test blog #10

First think about Bill C-49 , the bill the Harper Government calls anti-smuggling, which is actually anti-refugee. Then read this. From CBC's Inside Politics blog, Hannah Thibedeau reporting. So a news alert comes across on my computer screen saying, "Thai officials arrest over 100 Tamil migrants heading to Canada." The newsroom jumps on the story and we try to find out if these people were about to get on a ship to come here. A call into Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office points us to stories in the Thai media. The articles are all in Thai, but we use a handy-dandy translator on the internet to translate them into English. The Thai media reports there was an arrest of over 100 people. So how do we know they were coming to Canada? Kenney's office says, "We aren't going to get into details. All I will do is point you to the media articles." The translated articles say these people were headed to a third country. Then there's a reference to...

From Toronto Media Coop. While Rob Ford won the Mayoral election with 47.12 percent of the vote, only 15 percent of the city's population voted for him. Some of those who did not vote choose not to, but others were not eligible to vote or chose not have sufficient I.D. "Toronto is ... home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people" read a press release sent out on election day. However, only 813,984 people voted in the election, that's 32.46 percent of the population. Of those 383,501 people voted for Ford. Some Torontonians are not allowed to vote because they are not Canadian citizens or because they are under 18 years of age. There is no way to determine what percentage of eligible voters turned out at the polls. Breakdown of Election Data: Population in 2006 Census: 2,503,281 Registered voters before election day: 1,526,518 Votes cast: 813,984 Votes for Rob Ford: 383,501 Percent for each candidate: Rob Ford: 47.12% George Smitherman: 35.59% Joe Pantalon...

Someone blogging under the name "Dave Ward" is writing about his experience as a US war resister living in Canada: Living Resistance . Those interested in this issue might like to follow his blog . Perhaps if we follow Dave, he will write more. And perhaps writing more will help him.

This was a bad week for Canada. Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto. The US finally succeeded in breaking Omar Khadr into a "confession". Private Member's Bill C-300 , the responsible mining bill, died in third reading when a dozen Liberals and two NDP MPs didn't vote. (Sound familiar?) It's a bad week added to many bad weeks, and months, and years, of this anti-democratic, anti-people Conservative government and their spineless Liberal lapdogs. (My apologies to small dogs everywhere. My sister's Papillion named Pixie has more gumption than the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.) There's one more fight this week, and it's a doozy: C-49. Jason Kenney claims it's anti-smuggling, but in reality, it's anti-refugee. It's anti-human. Refugee claimants have no voice in Canada. That makes them easy targets for the immigrant-hating Conservative bullies. That's why we must speak for them, and for a Canada that includes justice. I'l...

Yesterday in my "Foundations of Library and Information Science" class, we discussed the role of the librarian in the digital era. It's a fascinating and important issue for librarian students to unpack, as there are vast implications for public services, education, equal access - and our future employment. I can't do it justice here, but I will pass along this alternative vision: the robo-library. Wall Street Journal: New Library Technologies Dispense With Librarians In this suburb of St. Paul, the new library branch has no librarians, no card catalog and no comfortable chairs in which to curl up and read. Instead, the Library Express is a stack of metal lockers outside city hall. When patrons want a book or DVD, they order it online and pick it up from a digitally locked, glove-compartment- sized cubby a few days later. It's a library as conceived by the Amazon.com generation. Faced with layoffs and budget cuts, or simply looking for ways to expand their reach, ...

From your heart's on the left: For 6 years US Iraq War resisters have been coming to Canada to seek refuge, and the Pentagon vindicates their reasons: they don’t want to take part in the daily widespread practice of killing civilians and ignoring torture. That they volunteered and signed a contract is completely irrelevant. The Nuremberg principles demand soldiers refuse participation in war crimes, and wikileaks proves that this is the daily experience in Iraq. Furthermore, the majority of Canadians and their MPs support war resisters. The only rational conclusion from wikileaks is for the US to finally end its occupation of Iraq, and for Canada to welcome war resisters. Read Dr. J's excellent post: 5 lies and 3 truths revealed by wikileaks .

Yesterday a school friend - who is also a war-resisters friend - showed me her computer screen: she's following wmtc. First I thought, how cool. Then I thought, what a crappy time to join this blog in progress. I don't blog very much or very well during the school term. I mostly pass things along and share half-formed thoughts. Earlier this year, I had a mild freak-out about this, but I've come to accept the reduced blogging (both quality and quantity) as a necessity. My big goal this fall was to set firmer limits and stick to them: school, war resisters, work, swimming or walking. And that's it. Stop trying to fit anything else in. I've been sticking to those limits... but now I think the limits are set too high. As I recently told another friend: I'm in over my head. I am barely keeping up, but unwilling to drop anything. I cannot afford to work myself into a fibro crash, yet I'm not pulling back. I feel like I'm rolling down a hill, faster and faste...

The world held its breath and shed tears of joy two weeks ago when the Chilean miners were rescued , but all over the world, people risk their lives and their health under similar circumstances, every single day. More than 60% of mines worldwide are owned by companies with headquarters in Canada. You can help create better protections for miners - and for the earth - by contacting your MP today. C-330, the Responsible Mining Bill , introduced by MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood), would force Canadian extraction companies operating in other countries to use Canadian environmental and labour standards. It would give the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade a mandate to hold corporations accountable for their practices, and give the House of Commons and the Senate oversight responsibility. Bill C-300 goes to third reading tomorrow, October 27. It passed second reading by only four votes (137-133). You can be sure the extraction industries - gas, oil an...

I am voting! In Canada! For the first time! Please can I vote in a federal election ASAP???? Torontonians: Why you should vote .

More than 300,000 documents leaked and all CNN wants to talk about is Assange's personal life. Nice try, CNN. We will not be distracted. Update from redsock : If you want to hear information about the actual leaked documents and not about what Assange might or might not have done with his penis -- which is clearly what CNN has deemed the most important aspect of this event -- you have to go outside the United States. Here is a lengthy BBC report, featuring Assange and John Sloboda (Iraq Body Count).

Robert Fisk in The Independent : As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims. Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who'd been tortured and you'd be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or "collateral damage", or a simple phrase: "We have nothing on that." Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday's ocea...

More than 300,000 formerly secret documents detailing the illegal US-led occupation of Iraq has been given to New York Times , The Guardian , and Der Spiegel . Al Jazeera English was also given access to the documents, 12 weeks in advance of the official leakage. The documents are being called "Iraq War Logs," and they demand our attention. So do the brave men and women who said "NO" to this horror, at great cost to themselves. We can support peace by supporting military resistance to war. Right now, the WikiLeaks site is often down from high traffic. Their announcement reads: At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the w...

Russell Williams in context: First: Colonel Williams and violence in the military by Dr. J of your heart's on the left . Follow the trail of violence from basic training, to whatever foreign war you can think of, and back home again. When we train people to dehumanize and kill other people, why are we so shocked when they do just that? Then: The horrific Williams murders were about power not personal fetishes by Elizabeth Pickett, writing at Rabble. These were not only murders: they were rape-murders. Watching media reaction, you'd think Williams' victims were the only women raped and murdered in Canada, ever. Please read both these excellent pieces: here and here . If we don't look at this in context of both war and everyday violence against women, it's just another celebrity story. + + + + Others who get it: La Zerbisias and Rose DiManno , who I would have never seen, so double thanks to Antonia.

Yesterday I received a water bill from the Region of Peel. These bills cover a three-month period and usually run around around $60. My current bill is $494.43. Our average daily water usage is usually 4M or 5M. On this bill, it's 38M. [ Correction: our past average daily consumption has been 330 litres, 538 litres, 337 litres, 404 litres, and so on. On this bill, our average daily consumption is 3,918 litres. The 4M or 5M figure represents our consumption for the entire three-month period. On this bill, it is 38M.] I don't know what unit of measurement an "M" is, but I know we didn't use an 38 of them - nine times our normal water usage. I immediately called Peel, expecting to hear that they had a computer problem and were issuing everyone new bills. Instead, the rep suggested I check the meter to see if it coincided with their reading. It did. It was only very slightly higher from the end of the billing cycle until the day of my phone call. Thus, they said, we ...

Update below Like the City of Toronto, the City of Mississauga will hold municipal elections on Monday, October 25. (Advance voting is already over.) But unlike the elections in Toronto, the elections in Mississauga attract very little attention, including, I think, for most residents of Mississauga. There are lawn signs everywhere announcing candidates' names in big bold letters, but other than that... almost nothing. This is the first election for which I'm eligible to vote in Canada, and municipal elections can be very important, and Allan and I both want to vote. But we have no idea who to vote for. We have no idea what any mayoral or city councillor candidate in our ward stands for. I did some research, or tried to. I started at the Mississauga Elections website, and from there visited various candidates' websites . These turned out to be either nonexistent, or a confusing mess, or the blandest rhetoric ("working together, we can make this city a better place......

Many people in Toronto hate Rob Ford and are horrified that he might soon be the mayor of their great city. Many of the same people are uncomfortable with George Smitherman , who is less offensive than Ford, but politically different only by degree. There's a reason Joe Pantalone calls Smitherman "the return of Mike Harris," and why dozens of Tories line up to endorse him. These same folks who hate Rob Ford and dislike George Smitherman tend to like Joe Pantalone . They believe he would make a good mayor. But, because they believe he has no chance of winning, they claim they must "vote strategically" for the "lesser of two evils". Bullshit. Your candidate has no chance of winning? Vote for him and give him a better chance of winning. Lesser of two evils? You are voting for evil. Why do you want to vote for evil? Why are you content to vote for evil when there is an alternative? I'm not here to argue Ford vs Smitherman vs Pantalone. To me it is ver...

So Don't Ask Don't Tell is supposedly history . Naturally, I support the right of queer Americans to serve in the US military, because I believe in the equality of all people, and the right of all people to self-determination. But I find it difficult to celebrate this as a victory.

Iraq Veterans Against the War has launched its first-ever strategic campaign: Operation Recovery. From IVAW: The Issue Thousands of troops are being sent to war despite suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and Military Sexual Trauma (MST). Many of us within IVAW have faced or are currently facing deployment as we try to recover from the severe trauma we have already experienced. While we recognize that we must stop the deployment of all soldiers in order to end the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see the deployment of soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Military Sexual Trauma as particularly cruel, inhumane, and dangerous. Military commanders across all branches are pushing service members far past human limits for the sake of 'combat readiness.' We cannot allow those commanders to continue to ignore the welfare of their troops who are, after all, human beings. There is a problem, ...

Between school and war resisters, my blog time is very limited these days. I've been reading about the events surrounding activist Alex Hundert, that is, the very real threat to all of our basic civil liberties. I haven't been able to write anything myself, so I'll just redirect you to someone who has. For the best news and analysis on this, see Dr Dawg: Alex Hundert, an anarchist arrested for G20 actions before a single demonstrator was even on the street, is back in jail. As many readers will know, he was out on bail when he was re-arrested by seven police officers for speaking on a university panel. Allegedly this was a breach of previous bail conditions that forbade his attendance at political demonstrations. An evidently brain-dead justice of the peace--no legal training is required for these patronage appointees--agreed with the cops, and he was jailed over Thanksgiving. At a new bail hearing this week, he was told he would be freed, but only upon several new conditi...

On Saturday, October 16, a panel of 11 Iraq War resisters spoke about their experiences in the US military and what caused each of them to desert and come to Canada. Peace activists from Toronto, western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio gathered to hear these stories of courage and resistance, of people who found the strength to stand up and say "No!" to the most powerful military in human history. The event was held at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Fort Erie, Ontario, co-sponsored by the Buffalo, New York, chapter of Veterans for Peace , and the War Resisters Support Campaign . After brief welcomes from Reverend Mark Gladding, pastor of the Ft. Erie church, and Reverend Rob Hurkmans, of the Anglican Church in Port Colborne , Ontario, the war resisters told pieces of their stories in a panel discussion. * * * * Justin Colby was trained as a medic and he spoke of the military's complete disregard for human life in Iraq. His unit would work on both US soldiers and injur...

Canadian Press: Outlast Harper, likely stay in Canada, Chow tells war deserters American war deserters may get to stay in Canada if they outlast the federal Conservative government, New Democrat MP Olivia Chow said on Saturday. Chow's comments came as the Americans met with their supporters to try to decide what to do next after a bill that would've allowed the deserters to stay in Canada was defeated in Parliament earlier this month. Chow says her party and the Bloq Quebecois are in favour of letting the Americans stay. "There would be a chance if the Conservatives lose power in this election, (deserters) might still be in Canada I hope," Chow said in an interview from Ottawa. "I suspect we might have a spring election so their fate is in the hands of some of the Liberals and Conservative MPs," she said. Michelle Robidoux, a spokeswoman for the deserters, said about 80 Canadians and Americans gathered for a panel discussion on Saturday in the Ontario border...

Stephen Harper and his merry band of Canadian Conservatives suffered a trio of defeats in the past week - which is another way of saying that we, the people who want to reverse the damage the Harper government has done to Canada, enjoyed a series of significant victories. First, the world said no to the Harper foreign policy agenda when the UN denied Canada a seat on the UN Security Council. Haroon Siddiqui has an excellent round-up of why the UN very rightly said no to Canada, and how the Conservatives are typically and lamely trying to spin their defeat. It’s not just his pro-Israeli stance that made Canada a pariah at the UN. He: • Sabotaged the UN climate accord. • Decried the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. • Downgraded UN peacekeeping — to 160 Canadian soldiers out of 105,500 worldwide, placing Canada 57th, behind Yemen and Uganda. (Tuesday, the day we lost the vote, was the anniversary of Lester B. Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize for inventing peacekeeping.) • ...

In case you missed it, here's an excellent column by Lawrence Martin in the Globe and Mail from earlier this week. I'm pleased to note it bears a strong resemblance to something I recently wrote . I'm even more pleased to see Martin's prominent reference to US war resisters seeking refuge in Canada. Canadians have gained a reputation as a fair-minded people. There have been exceptions through our history, but, by and large, we have been seen as a moderate and tolerant country. We didn’t do guilt by association, for example. But that’s what so distressing about the character of today’s Conservatives. They revel in it. The most recent manifestation is the cancellation of a speech by the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress at the National Defence Headquarters. Many years ago, a former director of the group made some remarks – vile remarks – about Israelis over the age of 18 being legitimate targets for suicide bombers. By all accounts, new director Imam Zijad Delic rep...

On Saturday, October 16, the Buffalo, New York chapter of Veterans for Peace and the War Resisters Support Campaign will co-host a special event in Ft. Erie, Ontario. "Refusing Orders / Crossing Borders" will include a roundtable discussion with a dozen or so US war resisters trying to stay in Canada. Ashlea Brockway, the partner of war resister Jeremy Brockway, will also address the audience. The Brockways are the family living in Port Colborne, Ontario, who I wrote about here . If you are interested in the struggles of war resisters, I encourage you to go back and read that post. We expect a good crowd of supporters from western New York State and from the local community. If you're anywhere nearby, join us for what promises to be a moving and eye-opening day.

This is a terrific video, marred, in my opinion, by the inadequate conclusion it draws for the very real issues raised. Vote? That's it? That's all we should do? Speak, write, march, rally, educate, document, agitate, organize. Also, vote.

And finally, my last pass-along of the day, an important act of military resistance and peacemaking. Longtime reader deang shared The Justice For Fallujah Project , co-founded by Ross Caputi, a former US Marine who was involved in the terrible assault on that Iraqi city in 2004. The Justice for Fallujah Project is raising awareness of the dramatic increases in birth defects - including brain damage, congenital heart defects and childhood cancers - and other serious illnesses in Fallujah since the US used illegal weapons there. I posted about this here , citing articles in the UK media on a "toxic legacy" in Fallujah "worse than Hiroshima". Thank you, Ross Caputi. You are a true war resister. Justice for Fallujah Project

I was very sorry to learn the Quebec Women's Federation anti-war video was removed from YouTube before I was able to post it. Some Canadians who lost children in Afghanistan were offended. But war should offend all of us. Endless war for profit is the outrage, not those who speak out against it. It shows an actress playing the part of a grieving mother. As she fills a military-issue bag with her children’s personal belongings, including a rifle, she explains that her eldest son has died in Afghanistan and, as she places a red, flowery bra in the bag, that her youngest daughter has just been recruited in school. “People say, ‘Make love not war,’” the actress begins. “But you should say, ‘Make love for war,’ because you need a lot of children to make an army.” “If I’d known that in giving birth I was going to supply cannon fodder,” she continues, “I might not have had kids.” I found an excellent post about this at the blog Zero Anthropology: "Memo to the Parents of Cannon Fod...

I'm trying to focus on school work, so I'll just pass along a few important thoughts. One, Malalai Joya is back in Canada. I nearly destroyed my hand trying to report on her last talk in Toronto . This time, go see for yourselves. She's already spoken in Ottawa and Calgary, but you can catch her in Vancouver tomorrow, October 12 , and in Toronto on Wednesday October 13 and Thursday October 14 . Canadians, learn about what our tax dollars are supporting. Speak out to bring all the troops home from Afghanistan, now. Don't Extend It. End It.

Continuing on the advertising theme, we have another answer to my perennial rhetorical question: Is there any space that isn't covered in advertising these days? This time I also ask a related question. How does the US government help support small businesses? By spending trillions on war and pennies on education. From the Boston Globe : Ads for cigarettes and liquor won't make the cut. But ads for local ice cream shops or hair salons could soon be appearing on permission slips, class calendars, and school notices sent home with Peabody elementary school students after a unanimous School Committee vote this week. The novel plan to sell ad space on school communications marks the latest twist in how commercialization of schools — from the sale of billboard space to ads on buses — is generating cash in lean times. The ads, possibly the first of their kind in Massachusetts, "will have to be age-appropriate, but we’re thinking about ads from local pizza and ice cream shops, da...

It's 10/10/10! I will schedule this post for 10:10 a.m. I see I did this last year in September . This date is even better. Something about those ohs and ones.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and our government wants us to remember that by turning on pink lights on Parliament Hill , through the Estée Lauder Companies' Breast Cancer Awareness Global Illuminations Initiative. So please buy cosmetic products that are laden with toxins, sold in packaging made of future landfill, and perpetuate the harmful myth that the signs of aging are shameful and must be concealed. Because if you do, a corporation that profits from this deception will donate a tiny portion of their profits to cancer research! Hurrah! What more could we want to fight cancer? Pinkwashing has become positively ubiquitous, and we're all supposed to cheer that more companies are showing "corporate responsibility". If you criticize this massive corporate shell game, even progressive people will defend it, because it's better that they donate than not, right? Just don't peek behind the pink curtain. Are these corporations actually responsible? Does...

Many thanks to JohnGF for sending this. A great story without words.

For those uber-organized people who (like me) are already thinking ahead to 2011, or who (unlike me) have a list of holiday gifts to buy, I have a recommendation. The good folks at Across the Bridge B&B of Stratford, Ontario, have created a beautiful calendar showcasing their town's famous swans . Eric and Kelly are originally from the US, now Ontarians running one of the many family businesses that live around the Stratford Shakespeare Festival . I'm totally biased towards this calendar: I love Shakespeare, Stratford, Across the Bridge, and the swans, and Eric and Kelly are our friends. But even without that list, it's a lovely gift idea that helps support a local, family-run business in a beautiful part of Canada. You can see the photos and order a calendar here on their website .

In today's Star : Re: Ignatieff did the right thing, Letter, Oct. 6 Letter writer George Pengilley mistakenly believes that U.S. war resisters deported from Canada “will get a short prison term, dishonourable discharge and they can then carry on with life.” I do not feel 15 months in prison is a just sentence for the “crime” of refusing to kill innocent civilians who were never a threat to the U.S. That's how long Robin Long, a war resister deported by the Harper government, served. Additionally, a dishonourable discharge is a life sentence, limiting one's opportunities forever: no student loans, no mortgage, no jobs. Pengilley says that Canadians are proud of our troops who do their duty. I agree. I am proud of every veteran who recognizes their duty to refuse to participate in war crimes. Haven't we learned the price of soldiers “just following orders”? I am proud to welcome U.S. war resisters to Canada. Laura Kaminker, Mississauga * Angus Reid has consistently shown ...