You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2019.
Good chunks of Eastern Canada are getting the flood treatment.
“In Canada, this spring’s rainfall, compounded by melting snow, has led to states of emergency and evacuations in areas across Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.”
The people who have built or bought their homes on floodplains are currently getting their asses kicked again, just like last year, and most likely just like next year. Our climate is becoming more chaotic and more prone to extremes it would seem that choosing to live in a vulnerable area is perhaps, not the best of decisions. Enter the notion of the floating home:
“English, who runs the Buoyant Foundation Project, explained that most homes on flood plains, if properly equipped, would be unscathed in flooding like Canadians are experiencing today.
Amphibious homes are retrofitted with “a hidden floating dock underneath” and vertical posts that guide the house up and down, allowing it to float on water, she said.
“It lets the water go wherever the water wants to go and the house gets out of the way. So it doesn’t try to compete,” she said. “Humankind does the accommodation rather than trying to push the water around.”
Wow. To me, this seems to be one of the problems we humans have when making decisions about how to use and exist in the space our biosphere provides for us.
We, in most of North America, are very comfortable with imposing our designs (societal and architecturally speaking) on the environment and are quite happy to rely on human ingenuity to fix the problems that arise from our initial imposition.
I want to be clear, I live in a urban setting that is quite pleasingly civilized and manicured to standard that removes most of the hazardous aspects of making a living. And I like it, quite a bit actually. But my current happiness and comfort, doesn’t excuse the artificial nature of the relationship and all the downsides it brings to the table with regards to sustainability and the future.
So, this leads to one of the problems I see with the notion of floating houses. It is the seeking of a technological solution to a problem created by technology. River management is a fools game – the more we mess with river system the worse said system gets.
We avoid the basic problem – building on a floodplain – by making houses that float. We should consider not building in high-risk areas in the first place and add incentive for people to move away from areas that regularly get flooded.
Seems reasonable to me. However, as we all know, human beings are not particularly reasonable creatures.
What are the roots of male violence? We can look into how males are raised in society and the gender stereotypes we inculcate them with.
Observe the list in blue. It, and similar archetypes, dominate our social discourse and structure of our societies. It is from many of these bedrock values patriarchy springs, and along with it, male violence. These values are passed from parents to children and to have any hope of ending the problem of male violence the cycle must be interrupted. I think that in some aspects our society has been proactive in reducing direct violent behaviour toward members of the family unit. However, the use of violence to solve disputes within the family setting still exists, and is prevalent enough make the existence of well-watched violent compilations on youtube a reality.
We know that children are like little sponges and they observe almost everything that happens around them. Here is what is disturbing about the following ‘funny’ collection of parents – usually fathers – destroying their children’s electronic toys: What lessons are being learned in how male children are to process their anger and frustration in a reasonable pro-social manner?
Now, after seeing the vid (there are 4 more similar compilations?!) how can we be ever be surprised when males act the way they do? Yes this is a gratuitous generalization, but really in what possible world is destroying someone’s stuff a reasonable course of action? They are not listening? Talk to them. Do pretty much anything but rely on patriarchal domination and violence to get your point across to your child. The behaviour a parent demonstrates now shapes the future behaviour of the child and we, desperately, as a society need to break some of the more deleterious aspects of male socialization.
Cogent argument for maintaining sex differentiated sports.
By Danielle Whitaker
–
Apparently, archeology is “TERF” science.
In thisextremely bigoted video, Dr. Mary Lewis from the University of Reading illustrates how to examine the bones and teeth of a skeleton to determine its—and I quote—”biological sex.”
All sarcasm aside, you and I and every other sane person alive know that male and female bodies differ in a number of ways. There are hormone levels, of course, which can vary naturally; muscle mass and composition; fat content and distribution; bone structure, density, and size; center of gravity, pelvic shape; skull size; limb length… and so on, and so on.
No worries, though: regardless of sex, both sexes’ brains are gray, not glittery pink or manly blue.
When we discuss the issue of trans-identified males competing in women’s sports, perhaps the first question we should ask is, why do women’s sports exist? Why should they—aside from the obvious…
View original post 1,964 more words
Good.
A pornography festival in London this weekend has been forced to relocate after protests.
Faced with the prospect of a picket, organisers of the London porn film festival, which describes itself as “celebrating queer, feminist, radical and experimental porn”, pulled screenings from the Horse Hospital, an arts venue in Bloomsbury. The three-day event will instead be held at a new location disclosed only to ticket holders.
Multiple complaints about the festival were made to Camden council. Local authorities have the power to permit screenings of uncertificated films.
Despite the festival’s progressive intentions, feminist organisations branded it demeaning. Janice Williams, chair of the activist group Object, said the films on show promoted “degradation and oppression”. Rude Jude, one of the festival’s organisers, disagreed. “This is the next step on from the moral panic and the rightwing conservative groups that protested this kind of thing before … Britain likes to think of…
View original post 349 more words
Getting elected is one thing, being effective in government is quite another. Thanks for the info ipolitics:
“Trouble is, while Kenney’s frothy campaign bluster successfully fanned Alberta’s collective outrage, very little of it bore any resemblance to reality. Notley, far from being “complacent on pipelines” as Kenney accused a few weeks ago, has tried harder than most of her conservative brethren, Saint Ralph Klein included, to get one into the ground.
Proof positive of her bona fides: she defied the anti-oil types within both the national NDP and British Columbia’s NDP government next door. She earned the ire of her former ally and oil patch critic Kevin Taft. Greenpeace even labelled Notley “pro-pipeline” — something she probably should have put on a campaign sign, come to think of it.
The reason why an oil pipeline has been so elusive has nothing to do with partisan politics but an enduring political reality: it is manifestly more difficult to get pipelines into the ground today than when Ralph Klein roamed the earth.”
[…]
“Another conceit peddled by Jason Kenney over the last two years: that the dampening demand for Alberta-born bitumen, and the resulting deep discount at which it is sold, is strictly an infrastructure problem. This has allowed him to fashion a very passable boogeyman out of various anti-pipeline organizations, which served him well throughout the election campaign.
There more than a kernel of truth to Kenney’s assertions. Alberta’s oil sands production increased by nearly 50 per cent since 2014; its ability to transport all this bounty by rail and pipeline has remained virtually unchanged.
Yet there is an inconvenient a truth behind Alberta’s deeply discounted oil: exploding U.S. oil production. Virtually all of Canada’s crude — 99 per cent — goes to the U.S. Yet America has become increasingly adept at slaking its own demand. A fracking boom has prompted an increase of nearly 90 per cent in the U.S. between 2007 and 2018.
U.S.-fracked oil is cheaper to produce and requires less refining than the stuff north of the border. By virtue of spouting from American soil, it is by nature a Trump-approved nationalist bulwark against all things foreign-owned. It’s another fact of life, one utterly divorced from Kenney’s scorched earth politics: the U.S., Alberta’s biggest client, has increasingly become a competitor.
A few days ago, Kenney blamed all of Alberta’s woes on the allegedly socialist overindulgences of Rachel Notley. But reality, pain that it is, will quickly reveal the obvious: Kenney, having demonized Notley for the last two years, has only inherited her problems.”
Elgar’s famous, serene, and stately melody
Is given a vocal adaptation with this
Lux aeterna requiem.
Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine cum sanctis tuis
In aeternum:
Quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis,
Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum quia pius es.
The Intransigent One
Mystro
The Arbourist
Your opinions…