a bit of Pat Lowther

BEFORE THE WRECKER COMES

Pat Lowther

From: Time Capsule, Polestar 1996, p.201.

---

Before the wreckers come,
Uproot the lily
From the hard angle of earth
By the house.
Crouch by the latticed understairs
Rubbish and neglect
(The sudden lightning
Of sun
On your back
Between the opening
And shutting
Of the March-blown clothesline,
Rise and fall of the swift light
Like blows.)
Here a lifetime's
Slimy soapsuds
Curdle the earth,
In this corner
Under the stairs,
But have not killed
The woodbugs
Nor the moths' pupae
Which brush your fingers
As you dig
For the round, rich root,
The lily root
Which has somehow, senselessly,
Not been killed either
But has grown every year
An astonished babyhood,
An eye-struck Easter.
Pack it among the photographs,
The silver polish,
And the last laundry
Which will not again
Lift and shutter
For the shattering sun.
Mark its container: X
Two intersecting lines,
A lattice point
Of time
And the years' seasons.

Before the wreckers come,
Carry away
The lightning-bulb of sun.

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/lowther/poems.htm

I've been a bad blogger....

I broke all the rules and didn't write or add anything for a month. I was supposed to be excelling at English Literature and learning French instead. But I was not doing those things either. I could blame facebook, but that's a cop out - and everyone knows I hate de pigs.

So...

I've been hiding out in anxiety disorder land, laying about fatigued from stupid MS, watching my typing deteriorate because of stupid MS, (this would cause anxiety in a writer, no?) and covetting electronic gadgets I don't need but really, really want. Like a digital camera I can really work with. Even my old SLRs are pieces of crap, broken, hand me downs, the usual crud of working class existence. Two of my friends got brand new MACs and I got this ancient crappy one, so I end up using Diann'es PC anyway. I could harumph all day about how hard done by I am with my substandard equipment - one last whine - an artist needs this shit! - okay that's done.

Really, the problem is anxiety. Fine, I admit it, I'm a basketcase. I throw great parties though... just like a desperate housewife, I am. (not the sort on TV, more like my working class mom...) sigh...

okay, enough. blah. blah. out, out, damn spot!

confessionals suck....

next!

okay here's something to enjoy and savour: Fag bug!

This is a most excellent activist called Erin Davis, who everyone should support!

Some arseholes wrote 'fag' on her car and instead of wiping it off, she got even by keeping it that way and becoming a transcontinental activist. She was in the Pride Parade in Vancouver and is apparently off to Laramie to meet Matthew Sheppard's parents. She is trying for a gig on L-word too - if you read my blog and got a connection, contact her through the website below and let her know. Apparently, she had a line on "Shane" - Apparently "Shane" goes to the same Blenz every day. RUFK Me? Which Blenz, I ask? There are like 50 of them in this city... Sigh... "Shane"

oh... right... back to activism...

here's the link: http://www.fagbug.com/

make a donation, grab a sticker from her, put it on your car: help her get one million cars designated as fag bugs!

My car is a fag bug - is yours?

peace.

Sue Goyette is this week's poet

I picked this book of poetry up cheap and it is a wee gift, indeed. A big one actually. If you find it, pay full price for it, or send her the difference or something. Working poets need us to read their work and buy their books.

Sue Goyette
Undone
2004, Brick Books

http://www.brickbooks.ca/BL-Goyette.htm

BTW: Brick Books is a great Canadian small press, producing amazing and beautiful books. Buy their books!

Here is an interview and a poem, Three Tulips, reposted from Contemporary Verse 2 (which you shold subscribe to. (hint: buy Canadian literature in all its forms.))

http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/vol27_3excerpts.htm#poet_goyette

enjoy.

a new old obsession...

good day all.
poetry today.
Monsieur Leonard Cohen.

THE PARTY WAS OVER THEN TOO

When I was about fifteen
I followed a beautiful girl
into the Communist Party of Canada.
There were secret meetings
and you got yelled at
if you were a minute late.
We studied the McCarran Act
passed by the stooges in Washington,
and the Padlock Law
passed by their lackeys in Quebec,
and they said nasty shit
about my family
and how we got our money.
They wanted to overthrow
the country that I loved
(and served, as a Sea Scout).
And even the good people
who wanted to change things,
they hated them too
and called them social fascists.
They had plans for criminals
like my uncles and aunties
and they even had plans
for my poor little mother
who had slipped out of Lithuania
with two frozen apples
and a bandanna full of monopoly
money.
They never let me get near the girl
and the girl never let me get near the girl.
She became more and more beautiful
until she married a lawyer
and became a social fascist herself
and very likely a criminal too.
But I admired the Communists
for their pig-headed devotion
to something absolutely wrong.
It was years before I found something
comparable for myself:
I joined a tiny band of steel-jawed
zealots
who considered themselves
the Marines of the spiritual world. It's
just a matter of time:
we'll be landing this raft
on the Other Shore,
we'll be taking that beach
on the Other Shore.

Copyright © by Leonard Cohen. Mt Baldy, May 1997.
Reprinted with permission. Any other use forbidden.
http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/


here are some youtube vids... enjoy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf36v0epfmI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocq_noEO2uU&mode=related&search=

this was my intro to him: (i'm a child of the video age...what can I say?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrPEM2qc-j8&mode=related&search=

there's a bunch more in the middle navigation bar.

A great thing about Cohen: he embraces other media. This transforms the poetry. Read Suzanne off the page. Then listen to him sing the poem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czQoGSYBeHU&mode=related&search=


namaste

you just can't make this stuff up

Here's a link:
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_159222541.html

When I worked a student newspaper we sat around cracking ourselves up with stupid story ideas and ridiculous headlines, mostly too high on sugar to know that we were not very funny, and very embarassed by some of what we saw in print with the light of day.

We, however were not strategizing to save the free world, and we were not on crack!

The real reason they scrapped this "idea:"
All those bombed gay insurgents would want to get gay married next of course. This would for sure destroy the last of the carefully build infrastructure the US has so carefully put in place and been protecing. It would particularly undermine the high priority the US government and military leadership places on the preservation of the traditional Iraqui family unit.

You know, they should have dropped the gay bomb - then they could blame the outcome of the war on gay people, just like everything else they blame homosexual blasphemers for.
It is ok, we can carry the load. We're used to it by now.

peace

poetry promised

Hi,
I promised poetry and politics but the anti-choicers took up sooo much of my time and so did the existential angst about the BFA program (and okay, okay, I admit it - facebook too.) But enough of that I say - be banished and gone, all distractions from poesy.

I will post at least a link about a poet accompanied by a copy of their already published poem or other writerly contributions at least once a week.

to start us off... a little of the Margaret Atwood herself. Some story telling about becoming a poet. (note: upon re-reading I realize bits of this speech have been recycled in others, most recently the speech she gave for the Margaret Laurence Memorial Lecture for the Writer's Union, here in Vancouver this past May...it doesn't matter.)

http://www.web.net/owtoad/lecture.html

http://www.owtoad.com/ ~Margaret Atwood's official site.

I am beginning to see there is a long history of poetry writers writing about poetry and being a poet. Open the Norton Anthology of the Major English Writers and see for yourself...

If you surf the net and find a poem from Margaret A. or you are ambitious and want to transcribe it, please post in the comments section below. Make sure to give credit info. No plagarism (wagging finger!)

Here's a poem, to get us started!

In the Secular Night

In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller
with his big-band sound,
and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,
and cried for a while because you were not dancing,
and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple.

Now, forty years later, things have changed,
and it's baby lima beans.
It's necessary to reserve a secret vice.
This is what comes from forgetting to eat
at the stated mealtimes. You simmer them carefully,
drain, add cream and pepper,
and amble up and down the stairs,
scooping them up with your fingers right out of the bowl,
talking to yourself out loud.You'd be surprised if you got an answer,
but that part will come later.

There is so much silence between the words,
you say. You say, The sensed absence
of God and the sensed presence
amount to much the same thing,
only in reverse.
You say, I have too much white clothing.
You start to hum.
Several hundred years ago
this could have been mysticism
or heresy. It isn't now.
Outside there are sirens.
Someone's been run over.
The century grinds on.

– By Margaret Atwood,
Copyright © O.W. Toad Ltd. 1995.
Originally published in Morning in the Burned House
(McClelland & Stewart, Houghton Mifflin, Virago, 1995)

sweet relief...now what?...oh yeah, global patriarchy awaits

So I got the news and it wasn't good... sigh... at least I am no longer in stasis. UBC does not want to give me the opportunity to write for two years and end up with a BFA. Fine. Fine then. (I am being passive aggressive...ha! crackin' myself up...) I am of course quite capable of rerouting myself to a poets life without them. Hmpphf!

So then there is the CBC hosting a "5 wishes for Canada" thing on facebook for the kids. The whole thing is now overrun with anti-choicers.... here's what I posted to the CBC blog, Editorial #1 on topic:

I am a bit shocked that the discussion about abortion came up this way in a forum that is essentially nationalist. I believe stongly in all that I do, but it seems this little project has been hijacked... Abortion has nothing to do with our nationhood, although how each state chooses to deal with abortion medically and legally might be said to define the nation in some way.

We in Canada have a Supreme Court and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1988 it was decided that legal sanctions by the state against the provision of abortion is a violation of women's equality rights under the Charter.

If the 'wish' for Canada' is in fact a return to a legal situation where any person participating in abortion (mother and doctor/other medical staff in particular) can be criminalized, then this wish, should it be acted upon, would be a return to this version of women's legal inequality with men.

If the 'wish for Canada' is really 'abolish abortion' and it is meant to be taken outside of the legal relationship between the state and each Canadian, and perhaps is a call to the wider social contract, there are some basics that are required:

1) A Guaranteed Annual Income for all. We have raised generations and generations of children in poverty, but there is no need to continue this. Several governments have come to power in Canada promising to alleviate the poverty of children. Give their parents and potential parents money and the children will not be poor. Give a woman some money in her own name and she will be able to decide what to do about her pregnancy without the worry about feeding, clothing, and sheltering the child after birth

2) Proper and thorough and yes, culturally and religiously sensitive, health and sexuality instruction. Too many people become sexually active as adolescents and as adults without an understanding of the mechanics of their bodies, how to behave sexually with self-respect and how to deal with the bombardments of crass and sexist messages about proper sexual behaviour for men and women.

3)Free and widely available contraception of all sorts. Why do we have to pay for the pill? for ECP? for condoms, male and female alike? Why are young men and women who go to doctors looking for tubiligations and vasectomies discouraged and put-off? If you don't want to have a baby, you don't want to have a baby. Why are the people who don't want women to have abortions often the same ones that refuse to respect someone choosing to take responsibility for themselves and their sexuality by using contraception?

4)Discuss parenting early with young people. Why do they value raising children? What tools and supports will they need to do so? If they think they do not want to parent, why not? How can each person's decision be valued before the crisis of an unplanned abortion?

5) The End of Violence Against Women. If men who rape stop doing so, if men who batter stop doing so, raped and battered women will not be in the position of having to deal with the after effects of rape and violence, which sometimes includes pregnancy and abortion.

There is probably more, but this is a start. I am pro-choice, pro-abortion even, and I heartily agree that I would like to live in a world where pregnancies are welcome and women are free to birth and parent, (with or without a partner to parent alongside them.) I hope that world will also have room for the people who don't want to have children, and that all of us will have the tools and wherewithal to prevent a pregnancy or to get pregnant without the moral judgements of others interfering with our ability to do so. In this world, perhaps abortion won't be abolished, it will only become a mostly unnecessary and very occasionally used medical procedure, offered by those who are trained to provide the best and most respectful health care.

*************************
You can find the whole thing on facebook, look here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2392827649
join the facebook group and then support progressive wishes, make up your own.

And the CBC site is here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_1.html
and here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_2.html
(editorial 1 is where all the action is...but support 2!)

as an aside: I'm on facebook now, I gave in, its a good distraction on a day like today...

peace.

waiting....

Waiting for information about anything is difficult. Waiting to know if you 'passed' the test, the necessary hurdles, &c is worse. Triple that if you are an anxious anxious worrying anxious person. Who can sleep?

I understand that patience is a virtue but the perpetual "Am I good enough?" button is firmly and repeatedly getting pushed. I shoud know better, and stay away from competition of all kinds, I am not laid back, and it does mean something, at least to me, if I do not make the cut. I did not overthrow my entire life to participate in competitive crap, especially as a poet. Am I taunting the Olympian gods by trying my luck once more after winning the first round? Are my offerings good enough? See, I intend to be 'Great,' but these times of enforced waiting encourage one to beg for smaller portions: 'good enough. '

I just want to get in. Buy a bit more time to write, think, write, think. Write.

I know it has nothing to do with Karma or Gods or Goddesses or God. I am not praying, but all this hoping is getting to be a bit like it. Striking bargains like a good catholic, but with the fates, not an higher power. My muse is very sluttish when it comes to getting her way. For instance, I wrote a very slutty sonnet (indeed) as an Ode to Poetry the other day. Not publishing it here, as then I can't get it published elsewhere...you'll have to wait for my chapbooks dear readers...which will arrive shortly...

Maybe, by day's end, I will have some news to report. She's licking her lips in anticipation. I'm fretting.

fingers & legs crossed!

Dixie Chicks rock

Two months after the Grammy blah blah hoopla crap, relistening to the last Dixie Chicks album, Taking the Long Way, you gotta admit this is a great album. One the best made by the mainstream these days: love, politics, home, protest, great musicianship, song writing, and arrangments. I laugh, I cry, I bellow (er, sing.)

I watched them at the Grammies and thought they weren't ready for all the hoopla, and so didn't do themselves justice. And they clearly thought it was political only, the reasons that they won. It was political of course, a great big mea culpa pretending that sexism in the industry is non-existant and they didn't have to stand up for themselves through music and movies. They had to fight back hard, and they won. I just hope the music stands on its own and they and everyone else get it as a whole: they deserved the win for the music as well as for the fight back.

Art and politics and women's lives...

ya, sometimes it comes together...

(now on to Indigo Girls - more southern women doin' more than kickin' the dirt...sing it Amy and Emily!... (album: Become You))

Tamara

Cookie Cookie Cookie starts with 'C'

Here's the poetry post for today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCsMWx8Re4A

This explains me+Kermit, me+poetry, me+cookie monster, me+COOKIES!!!

mmhmm ummunn nnunnmm nummm

me love poetry too!

peace.

Here's an article I wrote...

http://www.feminist-reprise.org/docs/gorin.htm

This is an article I published in Rain and Thunder in 2002 about lesbians, romanticism, legal marriage.

I am fairly pleased to find it posted and though I cringe at some of the sentence structure (ack!) I am glad to see it holds up over the 5 years since I wrote it.

What has changed since then: Gay marriage is legal in Canada, L-word & Ellen are on the tele, I am in a new long-term relationship where we are planning some sort of non-legal, public-in community celebration, (finding this at feminist-reprise helps me get my head around what we are trying to do, so thanx again for posting it Amy!) I left the Vancouver Rape Relief collective in June 2005, and my kid is now 17.

I spell 'honour' with a 'u' BTW - they must have edited for american spelling. All is forgiven between sisters in the struggle, though...and honor is honour afterall...

peace

Abortion and Reproductive Health News

Here's some updates re: reproductive health/abortion, courtesy of ARCC-CDAC, also courtesy, me...

NEW BRUNSWICK ABORTION ACCESS -- As you all know, the New Brunswick government enforces a regulation thatlimits funded abortions to those performed in hospitals by a specialist withthe written approval of two doctors. This regulation violates the Canada Health Act as well as the 1988 Supreme Court Morgentaler decision. The latter tossed Canada's abortion law because it set arbitrary obstacles toaccess that discriminated against women and violated women's "security ofthe person." The NB regulation does exactly the same thing. Dr. HenryMorgentaler is pursuing a lawsuit against the province, and the issue currently before the courts is whether he has "standing," which the NB government is disputing. We believe Dr. M has a great defense on this point, which will be decided in just a few days.

One of the doctors at the Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton is is being subjected to an ongoing campaign of intimidation by anti-choicers in NB, via demonstrations outside the clinic, and letters to her colleagues. We are urging the government to publicly support this doctor and NB abortion services in general, and we also are supporting the National AbortionFederation in its efforts to implement a bubble zone law in New Brunswick to protect the clinic. This avenue looks promising so far.

Heather Mallick was a recent keynote speaker at a popular event in Fredericton at the University of NB on April 11. Heather spoke to anoverflow crowd of 300 supportive people. The event was sponsored and organized by several groups including the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

Read Heather's article about New Brunswick here:
"Abortion rights and abortion fights: Court fight over legal payments about to begin" http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_mallick/20070420.html


HOSPITAL ACCESS IN CANADA -- A sister pro-choice group, Canadians for Choice, issued a report in April called "Reality Check: a close look at accessing abortion services inCanadian hospitals." It found that only 15.9% of Canadian hospitals provideaccessible abortion services, compared to 17.8% in 2003. To put this intoperspective, it's important to note that clinic access has increased overthe years, which explains to some extent the overall decline in hospitalaccess. Clinics actually do about 45% of all abortions in Canada now,compared to less than 7% in 1988. Access is generally good to very good inmajor centres in Canada, but is lacking in rural and remote areas, wherehospital services are most urgently required. Canada remains in a veryenviable situation compared to all other countries in the world in terms ofabortion rights and laws, although somewhat less so in terms of access. Wedefinitely need more hospitals doing abortions, and more providers too. Butto ARCC-CDAC, one of the key findings of the report is the shocking lack ofrespect and the degree of misinformation or lack of information given towomen looking for abortion services.

Links:

The full Canadians for Choice report:
http://www.canadiansforchoice.ca/report.html

ARCC press release: "New report highlights lack of respect for womenaccessing abortion" http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/press/media-release-apr10-07.pdf

"Accessing Choice in Canada" by Pamela Pizarro (interview with reportresearcher)http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/04/26/accessing-choice-in-canada


BERTHA WILSON'S LEGACY -- Bertha Wilson passed away on April 28. She was Canada's first female Supreme Court judge. She helped stirke down Canada's restrictive abortion law in the 1988Supreme Court Morgentaler decision, and her concurring decision wasfar-reaching and visionary, going beyond the other justices. She saw women'sright to "liberty" and "freedom of conscience" as encompassing the right tohave an abortion. Recently, Joyce Arthur co-authored an unpublished piece with a law student, part of which argued that the Supreme Court today has a more evolved view of the Charter and would be likely to adopt Wilson's view of abortion rights, rather than fall back on the narrower interpretation of the other justices. If you'd be interested in reading this, please email Joyce at (jharthur@shaw.ca) and she can send this excerpt to you.

Joyce Arthur's favourite quote by Wilson from the Morgentaler decision:

"Liberty in a free and democratic society does not require the state to approve the personal decisions made by its citizens; it does, however, require the state to respect them. A woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy falls within this class of protected decisions. It is one that will have profound psychological, economic, and social consequences for her. It is a decisionthat deeply reflects the way the woman thinks about herself and herrelationship to others and to society at large. It is not just a medica ldecision; it is a profound social and ethical one as well."

Links:

Bertha Wilson, 83: First female Supreme Court justice. Canadian Press, May01, 2007, by Tracey Tyler http://www.thestar.com/News/article/209065

'The great dissenter: The first female judge to ascend to the Supreme Courtdies at 83." The Globe and Mail, Tue 01 May 2007, by Kirk Makin http://osgoode.yorku.ca/media2.nsf/83303ffe5af03ed585256ae6005379c9/06563e796b80e7a8852572ce00694530!OpenDocument


MEXICO LEGALIZES ABORTION -- Abortion was decriminalized in Mexico City (not the whole country) on April24, with a legislative vote of 46-19. Women can now have abortions on request up till 12 weeks of gestation. City hospitals must provide the procedure and private abortion clinics may open. Girls under 18 have to get their parents' consent, but the procedure will be almost free for poor or uninsured city residents. Unfortunately, except in cases of medical emergency, women seeking abortions will have to prove residency in Mexico City.

Outside the city, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman's life is at risk. Also, abortion after 12 weeks is punishableby three to six months in jail. Still, Mexico now has one of the most progressive laws on abortion in Latin America, after only Cuba and Guyana.

The health law was also strengthened to guarantee sexuality education and campaigns on reproductive and sexual rights, the availability of birth control methods, as well as comprehensive and quality abortion services upon request. Up until now, about 800,000 illegal abortions were estimated t otake place every year in Mexico. Well-off women could easily get abortions at private clinics, but poor women had to self-abort or go to unskilled practitioners.

Links:

"Mexico City legalizes abortion; defies church", April 25, Reuters, byCatherine Bremer http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2007/04/25/mexico_city_legalizes_abortion_defies_church/

"Mexico City law may push out abortion subculture", May 1 2007, MiamiHerald, by Cecilia Sanchez and Hector Tobar
http://www.miamiherald.com/579/v-print/story/92099.html


PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN UPHELD IN U.S. -- The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the so-called "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act"on April 18. This travesty of a decision, made by 5 male, devout Catholic judges, guts over 30 years of case-law precedent on abortion, and criminalizes a particular type of abortion for the first time. Most significantly, the decision says an exception to protect the woman's health is NOT required when passing abortion restrictions (only the woman's life). This means that women's health is subordinate to the fetus' right to live, so in American society today, men are now on top, with fetuses second, andwomen third (tied with children). Anti-abortion groups are ecstatic because this opens the floodgates for more anti-abortion restrictions, as well as signalling the possible overturning of Roe v Wade in the not-too-distant future. The decision itself is paternalistic and ideological, and based on flimsy legal arguments, such as irrationally asserting that the law can only be challenged in court now by an individual woman who suddenly needs the procedure in an emergency. The decision basically lets legislators into the operating room to make the medical decisions, and prevents doctors from making medical decisions in the best interests of their patients.

The lone woman on the court, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, read aloud from the bench her scathing dissent, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer. It is well-worth reading: http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/05-380_All.pdf
Scroll down to page 49 to view.


IRISH GIRLS WINS RIGHT TO TRAVEL FOR ABORTION -- An interesting case that has not gotten much media attention in NorthAmerica is unfolding in Ireland. A 17 year old girl who is a ward of the Health Service Executive (HSE) had a wanted pregnancy with her boyfriend that turned bad. She is now 18 weeks pregnant and her fetus has anencephaly (a brain condition) so it cannot survive after birth. The HSE refused her permission to travel to England for an abortion because she is underage and in care. (Abortion is illegal in Ireland; the country has a constitutional amendment protecting life from conception with "equal regard" to the life of the woman.) The girl, known as Miss D, very bravely went to court and has endured a major 10-day media circus. Today, the Irish high court granted her leave to go to England, under certain conditions.
For details and a complete record of events, see the Safe & Legal campaign site in Ireland: http://safeandlegal.blogspot.com/

Sense of humour

I really thought the Black Eyed Peas were going to go somewhere, repoliticize hip-hop-pop after their first song. But, no, they went the way of the cash/sex vortex and now Fergie is forever stuck in 30-something adolescent sex-crazed crap. Too bad.

But, out of the ashes of pop-porn (that's my copyright!) , here comes Alanis Morissette with a lovely, quiet send up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZw-8RSyvh8

This is coming to you on youtube, so you can click on the B.E.P/Fergie original (which shows up right beside it) to see what she's on about. Or just turn on Much Music...

merci beaucoup, alanis.

things like this help a feminist move on with her day.

Links for you

Hi,
my blog time today was spent adding links to the site... a start and by no means exhaustive... sit back, grab a cuppa something you like and surf the feminist webscape...

peace

Sexist pig-dawg 'artists'

http://ca.entertainment.yahoo.com/s/27042007/6/entertainment-baldwin-makes-tv-apology-consults-dr-phil.html

Check out this page for Yahoo entertainment news. The headline is Alec Baldwin apologizing to his daughter on national television on the View. Of course, he doesn't not really. Because anger is okay. Just not name calling. Yes, Alec, anger is OK. But what I heard was not misplaced anger - it was outrageous and a horrible way to treat anyone, particularly a child, but also Kim Bassinger. Dr. Phil, of course, let him off the hook or something.

And get this - he wants to quit acting and become a crusader about parental alienation. Ha! How about you not yell at your child like that? Then she might want to see you once in a while.

These activist men who refuse to deal with their sexism and woman hating are a waste of our time. I used to respect him, and I even hoped that with the resurge in his popularity as a 'funny guy' he might have cooled it with Kim B. Obviously he hasn't. Not so funny Alec.

Now, check out the other links on the page, also to do with stupid, silly men and violence against women:

One, the Phil Spector trial in London, for killing his wife.
The other, Richard Gere apologizing for molesting an Indian actor at an AIDS conference a week or so ago.

Okay, RG was excited, kind of like JS (see first post in the blog), and the overall glam and boobage on display probably unleashed all that hot-blooded Amerikkkan man he keeps under wraps under the guise of Buddhism and bad (if sometimes a bit charming,) acting. Whatever. Get some respect. And you were at an AIDS conference, man. Get some perspective. Kissing pretty women is fun (I know it :) ) but respecting women's right to MC in peace and free of molestation is better and setting a good example about appropriate heterosexual relations is best. And way less embarrassing than molesting her and having effigies burned in the streets of the world's second largest country.

As for Phil Spector - guns don't kill girlfriends, their boyfriends do.

That's the entertainment new round-up. How depressing these men are.

peace

A beautiful thing...

Conrad black blah blah blah, Sponsorship scandal blah, Cancer blah, end of the world blah...

Winnipeg - Carol Shields Memorial Labyrinth. YAY!

http://www.carolshieldslabyrinth.ca/

'She wrote about ordinary people and those were her heroes. That's what this project is. It's just about an ordinary community, citizens coming together.'—Anne Nesbitt

Okay, this is why I love the CBC. No one else is talking about this most excellent thing, based on one of my favourite writers, a veritable queen of CAN/CON and a feminist to boot. Just the CBC. Thank you and thank me for being a Friend of the CBC ( http://www.friends.ca/) to make sure we still have the CBC so I (we) can find stories like this that perk me (and hoepfully you,) right the heck up.

so here's the story:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2007/04/27/shields-labyrinth-tribute.html

The labyrinth is based on the novel Larry's Party, one of the best novels, ever.
Order it here: http://www.peoplescoopbookstore.com/
and check out this blog here: http://wordspinning.blogspot.com/2004/12/carol-shields-larrys-party.html for a quick synopsis.

I met for the first time with my intrepid feminist writer's group last night. We talked about everything and we also read the essay Woman and Bird from Adrienne Rich's What Is Found There. (http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall03/031246.htm) She talks about the disconnect between poetry and science and politics, and the loss of meaning that results. I think Larry's Party resonated with me so much because it goes a long way toward braiding these bits back together.

And now, this live in the real world thing is happening, leaping out of the pages and into a public park in Winnipeg. It is being brought to life by the people who loved Carol Shields dearly, and the people who love her work dearly. Earth and roots and carbon and chlorophyll and artistry and community and good honest labour and a good deal of imagination.

Thank you to all involved. It sure made my day to find out about this. And gave me another reason to consider adding Winnipeg to my next road trip route.

peace.

We live in a small town. Fer sure, eh?

In the midst of a meeting yesterday, I could hear shouts and general ruckus out from out in the neighbourhood. Since the meeting was one concerning feminist social change and leadership, all of us perked up and listened. Yes! A Rally! Nice one! But then one of us said - 'It's the Canucks' and we kind of groaned and looked at each other and got back to work, but not before talking about the newly emerging marches and rallies in the neighbourhood, mostly led by Filipino activists, and discussing pros and cons of taking the street, blocking traffic with less than 50 people. We were all sure it was quite ridiculous and also quite a lot of fun.

So after the meeting, we go out, and lo! A few short blocks away, there is a paddy wagon and a long line up of cops on horseys! Yay! we say, it is a protest! So we go down there and check it out.

The cops on horseys are protecting the entrances to the Heritage Hall, a building most folks hold dear for its relative beauty, attachment to history and well, it is a cheap, nice place to rent for events of the community sort. The protesters are in the middle of Main Street milling about and also on the opposite sidewalk handing out fliers. There are 30 altogether and me and my sisters in the struggle (Alice and Suzanne) look at each other and all say at once "APC" and then sort of laugh and then go stand well away from the horseys and motorcycle cops and the APC folks in black. It's their protest, likely righteous, but we don't know what's going on. Also the horses are big and the cops are racist. So the young APC woman with the bullhorn is shouting something inarticulate at people and there's that chant thing going on, but still, we can't tell what the heck. So I march up to someone I vaguely recognize and ask for a pamphlet.

It was the NPA AGM they were protesting, the political party of our most esteemed mayor and his cronies. Most excellent. The NPA is slumming it on the east side, but in a nice enough venue they can pretend to be of the people, in a public meeting, while still being their swank, exclusionary selves.

We didn't have to be there an hour earlier to guess what had happened. The protesters, in black and tear-wear, showed up to the meeting, rowdy before getting in, and were banned. That caused more rowdiness and general yelling and for the people inside to ask that they not be allowed in (that's the mayor's story and he is sticking to it.) People are homeless and poor and some of us aren't polite about it, and that is just in bad taste. So 'out' they say, and the cops get called. And since it is APC protesting, and since the cops new policy is APC= riot= bring out the horseys (everyone loves horseys, so much, much more than riot cops with pepper spray - the media/public relations cops are getting smarter) the horsey-cops arrive in style, and start moving huge animals in between skinny protesters and the doors. So then the skinny people get scared and protest louderand get mad about being herded (all of them are vegetarians and animal rights activists (most, anyway) so they won't hit the horses,) as they get pushed back into the street and end up blocking traffic. You see how it goes. This requires paddy wagons and traffic cops and lots of overtime hours since this all went on over shift change down at the cop shop. No one can ever tell me cops don't LOVE protests. Cha-ching!


Anyway, there were 100 people or something inside and 30 people outside and this part of the city got all blocked up for at least 2 hours. I don't think the NPA passed any motions changing their housing policy and for sure the media spin doctors were on overtime pay too, so the APC just looks like a bunch of rabble-rousers trying to bust into Versailles. The thing is, the APC is not that organized and Sam Sullivan is not the King. I know, I know, he is setting up his little monarchy, dismantling democracy, and it just very well may be that he will crown himself shortly, but it hasn't happened yet.

I love that the APC just keeps at it, even when they are wrong (which they weren't this time) and that the NPA doesn't get to have their little meeting in peace. I am all for letting legitimate business proceed, but frankly, not much going on in this city is legit right now, and everything needs to be disrupted until something changes.

I hope the APC adapts some sort of evaluation process so they can gather more people to them, but I don't think they will. Not many will join in the current circumstance, a lot because the cops have been effective at their own campaign to 'keep the peace.' Which is too bad.

I'd like to see more small actions that promote democracy and citizen participation and that do not let politicians and their cronies wine and cheese it while folks don't have enough food to eat. I think we can do it. Imagine the possibilities.

BTW - who won the game? Anaheim or the Canucks?... I honestly don't know...

Double Standard

Somehow, in one of those frenzies I get in that involves my bulk mail and getting free stuff - you know the mornings of wishful thinking and hope that maybe, just maybe, you might win one of those bloody free i pods, especially now that after a year of trying your really old mac is up and running and online - I ended up with a sub to the amerikkkan version of Time magazine. Holy Moly. Most weeks it is crap, but this week it is actually OK, if you ignore the cover with the picture of what's-his-face-racist-pinhead of the moment with the sticky covering his mouth, implying he is being muzzled, or or gawd forbid - censored!

So I read this rag front to back and then I write some poetry and then I go on blogher thinking I can use that site as my host site, but while I am trying to sort myself out about that, I read another cool blog (I don't have the site, I know that is bad blog protocol but bear with me for a day or two) where she is talking about Jon Stewart being a sexist and racist pig to Halle Berry, and I go HA! that's what I am going to write about.

Here goes.

So butthead radio guy says nasty sexist racist things about adult women and gets hauled on the carpet and suspended for once. Yay. But Jon Stewart- just last night I was thinking why isn't the black reporter ever the Washington Sr. Correspondent? - anyway, he sexually harasses Halle Berry (after the week she had, too, jerk) and no one says a bloody thing. Our Jonny-boy was being a sexist and racist pig to Halle and she just has to grin and bear it.

Now I love Jon, and Time magazine does too because the guy that wrote the story about the radio guy referenced JS in the article, anyway, I do, and I am not going to boycott like some of my radical feminist and radical lesbian friends ( though I support them in doing so) because well, this radical feminist lesbian would rather watch JS and get mad at his liberal white ass then try to mediate the rest of the media I am bombarded with. And his show is the only way I know my son is paying attention to the world and is getting it about what is funny and not...

But I repeat the question - how does JS get away with saying the n-word when Seinfeld guy doesn't and also sexually harassing Halle Berry in front of an even larger international audience than the radio dude? His ass should be kicked. And Halle deserves an apology. Al Sharpton should insist and so should everyone else that loves JS. Because it is the right thing to do and because white men still run the world, no matter how funny and astute and relieving to the soul they may occasionally be.

JS reinforces this power hierarchy every time he invites women on the show and ogles them. Grow up, man! Come to think of it, I can only think of two women, both white, he had on as guests that were not involved in movies or TV or entertainment in some way.

This is my challenge to Jon:
Invite a whole bunch of women writers and researchers and thinkers onto your show and promote their books and their good works and you better make sure to invite some Black women and Latino women and some Asian Women. How about if you start with Winona LaDuke? You had Ralph Nader on. How about Winona?

And I dare you not to giggle at their boobies and infer that you want to bonk them. Let's just say it is a given that you want to bonk them. And let us also affirm sexual harassment is not funny or anywhere near acceptable behaviour in any situation. At all.

Oh - I also double dare you to not make jokes about prostitution including no making 'pimp and ho' jokes for one week, preferably longer - you got street cred, so cut it out already. You are cool, Jon, you don't have to be a classist, sexist, racist pig to prove it.


I also gotta say re: Time Magazine. Three women's opinion pieces were printed - two black women and one white woman. The white woman, in a piece essentially dripping with white guilt, got double the space. The more things change (three women's opinion pieces in Time?) the more they stay the same (all three pieces combined equalled one page of text...)

peace