Well there I was biking down the boardwalk with my friends on a balmy Indian Summer day in November. Skidding on the dead leaves. And it was so excellent I'm starting to think life in Canada couldn't be better eh?
Until I noticed that this year many of the maple leaves are covered in big ugly black spots like tumours. And it just about ruined my day. Because I couldn't help thinking of Stephen Harper and his Cons and what they're doing to Canada. Corrupting its values. Eating away at its fabric, like a fungus. By pitting Canadians against each other.
Like Great Ugly Leader is doing with the gun registry, using it to drive a wedge between rural and urban Canadians. Stirring up the Great Rural Urban Divide over gun control. Even though he himself once supported it.
Calgary Reformer Stephen Harper surveyed his constituents and found broad support in principle for gun control. He supported the bill at second reading. He then conducted another survey, in which he explained the details of the bill, and found a majority opposed to critical elements. He voted against gun control at third and final reading and faced accusations of flip-flopping and/or rigging the survey to get the result he wanted. And was threatened by gun nutz. Calgary Reform MP Stephen Harper, one of only two Reformers to support the bill, has also received “threats against my person or family.” .
But now he's quite happy to join them, as they whip up rural Canadians by claiming the registry only exists because city slickers hate them. Huh? Because I don't hate anyone...except bullies and bigots. I don't judge people from where they come from.
And it all seems like Canada to me...
If you don't rake the leaves in the fall, you'll pay for it in the spring. If you don't shoot the critter eating the chickens you'll go hungry in the winter. You know it's bad enough that Stephen Harper wants to change our gentle country into a nastier meaner place. It's bad enough that the opposition can't get more traction out of this health disaster.
Or all the other rotten things these porky Cons have done. But to allow Harper to play wedge politics in a country as fragile as this one, as he does all the time, could turn out to be the biggest disaster of all. He has turned West against East, rural residents against urban dwellers. He has tried to marginalize women, gays, and artists. During the Coalition crisis he tried to turn English Canada against Quebec. Where will it end I wonder....and how much anger and resentment can a country take before it blows apart?
Which was almost enough to put a cloud over my beautiful Canadian Indian Summer day in November eh?
But not quite...
Because it was too warm and beautiful. And I love and believe in the infinite possibility of this young country too much to give in to despair.
So with that in mind I'd just like to say this to all the decent people in rural Canada.I hate the way some of you are being used by the Harper Cons to drive another wedge between Canadians.
I wonder if you, like me, ever wonder where all this anger and division might lead us?
Because I think I can see where this one is going.
As more and more Canadians ....on all sides.... forget that this country was built on compromise not confrontation... like it was in the United States. And for good reason.
Oh well.... whatever happens in the future, I just want you to know that this city slicker.... from a rural/fishing village so small it makes a small village in Saskatchewan look like Chicago.
Still hates guns in cities. Still believes police officers have a right to try to make their jobs safer. But understands where you're coming from. Desperately wants you to be happy.
I didn't want to write about these women again. It bothers me too much. I've already said what I wanted to say.
But the thought that so many appear to have forgotten them makes me so angry, I feel I just have to keep speaking out.
Or let people like Susan Riley say what I would say.
What a bitter spectacle: MPs from all parties, except the Bloc Québécois, caving to a decades-long campaign by disgruntled gun owners, to U.S.-inspired attack advertising in targeted ridings and to self-interest to issue a death warrant to the long-gun registry
They capitulated to a well-orchestrated disinformation effort, rather than fighting back with reasoned argument and proposed improvements to the existing registry -- rather, that is, than appealing to values, values they conveniently ditched to save their skins.
Dismissed, also, are the victims -- relatives of the women killed at the ÉcolePolytechnique, modern-day parents like Elaine Lumley, whose son was shot dead crossing a street in Montreal in 2007. Lumley was on the Hill this week, shocked and stricken by the vote -- but she couldn't get a hearing, perhaps because she doesn't fall into the Tories' approved victim category.
If they were more concerned with fighting crime than scoring ideological victories, our MPs would find a way to fix the registry, not ditch it. Instead, this week's reversal is a symbolic and emotional blow to victims of gun crime -- and a disgrace to their skittish supporters.
Because it's all so true. it is a bitter spectacle. And it is an appalling betrayal.
Not only are these ReformCons forgetting the women of the Polytechnique, they're stripping their deaths of meaning. And dismissing 20 years of heroic feminist struggle to try to make Canada a safer place.
By taking on the powerful gun lobby, and the women hating Cons who would turn Canada into a blood soaked mirror image of gun crazy Amerika.
Long guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicide, according to the RCMP. With restrictions in place against them, the number of women murdered with firearms dropped by 62 per cent between 1991 and 2004.
So where are the progressive voices of protest? Where are all the strong feminists? Why the deafening silence?
Did these women really die in vain?
Did one of the most important feminist struggles in modern Canadian history really mean nothing?
Didn't we learn ANYTHING?
And what kind of country are we becoming? Those are the questions that haunt me.
OMG.Thank goodness the week is finally over. It was horrible. The defeat in Maine, the sight of the Reform Party back in the House of Commons.
But at least it wasn't half as bad as the week Stephen Harper and his political thugs just had. Because that was a real DISASTER.
First there was continuing meltdown over their failure to prepare the country for a pandemic. Even as the swine flu continues to spread. Then there was the bad economic news. Oh boy. If only they'd squirted a little piggy manure into opposition ridings...instead of squirting it all over themselves...they might have fooled more Canadians into thinking they knew what they were doing.
But of course now they can't...
Because after that simple illustration of the Porky Action Plan even an idiot can figure out what's going on. Allo police? Then there was the way they hacked away at the Gun Registry to please their rabid gun nutz base. Even though that means police officers will be in danger...and even more women will die. Long guns are the most common type of firearm used in spousal homicide, according to the RCMP. With restrictions in place against them, the number of women murdered with firearms dropped by 62 per cent between 1991 and 2004. So now they're not "crimebusters" anymore. Just misogynist bastards and friends of criminals. Then there was the horrible sight of Tubby Van Loan trying to avoid explaining why he hid an RCMP report on guns, until AFTER the registry vote. Sweating like a pig while trying to dodge questions from reporters..
Oink. Grunt.SQUEAL. And finally to put a cap on this disastrous week in Con World ....like a turd cherry on a sundae... there was Puffy Duffy jumping the Swiss Chalet chickenshark. To show us all what these Cons are all about. And how low they can go.
Golly. What more can we ask for ? That'll teach 'em eh? Don't fuck with women AND the police. Or the karma police will get ya...
Ooh I love that toon. I've been waiting to sing for so long. This is what you'll get when you mess with us.
Oh no.What bad timing for the Reform Cons. It's gun hate day in Amerika.
Just 24 hours after their disgusting little gun love day in Canada. And can you believe those scummy Cons? They hid this report until after the vote was over. Even though it it involves the safety of police officers. Those dastardly crime police busters. And can you believe that so many progressives MPs folded like cheap suits or cowards? By caving in on a Reform Party style free vote...instead of acting like members of a party with PRINCIPLES. What will the next "free vote" be on I wonder... ABORTION? But what I also found disheartening was the number of progressive bloggers celebrating the death of the Gun Registry. Including some of the best, most decent and progressive ones.
I'm not going to single anybody out, or deal with their arguments. I dealt with most of them last night. But I would ask ALL of those progressive bloggers why NONE of them bothered to mention that filling out a form could save the life of a police officer? Does the kinder gentler Canada we are trying to build really include a society full of unlicensed guns? What does progressive really mean? Because I'm confused eh? And how, since some of them are such strong feminists, could they all have forgotten to mention the women of the Montreal Massacre?
Not just the ones who died or were injured, but all the others who fought the powerful gun lobby for years to bring in the gun registry, and make sure the victims didn't die in vain. People like Suzanne LaPlante-Edward who believes a gun registry might have saved her daughter. (PDF) We victims of gun violence want more than tears, white ribbons, and kind words. We want action. The semi-automatic Ruger Mini 14 used at the Polytechnique in Montreal is still sold as an unrestricted hunting rifle. With C-391 we will no longer know who owns these guns or the 7 million other rifles and shotguns in Canada. In most cities there will be more information about who has cats and dogs than who owns firearms. Doesn't her opinion count? Or the opinions of so many other victims of gun violence. Isn't it worth more than the yapping of gun owners too lazy to fill out some forms...or the teabagger screeching of the Con's rabid Reform base?
You know a month today we will mark the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. And I can't think of a better way for some progressives to prepare, than reading up on that terrible day.Studying the history of the heroic feminist struggle that followed.
Fighting to FIX the gun registry ...if it needs fixing...rather than letting these ReformCons and their stooges DESTROY it.
Or as I said yesterday, just watching this movie...
Because we need to decide what sort of a gentler, kinder, more civilized society we want to build.
About nine years ago I used to go down this leafy sidewalk all the time, on my way to meet Sébastien at the Université de Montréal. And I'd pass those stone monuments to the 14 women killed in the Montreal Massacre. And maybe it was because I was crazily in love, and young Kerouac was bouncing along beside me, although it was such a sad tragedy, I remember feeling happy. Sometimes I'd even say "hi Annie" or "salut Hélène."Because they were being remembered. And because I was so SURE that we were building a better society with less guns, so violent men couldn't kill so many people... as well as themselves. So the deaths of all those beautiful young women wouldn't be in vain. But today if I walked past those monuments I'd have to slink by with my head down. Or just say "sorry." Because as far as I'm concerned they just shot them again. OMG. What a Day of Infamy. How could they? Those dirty old Cons. Those dirty old men. Didn't they even see the movie?
Don't they understand that when you don't do all you can to discourage gun ownership in society, violence can explode out of nowhere. Don't they care about the lives of our police officers? Don't they know that a shotgun can blow your head off even better than a hand gun can? Don't they remember that if the gun registry cost billions, it's only because the rabid redneck teabaggers of this country SABOTAGED the system? And should have been jailed for it rather than rewarded. I realize it's a big deal in northern and rural ridings. But it's also a big problem. And if they can register their cars, they can register their weapons as well. And BTW what does it say about Canadians who are too LAZY to fill out a form that could save the life of a police officer...or the paramedics who accompany them? Answer: not very much. And then there's the Bloc, that also represents northern and rural ridings, but still voted as one against this Reform Party bill . Great eh? The separatists as the last defenders of the values that make us Canada not Amerika. What's wrong with that picture? Oh boy.I knew that if Stephen Harper and his foul alien Cons ever got a majority, I'd wake up in a country I wouldn't recognize. But who knew it would happen before that?
What I do know is that when I'm next in Montreal, I will make damn sure I go past those monuments again.
Hi Annie. Hey Maude. Salut Hélène.
I don't know how it happened. I'm so sorry. How soon they forgot you.
But rest in peace sisters.
The battle against those who would turn Canada into Amerika continues. And we will always REMEMBER...
I stayed up late tonight to watch the results coming in from Maine. A steady stream of messages coming in from from my family and friends down there, and others trying to save gay marriage.
First they were excited, then they were hopeful, and then they were disappointed.
As gay Americans have been every single time gay marriage has been put to the ballot, and the majority gets to decide whether they are fully human or not.
I'm so sorry for all the gay people and their straight friends who worked so hard to try to convince people in Maine to do the right thing.
They must be so disappointed.
But sadly the wretched bigots from NOM and the Catholic Church, managed to fool the ignorant into thinking that gay marriage was a threat to children.
Their hateful message worked.
And our gentle message didn't...
But you know I wouldn't change a thing. Because that's why we're better than them.
My brothers and sisters and friends in Maine fought the BEST campaign ever. They were brilliant. I'm so proud of them.
What gay writer Rex Wockner had to say is true:
There will be days like this Tuesday when bigots might force a backward step in the inevitable, unstoppable march to equal treatment under the law for GLBT Americans. The next generation will remember "Yes on 1" voters the way we remember people who believed black folks should drink from separate water fountains. I absolutely guarantee you that.
However long it takes, how many battles we have to lose before we win the war, however hard it is to put your very integrity as a human being on the line for approval by strangers: this is worth doing. This is why we're here. This is what we're supposed to do. History is on our side. The creepy bigots will be defeated.
Can you believe the nerve of these Con porkers? Accusing the opposition of "politicizing" the pandemic. When they were the ones who politicized EVERYTHING. And turned our Parliament into a pig sty. On the day when even the Con-friendly Globe editorial board is blaming them for being too slow to act. From the beginning of the H1N1 pandemic there has been a calm, verging at times on complacency, from federal officials.... Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq insisted in the House yesterday afternoon that the vaccine was ready “two weeks ahead of schedule.” In fact, some Canadian children have died in the past week and yet the vaccine isn't ready yet for children, except those under 5... And the Auditor General says our emergency planning is an absolute disaster. While Stephen Harper bounces happily across the country with these twits. Soaking up photo-ops while the country BURNS. And the clueless Health Minister is not in the House either to answe questions from the opposition...or offer to RESIGN.
She's out in British Columbia whining that it wasn't her fault, and BRAGGING that they'll have everyone vaccinated by Christmas...even though the swine flu is expected to peak LONG before then. While posing in front of a Con coloured backdrop similar to the one they use to sell their Porky Action Plan (PAP)...
And we're supposed to believe in this new Swine Action Plan (SAP)... when last one cost us billions, and this one could cost us our LIVES? And BTW where is all that vaccine she claims we have? Something doesn't add up. Either production numbers are inflated, delivery seriously flawed or the provinces are hopelessly overwhelmed by a vaccination blitz they knew was coming three months ago.
OMG. First they order it late and then it DISAPPEARS? But still they claim victory? And then they have the nerve to accuse the opposition of "politicizing" the issue? When they were the ones who played cheap politics, and preferred to squirt porky all over the country ....and themselves... rather than prepare for a pandemic or educate the public. Oh boy. For the sake of all the Canadians who are going to get sick and die. For the sake of our beautiful country which is being buried in pig shit.
One more sign that the Cons are feeling the heat. Police in Ottawa are bracing themselves for a rash of Unidentified Flying Idiot sightings. As Dean Del Mastro heads for Parliament Hill to cut a big one on...um...AdScam
Tory MP Dean Del Mastro wants support from opposition MPs to call in Auditor General Sheila Fraser to investigate where $43 million in missing sponsorship scandal money went. Gosh. I hope they open all the windows eh? Because this one's not just stale it's positively stinky.
As in a stinky attempt to shift attention from the Con Porky Action Plan, and this potentially deadly disaster.
Oh boy.These hideous porker Cons just don't get it do they? Adscam was just a piddly get-rich quick scheme by a small group of corrupt Liberal and ad agency operatives.
While the Porky Action Plan scandal is a massive multi-billion dollar attempt to corrupt our democracy. By BUYING votes with OUR money. And their complete mishandling of the Swine flu pandemic is endangering the LIVES of who knows how many Canadians.
But look...if the Cons are soooooo desperate to try to shift the focus away from their corrupt and criminally irresponsible behaviour. And are sooooooo desperate to investigate something...ANYTHING...but Porkyscam or the Porkalypse.
It's not clear exactly when he left the firm for a berth in the increasingly crowded PMO comm department, nor whether his imminent arrival through the revolving door may have had something to do with the edict on Navigator that allegedly went down at Langevin last week. UPDATE: According to Navigator, Robertson's last day at the firm was Friday. Now that's one speedy revolving door. Because that's interesting eh? And we NEED some answers. Heh. Heh. Heh. What a difference a few weeks makes.
Golly. I can't WAIT to see Del Mastro float into the House of Commons, and cut a big one on Adscam. I really MUST make a point of being there. Woof. Woof. To join in the fun...
You know ....I do believe we have these Con hippos porkers where we want them eh?
Playing cheap politics with OUR money and our LIVES.... in the middle of a recession AND a pandemic? Shame on them. Thank you Monkey God. Now let's hit them where it HURTS...
I see that more than than seventy years after he was murdered by a fascist death squad in the early days of the Spanish Civil War.
Shot with three other men, because he was a lefty libertarian poet who annoyed the Catholic Church. Then shot twice in the ass because he was gay. And buried in an unmarked grave.
The right-wingers in Spain are foaming mad. They'd rather the past remain buried and forgotten. And for good reason.
As many as 114,000 Spaniards were killed or disappeared during the conflict that lasted from 1936 to 1939 and pitted the rightist forces of Gen. Francisco Franco against an elected leftist government.
And Lorca's family, which fought the exhumation for decades, still isn't convinced.
"I think the fact of physically touching someone's bones is not going to make a difference in reconciliation with two Spains," said García Lorca. "I don't necessarily think it will be a healing experience."
But I agree with this guy.
"To leave them in the mass graves means leaving the victims of Franco lying unidentified, like dogs," declared Francisco Gonzalez Arroyo, a local historian, whose views echo many on the left who say the process will bring healing.
And I also agree with what the noted historian and Lorca authority Ian Gibson had to say:
"Garcia Lorca does not just belong to his family, to his nieces and nephews. He belongs to humanity..." Because his Spanish genius does belong to the world. And of course he belongs to us; the gay people whose history is so often buried, just like Garcia Lorca's gayness was buried for so long. Not just by the fascists, but also by his family, and Spain's literary establishment.
"Spain couldn't accept that the greatest Spanish poet of all time was homosexual. Homophobia existed on both sides in the civil war and afterwards it was a national problem.
Scholars colluded in the cover-up for fear of losing access to the poet's archives, or antagonising the family, he says. "All his poetry turns around frustrated love. His tormented characters who can't live the life they want are precisely the metaphor for his sorrow. He was a genius who turned his suffering into art."
Which is obvious when you read the Dark Sonnets. he wrote to his bisexual lover Rafael Rodriguez Rapun.
“Tú nunca entenderás lo que te quiero / porque duermes en mí y estás dormido. / Yo te oculto llorando, perseguido / por una voz de penetrante acero” "You will never understand that I love you/ because you sleep in me and are asleep./I hide you, weeping, persecuted/ by a voice of penetrating steel."
The same Rafael who one year to the day Federico was murdered, refused to take cover when fascist planes strafed Republican positions. Just stood there and blazed away at the oncoming fighters until he was killed. One year to the day they murdered Federico.
Oh yeah. If there was such a thing as poetic justice Federico Garcia Lorca would be buried next to the man he loved. Instead he'll probably be buried in some dark family vault. Or maybe they'll never find him, just as he once wrote:
"Then I realised I had been murdered. They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches .... but they did not find me. They never found me? No. They never found me."
But at least the dark vault of Spanish history is about to be reopened. The families of the victims can reclaim their loved ones and give them a proper burial. Spaniards can reclaim their hidden history. Just like we are reclaiming OUR hidden history. Federico and Rafael can be properly remembered on the same day they died. Together. Forever. And the gentle, brilliant,gay poet and all the other ghosts of that brutal civil war, can rest in peace at last...
As I was saying the other day...who needs Halloween when we've got this horror show? But let's be very very clear who is mostly responsible.It's NOT our public health workers, who are doing a heroic job trying to cope with a wave of panic that is overwhelming our already overworked public health system. And the provinces shouldn't bear the burden of the blame either. They can only give out as much vaccine as they get from federal authorities. And they don't have enough vaccine because our Con government made an almost unbelievable MISTAKE. They ordered the vaccine manufacturer to make an enormous order of non-adjuvanted vaccine. But apparently were unaware that because the H1N1 virus grows slowly, a rush order for one type of vaccine would cause a major shortage of the other.
Even though they should have know that the WHO were about to complete a study showing that vaccines with adjuvants were safe enough for EVERYONE. Now look... there is enough blame out there for just about everybody to get a bit of it. Like the people who are demanding to get vaccinated even though they are not in a high-risk group. But Stephen's Harper's Cons must take most of the blame. Because the reasons for their incompetence are largely IDEOLOGICAL. They don't believe in a national role for government. They don't believe in strengthening our medicare system. How could they when Harper spent 15 years trying to DESTROY it. They believe OUR health is a purely provincial matter. But since the HarperCons forgot to tell the Swine Flu bug to respect those provincial borders, now we're in this mess, everybody is panicking or getting angry. And it all could have been avoided if these Cons had put the safety of Canadians before their hideous alien ideology, taken a leadership role in a NATIONAL emergency, and launched a massive ad campaign to educate the public and prepare them for the second wave of the pandemic. Like the British started doing SIX months ago...
But instead of preparing us for this pandemic, what did our Cons do ? Answer: Blow their ad budget trying to buy themselves a MAJORITY. By spending gazillions of OUR tax dollars deluging us with commercials about their Porky Action Plan. Oink. Oink ....
And if you think that's a nightmare.... Thanks to these rabidly ideological and incompetent klown porkers most of the population won't be vaccinated until well into December. And since the Swine flu could surge in the next few weeks, November promises to be an even darker month than it normally is...full of sickness and fear. Great eh? Tell your friends. Tell your neighbours. Tell everyone you can. Stephen Harper is definitely NOT a leader. Canada is a COUNTRY not a collection of provinces. And these Cons have GOTTA go...
