In A Nutshell

Without even looking at what prompted this (partial) recounting of beliefs by Kaetlan, it's perfect. And perfectly stand-alone.

My feminism is confined to the freedom to make choices, and for equalization inside the social sphere. I support equal pay for equal work, but I reject the condescension of Affirmative Action. I support the woman who wants to pursue a prestigious education and career. I also support the woman who wants to stay at home, whether she's raising children or not. I even support the woman who feels she can 'have it all', no matter how misguided I feel that notion to be -- have at 'er, just don't complain to me about how tired you are.

I want women to be able to have abortions should they want to and NO, I don't include any qualifiers. I want women to be proud of themselves, but I also want that for men. I despise violence against women, but I despise violence against any person, irrespective of sex. I support advocacy for women living in countries where they're treated like chattel, and can be killed by their menfolk for whatever supposed breaches of family honour they've committed. (I won't even address how idiotic is the cognitive dissonance to believe murder is somehow not dishonourable.) The voiceless need a voice, and we, with our greater resources and cultural tolerance, are morally obliged to speak for them out of principle.

This advocacy doesn't include anyone currently residing inside another human's body. Sorry. That's just me.

I don't hate men, and I don't believe them to be the source of everything wrong with women's status in this society. For that, I blame Nature. I don't believe women are possessed of moral superiority to men. I don't believe if women ruled the world, violence would magically disappear --violence is the ravening wolf in all our hearts, and requires constant suppression by conscious decisions negotiated through moral and ethical codes. I don't believe women should be afforded any special privileges, and that includes the fascist 'safe office' policies and speech codes employed by an alarming number of corporations and universities. These policies infantilize women, and I wholly reject the idea we're all frail, hot-house orchids who need protection from Big Bad Men. I don't believe porn degrades women. I don't believe strip clubs degrade women simply by virtue of their existence, nor do I believe the women who work in them are degraded. I don't believe prostitutes are victims, though it's a dangerous line of work, and it's obvious the more visible of their number (the streetwalkers) are more likely to be victimized, whether as a result of prevailing public attitude (including the indifference of police officers), or through their very real vulnerability on darkened city streets.

And, having borne witness to the sheer fickleness and spite with which women can treat other women, I believe the idea of an all-embracing sisterhood to be a colossal joke, but conspicuously lacking a clever punchline.

A Moment for a Cultural Break

The director of the National Gallery of Canada made a list of the first ten pieces he'd save if the place went up in flames (6 who are actually Canadian and one who is Canada-based) - I thought it'd be interesting to see what he picked.

I'm not a big fan of any of it really, although I think I'd like to 'see' #6, #9 (made out of plastic chairs) and definitely #10, which I included as a thumbnail. 10 rocks.

1. Sunrise on the Saguenay, Cape Trinity by Lucius R. O'Brien (1880)

2. Pavane, Jean Paul Riopelle (1954)

3. The Red Maple, A.Y. Jackson (1914)

4. The Young Student, Ozias Leduc (1894)

5. Fir Tree and Sky, Emily Carr

6. Forty-Part Motet, Janet Cardiff (2001)

7. Hope, Gustav Klimt

8. Iris, Vincent van Gogh (1889)

9. Shapeshifter, Brian Jungen (2000)

10. Untitled (Head of a Baby), Ron Mueck (2003)


*click to biggie-size*

You Gonna Eat That? *wink wink*

The Age of Chicken Little

Just a little interim post (I'm in the air today completely missing the 10th of October.)

Before I left I was reading a book consisting of a collection of essays called Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Kary Mullis. He won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction, a chemical procedure that allows scientists to "see" the structures of the molecules of genes.

It's an excellent book. Excellent. Part of it is about his belief that we aren't destroying the ozone layer (it's almost economic & climatic conspiracy theory - but it actually makes utter sense) and there's a bit about what he thinks is the real reason pot became illegal. Anyways, I've excerpted a portion of the chapter on how we're not actually responsible for global warming either titled "The Age of Chicken Little." Enjoy.

People are jerked about almost monthly by new announcements by spokesmen for various government agencies and research groups sponsored by government funds. They tell us that every time we start our cars we contribute to greenhouse gasses. Every time we vent Freon from a refrigerator, air conditioner or spray can into the atmosphere we are destroying the ozone layer and contributing to the worldwide incineration of all life. It makes no sense, in the light kf the climatic history of the world, to talk about catastrophic changes in the weather being caused by human activities.

What happened in the 1980's? We have brought something down on ourselves as expensive, although not quite as brutal, as a world war. Did everybody forget that we were just big ants? Did somebody convince us that just because most of our religions had lost their appeal, we ourselves were suddenly gods? That we were now the masters of the planet and the guardians of the status quo? That the precise climatic conditions that happen to exist on the Earth today in the Holy Twentieth Century, the Climatic Century of 001, the first year of human domination of all Earth, should be here forever, in secula seculorum? All the good species are here now. None shall perish and no new ones are welcome. Biology is no longer allowed: the Environmental Protection Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change are now in charge. Evolution is over.

I recall a cartoon. A caveman is raging in front of his cave glaring up at a flash of lightning and pointing an accusing finger toward his mate and the fire burning in the mouth of the cave, "It didn't used to do that before you started making those things."

The future of the Earth has got nothing to do with the creatures that live clustered along the shores of its great bodies of water. We are just here for the ride. And the ride is not smooth. It never has been smooth.

The world that the Vikings sailed out into a thousand years ago was warmer by far than it is today. Since then it has gotten colder. It even got colder last century. It didn't do so in response to the Viking ships or the Spanish horses dropping manure on the California poppies. It got colder all over the planet and drier on the West Coast of the United States for reasons that only the planets and the sun can be held accountable. It got colder and drier because angles and distances of Earth and our major heat source changed - things that neither the Vikings nor the Spanish could measure and surely did not affect.

We can't position our planet relative to the sun just exactly to our liking. We can't make sure that the average temperature in San Diego for the next thousand yuears will be a comfortable 68 degrees Fahrenheit. We can stop worrying about whether we can control it because we don't have anything to do with it. It just plain isn't stable. It may get colder in the coming centuries - it may get hotter.

The computer jocks who hardly go outside even on nice days write the programs for their bosses at IPCC. They predict that global warming is coming and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple.

If we had sailed into here in space ships and the physical history of the place was that the climate had always been the same, then we might reasonably think that there was an amazing delicate balance on the Earth that we should not upset, if for no other reason, just to show a little respect. Maybe we could justify hiring experts or priests to help us.

But that is not at all what happened. We eveolved here, and we evolved in the midst of some pretty serious climatic changes. They were serious enough so that millions of years and extinctions later we can still see the effects of the changes and give names like "carboniferous" and "cretaceous" and "Eemian" to the very different climatic epochs because they were different. There is no reason to think things are going to stay the same now - with or without us.

The vast majority of the world is invisible to our eyes regardless ofthe brightest of our lights, and we can't hear more than a tiny bit of the sound of it with our ears, and we can't feel the subtle textures of it with our fingers. Even with all our instruments, long tubes on mountains, and a Hubble telescope in space, we are blind to the myriad of complex energies that are whirling and vibrating and clattering all around us day and night, year after year, millennium after millenium.

The appropriate demeanor for a human is to feel lucky that he is alive and to humble himself in the face of the immensity of things and have a beer. Relax. Welcome to Earth. It's a little confusing at first. That's why you have to come back over and over again before you really learn to enjoy yourself.

The sky is not falling.

One Reason I Ignore the News

(emphasis added is mine)

Imagine Abigayle Egeland-Northwood's surprise to find out that she owes the Canada Revenue Agency $13,000.

She's never had a job, doesn't have a social insurance number and spends most of her free time playing with her five cats and two dogs. Oh yes, and she's 12 years old.

"I don't think it's fair because I didn't do anything wrong. I don't work and I don't drive. I'm just a kid," the girl said in an interview Friday.

Her parents feel she's being unfairly targeted because of her father's dispute with the Canada Revenue Agency. Nelson Northwood maintains that Parliament has not passed a law requiring Canadian citizens to pay income tax, an argument he lost in court two years ago. He was ordered to turn over records so the Canada Revenue Agency could collect some $700,000 they say is owed.

Last week, the agency went to court again and received an order allowing a bailiff to seize the personal property of the Grade 7 student, up to a value of $13,000.

So on Wednesday, Abbey arrived home to find bailiffs seizing the 1998 Jeep that her mother Karen Egeland transferred to her name in the spring of 2005.

The full story is here.

And I'm sorry, KIDDO, but most of us don't OWN a car at 12. Then again, most of us actually pay our taxes and don't try to avoid them by pulling fuckwitted things like your mothers' OH-SO-SUBTLE attempt at doing so. Not to mention the old "no one ever said I had to pay taxes" defense.

Most of us, actually, find legal and (kind of) moral ways to work around the government that, incidentally, provides most of the reasons you live in one of the best countries in the world.

Maybe, just maybe, your parents should just gracefully admit they lost their little ploy, pay their taxes and move you --- somewhere else --- so the rest of us don't have to be subjected to such idiots on the front page cause I'd personally rather not have any more of MY tax dollars wasted / abused by you and your little family.

Boy, I can't wait till you grow up and believe you don't have to pay taxes either.

I do have a question though - I just can't quite figure out what they were going for by being in the paper - sympathy?

ha

ha ha

You know, I'm pretty sure Cabot needs a Subaru. Don't you agree? He's got thumbs. Even, probably - more common sense.

(See? See what the news does to me? Makes me snarly and mean.)