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Canada needs to bring all of her peoples into the light. Respect and remember the past and try to fix the wrongs of our brief history since we now have the capacity to do so.
I would recommend going to Alter.net and reading the full article as it also focuses on the nuclear threat that humanity faces and how we in the West have been merrily poking at the hornets nest of annihilation with a stick. The part I quoted (after the Idle No More manifesto) deals with the struggle between the so called civilized societies versus the indigenous societies that is going on in many countries.
In Canada, our First Nations are organizing into a national movement called Idle No More. From their manifesto:
“We contend that: Currently, this government is trying to pass many laws so that reserve lands can also be bought and sold by big companies to get profit from resources. They are promising to share this time…Why would these promises be different from past promises? We will be left with nothing but poisoned water, land and air. This is an attempt to take away sovereignty and the inherent right to land and resources from First Nations peoples.
We contend that: There are many examples of other countries moving towards sustainability, and we must demand sustainable development as well. We believe in healthy, just, equitable and sustainable communities and have a vision and plan of how to build them. Please join us in creating this vision.”
They are pissed, and rightly so, and are demanding that we build a sustainable future in Canada as opposed to the Neo-Conservative capitalist trajectory we are currently on. Their movement is incrementally gaining traction in Canadian politics as their message, when and if it is heard, resonates with much of Canada’s populace.
INM and the indigenous people that Chomsky mentions understand that the market is not god and that the idea of a sustainable future runs counter-current to many of the practices Western societies take as the norm. The indigenous societies understand the link between the land and the people that live on it.
They get it. And we, fundamentally, do not.
The view from the business end of the colonial bludgeon provides a clarity that Western societies desperately, necessarily, need to listen to. Ignoring indigenous movements that demand sustainability over profitability such as Idle No More imperils the future for everyone.
So, at one extreme you have indigenous, tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing full-speed ahead to destroy the environment as quickly as possible. Unlike Ecuador, and indigenous societies throughout the world, they want to extract every drop of hydrocarbons from the ground with all possible speed.
Both political parties, President Obama, the media, and the international press seem to be looking forward with great enthusiasm to what they call “a century of energy independence” for the United States. Energy independence is an almost meaningless concept, but put that aside. What they mean is: we’ll have a century in which to maximize the use of fossil fuels and contribute to destroying the world.
And that’s pretty much the case everywhere. Admittedly, when it comes to alternative energy development, Europe is doing something. Meanwhile, the United States, the richest and most powerful country in world history, is the only nation among perhaps 100 relevant ones that doesn’t have a national policy for restricting the use of fossil fuels, that doesn’t even have renewable energy targets. It’s not because the population doesn’t want it. Americans are pretty close to the international norm in their concern about global warming. It’s institutional structures that block change. Business interests don’t want it and they’re overwhelmingly powerful in determining policy, so you get a big gap between opinion and policy on lots of issues, including this one.
So that’s what the future historian — if there is one — would see. He might also read today’s scientific journals. Just about every one you open has a more dire prediction than the last.
Evidence of the ugly side (is there a good side?) of the MRA movement. This is prima fucking facia proof of the ugly current of misogyny that runs deep in our society. Go to Manboobz and see the despicable MRA movement terrorize someone for expressing their views on their particular shit movement.
And so the MRAs have found yet another woman to hate.
Earlier this month, as many of you no doubt know, a Men’s Rights group sponsored a lecture at the University of Toronto. The event drew protesters, and the protesters drew MRAs with video cameras. One of the MRAs filmed a confrontation between a red-haired feminist activist and a number of MRAs who continually interrupted her as she tried to read a brief statement.
Her crime? She wasn’t exactly polite in responding to the interrupters. And so, after video of the confrontation was uploaded to YouTube, and linked to on the Men’s Rights subreddit and elsewhere, she became a virtual punching bag for the angry misogynists of the internet.
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Ideology can be a horrible thing. It sinks the brain in a rut, spitting out automatic responses with no regard to critical thought or empirical evidence. This results in a huge resistance to progress. “Change? No! We were right before, so your new option must be wrong! Actually consider the facts and implications? Nope, not interested.”
This sad fact is now rearing its ugly head in the arena of children’s sports, specifically, soccer. The Alberta Soccer Association is proposing to stop keeping score and tracking wins for children under 12. They tried to push this through earlier, but met with too much resistance from parents. Now, they are trying once more and I’m worried that they may fail to persuade the parents yet again.
So why is this being pushed and what are the concerns of parents? Before we look at the real answer, let’s check in with some commercial media. I’ll start with the pinnacle of mindless, reactionary, things-were-better-with-polio zealotry, The Sun.
“Will it result in coddled kids, less equipped to handle the pressures of winning and losing? Probably.
Will the lack of a score promote a culture of mediocrity, where some kids don’t bother to try, and where the best young athletes are dragged down to the level of the lowest denominator? Pretty much.”
Wow, all it needs is to suggest that this new no-score system will lead to socialism or nazism and it’s like we have our own Fox News. But surely, this troglodyte spewing out baseless claims is in the minority. Other mass media personalities will be at least moderately responsible about what comes out of their mouths and actually look into the issue before spouting ill-informed tripe, won’t they? Sure won’t.
Over in radio land, The Bear’s Yukon Jack, the station’s ranter for the everyman, made a Yap entitled “Sports are for Winning” where he posited that the reason behind the no score movement was ‘winning isn’t important’, declared it “nonsense”, then suggested that without winning, kids would have no reason to try or succeed. Of course, no justification was presented for any of this. But then, it’s pretty hard to present what doesn’t exist.
So what’s actually going on? It’s bigger than soccer. Some few articles will mention that this no-scoring for young children is starting in other sports as well. It’s bigger than that too. Sports Canada, the body dedicated to developing federal policies for Canadians to participate and excel in sports, is putting out a massive amount of programs and research dedicated to getting Canadians active for life. They are pushing for all sports to use the Long Term Athlete Development Model . Indeed, some sports have already implemented much of the LTAD model with great success. The mass of research, study, work, and data supporting the LTAD model is staggering. And guess what? Not only is keeping score not important at a young age, it’s harmful.
The load of moronic BS myth is that ‘without winning, children won’t be competitive or motivated to do well’.
LTAD recommends the removal of KEEPING score, not the removal of scoring. People who confuse the two are insulting the intelligence of children. Kids know full well when they kick the ball into the net, hit the ball with the bat, or run all the way to the end zone without being stopped, they’ve achieved. They will feel the rush of success, the thrill of triumph, and the burning desire to do it again. All the motivation, encouragement, and fun one could ask of sports, and no one loses.
In the simpler world of children, losing is failure, losing is being a bad player, losing isn’t fun, losing can be the end of the world. The message ‘you’re a loser’ being pounded into a young mind has disastrous consequences.
The first response to this point is usually something like ‘it builds character and perseverance’. No, for most kids that age, it doesn’t. What it builds is a dislike of sports and aversion to activity. “Why be active and be called a loser when I can play video games? At least video games are fun.” A huge part of the obesity problem we currently face is people are not active enough. Hardly surprising when old school “character building” is teaching kids that sports are for the few elite winners, not for fun.
The other response is ‘kids need to learn about losing, or they’ll be ill prepared for it later’. I can’t help but see claims like this as deliberately dense, as they are wrong on a couple of levels. One, learning to have fun playing sports is crucial to seeing what is really important, which will, ultimately, develop a healthy attitude towards losing when the child gets older. Two, ‘losing’ is ubiquitous in today’s society. It’s a part of almost all games, activities, and all kinds of social engagements. Taking losing out of sports won’t suddenly make ‘losing’ a surprise.
Children need to learn to have fun playing sports, or you end up with a huge chunk of the population who have all kinds of health problems associated with low levels of activity. Once the love of sports is built in, not only will you have a much more active population, training for high level competition is much more likely to happen later in life for a lot more people.
I point this out, not because it’s the way I was raised. Not because I identify with a group that feels this way. Because that’s what mountains of research has shown to be effective.
Just as they didn’t poll parents when they brought in child seat regulations, I feel it is inappropriate to decide whether to go ahead with LTAD based on what parents think. The information is available. Being willfully ignorant of it to the detriment of children is neglectful and borderline abusive. It should not be an option. Not to say that the LTAD model is perfect. There is still lots to work out in terms of ideal implementation. And I definitely am not denying the possibility of improvement, but hashing out these details is not the discussion that’s being had.
Society should always want better for their children. Improvement of this kind demands we move beyond the ‘it-was-good-enough-for-me’ mentality. This would be expedited significantly if media personalities would actually do a bit of research, speak honestly, and not automatically resort to the traditonal-bootlicking, comfortzone-pandering, misinformation-spreading, ignorance-enabling clap trap that currently pollutes our culture.
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The Right in Canada was bloodily united a couple of years ago under the banner the old, yet new again, banner of the Conservative Party. The two precursor parties were the Progressive Conservative Party and the (Wack-a-loon) Reform (Alliance/fascist/reactionary/etc) Party of Western Canada. Sadly, as I hail from Western Canada, I cannot but feel partially responsible for bringing the supernovae grade stupidity and fail into power. In my defense, I’ve done what I can helping elect, Federally, the only New Democratic Party candidate (woo!, Linda Duncan!) in this political backwater called the lovely province of Alberta.
Patience gentle readers, as I am setting up some background to better frame the insipid gurglings we are hearing from the backbenches of the Conservatives party as of late. Steven Harper, our beloved leader, essentially won his majority because our right-centre Liberal party, for the last seven years, has had a gargantuan case of cranial vapour lock and simply cannot get its shite together. Thus, traditional centerist voters rather than voting for the “scary” New Democratic Party (because social democratic values are Satan), voted for the the seemingly calm, stable monolith known as the Conservative Party of Canada.
Harper, whose child-eating smile still makes me cringe, is a backroom authoritarian who is more than happy to sell Canada’s people down the river to corporate and business interests. Harper though, the High King of the reform party, brought to the table all the false populist beliefs that makes the red-necks here in Western Canada bray with crazy-eyed delight. Tough on the poor, women and foreigners, family values and all that hoopla. It is the usual traditional nonsense that sounds fucking AMAZING to the poor feckless (read false populist) sobs that greedly eat that shite up come election day.
Fortunately, the regressive bullcookery of Western Canada doesn’t play well in Eastern Canada where most of the votes are, so all those gob-smacked, turd-streaked policies that Harper trumpeted in the West quickly got tucked away under his big ole cowboy hat. Then surprisingly(?) enough, he almost exclusively talked about a reasonably sane economic platform (admittedly ‘reasonable’ is a stretch) to the rest of Canada, winning him the election over the fractured parties of the Left.
Harper won the election by controlling and essentially muzzling the pack of socially conservative dipshites that were elected in Western Canada. The “S2 Directive” (sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up) has been an iron rule in the Conservative Caucus. The bug-frakking-nutz ideology is starting to bubble over Harper’s carefully crafted message. Now we are starting to see the rampantly bat-shite, wilde-eyed social conservatives come out of the rotten woodwork of the governing party and demand the regressive social platform that got them elected in (*sigh*) Western Canada.
Let me show you the abortion law in Canada:
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There isn’t one. That decision is left up to the woman. End of story. No legal restrictions and thus, none of the twelve different flavours of socially regressive bullshit that is happening down in the US at the moment. Hence, in Canada, Women’s autonomy and rights are (for the most part) being respected and this gentle reader, is officially a GOOD thing. Cue the clown-car entry of concerned male-white-dude Mark Warawa MP from Langley BC and his ‘thin edge of the wedge’ selective sex abortion tirade against women and their rights.
Mr.Warawa’s noble attempts to get women closer to broodmare status have been smacked down repeatedly in the Canadian parliament. Much to Harper’s chagrin Warawa is not sitting down nor is he shutting up, he’s calling the ‘waaaaambulance’ and faffing on about being repressed and going on histrionically about how democracy died on this day. The loopy-gnats representatives of the failosphere have clawed a hole in Harper’s big ole centrist-economics hat and are spilling out all over table spilling their garbanzo-bean crazy as far as the eye can see.
From the CBC, in this article Warawa has already been shut down once, but insane doesn’t know the meaning of the word stop (or deleterious to the party), so he warbles onward:
“Conservative MP Mark Warawa has lost his appeal to bring a motion condemning sex-selective abortion to the House of Commons for debate.
The procedure and House affairs committee upheld a decision by its subcommittee that Warawa’s motion, M-408, isn’t eligible to be debated by MPs, despite the advice of a non-partisan Library of Parliament analyst that the motion was in order.”
Like the fetid ramblings of Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth Warawa has had his shit-shutdown. I’m guessing that this is only the tip of the iceberg of stupid that is the socially regressive base of the Conservative party. Undaunted by opposition from within his party and common sense, Warawa plows on.
“Warawa has five sitting days to appeal to the House of Commons, but with MPs returning to their ridings for two weeks, that brings his appeal deadline to April 19. He says he’ll announce his decision when the House returns on April 15.
The MP for Langley, B.C., said Monday he has the backing he needs to bring the appeal, with the support of five MPs from two recognized parties. That appeal will lead to a secret ballot over whether the motion can be brought for debate.
Warawa said he’s “very disappointed” but was going to take a few days before deciding whether to appeal. He can also introduce another private member’s bill or motion instead of appealing the decision.”
It looks like Conservative back bench has cranked the stupid-o-tron to 11(!1!!11!!!), broken the dial off, and flushed it down the crapper.
“My conscience is my guide, but I also am proud to be a member of the Conservative caucus,” Warawa said.
You sir, are an arrogant, misogynistic, snivelling, cock-sweater of a human being. Take your conscience and ram it sideways into the brain-trust known as your arsehole. Women and women alone are best arbitrators of their reproductive systems(aka their bodies). Despite the abortion issue being settled, Harper’s backbench are threatening to go all Lord of the Flies on his ass, and are taking umbrage at their right to free-speech being trampled on. Funny my backbenchy friends, how you were comfortable with Harper’s hobnailed boots on your necks, while he was winning you the election. Just sayin’.
“New Brunswick MP John Williamson, who in 2009 worked for Harper as his director of communications, said blocking any MP from delivering a statement is “is a violation of privilege or right” and that the speaker recognizes MPs directly, not via their parties.”
“I believe there are limits that have been crossed that involve removing speaking rights and that suddenly now involve veto rights over who is able to be recognized as a member of Parliament,” Williamson said.
“This also involves our democratic principles. If we, that is to say, you, Mr. Speaker, reinforce the authority of members of Parliament by reaffirming their right to speak, [and] then your right to recognize them, we will together strengthen democracy in this chamber.”
I’m all for the wigged out cracker-jacks of the conservative back bench getting their regressive views into the limelight; then people can see the balefully retrograde, and decidedly icky ideas they have voted for. The next logical step for the electorate, like a satisfying peristaltic contraction, is to expel the pants-on-head-retarded, ass-clownage (see Conservative Party of Canada), from power.
Misogyny, Bigotry and Priest Child-Rape Apologia – all in together in one package of Pope Awesome!
It would be a disservice to the Disservice if we did not comment on the high octane jack-assery that is going on in Catholic-land at the moment as they feverishly scrabble about looking for the best candidate to be their earthly link to the Almighty-Holy-Gibberish in the sky. I’m thinking they would have better luck with Alectryomancy.
Sadly, Canada has a candidate in the running for the title of His Pope-ness, by the name of Marc Ouellet. His grip on reality, like that of many of the religious, is tenuous at best (wanting to be the chosen emissary of the Sky-Daddy here on earth an all that. I secretly think that there is a holy (holey?) sock-puppet that has “god” embroidered on it that only the pope gets to wear and converse with.) Parenthetical ruminations aside, Mr.Ouellet when not fapping for jebus, has some quaintly retrograde points of view when it comes to social issues.
Shocking.
“Once touted as a possible candidate to become pope, Ouellet apparently had no intention of wading into a public policy debate when [he] called abortion a “moral crime” as serious as murder and said it is never justified — even in cases of rape.”
Ah, rapetastic pope gives those bitches what they deserve! No rights, no autonomy and incubator status straight-fucking-up. I am curious as to the calibre of mental gymnastics it takes to be female and to identify as Catholic when the head of your church makes raging misogyny plank #1 on his papal platform. It gets better, Ouellet digs deeper:
“Ouellet said he understands that a sexually assaulted woman has been traumatized and must be helped and that her attacker must be held accountable.
“But there is already a victim,” he said. “Must there be another one?”
Will someone PLEASE think of the children!!!! (While we insidiously erase women’s autonomy, tough darts for you bitchez!!)
Ouellet is also on the progressive cutting edge of other societal issues; same sex marriage and homosexuality come to mind:
“His Eminence raised concern over the positive presentation of homosexuality and same-sex “marriage” in schools. With such questionable education, the Cardinal said, “You are deforming conscience. You are warping the processes of psycho-sexual and psycho-social identification processes of youth.”
Fags and dykes! Back into the closet for you! We’ll see you burning in the lake of fire soon enough, but for now, be away with your sinful practices your presence cannot be tolerated within a properly religious society (and by “properly religious society” I actually mean, fucked-up dystopian hell.)! It is sad to see this sort of bigotry paraded out in the open. The following quote is not what Ouellet has said, but I’m pretty sure he supports it:
“Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons, said that, “Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full development.” (No. 7).Homosexual indoctrination is just another form of child abuse.”
To see a nasty slice of the Dark Ages apparently one just needs to dial Ouellet’s Papal Way-Back-Machine, for a heady whiff of the good ‘ole days when the church was leading society straight into the muck. With such progressive views, how can this dude NOT be pope?
Oh and of course, no Catholic article would be complete without commentary on the officially denied by tacitly condoned child-rape-cabal a.k.a the catholic priesthood. Severely enlightened Ouellet in dulcet tones denotes:
“He also said child abuse is not specifically a Roman Catholic issue but that the church has garnered more attention.
“It is not a Catholic problem; it is a human problem. Most of the abuse occurred in families in very general in society, and my hope is what was done by the Catholic Church, which is not yet perfect, but could be also of example for others in society,” he said.
Last month, SNAP, (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) singled out three papal candidates who, either by their comments or their deeds, had tried to brush off allegations of abuse by members of the clergy.”
Oh, it is just a human problem! Okay then. Carry on! (*headesk forever*)
Canada still has a freely flowing super-abundance of toxic religious stupidity; enough (shamefully) that we can *share* with rest of the world. And thus to the world, my heartfelt apologies.
Edmonton’s Upcoming Fiscal Black Hole
Edmonton needs a new hockey arena about as much as an elephant needs that desperately sexy pair of high heels. Before breaking metaphorical language any further, lets look at the price tag for this boondoggle in waiting. Thanks to the Edmonton Journal for the numbers.
All in, $601 million. That breaks down as:
– Arena construction, $480 million
– Winter Garden pedestrian bridge across 104th Avenue, $53 million
– Arena land, $25 million
– Community rink attached to arena, $21 million
– Pedestrian corridor through the arena, $15 million
– Link to MacEwan LRT station, $7 million
$601 million so we can have rubber disk chasing in our downtown core. I know I am terribly excited over the entire notion. What is even more exciting is who gets to pay for these shiny new elephantine high-heels.
– The city: $219 million ($140 million for the arena, $25 million for the Winter Garden, $25 million for the land, $15 million for the pedestrian corridor, $7 million for the LRT and $7 million for the community rink).
– Katz Group: $143 million ($115 million for the arena, $28 million for Winter Garden).
– Ticket buyers, through a surcharge: $125 million.
– The province: $107 million ($100 million for arena, $7 million for community rink).
– The feds: $7 million for rink.
What is interesting to me, and by “interesting” I mean peeved, is that I fall into three categories that are donating to the Rubber Disk Arena construction fund. I reside in Edmonton and thus pay municipal taxes, Edmonton also happens to be in Alberta thus I pay provincial tax aaaaaand Alberta happens to be in Canada and ‘Lo I also pay federal taxes.
Therefore, I get to pay $335 million while the dude that owns the team chips in $143 million to build a house for his team and he will get to keep all the revenue generated once the Rubber Disk Arena is built. I need to get on the same plan as the Edmonton Oilers Owner; you know the one where you get to use public money to take the majority of risk and build stuff that will make me money once its built.
As the person indirectly responsible for funding this bedazzling misadventure, it would be sensical to point out that if private industry wants to build a new Rubber Disk Chasing Emporium, they should damn well pay for it themselves and not expect the public to fund their private ventures.
(ed. Very proud not to have used the words “fucking insane waste of public money” in this article.)
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