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Sadfaced millionaires and sadfaced billionaires are fighting it out right now about how to divide the outrageous plunder made in the National Hockey League.
Boo-Frickety-Hoo!
The players in the NHL are overpaid. Chasing a rubber disk around a rink should not be multi-millionaire territory. I’m thinking important occupations that improve our society should get the big bucks, you know like doctors, scientists,engineers, educators, social workers et cetera; occupations that make a difference.
My solution to the NHL vs. NHLPA problem?
1. No one makes over a million dollars. Too bad so sad, you’re lucky to be paid for playing a game.
2. Profits from advertising/ticket sales/ concessions are capped at 15%.
3.The excess money goes back into developing the game at the grassroots and making it safer for all those involved. From midget leagues on up, kids would have the best equipment and facilities to practice the great game of hockey. Medical care for injured players and further medical research into common injuries would be fully funded in order to make the game safer and generally make the game better for all those involved.
4. A retirement pension fund would also be established to help players retire/transition to other roles in society.
5. Ticket prices would be reduced to make the game accessible to more people, while keeping the funding structure in place to support points 3 and 4.
The inflated greed that ruins the NHL makes it unwatchable. Wow! overpaid douche one just scored on overpaid douche two, oh the drama of it all.
Bringing hockey back to a reasonable level would be awesome, I’d watch hockey again because then truly it would be Canada’s national sport (kinda like Lacrosse which actually is Canada’s national sport).
Maybe we should update our preferred torture methods, hanging perhaps?
Our society is progressing ever so slowly (and will continue to do so if we don’t let the corporations win, restore the 25% tax rate please). I often look to the politics and citizenry of Quebec for cues on progressive society and the model we should be working toward. Progress does come in fits and starts, but the latest PQ notion of a Secular Charter is a retrograde notion at its very best.
The Parti Québécois wants to introduce a secular charter and ban all civil servants from wearing or exposing overt religious symbols.
This isn’t the first time the Parti Québécois has mentioned the introduction of a secular charter aimed at making sure public and parapublic institutions are free of religious bias and symbols.
This part is good. Government needs to be free of the stench of religion and all of the sectarian nonsense that comes with it. The wider the wall between church and state, the better off society will be. Spot the problem with this next bit from Pauline Marois:
“We will fight for what we need because we think this is essential for the public’s well-being by taking its values and writing them in a charter,” Marois said.Under such a charter, civil servants would not be allowed to wear conspicuous religious symbols.
The crucifix at Quebec’s national assembly, however, would remain untouched.
Marois also talked about the fact that many of Quebec’s institutions used to be based on religion.It’s part of our heritage, but taking a step to ensure the state’s secularity is not to deny what we are, but that we are at a new moment in our lives and believe the state’s neutrality and the fundamental values, equality between men and women must guide us toward a life together in Quebec,” Marois said.
*broken record sound* What phoque is going on with that?
We’ll keep our christian torture symbol prominently displayed in the national assembly, but the rest the religious stuff, you know you immigrants and your pagan practices…that shite has to go!
If you are going to adopt a secular charter then all of the religious bullshite has to go, you can’t keep the ones that you like and then say no to others citing “the secular nature of society” that is just discrimination of the racist sort and therefore has no place in progressive secular society.
Fits and starts I tell thee. Come on Quebec, get it right and turf all the religious ooga-booga, it will do Quebec and Canada proud.
You would think that after your Dad has been thoroughly trashed by making bogus claims you would, oh…I dunno… learn from his mistakes and not repeat them? Frak the facts, (creationist SOP btw) lets get the good word out there accuracy be damned.
Christian ‘morals’ plus the abortion issue and dudes, you know where we are headed….
I’m not sure if I like the “reader” function that wordpress offers as a part of its blogging platform. Searching the Abortion tag seems to consistently raise my blood pressure because of beastly shite that I find out there. Today’s turd of a post is entitled ‘Tough Choices” and after reading it my tough choice was either to cry or vomit. Luckily I chose option “3” and will employ the red pen of justice and take this privileged anti-choice dude apart.
“A young girl, around 12 or 13, is walking down the street at dark, when suddenly a man takes her and violently rapes her. Devastated, she falls into a state of depression. She is ready to put it all in the past when she realizes something–she’s late on her period. Terrified, she obtains a pregnancy test which confirms her fears. She is pregnant with the child of a rapist’s.
Now, I know some people would say that she needs to have the right to an abortion. Well–and yes, I know this is probably an unpopular opinion–I disagree.”
[Well it is good to establish that you have a firm hatred of women and their bodily autonomy from the outset.] Yes, rape is traumatic.[The faux-empathy begins here]
I can’t even begin to imagine having to go through it [It’s shitty, and you don’t want first hand experience].
However, if a victim of rape realizes she is pregnant, she probably feels scared, alone, and vulnerable. Some women would want to turn to abortion. But abortion is a cold lie [Where the frack does this come from? Abortion is not a lie, it is a medical procedure Is an appendectomy a cold lie too?]. It may seem appealing, like you can magically “undo” all that happened by a simple procedure, but in reality, it is the killing of a child[anti-choice distortion, the first of many – It is not a child, we get a child after the little event called “Birth”. Acorns are not oak trees]. Should a child’s life [*facepalm* – repeating misinformation does not make it more true] be taken just because of the crime the father committed?
Abortion in cases of rape takes a vulnerable, traumatized girl and further disturbs her by killing her child [Like carrying the results of rape for 9 months isn’t traumatizing?]. The results of abortion in cases of rape is one dead child [one terminated pregnancy, FIFY] and one extremely wounded mother [keep in mind the author is talking about a 11 or 12 year child, the term “Mother” is grossly misused].
Which seems more traumatic to you: being raped, becoming pregnant, having the child killed, and having to live with that the rest of your life; or, being raped, becoming pregnant, delivering the child, putting the child up for adoption, and living knowing that your child is alive as well? [you missed the option of suffering though and possibly dying in pregnancy] (though some women choose to keep their children rather than giving them up for adoption, a most admirable move)
Some pro-lifers want an exception for rape[yes, they have something resembling empathy and respect for women]. However, I don’t think there should be one. It may seem heartless at first[because it is], but once you look at the real reasons[fetus worshipping] why abortion shouldn’t be allowed in cases of rape[women should be second class citizens/incubators nothing more], I think you will better understand[We do understand, the hate for women and their autonomy screams from every line of this post].
Sometimes we forget that despite all the bullshit, all the division, all the scorn, human beings can come together and create beautiful acts that fly in the face of all the shite we put up with in our regular day to day existence. I recently had the great privilege of participating in a choir that performed Carl Jenkins Adiemus.
The piece is simple, but powerful. You find a way to move through each phrase with energy and the intent to infuse your sound into Jenkins work. Adiemus sounds great from the audience, but the experience pales compared to being inside the choir singing it.
Find your community chorus, get involved, be with people and make music.
So Say We All.
Oh? Upgrades at DWR?
Morning Folks,
I’ve been mulling over how to format the comments on the blog and have recently decided to try the unnested comment format, so when you reply to a comment, you will have to quote who you are talking to or simply use a @username to be clear as to whom you’re replying to. Handy html for additional comment clarity is use of the [blockquote,/blockquote] tag.
We’ll see how it goes, and of course, if nesting comments really made the blog for you let me know, I may put one level back in, but no more as it gets a little silly after that.
Arbourist.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Spot the Question.
August 23, 2012 in Education, Feminism | Tags: Awesome Comments I steal from the Internet, Feminism, Patriarchy, Rape Culture, Spot the Question, Understanding Feminism | by The Arbourist | 13 comments
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“Not surprisingly, I have a story? It’s pretty long, and I’m sorry. My husband, Doctor Glass, recently went on a weeklong workshop. The participants worked on teams, slept in a dormitory, shared meals and spent all day together. While there, Dr Glass acquired a strikingly beautiful female friend, who was absolutely luminous – like a fallen star or a revolutionary. She was also just about to enter university, making her very much younger than Dr Glass. They were on the same team, had much in common, and seemed to enjoy each other.
However, there was a twenty-something dude on the course who, according to Dr Glass, “made things awkward.” Immediately, he tried to make the workshop all about his pantsfeelings for Luminous Girl. Although he was on a different team, he was constantly buzzing around Dr Glass and Luminous Girl, getting in their way (which was dangerous and distracting, as they were doing physical labor) and trying to get her to talk to him, work with him, come over and look at his work, etc. In return she tried to ignore him, laughed him off politely, repeatedly referenced her desire to do her work, physically moved away whenever he got close to her, and stuck like glue to Dr Glass; saying NO in all those thousand little pleasant ways that women are trained to do. Awkward Dude tried to impress her with physical activity, but Dr Glass cut him off because he was being distracting. Confused and annoyed, Awkward stepped up his Game, trying to impress her with his intellectual cred, and it went down like a lead zeppelin, with Luminous and Dr Glass resuming their own work and conversations. So Awkward started loudly asking wasn’t Dr Glass married?!
At this, Awkward Dude attempted to kill Dr Glass with his laser-eyeballs at every turn, lurking and glaring and pining like a bad Snape impersonator. (Dr Glass wasn’t sure why he was suddenly the target of the resulting animosity, as he clearly had no romantic interest in Luminous, until I explained it to him: Dude had decided that the reason Luminous Girl was not sleeping with him was because she was the Possession of Another Male, and further, a Male who Already Had His Fair Share of Females; thus Dr Glass was the enemy for not shunning her and leaving a clear path for fellow males. “Oh,” said Dr Glass in sudden revelation, “That makes sense, I guess.”)
But the guy persisted – it wasn’t that Luminous didn’t like him! It was that she was clearly in thrall of my husband. The solution was to get her alone! So whenever they sat down to a lecture, Luminous, practically dragging Dr Glass by the arm, would move like lightning to position herself between him and a safe wall – with her lovely admirer circling them and glaring, loudly asking Dr Glass about his Wife Back Home. Awkward Dude implied that Dr Glass was creepy and odd for always hanging out with a girl half his age. Awkward Dude was annoyed that the course director, an older woman who should presumably know better, had assigned dorm space based on teams, so that Dr Glass and Luminous bunked in adjacent rooms (while he, Awkward Dude, was in the wing with the married couples!) because it was inappropriate and wrong to place a married man next to a teenaged female. On a particularly cold day, Dr Glass noticed that Luminous did not have warm clothing, and lent her an extra hoodie. It happened to have his name on it; Awkward Dude practically ignited, to the point where even the other people on the course were laughing awkwardly at him and saying “Uh, she’s… allowed to wear clothes?”
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