harping away

The big Canadian news on CBC this a.m. was about a certain political leader's brief visit to a hospital last night. Ooo, ahhh--was it stress? Was it anorexia a la Olsen twin? Was it "exhaustion" a la LiLo? No, it was a good old-fashioned head cold. Apparently SH had asthma as a child, and wanted a doctor to "look at" his cold symptoms (which puts humourous visuals in my head--a team of doctors looking concerned and taking notes as they watch Stevo blow his nose and sneeze).

So this is what I have to say to Mr. Sniffles:
a) Stevo, if you actually go to the hospital every time you get the sniffles, I must again question your ability to run this country into the ground...I mean, strongly lead this country.
b) Stevo, if you were ACTUALLY at the hospital having your human blood replaced (because your creaky, robotic heart just ain't pumpin') you need to find a better excuse. Call me. I'm not good at lying myself, but I know I can come up with something better than a freaking cold.

The real kicker of this "news" story was when Mr. Sniffles made a jab at the wait times in our health care system. It took him an HOUR to get his cold "checked out". I know someone who has waited 10 hours to get a broken leg set, and one person who had to stay overnight in the waiting room to get symptoms of a heart attack evaluated. A friend who works in a particularly busy hospital has seen several people die while sitting in the waiting room for lack of beds and medical professionals.

So my tip for Mr. Sniffles is: Next time, go to a walk-in clinic and don't add to the wait times for people who actually need hospital services. Better yet, take Neo Citran and call it a night.

Bless you and gesundheit.

is it, or is it not 2006?

I learned something interesting in torts class yesterday. In personal injury claims for serious (or lethal) injuries, the court determines the future earning capacity of the victim (had they not been injured). There is a discretionary category called "contingencies" in which a percentage of the damages award is subtracted to account for incidents that may have affected the victim's future earnings (for some reason, contingencies are always detrimental to the victim).

One "contingency" is the time taken out of a woman's career for child-bearing (and presumeably, child-raising for a few years). It doesn't matter if the injured woman is/was a lifelong child-hater, nay, it doesn't matter if the woman is/was INCAPABLE of having children, the court expects that she would have taken time out of her career to have kids and subtracts a percentage of the future earning capacity to account for it.

That pisses me off. While most people probably dismiss this inequality as a minor issue I find it extremely distasteful. Imagine that a there is a hypothetical woman. She is a 25 year old med student who has always firmly held that she did not want children. Now assume that there is an equivalent hypothetical man. He is also a 25 year old med student but he has always wanted children. If these two hypothetical individuals were both seriously injured, when it comes time to awarding damages the woman's future career is worth less. Furthermore, the court assumes that this woman's desire to remain childless is puerile--something she'd have grown out of once her biological clock started ticking.

Like I said, it pisses me off.

my new foster babies

I foster rats for a animal rescue society and these are the two newest houseguests: Lucy and Amy. They are amazingly lovely. Come on, give 'em some love.

no more Chanel pour moi

Oh geez, my cousin comes to visit and I neglect everything else in the world to dote on her. My apologies.

Today when we were out I spontaneously decided to go to a psychic. Not because I am in the middle of a quarter-life crisis or anything....just because it seemed like a good idea. Amy and I were in the entry way of the "psychic den" when we came across my soon-to-be Tarot reader "Chanel". True to her name, Chanel was extremely overrated and way overpriced.

I asked Chanel if my cousin could sit in on my reading, and after telling me no, that Amy would detract from the psychic experience, Chanel said "You're cousins are you?" and then in a deeper, more serious voice (meant to convey a revelation) "People always think that you're sisters." Wooooooo! Where did she get that from? Is it perhaps because we LOOK alike? Because there is a family resemblance?

Foolishly, I chose to continue with no expectations. The whole experience was cheesy and ridiculous but it still seemed like it might offer entertainment by way of a "how did she know that?" moment. Chanel burnt sage in a circle around me, dusted me with a feather, and told me to imagine there was a hole in the top of my head which brings in oxygen and expels noxious energy from my body (which seems suspiciously like the work of my NOSE).

I won't get into the "substance" of the whole 15 minute "reading" because it was absolute nonsense and did not fit in with anything going on in my life. When Chanel asked me at the end if the reading provided me with any answers, I told her that it did not and nothing really she said made sense in the context of my life. She basically smiled at me cluelessly and said "that's nice...$37.50 please....oh, and if any of your friends ever want a reading, you know where to send them!" Good god, you'd think a "psychic" would have better insight into other peoples' frame of mind.

Just in case, if during the last 2 weeks of June I am wondering if I made the correct decision about an internal struggle I'm currently having, will you remind me that I did?

wabbits

After seeing Madeleine's bunny pics I was inspired to show off my two little monsters. I didn't bother to take the red out of their eyes because they're demonic....

I like the pic up top where Phoebe looks like a helicopter.

And the one directly above is a rare moment--Jack's usually the taker of affection. When he does decide to get "frisky" he mounts Phoebe sideways and she's like "uuuuhhhh, thanks".

I watched Oprah on TV today as I did some cleaning. I know my "cred" has just bottomed out with that little confession, but I never had much credibility to begin with, right? Anyway, it was one of Oprah's "sex offender" shows in which she revealed the sick, twisted men hiding amongst us and offered $100,000 rewards for their capture. What could be wrong with that?

In practice, this reward process looked really f%*#ed up. Two broken young men ("A" and "B") exposed their precious childhood secrets of sexual abuse for all of the world to "ooo" and "awww" at. Another perky young man ("C") of approximately the same age was introduced as the person who identified their abuser as his former co-worker. C was passed a cheque for $100,000 and swelled with pride. A and B were surely grateful that their abuser was captured but their lives were torn apart and C won an easy $100,000. Hmm.

I wouldn't turn down $100,000 but I think I'd feel like a shark accepting it under those circumstances. Making $$$ off of someone else's heartache? Sick. There has to be a better way for Oprah...I'm sure 2 minutes of fame on her show is worth turning in a pedophile for most people. Then she could give that $$ to the people exploited on her show. People who actually deserve it.

meandering thoughts

Bleh. I'm fighting the post-imbibing blues today. I threw caution to the wind last night and spontaneously went out to a welcome back to school bar night. I don't really want to think much about my behaviour--I was the cynical girl who vaguely remembers punching several people on the arm really hard. Hopefully they'll forgive me. I think I should blame my dark 'tude last night on M.

M., a friend from school (or a "future colleague" as they encourage us to call each other) came over with a few other guys before we headed out last night. He was trying to push my buttons, and since I have so many big, protruding, flashing buttons to push I can't really blame him...I must look like a big jukebox with such selections as: "call my rabbits mittens and watch me flip out", or "compliment Stephen Harper's social values and hear me swear", or the one simply entitled "America".

M. told me that I was exploiting my dear dog and bunnies by keeping them as pets instead of satisfying their natural instincts to be wild and free (hopping through fields of sunflowers without a care in the world, presumeably). I first tried explaining the situations that each of them as individuals had been rescued from, and asked if he was suggesting they would rather be dropped off in a local park, or euthanized, instead of being safe and warm and loved in my house. He thought yes. He poked me again by restating that people shouldn't have pets at all. I counterstriked by saying that I could possibly agree with him one day (which will never arrive) when animals are respected as sentient beings with inherent value, rather than "property". At this point I was simmering--one of my "pet" peeves (haha) is when people choose to ignore existing problems by creating hypothetical platforms upon which they can feel just and righteous.

But today I'm wondering if keeping pets is a purely selfish desire then what of the desire to bring children into the world? I would argue that the main reasons people have kids include:
- creating little people in your own image
- wanting to have family to support you in your old age
- the pressure to conform to the 2 kids/dog/house in the suburbs lifestyle
- and finally, that pesky evolutionarily necessary drive to procreate

Perhaps this sounds distasteful. But what "gift of life" are you giving someone who doesn't exist? I'm happy to be here (albeit some days more than others) but I'm not idealistic enough to think that my life was initiated in my best interest.

As you can see, overindulging in the drink makes me melancholic.

so frustrated

Please don't buy pets from pet stores or from ads in the paper. The animals come from puppy mills or backyard breeders. Instead, consider the numerous shelters and rescue groups who are trying desperately to find homes for abandoned pets. Each and every home that chooses a cute little puppy from a store or an ad in the paper is directly and undeniably contributing to a dog in the shelter being euthanized. I think one of the biggest mistakes we all make is to underestimate the tremendous power that we, as individuals, have over life and death.

These two dogs are only several who are on death row today. What did they do wrong? They were born big, and they were born black. Big, black dogs have a much smaller chance of adoption than any other size/colour.

If the links below no longer work, it means that these two boys have been euthanized. By the sounds of it, the links will no longer work tomorrow afternoon.

Kody

Bow

cbc loves my cuzin

My cousin (and best friend) Amy is dishing with Peter Mansbridge tonight after the debates. Apparently they must like Amy at CBC because this is the second time they're bringing her on to tell them what's what.

Break a leg cuzin! Take care of bidniz!

statistics + morons = danger

While waiting for my sushi last night I was checking out the weekend edition of the local paper. There was a commentary on the prejudice against men in cases of domestic violence. The bias described in the article was that violent women are getting away with injuring men in a way that is no longer accepted of men against women. The facts were disturbing, but what I found even more disturbing was the picture/cartoon that went along with the article.

I don't think the discrepency between the article and the illustration would jump out at most people, and that makes it all the more dangerous. The picture was of a nice, middle-aged man looking in a mirror, tying his tie (I know he was supposed to be "nice" because the eyebrows were tilting up and he had a pleasant smile on his face). The catch? This nice, hardworking chap had a big target drawn on his back. Now from my understanding the article wasn't about innocent men being targeted by the laws and practices in place against domestic violence. Instead, the commentary discussed a bias working for women who are perpetrators of domestic abuse. The outcome of research showing this bias does not mean that male perpetrators of violence are getting punishment they don't deserve. It demonstrates that female perpetrators do not receive equivalent condemnation for equal wrongdoing.

On a similar note, here's an excerpt from a "rant" on www.canlaw.com ("Canada's Best Lawyer Referral Service"): "Over the 11 years from 1989 to 1999 an average of 421 men and only 218 women were killed each year. Twice as many men are murdered as women. Where is the outcry? Where are the shelters, the grants and the special programs to help men?....So much for feminist propaganda and justice for men in Canada."

Unfortunately the loser who wrote that little ditty (which, sadly, was my first hit when I googled "domestic violence statistics in Canada") lacks a basic understanding of statistics. Or, on a darker note, maybe he deliberately chooses not to investigate further. I'm not sure that his actual numbers are correct, but assuming they are, the author fails to recognize that the majority of male homicides are committed by MEN.

When I see illustrations and/or statistics being tweaked and twisted in the area of domestic abuse--against women AND against men--it chills me.

I've fallen head over heels for Vancouver. Most people (who don't live here) think it's a beautiful city but they can't understand how people can love Vancouver so intensely that the cost of living is acceptable. If your soul mate cost you a lot of money, would you leave them? No--with a big gulp you'd pass over the cash and enjoy the time you have together. It took at least a year for me to feel that same commitment to this city--I was highly resistant to V's charms at first.

This love is a curse though, because if you ever have to move somewhere else (if life were to require leaving) how do you feel complete again?

Being downtown is good for a hermit such as myself. I grew up in the country and have always felt confined in any city. I hate having to interact with people every minute of every day. I still walk around staring blankly off into space so I don't have to make eye contact with anyone who might require something of me.

And so, despite all that I have said, I have a plan to get out of the city one day--out of downtown and out of the suburbs. Living just on the outside of civilization so that I can always duck back in for an Americano or a shopping trip (to clothe my stylish recluse ass). However, if this love affair continues I'll probably be 60 years old still saying "I have a dream of getting out of the city one day..."

ode to Heather Mallick

I am suffering Heather Mallick withdrawal. Ms. Mallick quit her column at the Globe & Mail at the beginning of December. From what I have been able to glean from other sources it was over an ethical issue regarding this piece.

I most love the way Mallick teases the multi-layered shades of grey out of issues described by the press in black and white. I cheer her on as she haughtily dismisses those who are morally and intellectually beneath her. She can rip politicians, cultural icons, and plain old idiots to shreds with her words, leaving them clumsily scrambling for a childish insult to throw back her way. And how could I not love a woman who inspired Bill O'Reilly to publicly boycott Canada? Thank god he won't be visiting--I could not be bothered to act all polite and "Canadian" to that fool. He can just stay out of our backyard yo.

And finally, I adore the way Ms. Mallick combines her self-described socialist views with a passion for the finest food, literature, and fashion. It's unabashed bourgeoisocialism (a new hybrid word, don't bother looking it up)--my own version of which I embraced long ago. I will keep searching for her newest montages....strong women like Heather aren't silenced for long.