I am always moved when I see the special bond between a homeless person and his or her dog.
How they share what little they have with their pets. And how their dogs are oblivious to their miserable surroundings, and are just glad to be with the ones who love them.
Because I share a special bond with the homeless. Their condition makes me sad, and ashamed. And the cruel way they are often treated makes me wild with anger.
And of course, as you know, I love dogs eh?
So I found this story both sad and beautiful..
I'm glad that poor man was treated kindly before he died.
Because that's the way all human beings, whether they have a home or not, should be treated all the time.
And I'm happy his last wish came true. Because homeless people have dreams too.
As for the dog, I wonder as she sleeps in her fancy new home, whether she dreams of waking up in that car next to her friend.
Well I must admit I was shocked to find myself watching the NDP Convention on Sun TV. All because Sébastien taped Fox News North instead of CPAC. Claiming he didn't understand my instructions because they were written in what I thought was good French.
Gawd...I mean CRISSE !#!&!! Only in Canada eh?
But despite the sinking feeling that I had boosted Sun TV's ratings by at least forty percent, and had joined the very small group of Canadians who have ever watched any of their programs for more than an hour, I still liked what I saw.
Oh sure, I wish they could have put the democratic socialism/social democratic debate behind them. Because although you're judged by what you do, not by what you call yourself.
Socialist parties in Europe have often achieved more that their sisters and brothers in Canada---in some cases including free university tuition, strong job protection and termination benefits, higher minimum wages, better pensions, pharmacare, free full day early childhood education, state funded family vacations, worker participation in the management of industry, generous parental leave, a shorter work week, rent subsidies, and in a few odd cases, free firewood, and free access to municipally owned ski lifts and ski runs.
And although I'm proud to call myself a democratic SOCIALIST.
So many Canadians were raised during the Cold War, and confuse socialism and communism. Duh. So social democratic is probably better.
Because for me the ONLY thing that counts is defeating the Harper Cons, and in that regard the most significant thing that happened this weekend was this:
In earlier voting Sunday, party delegates also rejected a resolution calling on the party to reject all future mergers with the Liberals — which leaves the door open to potential future talks between the two opposition parties.
Talk about the Great Leap Forward eh?
Yes comrades... I know that right now the Liberals don't support a merger. But if the NDP can look like a government-in-waiting and still keep their options open, so can the Liberals.
And after they've healed themselves, and accepted reality, and seen what the Harper Cons have done to this country, I'm sure they will.
In fact, on this strange day when I was forced to watch the NDP on Sun TV, I think it's only fitting that I should ask a famous Liberal to sum up my view of this weekend's democratic socialist/social democratic convention.
Because he was once a socialist.
The universe Pierre Trudeau said, is unfolding as it should.
Or as I say these days, if you can't call it Ipanema eh?
Lardy. Bean me with a bacon bit...or a Vienna sausage. They don't call them Con hogs for nothing eh? But who knew they were such party animals?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own department has repeatedly broken the government's tough rules for hospitality spending.
An internal report on how the Privy Council Office spent $340,000 on hospitality found widespread flouting of a basic rule — that is, public servants must get prior approval from a supervisor before spending the cash.
Oinky Boinky. I know having a majority means never having to say sorry. But is Stephen Harper running a government, or the prom he never had?
The Canadian Press later reported Harper had personally approved a $47,000 event for 600 employees in Privy Council Office.
And who does he think he is wasting the taxpayer's money so casually? Tony Clement ? You know...the Minister of Pork responsible for slashing government spending.
But of course, for sheer debauchery nothing could beat this Con party...
At the recent Tory convention, party members voted to support any religious organization’s right to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. Meanwhile, a group of gay Conservatives at the convention, held at the Ottawa Westin, hosted “The Fabulous Blue Tent,” a hospitality suite open to all.
The party went on until 3 a.m. Ministers in attendance included Kenney and John Baird. Among the Conservative MPs were Patrick Brown, Rick Dykstra and newly elected Toronto Tory Ted Opitz (who beat Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj by 26 votes in a recount). One Tory attendee quipped: “The Conservatives have made progress clearly by upgrading from a closet to a ‘fabulous blue tent.’ And if you keep throwing fabulous parties they have got to love you.”
Because having a party after voting to strip gays and lesbians of their right to marry, is about as hoggy as it gets.
And inviting the porker homophobe Jason Kenney, is the opposite of FABULOUS.
Unless of course, La Kenney came in drag...
But sadly I can't confirm that, because my only other source is Dr Roy.
And he's a friend of Dorothy too, and a huge monarchist, so he's not telling.
I visited a postal worker's picket line yesterday morning. And in the evening Sébastien dropped by and took this great picture after the Cons announced they intend to force them back to work.
The Conservative government is vowing to legislate an end to the Canada Post lockout even if it means extending the Parliamentary session and overriding the strong objections from labour and the opposition.
NDP Leader Jack Layton and interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae both accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of ignoring the larger issue behind the disputes – the trend of employers moving away from defined benefit – or guaranteed – pension plans for new hires.
We both had the same message for the workers, the nicest bunch of people you can imagine. We are against this war on pensions, this assault on young and old Canadians, and we support their union one-hundred percent.
We felt we had to say that eh? After hearing so many people muttering that they don't have a pension so why should the postal workers? As if a race to the bottom is what this country needs. Instead of a decent pension system for everyone, so old people can live out their lives in dignity instead of misery.
And the young aren't treated like slave labour. And condemned to a future of low wages and exploitation.
But of course that's exactly where Stephen Harper and his Con ideologues would take us, to please their masters in Big Business...
Today on the CBC the despicable capitalist shark Kevin O'Leary said, if he was Prime Minister, he'd declare unions illegal. So you know what those porkers are thinking eh?
The good news? If they try to turn this country into a jungle they'll have a hell of a fight on their hands. I was delighted to see how many ordinary Canadians honked their car horns in support as they drove by the CUPW picket line.
They know, as Seb and I know, that unions are some of the greatest defenders of our precious Canadian values, champions of human rights, that without them we would ALL be slaves.
And of course that, see you in the streets brothers and sisters. Say it again Billy.
Yes, of course they're Canuck fans. Anyone who works for a living knows what replica jerseys cost in the real world....A great many people in the crowd throwing bottles, smashing windows and grinning happily for the cameras were happily showing off their Canucks jerseys.
"This isn't the Vancouver I know; we're better than this, I thought we had grown up in the past 17 years," was another. This could only be said by someone who keeps his eyes closed when he wanders outside: Vancouver not only has a seedy underbelly; it is right there for anyone willing to see it.
Could it happen in any other Canadian city? Yes it could. So what we really need to ask ourselves is why have we allowed our national sport to become such an ugly game. And such an unhealthy obsession.
This is the dark side of our national obsession with the game of hockey. It is our greatest source of collective pride when we win. And when we don’t, it looses our collective rage at … what, exactly?
Rather than a post-mortem on what went wrong on Wednesday — we already know that — it would be more helpful to take stock of why so many of us are so goddamned angry.
Because this was the dirtiest Stanley Cup final I have ever watched, after one of the dirtiest seasons ever. A season of cheap shots and concussions, that saw good players like Sidney Crosby mowed down by goons, while the NHL did practically nothing to stop it. Because violence SELLS.
We also really need to ask ourselves why we have allowed Con clowns like Don Cherry and Stephen Harper to weave that thuggish version of our sport into our national fabric, pump it up with cheap jingoism, conflate it with a ridiculous sense of destiny, poison it with a winner take all mentality.
We also need to ask why the media whipped the Stanley Cup final into such a big Canada Vs The World contest, when it was just a contest between two cities. Why they made such a big deal about it. Why even the CBC News led its newscasts with hockey nonsense when hundreds were being massacred in Syria. And farmers in Western Canada were drowning.
Because it's cheap, it's absurd, it makes us look like pathetic losers with an inferiority complex the size of a house. Or like a mob when we're disappointed.
And Canada is much much more than just hockey.
But then that's our beautiful country eh? There are some truths we would rather not face. We'd rather not ask why a Stephen Harper ad looks like a hockey/beer commercial.
What it says about what we are becoming, and where it is leading us...
Because hockey is Canada !!!!!!!!! And we're number ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh well. Until the NHL cleans up its act, until so many in this country regain their sanity, hockey will only mean one thing to me.
The great Canadian game, that we play with our friends.
Oh.My.Godzilla. Where's Barney when we need him? It seems the right-wingers in this country can't stop lumbering after Brigette DePape.
When they're not bellowing "Canada is not EGYPT !!!!!!" they're calling her a political extremist.
DePape repeatedly talked about stopping, what she termed, the "Harper Agenda." She called for Canadians to engage in civil disobedience, going so far as to claim Canada needs an "Arab Spring" and comparing the situation to the Civil Rights Movement.
Regardless of where one stands on the policies of the Conservative government, it is clear that this sort of talk is at best hyperbolic and at worst offensive. The way the protesters spoke, it's almost as if the Harper government is planning to shred the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet there are people, mostly young Canadians, who agree with these sentiments.
Or just young and dumb.
As if there wasn't a Harper Agenda, as if his regime hadn't already begun shredding the Charter of Rights, as if he hadn't acted like a dictator by treating Parliament with contempt.
As if she ever said Canada was Egypt:
This country needs a Canadian version of an Arab Spring, a flowering of popular movements that demonstrate that real power to change things lies not with Harper, but in the hands of the people, when we act together in our streets, neighbourhoods, and workplaces.
Instead of just calling on progressives to organize, restrain Harper from dismantling our country with just 39 percent support, and unite to eventually defeat him.
As if her only real crime, apart from shocking those Con porkers in the Senate, wasn't daring to speak truth to power in a country where too many Canadians don't want to hear it.
By my observations, most Canadians are afraid to speak up, and many find the very act of speaking up distasteful. A common sentiment is that public protesters are objects of ridicule and disgust, and that they need to be controlled. Order is valued above all, at almost any cost.
In that context, DePape's actions were heroic. In a society where people are even afraid to ask their employer for a raise, DePape stood up – alone – and spoke truth to power. She knew her protest would have grave consequences, but she did it anyway, and in an elegant and peaceful way.
A country where those who attack her are the real threat to democracy:
Calling a country a democracy does not make it so. In a healthy democracy, great masses of votes are not wiped out when voters happen to be the minority voice in their geographic location. In a healthy democracy, people are not afraid to protest. In a healthy democracy, people do not express horror and anguish at the sight of a young woman holding a sign.
Because when Jason Kenney calls you a kook you know you are doing the right thing eh?
And because NOTHING could be dumber than thinking that a man who walks like a dictator, and quacks like a dictator, couldn't act even more like a dictator now that he has a majority.
Yup. Those right wingers can bellow like dinosaurs, but in a country where complacency is eroding our democracy, Brigette DePape is an excellent example for young AND old progressives.
It was a grey and rainy Monday, so imagine how great it was to stumble home from work, and see this beautiful rainbow streaming down on my island.
Especially since I know that a sight like that must drive these rainbow chasers CRAZY.
A Canadian Catholic school has banned pupils from using rainbows, the symbol of the gay pride movement.
However, clever pupils led by 16-year-old Leanne Iskander found a novel way to get their message across – by using food dyes to make cupcakes with a secret rainbow centre.
But the way I see it eh? If those nasty bigots don't like that rainbow.
Can you believe those Reform homophobes? Voting unanimously to take away the rights of gay people, while calling themselves mainstream, and Canada's party. Gimme a break.
Oh sure. I know that a lot of people think they won't ban gay marriage or severely restrict access to abortion. But I don't believe that for a moment.
As I'm always pointing out, by cutting party subsidies the Cons will make themselves even more dependent on donations from their rabid religious base. And those crazed fanatics WILL demand their pound of bloody flesh. The writing is on the wall. And those who can't see it are either suckers or collaborators.
Oh well. What can we do ? Except help our LGBT kids any way we can.
And if the bigots don't like our freedom rainbow. And they won't choke on those cupcakes.
We'll just have to take to the streets.
And wave this one in their faces...
Because I couldn't be more ready eh?
The Gay Brigade will join forces with the Brigette Brigade.
It was a compelling story. A young Syrian-American lesbian blogging about life and love in the darkness of a police state, only to be kidnapped.
Arraf wrote a blog called "A Gay Girl in Damascus," a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria's violent uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests. She was detained after weeks on the run in the Syrian capital, family members said Tuesday.
Except that Amina wasn't wasn't Amina. She wasn't kidnapped. And the Gay Girl in Damascus was written by a guy.
The Gay Straight Girl Guy in Damascus Scotland claims his motives were noble.
I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative voıce may have been fictional, the facts on thıs blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone -- I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.
Because of you, Mr. MacMaster, a lot of the real activists in the LGBT community became under the spotlight of the authorities in Syria. These activists, among them myself, had to change so much in their attitude and their lives to protect themselves from the positional harm your little stunt created. You have, sir, put a lot of lives, mine and some friends included, in harm's way so you can play your little game of fictional writing.
As for me I don't know what to think. The fact is that blog focused a lot of international attention on the fascist Syrian regime, and the oppression of LGBT people. Which is great eh? Unless you live there, and the international community won't do anything to save you.
And then there's this:
But at least these things are true.
All kind of people are being oppressed and murdered in Syria, including a lot of real gay girls in Damascus. While the world looks on helplessly.
The truth may or may not be stranger than fiction. But only it will set us free.
I see that after having been buried by an avalanche of criticism, Tracy Morgan has apologized for his hideous homophobic rant.
"I'm not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context,"
"Stand-up comics may have the right to 'work out' their material in its ugliest and rawest form in front of an audience,' said Fey in a statement, "but the violent imagery of Tracy's rant was disturbing to me ... "
"I hope for his sake that Tracy's apology will be accepted as sincere by his gay and lesbian coworkers at 30 Rock, without whom Tracy would not have lines to say, clothes to wear, sets to stand on, scene partners to act with, or a printed-out paycheck from accounting to put in his pocket."
Now I like Tina a lot. But when I first read her statement I wasn't sure I could be that generous to a second-rate rate comedian who would think it funny to say such hateful things.
Not when so many gay kids are bullied to death. Or beaten and thrown out of their homes by their parents.
Or forced to live alone among many...
But then I read this from the gay producer and screenwriter Ron Nyswana
Yesterday, on the set of our movie, I sat in a minivan with Tracy Morgan, who wept as he told me about his violent childhood. I cannot understand the brutality of dire poverty or the soul-killing experience of growing up black in racist America. And Tracy cannot understand the pain of a gay child raised in homophobic America, under the constant barrage of taunts, threats of violence, and the ever-present fear of being exposed and rejected.
His pain is not mine and mine is not his. Neither of us reached adulthood unscathed by the shared prejudices of our culture. We've arrived at manhood slightly distorted, wounded and limited by our battles. We have been hurt. We make mistakes. But our mistakes are made in a cultural context.
Yesterday, while the world Tweeted away, issuing accusations and condemnations, a black, straight comic and a white, gay writer sat in a minivan, crying and trying to understand.
And then I had to admit that I do believe in the power of redemption. Because without it this world would be unlivable. I hate racism just as much as I hate homophobia. And the important thing is that the message has gone out again: bullying is bad, and bigotry is EVIL.
So what more could I want eh?
And besides there's a BONUS.
This tweet from Ana Matronic of the Scissor sisters...
Which not only makes me smile.
But also, since it's Saturday night...
I believe gives me a VERY good excuse to play one of my favourite music videos...
Yup. I admit it. I do believe in the power of redemption. Damn.
And I'd give ANYTHING to dance around with those feathers stuck to my tail.
Well it wasn't Nuremberg. It was Ottawa. But the message from Great Deranged Leader to his adoring followers was the same. Now that we have conquered Germany Canada, we must conquer the WORLD !!!!!!
Harper painted a dark picture of the world around Canada near the end of his mostly upbeat speech, and said there are forces rising that Canada must resist.
Canada's purpose "is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations," Harper said, adding he never understood why others felt that was in Canada's national interest.
"Our party’s great purpose is nothing less than to prepare our nation to shoulder a bigger load, in a world that will require it of us," he said.
Great eh? Canada Uber Alles. From pariah nation to rogue nation. We're still spending billions in Afghanistan. The bill for the war in over Libya is clicking like a taxi meter.
And now he's planning to spend billions projecting our military power all over the globe?
Oh. Mein. Gott. Of all Harper's multiple personalities, I knew the one where he thinks he is a great military leader would be the end of us. Or the end of the medicare system when the Con war machine bankrupts the country. Which of course is his secret plan.
And which dictator will he attack next I wonder? The one in Iran, who by threatening Israel is threatening the return of the Christian Messiah?
And then launch an all-out assault on North Korea...or Haiti....or Hong Kong.
Oh wait. Too late.
There he goes now...
You know that little charred ball is probably what the planet will look like after Great Maniac Leader is finished with it. Because if he can hasten The Rapture you KNOW he will.
Yikes. Thank goodness for Brigette and the real majority.
"It's people coming together to say that we're going to resist the Harper agenda, to make sure that the Conservatives know that we won't back down..."
