test blog #10

From today's press conference, in the Toronto Star :

A few days ago, Krista Ford, daughter and niece, respectively, of Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford and Mayor Rob Ford, ignited a firestorm of anger and protest. Moments after Toronto police held a news conference warning women about a series of sexual assaults, she tweeted this: Stay alert, walk tall, carry mace, take self-defence classes & don’t dress like a whore. She has since issued one of those conditional statements meant to substitute for an actual apology and deleted the tweet. I didn’t mean to cause such an alarm and I apologize if I did. I just want women to be safe. Krista Ford, the problem with your tweet was not the alarm it caused. It's not that you said that women can avoid rape by dressing a certain way. It's that you apparently believe it. Many women do. It's the illusion of safety many of us use to exist in the world. If we don't do any of those things that cause women to get raped, we won't be raped. There. Now we can put aside this most pri...

Please attend an emergency community meeting to support U.S. war resister Kimberly Rivera and her family! WHEN: Wednesday, September 5, 7:00 PM WHERE: Parkdale United Church, 171 Dunn Avenue, Toronto WHY: STOP THE DEPORTATIONS! When Kimberly Rivera saw with her own eyes the devastation of war, and the trauma it inflicts on children and families, she followed her conscience and refused to go back. Instead, she and her husband and their (then) two children came to Canada. Since that day in 2007, the Riveras have been fighting to live their lives in peace. But despite the widespread support of the Canadian people for U.S. war resisters, and despite two votes in Parliament calling on the government to let war resisters stay, the Harper Government continues to target war resisters for deportation. Kim and her family - which now includes two children born in Canada - now face deportation on September 20. In the U.S., Kim faces court martial, jail time, and a felony conviction that will...

Canada Border Services Agency has declared that Iraq War resister Kimberly Rivera and her family must return to the United States by September 20. Rivera came to Canada in 2007 to avoid re-deployment to Iraq. She currently lives in Toronto with her husband and four children. If she returns to the United States, Rivera will likely face a court martial and significant jail time, as well as a felony conviction. An emergency community meeting has been scheduled for next Wednesday, September 5, at the Parkdale United Church, 171 Dunn Avenue. More details to come.

After a period of calm in the cases of U.S. Iraq War resisters, things are quickly coming to a head. War resister Kimberly Rivera and her family will receive a decision in their case in a few days and they face imminent deportation to the United States. Another war resister has been told to complete all of the submissions for his case by September 20 and to expect a decision shortly afterwards. Many other resisters are awaiting decisions on Humanitarian & Compassionate applications or spousal sponsorships. It appears that these decisions will now start coming in quickly. The War Resisters Support Campaign is appealing to you for urgent financial help to assist with this crucial phase of the fight to win asylum for war resisters. In spite of two motions passed in the House of Commons calling on the government to allow war resisters to stay in Canada, thousands of letters and petitions, and support across the country for war resisters, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Mi...

Revolutionary thought of the day: A voice cried out, I was killed in Maryland in 1877 When the railroad workers made their stand Well, I was killed in 1963 one sunday morning in Birmingham Well, I died last year crossing the southern desert My children left behind in San Pablo Well they left our bodies here to rot Oh please let them know We are alive Oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark Our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart Bruce Springsteen "We Are Alive"

On Friday night in Toronto, Bruce Springsteen led the born-again E Street Band and his faithful flock in a rock-and-roll revival meeting. There was soulful rhythm-and-blues, and there was hard-charging guitar rock. There was political anger and there were elegies for lost friends. There was the wonder of mortality and the sheer joy of being alive. There was an intimate lullaby and a rocking house party. I've been trying to recall every Springsteen concert I've seen, and I've come to the conclusion this was the best show I've seen since the late 1970s.* It was a night that made you shake your head in wonder. When I saw Springsteen as a teenager, we'd leave the concerts sweating and exhausted, and say, If we're this tired, how does he do it, night after night? Here we are 35 years later, asking the same question! At 62 years old, Bruce doesn't try to imitate his younger incarnation - he's not running around the stage nonstop, climbing amps, and dancing on...

Further to this post , one more thing we should all know. Not one war crime exposed by WikiLeaks has been investigated. Not one war criminal has been prosecuted. Only Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, who brought the truth to light, have been imprisoned - both before they were even charged with crimes. Thanks to Bradley Manning Support Organization .

I've been avidly following the strange tale of Julian Assange, Ecuador, Sweden, extradition, the lying UK media, and people who suddenly care so much about prosecuting sexual offenders. (This has been an excellent use of Tala's Twitter account .) One of the biggest takeaways has been the constant lies, distortion, and misrepresentation of the facts of this story by the mainstream media. The other is how little this has to do with protecting women from sexual assault. On the latter, I highly recommend reading a piece in the Guardian written by Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff, of the group Women Against Rape . I urge you to read the whole thing. For me, it answers every question about what's really going on. We are Women Against Rape but we do not want Julian Assange extradited When Julian Assange was first arrested, we were struck by the unusual zeal with which he was being pursued for rape allegations. It seems even clearer now, that the allegations against him are a sm...

"Where can I find book number 285?" The boy's face was so earnest and so excited. "What book are you looking for?" I asked. "Book number 285." "Is that the title of the book?" "No, it's the book's number. The title is 'Quick and Easy Cooking'". "You want a book about cooking?" "Yes!" "Ok, I'll show you where those are." I walked him over to the kids' cooking section. "These are all the cooking books for kids. You can look through these books, or if you want a specific book, we can ask at the desk." "I already know the book! Book number 285!" Hmm. I stood for a few moments considering the possibilities. I figured he had a partial call number. Before I could answer, he said, "I'll show you on the computer!" "OK, great, let's look." We went to the computer he had been using. He opened the catalogue and chose "search by a word in ...

One year after the passing of NDP Leader Jack Layton, the War Resisters Support Campaign joins with Canadians across the country to mourn our collective loss and to remember his great contribution to building a more just world. Jack has left a tremendous legacy and his support for social justice, equality and peace live on in so many different ways. In this video, Jack and Olivia Chow joined US Iraq War resisters on June 3, 2008 to celebrate the Canadian Parliament's adoption of a motion that would – if it had been enacted by the Conservative government – have allowed war resisters to stay in Canada. It was a day filled with joy and hope for all of us who believe that soldiers have a right to conscience and a right to refuse to participate in illegal and immoral wars. In light of the many dimensions of this war which are contrary to the fundamental precepts of international law that we would want all countries to be adhering to, we felt that it was important to support those coura...

What's wrong with this picture? Lori Waters knew what was wrong. Waters, who lives in BC and designs scientific graphics, recognized that 1,000 kilometres of island coastline was missing from the map, giving the appearance of a broad, clear channel - one that might accommodate oil supertankers with a degree of safety that does not exist. Waters' media release: Enbridge Pipeline and Tankers: Competition Bureau Asked to Investigate Deceptive Northern Gateway Marketing by Enbridge Company Quickly Alters Widely Distributed Ads That Show Hundreds of Kilometres of BC Islands Missing From Tanker Route A BC woman who designs scientific graphics for a living today filed a formal complaint with the federal Competition Bureau claiming Enbridge is misleading the public with promotional videos that have erased the numerous and intricate web of more than 1000 square kilometres of islands along the proposed Northern Gateway tanker route. Since the Vancouver Island resident made a corrected gr...

A collection of stuff I saved from Facebook, courtesy of Snipping Tool. If only this were true! Then it might be a little more difficult for governments to sell people wars. In my usual way of getting sucked into Facebook trends that I dislike, I created this card because I love this saying. Now can the whole quote-card thing go away? This is not from Facebook, just a good item by my favourite cartoonist, Charles Barsotti . (I love The Pup !) And finally, an enduring image, and an insane injustice.

When did "entitled" become a dirty word? Why do we hear "entitled" being used as catch-all slur, a derogatory description to be thrown at progressive people working for change? And why should we permit this word to retain such a heavily negative connotation? Here are some people I have seen called entitled in this negative sense by bloggers and commenters. Brigette DePape. Occupy protesters. Refugee claimants. Quebec student protesters. People opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Voters who believe they were defrauded by the Conservative Party of Canada. Here is a synonym for entitled: deserve . Here is another synonym for entitlements: rights . Some of our entitlements are specified in national documents, such as the US Constitution or the more comprehensive and inclusive Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. Other entitlements are specified in international documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . These are rights that most p...

In case you haven't heard, a date has been set in Federal Court for hearings on the Conservative Party's vote suppression during the 2011 federal election. The hearing will begin on December 10. The Cons have done everything in their power to scuttle this case, putting forth motion after motion to have evidence - and the entire case - thrown out. They've stalled and sidetracked and invented obstacles, but the court have taken seriously this threat to democracy. So on December 10, the citizens represented by the Council of Canadians will begin to be heard in federal court. The most recent Conservative roadblock was a motion to require each side to put up a $250,000 security deposit against the other side's legal costs. (Meaning, the losing party will pay the other party's legal fees, and this $250,000 is proof that they can do so.) This crazy motion will be heard in about a month, on September 18. The Council of Canadians is funding this challenge through donations f...

In a few days, on August 22, it will be the one-year anniversary of Jack Layton's untimely death. I want to share one my most enduring memories of Jack. It took place in Parliament, in June of 2008, although not on the floor of the House of Commons.

Oscar Pistorius' historic run as the first double-amputee Olympic athlete has revived the ongoing discussion of whether or not the Paralympics should be integrated into the Olympics. (Stories in The Guardian , Slate , and on CBC's The Current .) Integration sounds like a great idea, and on the surface, the fierce opposition of many athletes with disabilities may seem purely self-interested. The issues, however, are far more complicated than most mainstream media is willing to take on. I wrote about this issue when I covered the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996, and I thought some readers might be interested. I uploaded one story through Google - Change, Growth and Exclusion: A Paralympic Identity Crisis - and a second story I found archived on the New Mobility website: Where are the Paralympics going? Both are written from the perspective of athletes with disabilities.

Canadian doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals continue to mention refugee health care at every public media opportunity. In this case , a student nurse takes advantage of Lisa Raitt's appearance at KidSport to remind the Government that Olympic medal-winning wrestler Carol Huynh came to Canada as a refugee - and that all people, including refugees, need health insurance.

Remember when Barack Obama was elected, how international media declared that racism in the US had been vanquished? How academics and pundits started using the term "post-racial" to describe US culture? Was that before or after the tea-partiers paraded around with pictures of monkeys and openly called for assassination ? Before or after US cities made practice into official policy with "stop-and-frisk" ? That's the racism-based method of urban policing , in which police stop, frisk, interrogate, and otherwise harass millions of African-American and Latino men who are simply walking down the street. (The NYPD seems to be succumbing to pressure and cutting back - although of course not abandoning the tactic.) Now we have some hard evidence of what many of us have known all along: in US airports, the Transportation Safety Authority performs stop-and-frisk on a grand scale. Bravo to the TSA workers who came forward with this. More than 30 federal officers in an a...

I have great news. Buddha, the dog adopted by Jeremy and Ashlea Brockway, is now an officially certified PTSD Service Dog! And we have raised slightly more than $6,000 towards our goal of $8,000. Thank you to everyone who made this possible! Jeremy writes this about the certification and adoption. Buddha is now a certified service dog! I will share with you some stories from Buddha's certification. The certification test is comprised of several small tests. The first part of the test was how well I could load Buddha into and out of our car. We passed that easily, since we have practiced that one quite a few times - basically every time we go somewhere. Next we went to a store to do some distraction tests. Buddha and I walked around and Beth, the trainer, walked some distance behind us to observe our behavior and give the tests. We did a sudden turn, a complete 360, various sit, heel, and down commands, and walked past several people. Buddha was perfect on those. Next, Beth introdu...

If you're in Toronto, you have a unique opportunity to hear the voices of war resisters as you have never heard them before. The Foundry Theatre Company has taken the transcripts of Jeremy Hinzman's hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board, and statements by members of the War Resisters Support Campaign, among others, and forged them into a play. "The Hearing of Jeremy Hinzman" will be presented as part of Summerworks, in six performances, beginning today. WHERE: The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen St West (at Dovercourt), Toronto WHEN: See performance schedule. Members of the War Resisters Support Campaign will be on hand at every performance, circulating petitions calling for Operational Bulletin 202 to be rescinded. OB202, in the words of former IRB Chair Peter Showler , "sets a basic principle of refugee law on its head", by singling out US war resisters as being inadmissible to Canada. If you can, join us for a performance of "The Hearing of ...

Please watch this beautiful video from Pacific Wild , featuring former NHL goalie (and Hall-of-Famer) Mike Richter, and more importantly, featuring the Spirit Bear Coast. In less than four minutes, you will understand the utter madness of bringing an oil pipeline and supertankers to this area. Madness, that is, unless you're one of the few who will profit from the destruction. The Northern Gateway pipeline is now open for public comment. We have until August 31 to add our voices to the opposition. Here's how. 1. Sign a message from the David Suzuki Foundation. It will be sent to the relevant elected officials. 2. Register your opinion with the National Energy Board Joint Review Committee on the Enbridge Northern Gateway project website. Hearings on the pipeline continue into 2013, but the deadline for public comment is August 31, 2012 . Please sign, comment, and share widely. Many thanks to Mike Richter, the NRDC, and Pacific Wild for the video. It's great to see a former...

This story is a bit dated, but many people may have missed it. You may recall that a few months back, Conrad Black, a convicted felon who renounced his Canadian citizenship, received a temporary resident permit from the CIC. This allowed Black to enter and live in Canada despite his prison record; indeed, the permit was arranged while Black was still scrubbing toilets in a Florida pen. Many people were appalled by this spectacle of double standard and hypocrisy. After all, Kenney deports US war resisters - who face imprisonment for refusing to kill innocent people - and claims they are criminals, although they have not been tried or convicted of any crime, but he lays out a red carpet for an actual felon, convicted of criminal fraud and obstruction of justice. What's more, we were supposed to believe that Canada's illustrious Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, who opens and closes the Canadian border according to his own politics and whims, had noth...

I've been looking for some fitting tribute to Gore Vidal, who died last week at age 86, to post here. The internet is full of Vidal's aphorisms and his cutting wit , but those are the easiest and least meaningful tributes. Vidal was a great thinker, and a great writer, with a ceaselessly open and curious mind. He was also a man who lived by and on his own terms, always. People often refer to Vidal as gay, but he did not identify himself that way. He was openly bisexual, and polyamorous, and he and Howard Austen, Vidal's life partner of more than 50 years, were open about separating their love life from their sex lives. In a society intent on binaries, that's a greater risk to be out about, unless you're Gore Vidal. He relished fame, loved publicity of any type, yet that somehow did not diminish his talents. The obituary in The New York Times , written by the excellent Charles McGrath, is very good. But the best tribute I've read was written by Chris Floyd of Emp...

This post is a classic case of "Which do you want first, the bad news or the good news?" But unfortunately for dogs and the people who love them, this is no joke. Last week, a dog named Wicca was put to death in Montreal. I was too upset to write about it or even face many of the details. The dog, a pitbull, was accused of biting someone, yet there was credible evidence the dog had not done so. An animal behaviourist confirmed that Wicca was not dangerous, but the judge would not consider that evidence. The dog was taken from the owner, and killed. I include the link to the CBC News story with a trigger warning. I can't look at it. But this is not even the worst news. The city of Montreal is now proposing a by-law that should horrify every dog owner, dog lover, and sane person. It would require automatic and mandatory euthanasia in any case where a dog bite breaks the skin - no matter what the context or severity. From the SPCA: The SPCA is Deeply Concerned by the Prop...

Allan is in the midst of a giant Stephen King reading and writing project , and in honour of that, I'm reading my first ever book by Stephen King. From this post , I was moved to read the novella The Body (which was adapted into the movie "Stand By Me"). Allan's description of the novella made it sound like a very good young adult story, so I decided to give it a go. This made me think: why have I not read one single book by - as the book jacket tells me - the world's best selling novelist? I have nothing against best sellers per se. I just never care about reading them. The books that I want to read will seldom (if ever) have wide popular appeal. Sometimes people who are avid readers say they read a hugely popular book because they were curious - they want to see what all the hype is about. The Da Vinci Code and Bridges of Madison County are two that come to mind in that category. Right now that book is Fifty Shades of Gray . Yet nothing I have heard about an...

Don't forget to visit Big Fat Whale for more McFadden funnies. Even better, subscribe to his feed in the New York Times ' Sunday Review: The Strip .

Daniel Ellsberg , the Center for Constitutional Rights , and the Bradley Manning Support Network are asking for our help. Please sign the petition to free Bradley Manning , and share it as widely as you can.

One of the best talks I attended at this year's Marxism Conference was given by my friend Pam Johnson. I know little about Canadian labour history; my knowledge of labour struggles is mostly about the US. Learning about the 1965 postal workers strike was thrilling, both in the discovery of history, and in the possibilities for the present and future * * * * The 1965 Postal Workers Strike May 24, 2012 Pam Johnson , dancer, educator, union member, labour activist The 1965 postal workers strike was a milestone struggle in the history of the Canadian labour movement, leading to unionization of public sector workers. It was a militant strike that was organized and led by rank-and file postal workers. The story of the 1965 postal workers strike is important right now. This is a volatile moment. On the one hand, there are harsh austerity attacks by employers and governments. On the other hand, we see the wonderful response of the Arab Spring, Wisconsin, the Occupy movement, and now Quebec...