-world problem that we need to throw resources at. There are plenty of resources being directed towards making affluent people of all ages skinnier.

How's about we throw some resources at the child poverty thing instead? Or the issue of kids with untreated mental illnesses? How's that for an idea?

Children raping children

I can imagine few things as horrifying and disturbing as this story, in which an 11-year-old girl accuses three boys, aged eight and nine, of rape.

It's disturbing on so many levels. They're so young, all of them. It's hard to conceive of children that age being the perpetrators of a rape. At that age, how can they even imagine it? Who's sexualized those boys to the extent that they would even think to link sex and violence like this? How can we possibly consider charging eight and nine-year-olds as adults for something like this? Why can't we find whoever hurt them or whoever taught them that this was a thing to do, and charge them instead?

But I think what disturbs me most is to read that the boys' defense -- at least as portrayed in this story -- is that the sexual activity was consensual. How is it possible that an 11-year-old girl could consent to sex? How have we gotten to this state, as a society, that we take a case like this, and think "well, she just didn't want to get in trouble with her parents, so she made up the part about the rock"?

Some days, I just want to give up on our society altogether.

Complicit in Evil

I'm so angry that I can hardly write a coherent sentence. In the name of public safety, Canada will no longer seek clemency for its citizens who are sentenced to death.

This is appalling. Canada has outlawed the death penalty, and rightly so. Killing a human being is barbaric, no matter what they may have done. Ronald Smith is no threat to anyone's public safety when he's sitting in a jail cell -- hell, I'm not even saying we should be bringing him back to a Canadian jail cell. But taking steps to prevent his execution is something Canada must try to do if it is to maintain any moral high ground where capital punishment is concerned.

I hate that this is now my country's position. It makes me complicit in the deaths of Canadian citizens. I am so angry that political considerations have left this government in power long enough to make this policy change.

Yes, Tories in the House, Ronald Smith is a murderer. I'm not denying that. But if we allow him to die without trying to prevent it, we too are murderers.

This is not just a political decision to help us suck up to the Americans. This is a moral decision, and it is breaking my heart, and it is breaking the moral fibre of my country. How proud can I be to be a Canadian when we are willing to stand by and let our citizens die, contingent only on a politcal evaluation of a country's "rule of law"?

More blogging on this

From the "good grief" files

Of all the stupid things to study. (scroll down to the last item)

I'm so glad that we now know that breastfeeding doesn't contribute to saggy breasts! Now we can berate women for not living up to the beauty ideal without worrying about whether or not they lived up to the breeding motherhood bit of patriarchal expectations.

I suppose it's important for plastic surgeons to know their target demographics.

Reasonable

The debate on 'reasonable accomodation' in Quebec is breaking my heart. It seems to be bringing out all kinds of barely-suppressed racism and paranoia about Those Scary Muslims. It may perhaps be too easy to point the finger at Hérouxville and their "code of conduct" -- it's becoming increasingly clear that there are plenty of people (and not just in Quebec) who would rather newcomers just start speaking French/English, wearing jeans, and eating Mickey D's like the "rest of us".

I'm a child of the Trudeau era. I believe in multiculturalism, and that our country is strengthened, not weakened, by a variety of people with a variety of backgrounds. And if sometimes that means I have to see someone wearing an outfit that's aesthetically unpleasant to me, well, I deal with it. Whether it's a leather micro-mini or a hijab*. And if what someone chooses to eat doesn't appeal to me, well, I just eat my own dinner, and let them do their own thing. I mean, seriously:

Regardless of the shape of the animal or its hooves, regardless of the shape of the fish, be it covered by scales or a shell, we will enjoy eating its flesh if it is prepared properly and presented tastefully.

Is Hérouxville banning rebellious teenagers from taking up vegetarianism? (Probably)

And given that we have laws against killing and hurting people in general, it seems unnecessary to specifically ban stoning.

Every time I hear about this apparent problem with multiculturalism, I feel as though I'm mising something. What, exactly, is wrong with people speaking their own language, wearing their own clothes, eating their own food? I suppose the fear is that if people aren't assimiliated into the dominant culture, they'll suddenly turn into EVIL TERRORISTS or something. But it seems to me that the greater problem would be the people we're not accepting because they haven't assimilated "perfectly" (whatever that would mean).

When you tell someone they have to change, completely and utterly, in order to be accepted, they're just going to get stubborn and determined not to change AT ALL -- not even those things they were thinking of changing themselves. We'd get a lot further as a society if we just accepted people as they were and let exposure to the wider culture expose them to new ideas and ways of doing things. That way, each and every one of us could, with time, pick the things that work and discard the things that don't, without feeling like we're betraying our entire history and ancestry.

But I'm just a crazy idealist, right?

* not that a hijab is aesthetically unpleasant -- I've seen some truly beautiful ones. But you get the idea.

A mile in her shoes... or a month in her veil

Sian Reid teaches sociology at Carleton University here in Ottawa. She started teaching this semester fully veiled, wearing a niqab, hijab, and abaya. After three weeks, she went back to the clothes she ordinarily wears.

It sounds to me like a fascinating experiment. It's easy to talk about women who choose to wear hijab, or to go fully veiled, but it must be a very different experience to actually be a veiled woman. I'm not surprised to hear that she had some unpleasant experiences interacting with the world at large, although I am disappointed in my fellow Ottawa residents.

What's perhaps most interesting is that this is an article about an issue intimately associated with immigrants, with Muslim women, with "foreigners". And yet it's an article that could only be written about a white woman whose "milky skin" and "long red hair" are repeatedly pointed out in the article. This is an experience countless women live every day -- I would have loved for the journalist to have interviewed a few of them.

The article mentions that some of her students were concerned that the experiment might be seen as disrespectful to Muslim women. It doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful -- but I'd love to know what several Muslim women thought.

It's a shame that this kind of "immigrant experience" can seemingly only be communicated to the rest of us through someone taking on a temporary identity that isn't hers.

Pre-Throne Speech Ramblings

So all of us here in government-town (aka Ottawa) are waiting with bated breath for the Speech from the Throne. The rest of the country is probably doing its collective best to ignore it entirely, "prime-time" or no. But for the political junkies of my acquaintance, this kind of thing is high-grade catnip. The predictions are flying fast and furious. What will Stephen Harper put in the speech to embarrass the Liberals? And will Stéphane Dion rise to the bait? Will there be an election?

Harper is probably the only person who really wants an election, and I'm not too sure about him. The opposition is in disarray, especially the Liberals (the only 'real' opposition in terms of parties with a chance to win the election). But what Harper really wants is a majority, and he hasn't got the poll numbers for that -- not yet. Of course, if he can force the opposition into letting him govern as if he had a majority, then he's got the best of both worlds.

And it's all up to Dion. I gotta say, I feel sorry for the guy. He's gotten nothing but criticism since he won the leadership, and he's being forced into an untenable position. Today's resignation of his Quebec lieutenant certainly doesn't help. If he brings the government down, he fears he'll end up losing seats. If he doesn't, he looks like he's licking Harper's boots, which can't be good for his long-term election prospects.

I confess, selfishly, that I want this government to fall. I want to see Harper's bluff called. But it probably wouldn't be a good strategic move on Dion's part, and I doubt an election would do progressive folks any good.

It's just that I don't think leaving Harper in power is going to be good for progressives, either. Or for the country. Certainly not in the short term and probably not in the long term.

For all the insistence that Canadians don't want an election,* they didn't want (or at least didn't elect) a Harper majority, either. And I can't shake the feeling that they would at least respect Dion and the Liberals for standing up for their principles instead of cringing and strategizing.

So come on, Stéphane! Courage! Once more unto the breach and all that.

* Probably true -- for a democratic country, we spend a lot of time hoping we won't have an election and then staying home when one happens. **
** Eligible voters of Ontario, I'm looking at you!

PSA for Ontario readers

Today is election and referendum day!

Don't forget to get out and vote. If you don't know where to go and vote, contact Elections Ontario.

Murder is murder

We tend, as a society (maybe as a species), to view crimes as particularly terrible when committed against certain kinds of people -- usually those we perceive as vulnerable* or (perhaps more to the point) 'innocent'.

For example, murder is pretty universally agreed to be a Bad Thing. Murdering a man is bad, but murdering a 'helpless' woman is worse. Murdering the elderly is worse yet, and murdering a child is beyond the pale.

These are emotional evaluations, of course. There's no cold, logical reason why some kinds of murder should seem worse than others** -- but then, the human species is not, typically, cold and logical.

So it's not really surprising that the murder of a pregnant woman should cause some strong emotional reactions. And one of the ways this emotion seems to express itself is through the call for charging the perpetrator with two murders -- the woman's and the "unborn baby's".

I understand the impulse, especially when it's late in the pregnancy, especially when it was a wanted pregnancy, especially on the part of the family (who are, after all, mourning not only the woman they love, but also the potential future family they'd been expecting and preparing to welcome). But this is an impulse that must absolutely not be codified into law.

The problem is, as soon as you create a crime called 'fetal murder', you open the door to all kinds of issues. As outlined in this National Post article:

"If we take the position that the fetus is a separate person at viability, then we open up all sorts of issues. All of a sudden, the woman is two separate persons," said Martha Shaffer, an associate law professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in family and criminal law. "Her liberty and autonomy can be greatly curtailed in the interests of the fetus within her.

"If she's doing something that somebody decides to be contrary to the fetus's interests -- which could be eating too much sugar, exercising too hard, smoking or drinking -- it's very dangerous to go down that route to say a woman is no longer a separate, independent person at a certain stage of pregnancy.

In other words, a woman who miscarries after doing something her in-laws don't approve of could find herself in serious trouble.

That's not even touching the abortion issue, which is, of course, very much a part of the debate. It may not be what Aysun Sesen's parents are thinking when they say they want double murder charges, but you can bet it's what the political activists who have picked up this cause are thinking about.

Ultimately, I don't think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to fetuses.

IMNSHO, I think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to living, breathing, human beings. We need to value women for themselves, and acknowledge that the murder of a woman is terrible because it ends a woman's life, not only because it happens to end a pregnancy as well.

On that note, it was nice to see the Globe and Mail taking a slightly different tack on the case and at least touching on the issue of violence against women instead of so-called fetal rights.


*Although certainly not always -- crimes against the socially marginalized being Counter-Example A.
** I suppose you could construct an argument about the loss of a child's potential, but it's hard to claim logically that murder is a crime against future potential weighted by life expentancy, rather than a crime against the actual person in question.

What does overweight look like?

There are some truly fascinating things on the Internet. Kate Harding of Shapely Prose is putting together a photostream of people in various BMI categories -- "underweight", "normal", "overweight", "obese", etc. It's really quite incredible.

(I recommend watching it as a slideshow with the info turned on)

Warren Jeffs found guilty

This verdict is good to see. This is what needs to be done about this kind of so-called fundamentalist Mormon sects. This is what we should be doing to Winston Blackmore in Bountiful. It's the sexual assault and coercion that's the problem, not the polygamy itself (note that the rape Jeffs was convicted of abetting was within a monogamous "marriage".

I have huge admiration for the courage of this young woman, who was willing to come forward and testify against the man who controlled so much of her life. We shouldn't expect this kind of extraordinary courage, but we should really give credit where it's due. Because there wouldn't have been either a charge or a conviction without this young woman's courage.

Interestingly enough, the husband is now being charged as well. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out. I wonder why he wasn't the focus of the case in the first place?

Denial

What's depressing about this news story is not that the mother thinks her son is innocent of sexual assault. We all tend to assume that the people we know and love are innocent, unless we have irrefutable proof otherwise. It's a natural human instint to think the best of the people in our inner circle. So it doesn't bother me that the mother is coming up with reasons why her son must, surely, be innocent.

What's depressing is that this is an actual news story. We don't generally get news stories about all the relatives of the accused insisting that the accused is innocent. Oh sure, they'll often get a line or two in stories about particularly dramatic murders. But for what other crime can you imagine a news story about how the mother of the defendant is sure the crime never happened?

This kind of thing only happens in sexual assault cases. And that's depressing.

It's also pretty depressing that the victim's religion is considered an important fact. I suppose it's supposed to make the crime seem worse, somehow. Because sexually assaulting a "regular" girl... well, that's just normal behaviour. But when it's a girl who's been marked as unavailable... that's just heinous.

Religion, the HPV vaccine, and the squick factor

The Catholic school boards' fretting about the HPV vaccine might seem to suggest some of the perils associated with publically-funded religious schools. The vaccine's a sensible public-health measure, right? Religion's interfering with the public good. That's a bad thing.

Except people see this vaccine as being about teenagers having sex.

It's not, of course. Or at least, not entirely. The whole point of the vaccine is that, for it to be effective, you have to be vaccinated before you're exposed to the virus -- ideally, before you're having sex. So a girl vaccinated at 13 or whatever will be protected when she's 18 or so and getting involved in her first sexual relationship. Or when she's married at 25. Or whenever she becomes sexually active. But people have an incredibly strong squick factor when it comes to my daughter having sex, and I think it kind of short-circuits the logic centers. I seriously doubt any girl who wasn't going to have sex is suddenly going to run out and become promiscuous just 'cause she's protected from cervical cancer. Let me assure you that cervical cancer is the last thing on the mind of any girl contemplating her first sexual relationship. It's not going to be a deciding factor. I'm not sure why that's so hard to get.

So I don't think anyone's associating the Catholic boards' jitters with John Tory opening the religious-schools can of worms. Which is a shame, because they should. If a religiously-run school can impede one public health measure, what about others? We're bound to have Jehovah's Witnesses schools receiving public funds while preventing kids from being vaccinated for all kinds of things. And that's just the first example that came to mind.

Full disclosure: I went to a catholic school. And as you can probably tell, the indoctrination didn't stick. Heck, it didn't stick at the time. We used to joke about being the school with the highest birth rate in the city.

But just because I don't think it's always effective doesn't mean I think publically-funded religious education should be accepted. School should be about school. Religion should be separate. And I know that it's not, now. Lots of schools, especially in smaller towns, are de facto protestant. That's not good either. Nor do we need to avoid mentioning religion -- we just need to avoid endorsing it.

Church and State, right? It shouldn't be so hard.

On byelections

I'm taking bets as to whether the results of yesterday's byelections in Quebec make a fall/winter general election more or less likely.

My money's on more likely... the Liberals don't much want one, now, but the Tories can engineer their own defeat if they really want to. So I suppose it depends just how empowered they're feeling.

Thoughts?

Building a better bomb

So it seems Russia's got "the dad of all bombs" ('cause it's way, way bigger and more impressive than the American "mother of all bombs", and let's not even go there, okay?).

Didn't we (you know, the human race) establish that arms races are a bad thing? And isn't the cold war over? Why are Russia and the 'States still in this endless competition about who can kill the other more?

Oh sure, there's that hilarious insistence that

the new bomb would allow the military to "protect the nation's security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region."

Whatever. Terrorism isn't a country. It isn't a big huge target that you can just blow up. Terrorism is not something that can be defeated by ever-bigger bombs or ever-fewer personal liberties. Or at least it wasn't until "terrorism" became a catchword for "something scary that we use to justify military and police spending".

My favourite bit in the article, though, is this:

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.

There just aren't enough sarcastic comments in the world to respond to that one.

I am rendered speechless

I really want to say something about this Star fluff piece on physical jobs, but I keep finding myself spluttering rather than saying anything coherent. So just imagine some brilliant feminist analysis about reducing everything to women's bodies.

Splutter splutter.

Promises & Politicians

You know, when we were in the throes of the last municipal election, Larry just kept saying, over and over again, that "zero means zero". The zero, of course, was his promised tax increase -- that's right! he kept telling us, for a limited time only, you too can have no increased tax! Meanwhile, the other candidates for mayor kept pointing out that city services were crumbling, and that the city was pretty much tapped out... and that a small tax increase would likely be required.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Larry's promises won out.

And to the surprise of... well, probably the surprise of his supporters, but certainly not to my surprise, our taxes will be going up.

I must admit, I love how it's a "levy" rather than an "increase". Are we supposed to be fooled?

I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fiscal conservative. I don't think taxes are inherently evil. I'm willing to pay for the many fine services we enjoy in this city, province, and country. So I was never the audience for the "zero means zero" line. But I'm still surprised that people seemed to believe it. People are so convinced that the public service -- municipal, provincial, and federal -- is full of waste that they're willing to believe anyone who says the public sector just needs to be run "more like a business", and that "belt-tightening" will solve all our fiscal woes.

Do you suppose the people of Ottawa will extrapolate from this experience, and maybe be a little less credulous when the next tax-cuttin' politician comes around?

I think not, somehow.

It's all about the berries

One more from the annals of "identifying possible biological gender differences and coming up with bullshit evo-psych explanations for them": women like pink... er, slightly redder blues.

Let me first express how impressed I am that someone (whether the reporter or the writer of the press release, I don't know) took the finding that women apparently prefer slightly redder blues than men, and declared that:

more women than men really do prefer pink — or at least a redder shade of blue

Because if you've done a study about colour preferences and gender, you've just gotta get pink in there somewhere, right?

But it's the explanation for this apparent difference in preference that just kills me -- women must prefer reddish blue because of all those bright red berries they had to gather 'way back in the mists of time.

Of course, if it turned out men's preferences were on the red end of the spectrum, we'd be talking about how men evolved to like the red blood of the animals they hunted or something. But since it's women, it must be all about the berries -- oh, and "healthy, reddish faces".

Why this preference (so far evident in only the one study, as far as I can tell) has to be explained through evo-psych, I don't know. Couldn't it just be a slight difference in visual processing? Or something culturally influenced (sure, they tested a "small group" of Chinese people, but that's hardly conclusive)?

ETA: And Bad Science reveals that the results for the Chinese population were... not similar at all. The absurdity! It grows!

What makes a mother

I have to admit, I'm somewhat conflicted about the Patti Tomasson case.

Well, not about the case specifically. I believe adoptive parents should absolutely be entitled to parental leave and I think it's a shame the court decided otherwise.

What conflicts me is that the discourse around the case has been almost entirely about mothers. Tomasson herself has emphasized that "paternity benefits are a separate issue".

But I don't think they are. If this is all about bonding with a child, why should fathers be any less entitled to that time? The idea that bonding is a purely maternal activity just reinforces the kind of gender essentialism I wish we could get past. We need more fathers to spend time with their children, both when they're young and as they grow. Is it any wonder child-rearing is still an overwhelmingly female job, when men are actively excluded from the discourse?

By the same token, it is true that childbirth is physically exhausting, and carries with it all kinds of trauma -- there's no doubt that one would need time to recover from that. To that extent, I agree with the judge. Where I disagree is that parental/maternity leave is (or should be) about more than just the physical exigencies of childbirth.

I suppose in my ideal universe, there would be medical leave to allow for late prenatal care, childbirth and recovery, and there would be parental leave, for which all parents would be eligible, and which would take up the vast majority of the time period we now think of as maternity leave.

Thoughts?

Warm fuzzies

There's nothing that warms the cockles of my cold, snarky heart quite like a wedding.

Especially one that demonstrates why Canada really is a pretty great place, and one that a big chunk of the Conservative party would have liked to prevent.

Congratulations to Mr. Brison and Mr. St Pierre.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

So Stephen shuffled the cabinet. And the results were about as surprise-free as you could expect.

Every time there's a new cabinet, or a new parliament, I get depressed all over again looking at the sea of old white male faces. Not that there's anything wrong with being old, white, or male. But there are other kinds of people in the country, and it is sad to see them so perpetually under-represented when it comes to running the country.

Of course, if there's one thing you can say about this particular government, it's that it's really the Stephen Harper show -- we're not being run by a cabinet of old white guys, we're being run by a single middle-aged egotistical white guy. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Three women. Plus Diane Ablonczy, who gets a secretary of state job so that people will stop asking "why is Diane Ablonczy a back-bencher".

I should be used to this by now, but it continues to depress me.

Summer camps are a truly wonderful thing. Unfortunately, the Municipality of the District of West Hants, N.S. has a pretty skewed idea about what summer camp should be -- at least for girls.

It never fails to amaze me when I see something like this happen. Surely, by 2007, we've figured out that girls sometimes like the outdoors. Sure, an outdoorsy camp probably wouldn't appeal to everyone -- but to have it strictly gender-segregated like this feels like a massive throwback. Are we really still that stereotypical in our outlook? Apparently.

They say they surveyed the children to findout what they would like to do. What I'm wondering is, did they ask the girls what they would like to do, or did they ask "what would girls like to do". 'Cause the answers to those questions are often very, very different.

For anyone looking for outdoorsy activities for girls, I strongly recommend getting involved with the Girl Guides of Canada. They can be a little on the flaky side sometimes, and a lot is dependant on what unit you end up with. But they're a great organization, and they start with the fundamental belief that girls can do anything they set their minds to. I have many great memories of my years in guiding, and can't recommend them strongly enough.

Sheesh, you go on vacation for a couple of weeks...

... and the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

Bridges collapse.

There are tornadoes in Brooklyn.

And apparently the Russians are claiming that they own the north pole. Which, while a boon to fans of spy thrillers everywhere (what with the whole "Russian bad guy" theme), is not particularly reassuring.

Regular posting will resume immediately. Because what else could go wrong?

Ghetto Dude

Good lord.

Well, at least Mr. McGuinty apologized.

It's a horrifying thing to have happened. What's more horrifying, though, is the comments to the Globe article. There's something about Internet comment forums that sometimes seems to bring out the very worst in people. How do you go from a story like this to a rant about how affirmative action is a horrible thing? And the number of people excusing the staffer because 'she didn't mean for him to see it' or 'she was just trying to be humourous'...

Some days, my hope for the human race is rather strained.

The importance of the word 'dangerous'

Peter Whitmore has been sentenced to life in prison. Whitmore is a pedophile, notorious for his recent kidnapping of two young boys in Saskatchewan. This isn't his first conviction, and part of his notoreity is that the authorities seem pretty sure he'll reoffend if he's ever given the chance. His history certainly seems to bear this out.

There was a fair bit of controversy last week because the prosecution in the case offerred Whitmore a plea bargain. They had been planning to seek dangerous offender status for Whitmore, which would make it more difficult for him to ever get out on parole. They dropped that plan in exchange for his guilty plea.

Victims' advocates and all kinds of people were outraged. Surely, the argument went, this guy's the perfect candidate for dangerous offender status. We don't want him back on our streets.

And they may well be right. But at least this way the victims won't have to testify -- and that seems huge to me. And he's gotten a life sentence. That's not something you often see in cases of child molestation.

In fact, it seems to me that the outrage shouldn't be about this latest case -- it should be about the first one. The one he was sentenced to eighteen months for.

Eighteen months. Doesn't seem like enough, does it?

Polygamy and Feminism

This may be the very definition of "can of worms". Here I go anyway...

The question of polygamy is not an easy one to resolve, particularly, I think, for feminists. Or at least for people like me, who believe simultaneously that people should generally be free to make whatever romantic/sexual/matrimonial choices they want and that women should have just as much freedom, power, and agency as men.

In Canada at least, polygamy is largely discussed as a religious issue, almost always in relation to Bountiful, B.C. Bountiful is a "Mormon"* community in British Columbia headed by a couple of authoritarian patriarchs named Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler. Plural marriage is practiced extensively; the leading men of the community have multiple wives, many of whom are "married" when they are very young to much older men. Religiously-linked polygamy is also often discussed in relation to Islam. As this Vancouver Sun article makes clear, the two categories of religious polygamy are related, or at least are seen to be.

You'll notice that we're talking pretty much exclusively about poygyny (one man with multiple wives). Polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) doesn't seem to come up much in the discourse. Maybe if it did, we'd be better able to separate the polygamy issue from the women's rights issue.

Because it seems to me that the problem with religiously-based polygamy is not the multiple marriages in and of themselves. If more than two people want to devote their lives to each other, how does that hurt anyone, after all? The issue is with the way polygamy is practices in sects like Bountiful, and is perceived to be practiced in Islam. The issue is with girls and women being raised in a tightly-controlled patriarchal environment, and offered no choice in the matter. The issue is with marrying girls off at such a young age that it's perilously close to child abuse. The issue is with the control, the power. It's not the marriages per se.

Similarly, I don't think there's anything inherently evil with multiple Muslim women marrying a single man, if that's what they want, and everyone's happy with the arrangement. The issue is with force, coercion, and disempowerment of the women. That's what we need to address -- not the marriages themselves.

Having said that, I don't know what the best way to deal with something like Bountiful is. I would like to believe that we could lay charges on the basis of child abuse and unlawful confinement, or something that addresses what strikes me as the real problem. I've no doubt, however, that Blackmore and Oler are clever, devious men, and that they're staying within the letter of the law to avoid providing any grounds for such charges, leaving only the polygamy charge. They're gambling -- and I'm sure they're right -- that the polygamy charge won't stand up to a Charter challenge. If all we can charge them with is polygamy, they're going to get away with it, and they're going to be free to continue their repressive, abusive little cult.

I don't believe polygamy should be illegal. I believe that, if people want to spend their lives together, they should be allowed to make vows to support that, no matter how many of them (or what combination of sexes) there are. I would love for multiple marriages that are loving, egalitarian, and functional to be out in the open. It's just the abuse that I want to see stop. And we're not going to stop the abuse by focusing on polygamy, which is ultimately a symptom, not a cause.

* very important to note: they're not part of the mainstream LDS Church; Mainstream Mormons disavowed polygamy quite some time ago. Bountiful's more of a breakaway cult using the Mormon name for legitimacy.

Hope for the human race yet

An update to my previous post:

Discharge refused in soldier's sex-assault conviction

Judge Carol St.-Cyr of Quebec Court yesterday refused to grant Private Pier-Olivier Boulet an absolute discharge. The judge said the soldier may have had a promising career in uniform, but giving him a court discharge would have rendered his crime "banal."

Thank you, Judge St.-Cyr.

A Very Good Soldier

From the annals of "news articles that really tick me off".

"Should convict serve time or country?"

That the Globe and Mail thinks this is even a question is repulsive. If someone's convicted of a crime, we generally assume they ought to go to jail (or whatever other legal remedies are deemed appropriate, of course).

Why is this case any different?

Because it's a rape case. And, apparently, rape is something we might consider excusing if the perpetrator is a 'nice boy'.

The whole article makes me really angry. It clearly works from the assumption that the victim is "crying rape" and that the perpetrator -- the convicted perpetrator, let me add -- has just been caught up in this case through no fault of his own.

She was so drunk she couldn't stand on her own.

She let him into her room because she thought of him as a friend.

They didn't "have sexual relations". He raped her. He raped a drunk 18-year-old who trusted him.

And yet the article pretends there's any question about whether he should serve time.

The whole thing makes me want to scream.

Can't live without me

I was greeted this morning by the news of two murder-suicides: one involving a pro wrestler, and one in Toronto. Not really how I prefer to wake up in the morning.

In both cases, although all the facts are not in, it seems the men involved killed their female partners, and other members of the family (a child in one case; the woman's mother in the other). Steroids are being mentionned as a possible contributing factor in the wrestler's case; in the other, the only explanation so far proferred is that the man recently lost his job.

There's something particularly horrifying about this kind of murder-suicide. Of course every case is unique, and we really don't know what happened yet, but it reads to me like the logical outcome of a viewpoint that makes women appendages to the men in their lives. So depressed or crazy you want to kill yourself? Better kill her, too. After all, she's a part of you. She shouldn't be able to live without you. You'll be together forever...

A little bit of baby fat

From the Globe and Mail:

Is your child too fat? Your doctor may be the only one brave enough to tell you.

Give me a break. If you or your child is "too fat" (by whatever arbitrary standard you choose), all of society will feel entirely free to tell you. And tell you. And tell you.

There's been a trend lately in "obesity epidemic" stories of claiming that people don't know when they (or their children) are overweight. It's insane. No one whose BMI is even the slightest bit outside that arbitrary "ideal" range is under any illusions. Some of us struggle to lose weight. Some of us struggle to be healthy (not necessarily the same thing!). But we're all aware that we're part of the "obesity epidemic" (yes, even those of us who are technically "overweight" rather than "obese"). And it's just as true of children. This idea that "tough love" is needed is just heartbreaking. As is this quote:

For the longest time, a little bit of baby fat was okay

Did you notice that? Not even "a little bit" of baby fat is acceptable anymore.

Junkfood Science is the go-to blog on the absurdities of scare stories like these, so go there and read through her archives. She does an excellent job of highlighting what's wrong with the BMI, the "obesity epidemic" and the trend of weighing and measuring school kids.

Anglicans will not bless same-sex unions

This is disappointing.

It's particularly disappointing given that some Anglican churches have already been performing the blessings. If they're required to stop now, it would be a sad step backwards.

I think it's worth noting that it wasn't ordinary Anglicans, or even ordinary priests, who voted against the idea of blessing same-sex unions (not even marriages, mind you) -- it was the bishops, the folks at the top of the church power structure. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that, but it is suggestive. I suppose at the very least it suggests that if they have the vote again in a few years, the outcome might be a different one. (Never hurts to be optimistic, right?)

The summer barbeque season has begun

So parliament's on vacation. Just as well, really, since parliament and any laws it passes are apparently irrelevant to the governance of this country.

You know, I was really hoping for a spring election. I'm fed up with the Conservatives governing as though they had a majority, and I'm fed up with the opposition parties for going along with it. Yes, I know, nobody thinks they could win an election right now. And yes, I know, Canadians might suffer a fit of collective insanity and re-elect the Cs. But this is ridiculous.

I confess, I complained as much as anyone about Paul Martin's inability to get anything done with his minority government. So I should be glad that Stephen Harper's getting stuff accomplished. Apart from disagreeing with everything he says and believes, of course. But it would be nice if there were some semblance of consultation and compromise. It would be nice if they just pretended to care what anyone else had to say.

It would be nice if they just acknowledged that parliament as a whole is supposed to be running the country, not just Stephen Harper.

But that may be too much to ask.

Housework and the Division of Labour

After reading Jill's thoughtful post on the subject, there may, at some point be a post about marriage (it is wedding season, after all). This isn't it. This is a post about housework, prompted largely by Thomas' thoughtful comment (#32, if the link doesn't work properly).

The division of housework is one of those feminist person-is-political issues that it seems we should have resolved already. It seems so obvious: assuming both members of a heterosexual couple are working outside the home (and thus have similar out-of-house responsibilities), they should each do 50% of the housework. Easy, right? Especially if both partners have good intentions are are committed to an ideology of equality.

Not so much, as it turns out. Women still, consistently, end up doing more. It's been confirmed in poll after study after anecdote. Why?

For starters, there's the "she has a higher standard of cleanliness/she notices the dirt more" argument. I don't think I need to spend much time on this, since it strikes me as a pretty obvious cop-out. Bachelor pads to the contrary, most adult men don't want to live in pig-stys, and thus benefit from women's supposed "higher standard". Of course, culturally, women know they're the ones who are going to be criticized if the in-laws come by and see a less than pristine environment. And as long as men "don't notice" the dirt, they can get away without cleaning it -- it's all very passive-aggressive, although I'll grant that for many men it's probably at least partially uncounscious.

But the big thing, for me, is what Thomas mentions: the keeping track. It doesn't "count" as a chore if you're the one who constantly "notices" that cleaning needs doing -- it only counts when he responds to your request/nagging.

This turns the woman into the primary cleanliness monitor, and the man into the "helper". It becomes her responsibility to stay on top of the housework, and if she's not paying attention, asking him to "pitch in", it doesn't get done. And that's exhausting. It's a constant monitor-layer, over and above a woman's "fair share". And, of course, the woman's the one who has to ensure "fairness" is maintained in the "equitable" division of the "actual work" (odanu has a great comment at pandagon to this effect).

My, that's a lot of scare quotes in that paragraph. I fear my sarcasm is showing.

The other effect of the monitor-role is to turn the woman into Mom -- after all, it's Mom who assigns chores and asks for help around the house. And you can't be an equal partner when you're being Mommy.

Bitch PhD's suggestion for dealing with the housework issue is to "be a bitch about it" (and that's reductive, so go read her entire post -- it's a good one) -- effectively, to draw attention to the amount of work being done so that the male partner can't pretend not to notice. It forces the man to untimately internalize the workload in the way women are socialized to from childhood. It's good advice for a certain kind of person, but I have a hard time separating "being a bitch" in this way from "nagging", and, for me, it's psychologically and emotionally exhausting, even if it pays off in the long run. Nagging also puts the woman in a kind of Mommy role that I'd prefer to stay well out of. But I don't have a better suggestion.

Is true domestic equality impossible, even with an egalitarian-minded partner? Surely not. But it does take a lot of work, and a lot of goodwill, especially on the part of the man (who, after all, is being asked to give a privilege that's pretty deeply ingrained).

So -- ideas, comments, suggestions? How do you get a male partner to really truly pull his weight? Without mind games? Assume good intent and a desire for equality on his part, because we've got to get this kind of thing straight with our allies before we can hope to do any good to the more traditionally-minded folks.

Raising kids is a no-win proposition

• Kids should get more cuts and scrapes.
• Kids need to play outside; otherwise they'll become obese couch potatoes.
• Kids need to be supervised, and driven to and from school every day; otherwise they'll be kidnapped and raped and murdered.
• Kids need to be exposed to Baby Einstein videos; otherwise they'll never be geniuses.
• Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll become too competitive and lack empathy.
• Kids need to play sports; otherwise they'll be fat and nobody will like them.
• Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll get hurt.

Add yours in comments.

The Wage Gap

It comes as no surprise to me that, according to Statistics Canada, the wage gap between men and women has not substantially narrowed.

The wage gap is one of those hydra-headed gender issues that never seems to go away. We don't hear as often these days about women being paid less than men for doing the same jobs, but it's still generally legal and acceptable to pay substantially less for jobs that women tend to do (secretarial work, nursing, teaching) than for jobs men tend to do (janitorial work, construction). And why are these jobs so gender-specific, anyway? And would they still be as undervalued if men tended to do them?

So what's the solution? Do we need to work harder on encouraging girls to pursue traditionally lucrative fields? Yes, absolutely. But we also need to work on accurately valuing the work that women are doing now. 'Course, if we paid teachers what they were worth, I bet we'd see an increase in the number of male teachers...

Partys & Politics

In the Canadian system of government, we don't vote for a Prime Minister directly, or for a party, or for an ideology. We vote for a person -- a Member of Parliament. One of the side effects of voting for a person is that sometimes that person's views are not identical with his or her party's.

Case in point: Bill Casey, who yesterday voted against his party's budget and was promptly booted from the Conservative caucus (I am amused to read today that McKay had said they wouldn't be punishing any dissenters, in part because I can't see any party not punishing someone who voted against something as major as a budget).

I'm not going to get into whether Casey's right or wrong in his contention that this budget will cost Atlantic Canada money. But the relationship between a person and his or her party interests me. I don't think it's stretching to say that, for the majority of Canadians, a vote is at least as much for a political party, a platform, and/or a leader as it is for the individual running in that riding. And yet the individual has the power to act completely contrary to the party, the platform, the leader. David Emerson's the most blatant example yet, treating political parties as competing job offers, but he's far from the only MP to leave a party or change parties while in office.

The ability of an MP to make a principled stand is an important one, I think. If MPs weren't expected to ultimately make up their own minds on every vote, there would be no point in voting. And, really, no point in electing anyone besides the Prime Minister. Then Harper could just appoint whoever he wanted to be Ministers, without even having to put them in the Senate.

And yet. Are MPs still representing their constituents' wishes when they leave the party those constituents voted for?

Floor-crossing is a funny thing. It's hard to justify, and so often it looks opportunistic. MPs who sit as independants seem more honourable, but if they're voting with a party other than the one they used to belong to, is the effect any different?

I suppose the message, if I have one, is this: the Canadian electorate is too focussed on national politics, on the leaders and on perceptions of the parties (thanks, consolidated national media!), and not focussed enough on the individuals they're actually electing. You might not always be able to predict your future MP's actions, but maybe you can get a sense of whether their sticking points line up with yours or not.

In the movies, when they drop the charges, it means you're free

The charges have been dropped against Omar Khadr.

This doesn't mean he gets to go home.

You know, every time I think about Omar Khadr I just get really, really sad. He was a kid -- 15 years old -- when he was imprisoned in Guantanamo. Whatever he may have done -- and as far as I can tell, it seems to consist of throwing a grenade in a battle -- he was a kid. He's not a kid anymore.

Five years ago, he may have been indoctrinated with some fairly repugnant beliefs. He may have participated in attacks against Americans. He may have done, thought, intended some pretty terrible things. But he was still a kid, and kids are malleable, they're easily influenced, and we don't hold them responsible for their actions in the way we do adults.

Whether Khadr was radicalized then or not, he certainly is now. He's been imprisoned for five years, his only contact with other detainees and the American military. What do you think he thinks of the West now?

I don't know if he was salvageable. But I know he was a kid. He deserved better than this.

He still does.

Friday Random Ten

Bright Eyes, At the Bottom of Everything
British Sea Power, It Ended on an Oily Stage
Paper Moon, Remember Me
Portishead, Wandering Star
Death Cab for Cutie, Some Day You Will Be Loved
Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Sleep: Murray Ostril (They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach; Monheim (aka the first half of the second disc of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- GYBE! doesn't work so well for random 10s, do they?)
Sarah Slean, Mary
Weeping Tile, Don't Let it Bring You Down
Delerium, Incantation
Stars, This Charming Man


Happy weekend, y'all.

The inevitable Big White Wedding Post

Maybe I am, as Judy Gerstel would have you believe, an "old-fashioned proto-feminist". Or maybe I'm just a grinch. But you're not going to convince me that huge white consumerist merengue weddings are somehow worthy of my support just by waving the word "choice"* around. As Twisty would say, not all choices are feminist choices, and being a feminist doesn't require me to endorse every choice a woman makes.

Gerstel, along with the wedding industry as a whole, would have you believe that a wedding is an idealized expression of the bride's identity, a realization of the princess dreams she's had since childhood (courtesy of Disney and Barbie et al, of course). But there's nothing original about the Big White Wedding -- it's a highly codified ritual, with very strict requirements. The social and familial pressure to meet expectations is enormous. When was the last wedding you went to where the bride wore a colour other than white?** And no, ivory doesn't count.

I'm not calling for us to harangue brides who choose to follow the script. I have family weddings this summer, too, and I'll show up ready to celebrate the happy occasion. I don't blame any of those brides for going along with what society expects of them. But let's not pretend that there's anything empowering or feminist or individual about BWWs, or that it's something women naturally want that we should just accept. Because come on.


*and incidentally, what is up with using the word "choice" against feminists as if it were some kind of trump card?
** the white-dress thing is a particular irritant to me. It's become this huge symbol of "virginity" and "purity" (snort) and tradition, but its popularity dates only to Queen Victoria wearing a white dress to her wedding. Before that, wedding dresses were just one of your best dresses, not a one-time-only white confection.

Multiculturalism and women's rights

So the Star wants to have "a conversation about multiculturalism" and whether or not it's working. They're starting with women's rights.

The lead-in story is about a man who killed his wife, and then claimed he'd done so for his "honour" and his religion. So the entire discussion is framed by the idea that multiculturalism is a shelter for those who want to abuse or oppress women. In other words, "ethnic" women are oppressed by their culture and society in comparison to the women of white, western, mainstream Canadian society.

The problem with this contruction is that it leads directly to the idea of the ignorant, backwards savages, just waiting for Western society to ride in on a white horse and civilize them. It's the same narrative that claims we invaded Afghanistan in order to "free" Afghan women.

The thing of it is, white Western "civilization" is not really all that kind to women. Oh sure, we have technical equality. But how many women are Members of Parliament? Heads of major corporations? In decision-making positions generally? We don't stone women for adultery, but how many women are beaten, abused, or murdered by the men in their lives? We don't legislate burkas, but are we really free to wear clothes that make us comfortable and to look the way we want? What's more oppressive, a hijab or breast implants? How are our cultural imperatives really superior to those of other cultures?

We want to immigrants to assimilate into Canadian society, we say. But when we prevent girls from playing sports because we don't like their headwear, or give a woman a hard time for wanting to swim in something insufficiently sexy, are we really liberating anyone?

No woman should have to suffer for being a women. And religion or culture is no defense. But that's just as true of "Canadian" culture as it is of any other.

Perhaps, instead of judging newcomers to Canada for not being "Canadian" enough as regards women's rights, we should examine the beam in our own eye. We are not such paragons, we white westerners, that we can tell anyone that our way of living is the only appropriate one.

Friday Random Ten

My brain's too hot for substantive posting today, I'm afraid. I haven't acclimated to summer just yet. So in the meantime, ten random songs from the iPod.

Counting Crows, Round Here
Tori Amos, Famous Blue Raincoat
PJ Harvey, No Girl So Sweet
Metric, Wet Blanket
Moby, Lift Me Up
Stereolab, Diagonals
Department of Foreign Affairs, The Small Print
The Frames, In The Deep Shade
Loreena McKennitt, Courtyard Lullaby
Cat Power, I Don't Blame You

Disclaimer: I do think breastfeeding is a good thing

I must admit, when I first saw this story about adoptive moms breastfeeding, my immediate reaction was a gee-whiz "isn't that neat" reaction. I also, of course, immediately wondered if they'd be able to extend this induced lactation to men, à la Woman at the Edge of Time.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is really just one more addition to the cult of Perfect Parenting. Or rather -- let's be honest here -- Perfect Mothering. It's not enough, any more, to adopt a child, bring hir home, and love hir. Now you have to take all kinds of hormones and pump your breasts for weeks, in the hopes of producing enough breastmilk to "give your child the best start in life".

Listen to what's involved:

The 32-year-old municipal engineer started a rigorous pumping routine - every three hours, around the clock - even darting home from work on a sewage project to keep up the routine.

After four weeks, with the help of a drug to promote lactation and some supplemental formula bottles, Ms. Baird was able to breastfeed her newly adopted daughter.

This is not a minor effort. This is something that takes serious commitment, a willingess to take lactation-promoting drugs (with side effects? most drugs do have 'em), and a co-operative employer (who won't mind you 'darting home from work'). And I hear pumping isn't exactly pleasant for a lot of women.

I mean really, isn't it just one more thing for mothers to feel guilty about? If you can't breastfeed for whatever reason -- medical, work-related, whatever -- now there's another counterexample of women going to extreme lengths to do what you can't. And if you're an adoptive mom, and you're not willing/able to put in the kind of effort induced lactation calls for -- and it does sound like a pretty serious effort to me -- are you now an inferior candidate? Will people who'd make great parents start getting rejected because they can't or won't put their bodies through this?

6 Billion Others

6 Billion Others is, essentially, a series of interviews with people from all over the planet, answering questions such as "what is love?" and "what did your parents teach you?". It's a wonderful glimpse into the lives of people you'd never ordinarily meet.

(via redjenny)

So punching boys is acceptable, then?

This past week, a visiting hockey fan was punched by one or more Senators fans for making a joking comment about the game.

This is, of course, an appalling display of violence and sports-related stupidity. Taunting the opposing team is a time-honoured part of competitive sports, and taking sports overly seriously is a time-honoured display of lack of perspective. I should think it goes without saying that punching people is not okay. And that if our devotion to our team is such that we'll punch people for saying bad things about them, perhaps we should lay off the beer and take some deep breaths.

But hockey fans do stupid things and get into stupid fights all the time. Do you know why this story really made the news?

Because the victim was a woman. And, as everyone knows, you don't punch girls.

I agree: punching girls is a bad thing. I would go so far as to say punching anyone is a bad thing. So why does this kind of display of poor sportsmanship have to be tied up with archaic notions of chivalry and protection of the "weaker" sex?

Reviewing a film I haven't seen

I was at the movies the other day (watching something fluffy and absurd, no doubt), and got to see a preview of the forthcoming Knocked Up.

The premise, if you haven't heard of it, is that a pretty, succesful young woman, upon getting a big promotion, goes drinking to celebrate and has a one-night stand with "some guy" who is neither conventionally attractive nor rich and succesful. She ends up pregnant. She then calls up the guy, and lightweight romantic-comedy hilarity ensues.

There is something profoundly unsettling to me about this premise.

Let's set aside the abortion issue entirely -- in the popular media these days, no one ever seems to consider terminating an unplanned pregnancy, but let's give the benefit of the doubt here: the character may legitimately want to be a mother, or she may decide that it's the best choice for her. Nothing wrong with that, although I doubt any alternative will even be raised.

What bothers me is that she decides to seek out the guy, and that she (apparently) starts a relationship with him. Come on. I'm willing to suspend disbelief only so far. Yeah, sure, rom-com premise. But how much do you want to bet it'll get couched as 'a child needs his father' or some such?

This is not just a silly idea for a romantic comedy (although it's definitely silly). This is a statement of cultural belief. That a woman who gets pregnant after casual sex* would rather try to be a co-parent with someone she doesn't even know** than be a single mother says a lot about what this culture thinks of single mothers. And do I even need to say how appalling the idea is that a baby will bring two people together into a context appropriate for a romantic comedy?

What it comes down to, for me, is that this is a profoundly reactionary premise. And even if the film ultimately subverts it (which I cynically doubt), the very existence of the premise, the fact that the studio expects it to sell movie tickets, promotes this kind of reactionary thought.

Also, it's probably gonna suck.


* it would be unsporting of me to ask if any birth control was involved, wouldn't it?
** not to be alarmist, but seriously. She knows nothing about this guy. And she's going to let him help raise her baby? I don't think so.

Life is unfair

I've been trying to come up with something intelligent to say about this article from Monday's Globe and Mail, but I just keep coming back to the same thought: how incredibly unfair. This poor woman would have been, it seems to me, an excellent candidate for permanent residency and citizenship (I haven't, of course, seen her file, but no one seems to be saying otherwise). And now she may have to leave, because of something that happened to her here.

If she'd been assaulted in a more conventional way -- mugged and beaten up, say -- and left with a permanent medical condition (not being a doctor, I'm having a hard time thinking of an equivalent, but let's say permanent damage to a major organ, requiring ongoing care), would she still be expected to leave? I honestly don't know the answer.

I do hope the article draws enough attention to the case that Citizenship & Immigration will reconsider. Not that the immigration system can ever be truly fair, any more than life in general can be; but this looks like a special case if ever I saw one.

The story's been all over the Canadian lefty blogosphere, and even Garth Turner's in on the act -- a pro-life rally on the Hill used the Canada workmark (that's the word "Canada" with a little flag over the last "a") on one of their banners.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know if the Conservatives sponsored the march, or if the logo was used without permission?

(to be honest, much as I'd like to accuse the Harperites of re-opening the issue, my money's on the latter. It wouldn't be the first time the wordmark's been used without permission)

And, surprisingly enough, I haven't heard a peep from the media on the subject... have you?

Duceppe's mistake

Gilles Duceppe says he "made a mistake" when he decided to run for the leadership of the Parti Québecois ... and then quickly changed his mind.

There's been a lot of speculation about what on earth Mr. Duceppe was thinking when he first announced that he wanted to lead the PQ, and then why on earth he would flip-flop so quickly. The Globe says he was counting on the support of another potential candidate, and when Curzi said he wasn't running Duceppe's chances immediately looked much poorer.

My personal theory? I think Duceppe figured he could bully Mme. Marois into sitting this one out. He figured that if he announced quickly and loudly enough, she'd just roll over and let him win, rather than risk dividing the party. And then, when she did not just give in, he was left in an awkward position.