test blog #10

Now that Omar Khadr - 26 years old, 11 of those years spent in a concentration camp - is finally in Canada, I find little to say. His mistreatment at the hands of both the US and Canadian governments is horrendous, shameful, and irreversible. Khadr is still in prison, having had the misfortune of being recruited as a child soldier. The Harper Government refers to Khadr as a "convicted terrorist," said conviction coming from a show-trial that would have made Joseph Stalin proud. As I wrote recently about another big lie , the saddest part is how many Canadians believe it. I thank and admire Khadr's legal team, who worked endlessly to make this happen. Thanks to Stephen Harper, there was only one "Westerner" still languishing at Guantanamo. (What a bizarre distinction in this circumstance.) What about the other 166 remaining prisoners? What about that, Mr. Obama?

She said she'd pray for me. I said nothing. She said let's discuss abortion. I told her to fuck off. * * * * Long ago, I blogged about receiving a holiday card with a proselytizing message underlined in red. Wmtc readers had a good discussion around it , with responses running the gamut. The person who left that card for me recently resurfaced on my radar. But she won't be appearing again. I want to share our exchange, to get it off my chest, as well as to hear your reactions. Former Co-worker and I worked together briefly, one day a week, several years ago. She was a nice person to work with, and we would sometimes chat. We haven't worked together in more than four years, and we do not keep in touch. She sends photos of her children to, apparently, everyone she has ever known. I never respond. But I guess she keeps in touch with other former co-workers, because she heard I had resigned my position at Evil Corporate Law Firm, and contacted me. Hey Laura, I just emailed ...

Hard on the heels of the defeat of Motion 312  - on the mind-bending spectacle of the Minister of the Status of Women voting with the anti-choice contingent , on the sobering sight of de facto Deputy Prime Minister Jason Kenney voting the way a former U.S. anti-abortion activist could be expected to vote - we learn that the next chapter in Stephen "I Promise Not to Re-open the Abortion Date" Harper's latest reopening of the abortion debate involves sex-selective abortions . Supposedly some women terminate pregnancies because a fetus is male or female. And supposedly this is bad, and wrong, and we should stop them. And supposedly some feminists agree. Or should I say "some supposed feminists" agree? Here's the thing. A fetus is a fetus is a fetus. And choice is choice is choice. At some future date, Canada's House of Commons will be asked to consider the following motion: That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selecti...

Revolutionary thought of the day: And all the criminals in their coats and ties Are free to drink martinis And watch the sun rise - Bob Dylan A woman refuses to kill people, and she is torn from her family and put in jail. A man orders some people to kill some other people, and he enjoys a position of great power and prestige. A shameful human condition.

From the Toronto Star : I am ashamed to be a Canadian. I have been involved with the campaign to keep Kim Rivera in Canada for some time. It is obvious that most Canadians think that as a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq she should stay here rather than face court martial and jail separate from her family. When I opened my Star on Thursday I saw another story of a deportation on the same page as Rivera's story. Fatemeh Derakhshandeh Tosarvandan is to be sent back to Iran, where she could face stoning as a result of an accusation of adultery. What kind of a country has Canada become? Elizabeth (Beth) Guthrie Toronto * When the Iraq war was just getting underway, a person in the United States asked me if conscientious objectors would be allowed to stay in Canada as had been the case during the Vietnam War. It never occurred to me that a policy that had been practised to the benefit of both Canada and the U.S. since at least 1850 would not be followed now and I assured him t...

I quit my job today, a job I've had for five years, a job which I've hated for about four of those years. I've known my employer has read my blog from time to time, and once used some information against me. So I've kept quiet publicly (and complained constantly in private!). But now I can let it all out. First the cuts The position started out all right. I've done legal document production work since 1990. I've worked in many corporate law firms, and the quality of the workplace can vary widely, from hellish to quite pleasant. This was a decent firm. My pay rate was good, and I was treated decently, albeit with a below-average physical space. Then the fun started. In early 2008, the firm laid off about one-third of the staff. There had been seven people on my shift, and we were cut to three, of course with no corresponding reduction of work. After all, we're machines, right? We can just set ourselves to a higher speed. With the surviving staff reeling from ...

My grief for the Rivera family and my rage at this cruel, anti-democratic government roils unabated. I am haunted by thoughts of my dear friend Kimberly Rivera, who has given so much to so many people, all by herself in a jail cell, and by thoughts of those four beautiful children waking up, day after day, to the reality of a motherless family. Mario Rivera is one of the best fathers I've ever seen. He is loving and kind, strict when he needs to be but always gentle, just like Kim. But Kim is their rock. I fear for them all, ripped from their vibrant community in Toronto, plunked down in Texas, in a new world, without their mom. All completely avoidable. Entirely the fault of Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, and everyone who voted for them. * * * * I have some personal news that I want to announce and write about. Please know that the above is true, no matter what else is happening in my life.