I feel pretty.

"I feel pretty.
Oh so pretty.
I feel pretty and witty and bright. ..."

Every morning Stevie Spiteful jumps out of bed, eager to meet the challenge of his next photo opportunity.

Where will it be take place? Does he have the required accoutrements and props?

Who shall serve as accessory in the picture? Any visiting dignitaries in town?

And thanks to the magic of Photoshop, he doesn't need to wear his XXL Spanx For Men™ if he wants to prorogue that torturous experience indefinitely.

Today's theme is Haïti. Where to find someone .... oh. And just imagine, he has her number too.

(This post was inspired by C. C's Stephen Harper: King of the classless photo-op.)

Bloggers on Blogging: The All-Star Lineup

DAMMIT JANET! turns ten years old today. Well, I thought it did, until I started looking for the first blog post.

Turns out deBeauxOs and I started this site 11 years ago.

As the kids say: whatevs.

It's hard to believe now how vibrant the blogosphere was back then. First order of the day's business was to see if yesterday's post had attracted any comments overnight. Then on to check out what others were talking about.

The easiest way to find out what was happening was to go to an aggregator. DJ! was on Progressive Bloggers. (Good grief, it still exists.) We were accepted reluctantly. Admins made a point of telling us that our acceptance was "not unanimous."

Many of the blogs on our blogroll over there on the right were also on ProgBlogs. I've clicked on a few links and found that at best, they have sporadic posting, at worst they've disappeared completely. Some are just ghosts, frozen at their last offering years ago. Two that I know of are still posting regularly: Montreal Simon and Accidental Deliberations. Good on them.

So -- as it turns out on false pretenses -- to celebrate what I thought was our tenth anniversary, we invited some of our old blogger pals to reflect on the Good Old Days.™ (This is not to say they will blog on blogging. But they've been told that's what we were going to call the series, but, you know, trying to herd bloggers is futile.)

Over the rest of the month, we'll publish their contributions.

Here's the first up, by Catelli.

*****************************

On Blogging

Coincidences can be fun sometimes. Often when I am in my car, or in the shower I ruminate on topics that interest me. A recurring topic lately that I have been pondering has been on Blogging, and how I miss those days. Lo and behold, Fern reaches out to me and asks if I would be interested in sharing my musings on that topic. (Happy 10 year anniversary to the DJ group! You made it longer than most!)

A little backstory on who I am, or was. The first part of the 21st century were heady days politically. The echo of the 1995 Quebec referendum was still playing out, the Adscam scandal was exploding and we had two Conservative parties vying for attention. Throw in 9/11 and the mess that resulted from that (massive understatement here) and there was no shortage of opinions and hot takes and outrage. It was in this environment that I jumped into blogging as Closet Liberal. I was pissed at what the Liberal Party of Canada had become, and my blogging identity was a mocking reflection that the Liberal party had driven this liberal into the closet.

Time passed and I felt that identity was too constraining. I deleted that blog, and resurrected as Catelli, with a new blog “Not Quite Unhinged.” Catelli is an old nickname from high school, and the blog name was a reflection of what I felt and still feel. That our politics and our society is pushing me to being a little bit, but not quite, unhinged. Let’s just say it’s a good thing Canada doesn’t have easily accessible volcanoes to throw oneself into. That character is now hanging around as Catelli2.0 on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/Catelli2Oh)

Back then I didn’t really move in the same blogging circles as the DJ group, though I was certainly aware of them. It took Twitter to bring us all together…..

I held onto Blogging as long as I could. But one by one, all of the blogs I frequented were going silent. Their owners had jumped onto this platform called Twitter. Eventually, as an opinionated fellow that hated shouting into a vacuum of silence, I made the jump too. I tried to keep my blog alive as the best platform for long form thoughts. Twitter with its then 140 character limit and horrible threading ability was too limiting. But I noticed an odd thing. Even though I have a pretty well engaged Twitter follower list, hardly anyone read my blog posts. Even though I would promote them on Twitter, repeatedly, I would only get a few reads at most.

And that basically ended blogging for me. Twitter threads are where it’s at! Until a new platform turns Twitter into a wasteland.

But I can’t help missing those days. The conversations I had then were enlightening, fun, engaging and at times infuriating. But it truly felt like a true debating platform. That’s what it was for me. The group I engaged with didn’t argue, we debated. It’s from that perspective that I really do miss Olaf of Prairie Wrangler and John of Dymaxion World. Those two in particular challenged this centrist from the right and the left, respectively.

Do I blame Twitter for ending that though? Not really. Twitter makes it easier to keep track of conversations and interactions, which is what I was using a blog for. But I had to jump around from blog to blog to blog to monitor the comment sections. It wasn’t convenient or efficient.

I think what I truly liked about blogging is what I am starting to dislike about Twitter.
Learning new things. It’s why I joined both. To opine and to learn. It’s easy to have opinions, but learning new ideas, facts and concepts is where it really was at for me.

Back then the conversations were focused, usually on the blog topic at hand. I learned a lot, but it was trickling in, and easily digestible. Reading blogs in many ways was like reading a book. You could pause and absorb the information in. You chose the speed by which you obtained that information.

Twitter on the other hand is a firehose of information. It is 14 dozen cable news networks all at once. And if you watch a lot of cable news, you start getting depressed. The stark reality of Twitter is that it can be a real-time window onto the entire world. There is so much going on at once that I feel insignificant and ineffectual. Even the topics I care about are swamped by the issues that are piling on every day. I couldn’t even get people to read my blog, how the hell do I get enough time from people to care about what I care about? The fault doesn’t lie with Twitter, it’s just the vehicle delivering the overwhelming reality of the world right now. The Liberal International Order we all thought we were building turned out to be a fragile illusion that is collapsing worldwide. And we’re watching it live.

I don’t mean for this retrospective to be depressing. I guess it’s part of human nature that witnessing terrible things causes us to look back with rose tinted fondness at events in our past. It’s moments when you start to miss George W. Bush that make you realize, “Holy hell!? Really? That war criminal?”

If Twitter never existed and we were still on blogs, the horrible news that affects us would still be happening. Maybe I would just be able to hold onto blissful ignorance a little bit longer.

So do I miss blogging? I miss some of the people I knew. I have found so many more since then, so maybe I should just count my blessings. 187 Tweeps on Twitter is worth a few bloggers in the archive.

But yeah, I do miss the fun and the excitement of it all. It was a moment in time that I will cherish. I am glad I was there for it, and that I participated. And thanks for the memories to all that were there for it. You made it worth it.

Turned Away in PEI

This is so fucked up, it's hard to know where to begin.

One rendition: A person waits 5 hours for treatment at a Canadian emergency department then is turned away with the words "we are not comfortable dealing with this situation."

Or: A person is turned away from a hospital emergency department and told to go to a clinic in ANOTHER PROVINCE.

Or: The Minister of Health looks into the situation and is satisfied that all protocols were followed.

Here's the story as reported in the media.

Here's the story as told by the woman herself, Courtney Cudmore, to As It Happens (at 9:50 mark), or from her Facebook page.

In Prince Edward Island, while it is part of Canada where abortion is legal, abortion is simply not done.

A PEI woman was unwillingly pregnant, found a doctor to prescribe LEGAL abortion drugs, listened carefully to the instructions, and took the drugs. The instructions included what to do if the drugs did not seem to be performing as expected: Go to a hospital.

The drugs did not perform as expected, and so the woman took herself to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency department.

Well, they didn't seem to know quite what to do with her. A nurse got her to give a urine sample and that was it for about 5 hours.

Finally 7:00 pm.. I get called in... The nurse gives me a johnnyshirt to put on, Obviously Im getting examined. 45 minutes later Dr. Lantz comes in. With my chart ... Looks at my chart then looks at me and says... What would you like me to do.. Ohh I don't know check me out?! I told him why I came in. "Well I will go talk to the gynecologist and see what they say" 10 minutes later... "Well we are not comfortable dealing with this situation" What really... not comfortable... What the hell is going on inside of me... I'm thinking this in my head.... and staring at him. I ask ok what did my urine sample tell you?? Are my levels dropping?? "I don't know.. all I can tell you is you are still pregnant" ok so in that breath right there his job was to do a full examination on me. If I didn't pass everything which I'm sure I didn't .. Tha'ts going to cause bigger issues for me. But he did let me know I could go to a clinic in Halifax, They would have no issue helping me. After totally getting he wasn't going to help or find me help I asked him to leave so I could put my clothes back on. But I did thank him for wasting my time.

There just was an election held on the Island, where abortion was an issue.

P.E.I.’s four male political leaders provided their party’s policy on abortion services Tuesday during a forum on women’s issues where the last remaining variable was finally clarified. Liberal Premier Wade MacLauchlan said P.E.I. would continue to provide abortion services but only at a Halifax hospital. It’s the same policy followed by Premier Robert Ghiz so there is no change to the status quo.

When this story broke on social media on Thursday, the media got on it and the Health Minister was asked for a comment.

Health Minister Doug Currie says he was initially highly concerned when he received messages on social media, but after following up with officials at the hospital, says he feels all proper protocols were followed.

“I was reassured that no one was denied or turned away from the emergency room (Thursday) night,” Currie said.

“I was reassured that the standard quality of care was followed and I continue to be even more motivated to work with stakeholders to continue to remove current barriers that are facing Island women that are looking to access this service.”

No one denied or turned away? Is he calling Ms Cudmore a liar?

Standard quality of care followed? Being told "we are are not comfortable" and "go to Halifax" is "standard quality of care"?

Do PEI physicians not know how to treat miscarriage? Would a woman miscarrying "normally" also be refused treatment and sent to a clinic in Nova Scotia?

Is this not dangerous, patronizing, and, well, simply OUTRAGEOUS?

Not to mention a human rights violation and a pretty prima facie case of malpractice?

The reaction was swift. PEI Abortion Rights Network wrote an open letter.

A petition was begun to have Health Minister Doug Currie removed from his position.

Ms Cudmore plans to contact a lawyer.

What else can we do?

How about alerting potential PEI patients about the patronizing asshole doctor? Ms Cudmore names a "Dr. Lantz". It seems pretty clear that this is Chris Lantz, member of a "prominent" PEI family, and -- hey, look at this -- brother of the leader of the PC party, Rob Lantz.

And how does Rob Lantz feel about abortion?

PC Leader Rob Lantz did meet the group and assured them he will maintain the status quo. … Abortion is not on the PC radar, not in the platform and there are no plans to re-open the debate.

And we'd like to know the name of the gynecologist supposedly consulted by Dr. Lantz.

Here's Ms Cudmore from her Facebook page again:

I have gone to the media as most of you already know and I will be contacting a lawyer to take legal action against the hospital. I urge ALL women who have come across difficulty in support/access to proper health care regarding abortions to take a stand now!! Don't be silent anymore.. We have a right we have a choice. All we see and hear are people slamming abortion if we stand now just maybe we might get the access and rights we deserve. This is legal and as women living on PEI we have a right to choose what we do with our bodies. ‪#‎statusquonomore‬

In other momentous news from the Gentle Island, there is a bit of panic going on over metal objects found in potatoes.

Precious PEI potatoes VIOLATED!!!!!

Last word to unexpectedly prochoice Stats Can (which is a parody account just to forestall any idiotic screeching):

PEI treats potatoes with more respect and dignity than 99% of women seeking abortions

— Stats Canada (@stats_canada) May 22, 2015

Image from @ProChoicePEI.


UPDATE (May 25/15): Statement from Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

UPDATE (May 26/15): Another harrowing story of being turned away. How many more are there? How many more will there have to be?

UPDATE (May 30/15): A new blog, The Sovereign Uterus is collecting abortion stories from PEI women. To answer the question: How many more? A: Lots.

UPDATE (May 31/15): Halifax woman opens her home to PEI women needing abortion.

MOAR Silent No More

Found on the Saskatchewan Pro Life website (bold mine):

Canada Silent No More needs Testimonies.

URGENT: We are collecting testimony declarations from women who have been hurt or damaged physically, emotionally or who got breast cancer, cervical damage, had a subsequent pre-term birth, infertility, suffered depression, turned to alcohol and drugs, had suicidal thoughts or attempts etc? We want to hear from you. We are looking for brave and courageous women to testify to the Supreme Court of Canada on how legal abortion has hurt them. You are not alone. If you know any former abortion patients, please have them message me, k. Also we need pro life groups to distribute our declaration forms...the US has over 5,000, we would like to get at least 500. We have over 100 declarations so far. Thank you so much for your prayers and support!! God bless you!

Plus a link to Denise Mountenay's Facebook page, where she says she is the "Founder/President" of Canada Silent No More.

And a link to a pdf form to fill out. The form is titled "Testimony Declaration" and stipulates that it is to be filled out by women who have had an abortion.

(Click to embiggen)



It asks for age, dates(s) and location(s) of abortion(s), whether the testifier (is that a word?) was adequately informed of the risks of abortion, whether she was coerced into it/them.

Then there's this: "Were you ever informed of any link between abortion and Breast Cancer (BC)?" (yes, capitalized) with yes/no boxes to tick.

Follow-up question: "Have you had Breast Cancer, or any lumps or cysts removed, or cervical cancer since your abortion(s)?" Yes/no boxes, with request to give details.

Then three more questions on Physical Complications (yes, capitalized again), "depression, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, etc." Some space to give details.

Signature/date lines, some boxes to tick about whether the person is willing to let her name be used etc., then an identification section asking for full name, email and mailing address, phone number.

If this were a poll, which it is in a way, it would be called a "push poll."

I don't think I need to remind DJ! readers that THERE IS NO LINK BETWEEN ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER.

But I had never seen abortion connected with cervical cancer before and googling "abortion cervical cancer" returns only fetus freak sites.

Further inspection of the Canada Silent No More site reveals a "testimonies" section, which is three pages of snippets of stories with links to their continuation, oddly, all posted on January 26, 2016.

There is no mention anywhere on the site that I could find of the Supreme Court of Canada and I feel pretty confident in saying that if there were an abortion case coming up before the SCC, I'd know about it.

So WTF is this about? Who is Denise Mountebank, er, Mountenay, and why is she collecting this information? Why is she leading people to believe they will have a chance to "testify" about their abortions to the Supreme Court?

And while we're asking questions: What *is* Canada Silent No More?

There already is a Silent No More organization with a Canadian chapter. Angelina Steenstra is National Coordinator for Canada.

On the Canadian page, there's this repressive little note at the end:

Canada Silent No More is a separate organization and is not affiliated with Silent No More Awareness Campaign Canada.

Oooh, dissent in FetusFreakLand?

After all, there is room for just so many *inspirational* "I had an abortion boohooooo" speakers in the market.

Will both organizations make an appearance at the upcoming Futility Fest on the Hill? Will unpleasantness ensue?

Angelina: I'm Silent No More!

Denise: No! I'm Silent No More!

Angelina: I'm More Silenter No More than you are!

Denise: I'm the Most Silent No More!

Etc.

Fun.

Ikebana Basics for Fetus Fetishists

The last time we heard from the zygote zealots’ mouthpiece FETANNE Forceps, she was defending a law that would bestow legal status upon a pregnant woman’s placenta. Since then, she has become the uxorious and crafty ‘Martha Stewart’ of the anti-choice movement as well as a self-proclaimed expert on what men need from women, or according to HER gospel, why feminists don’t get men.

Next week she will be launching an exciting new concept: Embryonic Ikebana. Let’s eavesdrop on her presentation for the Christian Womb Shopping Channel.

Welcome to Fetanne Forceps’ Christian Womb Hour. Today I will share with you some beautiful thoughts on the god-blessed role of mother and wife. Whenever people visit my home, they tell my husband what a beautiful environment I have made for my family. I want to show you how you can do the same. As many of you know, I have been a tigress when defending those poor innocent victims of abortion, the preborn human children. But I’m not alone in thinking that the visual documentation that we use is really tacky and not beautiful. And optics are very important, if you want the mainstream media to roll tape.

Our movement has successfully isolated the embryo and the fetus from their connection to pregnant women. But what we have overlooked is that there’s a reason why God puts them inside wombs - in the cruel light of day, they don’t look very nice, do they? And some very devout men have told me that it makes them feel very icky to look at these pictures: as one of them quaintly put it: ‘It reminds me of what happens down there to women when they’re not in the family way.’

And ladies, though I hesitate to say this, some of you have been acting all uppity and screechy about the rights of the unborn. We have to be careful to remain soft and sweet otherwise we’ll be no better than those noisy and strident feminazis. And we don’t want that - do we? So I put my pretty little thinking cap on, and decided to combine my gracious hostess skills with my faith and voilà! I have developed a whole line of products that will beautify the fetus and make it so much more attractive for photo opportunities.

This is my very own Fetal and Floral™arrangement. It has a simple, clean shape. It is dramatic yet romantic, perfect for the entrance to your home, or the reception area of a major television network.

I let myself be inspired by my love for all those unloved fetus in the world to create flower arrangements in a style that is whimsical yet poignant. Tall flowers shout your intentions, but low bunches of flowers whisper a more intimate message at the dinner table. I put out blossoms in a row of small glasses, clustering them in every possible shade of baby pink.

Almost any flower will work if you cut the stems short enough for the blooms to form a dense but luxurious mound just above the rim of the glass. I use about ten flowers for each little bouquet and then I take a tiny plastic fetus and gently place it in the petals so that it looks like it’s sleeping in a floral cradle.

The cottage-garden-inspired arrangement shown at the top is a casual bouquet of fresh-from-my-garden blooms. I picked flowers of different shape, size, and color, mixing pinks, scarlet, white, and chartreuse with some well-proportioned twigs. I arranged these flowers with different heights and carefully placed the large plastic yet life-like embryo in a central position. I call it EmbryonIkebana™ .

Goodness! That’s all the time we have today. These breath-taking Fetal and Floral™ arrangements can be ordered over the phone. Simply call 1-888-FETANNE. Operators are ready to take your order and make sure you have your husband’s permission to use his credit card.

Originally posted at Birth Pangs.

PONY 2012

We interrupt your regularly scheduled implosion of Canadian democracy for this brief message.

I'm sure most of you have by now encountered that campaign against that Lord's Resistance Army creep. However, it turns out that there's more than meets the eye. Oh, not more to Kony. More to the campaign.

When I first saw that video, at the beginning I was all "Oh, wow, this is pretty innovative and interesting." But it was nary a couple of minutes when it started to feel like something was a bit...off about the whole thing. I just chalked it up to my allergic reaction to hard sells (which has, in point of fact, sometimes led me astray).

By about 2/3rds of the way through, I had had enough. I knew now that I was facing, ick, glurge. Glurge, by the way, can be for perfectly good causes; but I myself don't have to stomach it. I don't like being (non-ironically) manipulated, even by people with whom I might ordinarily agree.

As I read more, my doubts increased. Yes, Kony is a horrible man, who has done horrible things to children and others. But...well, sad to say, but nowadays there are yet still more effective ways to help Uganda, Africa, and the world. Still, it's petty to set up a hierarchy of causes. If that's what gets people going...

Finally, thanks to blogger Dusty at Left-Wing Nutjob, the other shoe dropped for me. This Alternet article, linked by Dusty, lays it out:

Is Invisible Children a nonprofit devoted to human needs, or is it a ministry devoted to bringing souls to Jesus ? Judging by a talk co-founder Jason Russell gave last November at Liberty University, it would seem to be a bit of both.

Liberty University??? Yep, that Liberty University.

Now, lest you imagine that I am simply tarring a good cause by association because of the private beliefs of its founder, well, take a look at the rest of those posts and the further links they contain therein including the rather unusual funding proportions. Frankly, even without any direct evidence of malfeasance, it's a bit of a bridge too far. A bridge too far that I will sell you, if you believe that a Falwell U connection is ever innocent.

And that once again is why DAMMIT JANET! has long been a no-glurge zone.

Discussion Boards Dead? Discuss.

I cut my virtual teeth at babble, which, I just learned celebrated its tenth anniversary in April. I joined in 2002 or 2003, near enough to 9/11 that the OMFG-handholding-minute-by-minute-planes-crash-into-WTC thread made for riveting reading. (I just had a lazy look for it, but couldn't find any threads older than 2005.)

There was some major unpleasantness, totally ignored in the anniversary story, and a bunch of babblers left in high dudgeon.

Judging from this, same old shit is going on.

Many of the dudgeonistas fetched up at something initially called 'babble strike' or somesuch but became after a democratic vote (natch) enmasse. (I was pumping for 'Herding Cats', which got some, but not enough, votes.)

Further unpleasantness and a further rift ensued, this time dudgeonistas found themselves at Bread&Roses. That's where deBeauxOs and fern hill met and started our blogging careers at Birth Pangs.

Just to round out the round-up of Canadian non-partisan political boards, I should add Free Dominion, aka The Dark Site, where I frequently still lurk.

So, nowadays, leaving aside my FD lurking, I rarely go to any of them. They seem just plain sad to me. They seem to function mostly as link-farms where people stash stuff they may want to go back to. Membership is much diminished and the personal schticks are getting pretty old.

Once vibrant -- B&R in particular was the chosen hang-out of some of the snarkiest lefty bloggers and blog-commenters -- now left behind in Twitter-dust.

On a slightly peripheral note, I hate the new Facebook, but still occasionally visit some political groups I joined around the second prorogation to see what people are talking about. But I don't -- and never really did -- feel any connection to it.

Blogging and tweeting are enough for me.

What do you think?

Bread Not Circuses Redux

If you follow me on Twitter, I apologize. I've been a total pain in the ass lately in my lonely effort to get Torontonians in particular and Canadians in general riled up about a proposed bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Though it's lonely work, I'm finding lots of interesting stuff. And today I found some stuff that is actually encouraging.

In 1989-90, Toronto's millionaire hucksters were really pushing to get the 1996 Summer Olympics, which were ultimately awarded to Atlanta.

Opposed to them was a coalition of women's groups, anti-poverty and housing activists, and labour unions. They called themselves the Bread Not Circuses Coalition.

It was led by Michael Shapcott, still a prominent housing advocate here, and supported, they claimed, by 300,000 people, including then-councillor Jack Layton.

Here's an undated archival recording from the CBC's Inside Track, featuring Shapcott, booster Councillor Kris Korwin-Kuczynski, and for some reason, "playwright" Rick Salutin.

There's a text summary at the link but the clip is only 8-1/2 minutes long and it's interesting, not least for the talking/whining points from Korwin-Kuczynski, which we will no doubt be hearing all over again in the near future.

That script -- jobs, tourism, phantom transit, feel-goodism -- doesn't change.

From the summary:

Toronto should try saying "no" for once. That's the opinion of Bread Not Circuses, one of the strongest anti-Olympic organizations in the world. The local group of anti-poverty activists is embroiled in an uphill fight to scuttle Toronto's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Members argue that the money from the Games - short-term "economic steroids" - never makes it to those that need it most. The Inside Track examines the conflict between hungry markets and hungry mouths.
…
When Toronto lost the bid, anti-Games activists celebrated in an "Olympic-free zone" in the city's portlands, a location that would have become Toronto's Olympic stadium. [Canadian Olympic Committee President Paul] Henderson blamed the loss on Bread Not Circuses and left-leaning city councillors including Jack Layton (later leader of the federal New Democratic Party). Layton had made a point of publicly questioning the bid committee on social issues.

I happen to believe that the coalition was absolutely correct in its opposition but what stands out from this distance is what genius propagandists they were.

(Some say the "fix" was in for Atlanta, headquarters of Coca-Cola after all, but whatever.)

Some context: The greedy, corrupt IOC was still reeling at that point from the fiasco of the 1976 Denver Winter Olympics.

Never heard of them? Of course not. Because they did not happen.

It's a fascinating story of lies, skullduggery, and citizen opposition.

The usual Olympics story, but this time, as in Boston last month successful.

From the link above: "To this day, Denver remains the only city to reject an Olympic bid."

Yes, Denver had "won" the Games, then said "no, thanks." Innsbruck, which had hosted in 1964, had the facilities and stepped up to save the day.

So, even years later, the IOC was a bit jittery about citizen opposition and went so far as to meet with the Bread Not Circuses Coalition in Toronto.

Imagine that, fans of transparency.

Today, Los Angeles released its bid documents. Pretty snappy for a town that just got the word they were now US front-runners at the end of July.

Makes one wonder what was going on quietly behind the scenes.

And makes one wonder what's going on here.

Mayor Tory says he's still making up his mind, while supposedly consulting "community groups," a claim that would be more plausible if he hadn't broken his campaign pledge to make his schedule public. (Promise made in contrast to former Mayor Ford who had to keep his schedule secret because "doing crack" wouldn't have gone over very well.)

There is opposition forming here in Toronto. There's a website, a petition (now with over 250 signatures!!!!), and a hashtag, #NoTO2024.

We are small but growing, and feel honour bound to warn the IOC and local millionaire hucksters.

As before in Toronto, before in Denver, and very recently in Boston, the will, energy, and commitment of the people is discounted at some peril.




Previous DJ! posts:
Toronto Star and Olympics: Something Stinks

Toronto Councillors' Twitter Accounts

10 People on Twitter

APA's Abortion Agenda

In the ongoing comments to my first post about Priscilla Coleman's latest salvo in the abortion= insanity scam, Anonymous outed it/him/herself as a concern troll with:

You ought to use your knack for skepticism on some of these mainstream organizations..rather than passively trusting...they have agendas that often depart significantly from science and are doing society a grave disservice when it comes to the topic of abortion. I did look at your other post and I really believe all the angst here is misplaced.

Angst? How sympathetic of it/him/her. But then, both skeptic and 'passively trusting'? Twisty brains, these fetus fetishists have, don't they?

Anyway, I bit and asked what bias the American Psychological Association might have.

It/he/she answered.

Well the problem is that the organization declared abortion a civil right decades ago and they have an open pro-choice agenda..this precludes the objectivity necessary to conduct credible science...very simple. If they had a pro-life agenda it would be just as bad obviously. We need good science to inform women..you aren't going to get it from the APA..but there is hope from people like Coleman, Broen, Pedersen, and Fergusson who do not have agendas and know how to conduct the studies. I really encourage you to get the paper from Coleman. You will be impressed and you'll feel foolish for having trashed her...even her face*..come on.

After I cleaned the coffee off the keyboard from the 'do not have agendas' bit, I googled.

First, basic info about the American Psychological Association or, as social science students and researchers might be more familiar with, APA, as in the ubiquitous APA style.

The American Psychological Association (abbreviated APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students.
. . .
Full membership with the APA in United States and Canada requires doctoral training whereas associate membership requires at least two years of postgraduate studies in psychology or approved related discipline. The minimal requirement of a doctoral dissertation related to psychology for full membership can be waived in certain circumstances where there is evidence that significant contribution or performance in the field of psychology has been made.

Anon is quite right about APA's abortion position adopted in way back in 1969.

WHEREAS, in many state legislature, bills have recently been introduced for the purpose of repealing or drastically modifying the existing criminal codes with respect to the termination of unwanted pregnancies; and WHEREAS, termination of unwanted pregnancies is clearly a mental health and child welfare issue, and a legitimate concern of APA; be it resolved, that termination of pregnancy be considered a civil right of the pregnant woman, to be handled as other medical and surgical procedures in consultation with her physician, and to be considered legal if performed by a licensed physician in a licensed medical facility.

I know. Shocking, isn't it? Just about every human rights organization, including the UN, recognizes abortion -- as it translates into bodily autonomy -- as a human/civil right. Cool that APA was in on board pretty early on for a mainstream organization.

We sane people don't consider the recognition of women's human and civil rights to be a matter of pro- or anti-choice, merely a small matter of equality and justice. (Of course this is disputed by fetus fetishists.)

Here are APA's mission and vision statements.

'The mission of the APA is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.'

Last of the seven goals in the vision statement is to serve as 'an effective champion of the application of psychology to promote human rights, health, well being and dignity'.

Not among those goals is anything like 'maximize the earnings of our members by scaring the shit out of prospective clients with fatuous claims of abortion's mental-health risks, thus MASSIVELY increasing our members' client base, and making them a pisspot of money'.

An article at the Guttmacher Institute (an organization sometimes quoted as 'prestigious' by ff's when it agrees with them), cites Nancy Adler, professor of psychology at the University of California, pointing out the obvious idiocy of the claim of widespread psychological fallout from abortions.

Adler said that given the millions of women who had had abortions, "if severe reaction were common, there would be an epidemic of women seeking treatment. There is no evidence of such an epidemic."

There are about 1.3 million abortions in the US and 100,000 in Canada every year. That's a fuck of a lot of insane women. Added up over the decades, the funny farms should be bursting with deranged women needing intense (and expensive) psychological treatment.

Using the Underpants Gnomes' business plan, the APA's agenda should be: 1) Lie about abortion/mental-health connection. 2). . . . 3) PROFIT!

Ain't happening, because the APA is a mainstream organization with principled, educated people running it.

Sorry, Anon, asserting an agenda for APA is illogical. The only people set to profit with the Underpants Scheme are anti-choice orgs, researchers, counsellors, and churches. NOT the APA and other responsible professionals.

One last thing (for now; we're NOT done with this by a long shot), look who wrote the 'Abortion and the APA' entry for Conservapedia. Yup. Dear Priscilla. Nope. No agenda there, atall atall.



*This what I said about Coleman's photo. You decide whether it's trashing.

Dump it or reform it?

The Catholic Church, that is.

In her NYT opinion piece, Maureen Dowd points out ways that Catholic fundamentalism ressembles Islamic fundamentalism.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

To circumscribe women, Saudi Arabia took Islam’s moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman — whether she’s his mother or a prostitute — be treated as a second-class citizen.

Negating women is at the heart of the church’s hideous — and criminal — indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests’ care.

Dowd isn't resigned to spiritual and psychological abuse. To the contrary, she skillfully skewers the dogmatic intellectual inbreeding that has led to this sorry state.

Intellectual inbreeding appears to be at the heart of the problems that currently beset the Vatican Taliban. Unable to give life, Pope Maledict and his old boys' club continue the tradition of controlling female sexuality and reproductive capacity. In this, they are bestowing upon a decaying institution the kiss of death.

In Newsweek, Lisa Miller writes hopefully of tranformation, of the Church leaving behind the arrogance of those besotted with disembodied patriarchal power.

[...] in the Roman Catholic corporation, the senior executives live and work, as they have for a thousand years, eschewing not just marriage, but intimacy with women and professional relationships with women—not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy, primal messiness of families and children. Indeed, it seems the further a priest moves beyond the parish, the more likely he is to value conformity and order above the chaos of real life. [...]

One parent in one room where a bishop was deciding the fate of an abusing priest would have saved countless families from a lifetime of misery. "It's a pretty good guess that we would not be in this same predicament were women involved," says Frank Butler, president of FADICA, a group of Catholic family foundations. "For sure."

It is a reforming moment, then, a time for the men of the Vatican to take the wisdom of their own words to heart. The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s was an effort to better integrate the antique church with the modern world, and its documents overtly address the changing place of women. "The hour is coming," read the council's closing documents, "in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment…women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling."

I made my choice years ago, as it became obvious to me the reigning clergy operated with principles far removed from the basic goodness of the faith that Jesus inspired. I left the Catholic Church. Many women stay, though. They feel they and their children have nowhere to go, and the daily contempt and manipulation they suffer from the Church fathers - while abusive - is familiar. And, like Dowd and Miller, they're hopeful that they can help them mature into humane beings.

I don't share their optimism.

No. This Isn't the Game Changer.

Yawn.

Babs Kay is on her ABC (abortion = breast cancer) bullshit soap box Again. (That's a Do Not Link link, which I am going to use for all sites I don't want to get hits.)

This time she's citing a meta-study out of China -- where, you know, the health care system, abortion regime, environment, etc. etc. is exactly like North America.

Problem with this study is, as usual, its methodology, not to mention the obvious flaws in trying to compare these societies.

Short version: same old crap dressed up yet again as The Game Changer !!!!!!!!

Um. No.

Let's hear from an epidemiologist with the American Cancer named Susan Gapstur.

"The findings of this meta-analysis should be viewed with caution," Dr. Susan Gapstur told The Wire in an email. Gapstur is the vice president of epidemiology at the American Cancer Society. She notes that almost all of the studies cited in Dr. Huang's analysis used something called the case-control method, which tends to produce misleading results. In the case of the abortion-breast cancer link, women with breast cancer who self-report their reproductive histories tend to do so more accurately than women who are cancer-free. And in countries like China, where abortion still carries a significant stigma, that "recall bias" can be reinforced. "This 'recall bias' can make it look like breast cancer is associated with abortion when it is not," Gapstur explains. Case-control methods, it should be noted, have produced links between breast cancer and induced abortion before.

Further, the most reliable studies in the mega-study do NOT find a link.

All but two of the studies included in Huang's analysis used the case-control method. The remaining two were prospective cohort studies, which track women over time, instead of relying on self-reported historical results. Those two studies, Gapstur notes, did not find a link between abortion and breast cancer. In fact, the eight studies that appear to be the most reliable of the group found no link between induced abortion and breast cancer risk. "The association only became apparent as the quality of the studies decreased," Gapstur told The Wire, noting that some of the included studies were not published in peer-reviewed publications. In other words, the work might not be vetted by independent professionals in the field.

Over at Lifeshite, Joel Brind, granddaddy of ABC himself, calls Dr Gapstur an 'epidemiologist'. Gee, I dunno, she looks pretty well qualified to me.

I'm sure you are as bored by this as I am, but I take it as a duty to call them out. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

And, really, Babs should be ashamed of herself, peddling this fear and worry to women year after year, despite getting regularly smacked down for it.

ADDED: From Babs herself in the comments to her piece:

Barbara Kay
Barbara Kay is an opinion journalist and it is her job to present the side she finds more persuasive. Other opinion journalists are free to adduce evidence they feel is more persuasive. Let the debate go on.

Or, shorter: Babs Kay is free to make any shit up she wants without regard for normal journalistic standards of accuracy and truth.

ANOTHER ADDITION: A media release on the anti-choice book, Complications, that Babs touts in her column. And oh look who's giving it a rave review. Our old pal, serial research-fudger, and perfesser of home ec, Priscilla Coleman. Surprise, surprise.

Update on the Save the Clinic Campaign

All along, the fundraising campaign by Reproductive Justice New Brunswick was nothing more than a stop-gap, intended to ensure the continuing possibility of an abortion clinic that accepted self-referring patients.

Having hit the initial goal of $100,000 last week, yesterday they announced they're raising their sights in order to buy necessary equipment.

The words "Thank you" don't feel big enough to express the gratitude that we at Reproductive Justice New Brunswick are feeling right now. To surpass our original goal in the first 2 weeks of our campaign? There are no words! Thank you, thank you all, for your support.

We are still a long way from our final goals, however. Negotiations continue with the owner of the former Morgentaler Clinic to secure an agreement to manage the building. Now we are asking for your support and enthusiasm to move forward with Phase 2 of our goals. For a further $85,000 we can potentially buy all the equipment currently located at the clinic; equipment that is required to provide a full range of reproductive health services.  It’s a bargain we don’t want to miss but we need your help. 

RJNB will also continue to lobby the New Brunswick government to change Regulation 84/20 that requires a woman to have the procedure deemed "medically necessary" in writing by an OB-GYN and another doctor, in order to obtain a publicly funded abortion in one of 2 hospitals.

The government still refuses to even meet with us to discuss a change. Until the people of New Brunswick have the same right as other Canadians to the reproductive health care of their choice, where and when they want it, we will never have true equality in New Brunswick. RJNB, with your help, pledges to continue the fight until the people of the Maritimes have access to a full range of publicly funded reproductive health services.

That the Conservative government won't even meet with them is hardly a surprise, but given an upcoming provincial election that the Liberals seem poised to win, this is a little harder to stomach.

Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s pro-choice stand is reverberating through New Brunswick, where abortion-rights activists are vowing to make the closing of the Fredericton Morgentaler clinic an election issue – and the provincial Liberal leader is offering little support.

Justin and Brian look pretty cozy here, don't they?

Maybe chicken-shit Gallant is scared of people like this.

Some New Brunswickers, such as Kelly Seale, want less access to abortions, not more.

"Soon as I walk by there, I feel a very strong feeling of the devil. Yeah," said Seale, who works at an anti-abortion centre next door to the clinic.

Well, OK then. The anti-Satan voting bloc must be MASSIVE in Brunswick.

Here's a good round-up on the state of abortion access in Canada by Press Progress. Graphic is from Canadians for Choice.

If you were thinking of donating but didn't get around to it, then thought "Great, they've hit their goal," please think again.

Something else you could do is simply tell someone about the situation in NB and PEI. From the comments at the fundraising site, on various media stories, and blogs like Trashy's World, it's clear that there are a shit-ton of Canadians who have no idea what Maritime women are up against.

Most Canadians consider abortion a non-issue, a done deal -- and are shocked to find out that that's a big fat lie for thousands of us.

MOST MASSIVIST ANTI-CHOICE CAMPAIGN EVAH!

The Fetal Gore Porn Gang -- you remember, the same group of nutbars who attempted to co-opt the Abortion Caravan -- along with Campaign Lie have a new campaign billed as "the biggest pro-life campaign Canada has ever seen."

DJ! reported on its launch last week. That's an account by an attendee at the Victoria event who had some uncomfortable and, apparently, unanswerable questions for the organizers.

Well, now that they're a week into their current road trip, let's have a look at how they're doing. (They really like road trips, don't they? Maybe because it gets them out from under the parental/pastoral thumb?)

Here's the schedule with handy Facebook links.

Oddly, the FB page for the Victoria bunfest on March 13 is "unavailable."

Here are some details from the other knees-upses. I'm using their own numbers. (Go to "schedule" link for individual FB links; I'm too lazy to code them all.)

In Vancouver on March 14, out of 655 invited, 43 "went."

In Chiliwack on March 16, 35 out of 577 invitees attended.

Kelowna on March 18, 11 out of 77.

Calgary on March 19, 35 out of 512.

Edmonton on March 21, 28 out of 429.

Next up is Saskatoon on March 24. So far 126 have been invited and 21 are "going" with 7 "maybes'." For Brandon on March 27, 10 of 110 plan to go. Regina on March 25 has no FB page and 30 Winnipegers of 418 invitees intend on going.

Then there are several in Ontario, then the one I'm planned on visiting, Toronto on April 10. The fetus freaks have great hopes of this one. They've invited 1.2k, of which so far 63 are going with 47 maybes.

That's not counting me, so add one there.

The April 20 event in Fredericton should be interesting given recent events there. Twenty-five of 205 invitees have confirmed their attendance so far.

Strangely, there is no Ottawa event listed.

The last event on the schedule is on May 12 in Peterborough.

Then nothing until May 25, but this final event in Woodstock, ON, is billed as "End the Killing," the tag-line of their Old New Abortion Caravan wankeroo. And it is a "CLOSED" event.

Their partner, Campaign Lie, however, is holding its MASSIVE annual martyrgasm, March of the Fetii, in Ottawa on May 14.

Might the Fetal Gore Gang be planning another Grand Finale?

As they did for the 2012 March for Lies with their Grand Jete de FetusMobile?

Which got unaccountably lost. (As reported by both JJ, the Unrepentant and DJ!.)

Maybe they don't want to, you know, create any unfulfillable expectations.

But let's go back to the numbers.

Even if they're telling the truth -- hey, there's a first time for everything! -- they are kind of sad, aren't they?

Forty-three in Vancouver and 35 in Calgary, which are pretty big cities.

There are 23 stops on the tour. If they get an average -- let's be generous -- of 30 per venue, that's just under 700 people.

But, see, these gatherings are not the point. The point is to hand out ONE MILLION pieces of trademark gore porn.

"This will be the biggest pro-life campaign in Canadian history," the campaign organizers state. But they stress that, "In order for us to do this, the pro-life movement will need thousands of boots on the ground across the country to participate in the #No2Trudeau campaign in whatever form of activism they feel comfortable with."

THOUSANDS OF BOOTS ON THE GROUND!!!

And they're on track for about 700 pairs, or 1400 boots.

Which is going to be interesting since by my calculation, to hit ONE MILLION PIECES, each boot is going to have to hand out more than 700 pieces.

On Twitter, on the #no2Trudeau hashtag, they're claiming victory because no one is engaging in discussion. Also because "proborts" (typo or new styling? I kinda like it) are deleting tweets. I don't think they get this Twitter thingamajig.

#No2Trudeau is working. Proborts are blocking and deleting #prolife tweets instead of engaging in discussion. #endthekilling #prolife

— Recognize Rights (@__defiant) March 23, 2015

I'm enjoying this and will keep you posted.

If any of you have some time and would like to check them out, here again is their schedule. DJ! would be pleased to offer a venue for your reports.

When Liars Are Exposed, It Ain't Pretty

How many members of the Contempt Party's Fetus Lobby have gone off-leash on the Hidden Abortion Agenda now? Trost, Woodworth, Ambrose, Watson, and now, predictably, Vellacott.

As deBeauxOs reported yesterday, the long-time fetus fetishist and forthright misogynist has his panties in a twist over a three-part investigative piece by CTV on a crisis pregnancy centre, or as they are more correctly termed 'fake clinics run by anti-choice, lying, manipulative Xians'.

Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Watch and see for yourself if the series is 'one-sided' as is claimed in Vellacott's meandering and maundering eight-page (!) press release.

I'll get back to the press release in another post, but here I want to talk about how the investigation was handled and reported.

I first heard about it a couple of weeks ago when Andrea Mrozek at ProWomanProLie posted a link to a panicked bleat from Lara Lansink, director of the South Fraser Pregnancy Options Centre. Under the heading 'Some troubling news':

Dear Friends and Supporters,
Because I know you love our Centre and our ministry, I wanted to share some troubling news with you about an incident that recently occurred.

On December 15th, a woman claiming to be in distress because of an unplanned pregnancy came to our Centre for help. One of our volunteer peer-counselors was able to see her immediately and they spent close to an hour talking through the woman’s concerns as well helping her to understand what choices were before her as she pretended to contemplate whether or not to have an abortion.

What this peer-counselor didn’t know, however, was that the woman had actually been sent by CTV News and that the woman was secretly recording the entire session with the hope that our peer-counselor would give false or biased information. Naturally we are very disappointed to see that CTV would use this type of tactic, particularly since the woman that came in pretending to be a legitimate client did agree to, and sign, our agreement of services which says in part:

"please turn off all devices with recording capabilities prior to the session. POC Staff and Volunteers do NOT consent to any recorded conversations".

Waaah! She signed the form!!

On January 5, they find out about it, when the reporter, Jon Woodward, tells them and asks UNREASONABLY for their side of the story.

Mr. Woodward also requested that a representative of our Centre speak to him on camera and implied that to refuse this request would make it appear that we had something to hide. Our board recognized that because of the tactics already employed, we felt it was likely that our Centre would be portrayed in a negative and misleading way despite his assurance of being impartial. We therefore declined his invitation to speak on camera as we did not feel that our explanations would be accurately or objectively presented.

Unfortunately when we declined, Mr. Woodward let us know that he would simply wait in the parking lot until someone from the Centre appeared and would then ‘confront’ us with his ‘questions’, meaning that we would be filmed even though we had declined his ‘invitation.’

(She goes on to invoke Gord's help and ask for supporter's prayers.)

As you can see from the clips, no such gotcha occurred. Rather, the liars wisely decided to sit down with CTV and it was hardly a confrontation. In fact, one of them admitted that the 'counsellor' may have gone off-script and that the brochure in question will be reviewed.

Back to Mrozek who on seeing part 1 said:

This could have been a lot worse.

Even sister and fellow fetus fetishists didn't find it that bad. Coulda been a lot worse, indeed.

It coulda gone like this.



CTV more than went out of its way to be fair to the lying liars. But those fetus fetishists do love their martyrgasms, don't they?

UPDATE: Vellacott's bullshit references exposed.

Not Just for Theists Anymore

Collected for your edification from the non-religious corners of the internets and put up to go with the Woodworth WTF-freeverse-poetry-so-deep-it's-incomprehensible-Is-this-his-official-MP-page-paid-for-by-taxpayers?, I present the recording of an abortion debate held at the Texas Freethought Convention this year.

One reason I thought DJ! would be interested is because the pro-forced birth stance in the formal debate is being presented by a self-identified secular Canadian.

This Canadian, Kristine Kruszelnicki, who appears to be giving MP Woodworth not only fan props but a run for his forced-birth money by being solidly in the ranks of this Very Concerned Group Of Americans Who Kindly Let Canadians Join Up.

My biggest take away from what I've been able to scrape up on the 'scientific' defenses in play by these secularist vagina controllers is it's pretty much the religionist forced-birth ideology with the heavenly serial numbers filed off, complete with reinterpretations of science in what was termed American election night on Fox News as "math he does as a Republican to make himself feel better...?" (he being Karl Rove denying Obama took Ohio's EC votes).

The pro-women's-autonomy stance in the debate was taken by feminist ally Matt Dillahunty of the ACA, a gender irony he notes himself during the debate, but it seems it was his work that brought this hyperskeptical-evidence-thin secular pro-forced birth group to greater scrutiny in the non-theist community*.  He has since apparently stated he's willing to keep challenging secularist forced-birthers as often as they can match schedules.  Given that the ACA is also home to a strong core of feminists including Matt's partner, Beth Presswood, there could be some very interesting higher profile pushback coming up in the North American non-religionist communities.

I predict such pushback will garner greater cries of conflation between alleged immorality of atheism and support for legal, unfettered abortion.  Be interesting to see how that plays in Canada.

I dunno.  Is a non-religionist who still stumps for incubator status of women, a He-ist or an Aiiieeeist?

*bonus points.  DJ!'s blogroll biologist on matters embryological, PZMyers of Pharyngula blog, snaps like a dry twig and makes an appearance at the end of QnA.

I Still Feel Pretty

Though how he could after this, I can't imagine.

My all-time fave foto of Dear Leader, looking soooo prime ministerial.

(This is deBeauxOs's fault. This post of hers gave me an ear-worm that only this photo could cure.)

Yo! Ladies!

Feel a laser targetting beam on your back?

Stephen Harper embarks on his fourth national election campaign in seven years with a mission: to finally secure a majority government. And he plans to achieve that majority by convincing more women to vote Conservative.

Above anything else, this election is about Mr. Harper, a determined if extremely partisan leader whose personality earns the respect of some and the distrust of others.

Messrs Ibbitson and Friesen have provided a pretty short continuum of responses there.

Let's extend it a little, shall we? To include fear and disgust.

Unfortunately for Stevie Peevie, but fortunately for the country, a good many women regard the Cons with some combination of distrust, disgust, and fear.
The Proud Fringers, for example, whose number is over 5400, formed when an amateur video of Stevie crowing to what he thought was a private gathering about his accomplishments in silencing 'feminists and other left-wing fringe groups' surfaced.

An offshoot, Women Against Stephen Harper, numbering over 600, formed to WASH that man right out of our collective hair.

More than 1200 women joined a group called Women Who Are Creeped out by Stephen Harper. 'Nuff said there.

And when Senator Nancy Ruth counselled a bunch of women angry over the Cons' refusal to include family planning -- let alone safe abortion -- in his cynical G8 'Maternal Health Initiative' to 'shut the fuck up', another Facebook group sprang up. I don't need to tell you what it's called. (That audio clip is NSFW or children, by the way.) This group has more than 2800 members.

Granted, there is a lot of overlap in those numbers. (I think I belong to all of them. I have some strong -armed -minded Facebook friends.) But still, there are lots of Canadian women who wouldn't vote Conservative even if that target on their back were actually bleeding.

But what of the other thousands and thousands of women the Cons need for a *shudder* majority? What can we say to women who might be swayed?

Let's look south to the Excited States, where a wave of Tea Party victories in various states has unleashed an unprecedented orgy of misogyny. All manner of programs intended to benefit women and children have been slashed to ribbons: family planning, child care, violence against women, and, most importantly in this time of fiscal trouble and job losses -- abortion of course.

Ah, but Canada is a kinder, gentler place than the US, you say.

Oh yeah? Let's take a look at what Stevie Peevie has already 'defunded'.

1. Aboriginal Healing Foundation
(cuts affected several healing centres that focused on providing support to abused women, such as the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal)
2. Action travail des femmes
3. Alberta Network of Immigrant Women
4. Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale (AFEAS)
5. Canadian Child Care Federation
6. Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW)
7. Centre de documentation sur l’éducation des adultes et la condition féminine
8. Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada
9. Child Care Resource and Research Unit, SpeciaLink
10. Conseil d’intervention pour l’accès des femmes au travail (CIAFT)
11. Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women Toronto
(funding cut by CIC in December 2010)
12. Feminists for Just and Equitable Public Policy (FemJEPP) in Nova Scotia
13. First Nations Child and Family Caring Society
14. International Planned Parenthood Federation
15. Marie Stopes International,
a maternal health agency, has received only a promise of "conditional” funding IF it avoids any & all connection with abortion
16. MATCH International
17. National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL)
18. Native Women’s Association of Canada
19. New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity
20. Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH)
21. Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care
22. Réseau des Tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec
23. Riverdale Immigrant Women’s Centre, Toronto
24. Sisters in Spirit
25. South Asian Women’s Centre
26. Status of Women Canada
(mandate also changed to exclude "gender equality and political justice" and to ban all advocacy, policy research and lobbying)
27. Tri-Country Women’s Centre Society
28. Womanspace Resource Centre (Lethbridge, Alberta)
29. Women for Community Economic Development in Southwest Nova Scotia (WCEDSN)
30. Women’s Innovative Justice Initiative – Nova Scotia
31. Workplace Equity/Employment Equity Program

(Note that immigrant and Aboriginal women are ˆNOT spared.)

That's what Stevie and his gang have done to Canadian women and children -- with a MINORITY government.

Imagine what he'd do with a majority.


(cross-posted at Unseat Harper blog)

My Textbook on Religion

Preface
Every society in the history of the world has engaged in some form of this batshittery. We would like to move on from it, but many, many people have made damn good livings over the centuries practicing, teaching, and writing about it, so we thought, what the hell?

Universities and colleges being no better, yours is offering you a course on this crap and here's the textbook for it.

Suck it up, buttercups.

Introduction
This text is organized along the usual nutbar lines. We'll do the oldest stuff first, when humans were still pissing their pants over thunder and lightning and stuff and came up with some (sometimes) nifty stories to explain all that terror.

Then we move on to the next phase, when some slightly smarter humans figured out that they could take control by exploiting that terror by crafting more complicated stories with gods and smiting and guilt and things like that.

They also learned to write and so textbook publishing was born.

Later, things got more sophisticated and the guys in charge (and they were all guys) decided to demonize some people and activities -- principally folks like those icky women and sexual-nonconformists and activities like thinking -- so they could have more control and more money.

Later still, they divided into a lot of gangs (helps if you've seen West Side Story or Gangs of New York or other cool movies we're too old for) to enslave other peoples and steal stuff/land and wage wars and bomb things and rape people.

Which is still going on, note.

And that's pretty much it.

There will be questions.

[Note to editors, proofreaders, formatters, and indexers: This is how the book works. We mention some deity, person, movement, you get the idea, that we want the schmoes to remember. We'll put that in bold with a parenthetical note to you guys of how many pages that shit takes up so you don't hurt your heads reading it. We'll also put other key concepts (ROTFLMAO) in bold. We guarantee that the text is as well-written, -spelled, -punctuated, and as comprehensible as any of the original sources, so you don't have to read that either. You're welcome.

Note to illustrators: please put as many colourful and pointless pictures, maps, and tables in as possible. Thanks.]

The End.

Now of course those last two paras were NOT meant to get into print, but somehow, unaccountably, they did, and all the editors, proofreaders, formatters, and indexers blamed all the others.

And I feel better now.

Republican family values.

LuLu at Canadian Cynic: Republican family values. brings this gem to our attention.

What I find perplexing is not the tactic that the fundamentalist religious right might champion as a double whammy - a strike against homosexuality and safe, responsibility-based sex education - but the reasons that the Republican leadership claim as the source of the problem.

Consider the following. DAMMIT JANET! comments the sub-text (our annotations are italicized).

A few minutes into his speech, Schwartz moved to the topic of pornography, calling it a “blight” and a “disease” that parents’ “sons” would encounter. (But not their daughters who might be coerced, likely by older men, to re-enact the brutalizing scenarios?) Noting that he was about to get “politically incorrect,” Schwartz said that it is his “observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people”:

SCHWARTZ: But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. (If you exclude Pat Robertson and his thousands of acolytes.) They speak badly about homosexuality. (Peer pressure and bullying?) And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. (Given the choice between being beaten or killed by their peers and likely rejected by their family, the boys who feel the stirrings of their homosexuality will bury those feelings and over-compensate with violence against class-mates who are 'sissies'.) They don’t want to fall into it. (But they just might commit suicide.) And that’s a good instinct. (Survival? Yes that is a good instinct.) After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that it's genetic and all those studies have proved it's not genetic. (Scientific studies are bogus if they don't support his beliefs.) Homosexuality is inflicted on people. (No. It is a scientifically documented sexual orientation. The bigotry of fundamentalist religious conservatives is inflicted on people.)

Schwartz then recalled “a very good friend” of his “who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time,” saying that he “had good conversations about, about the malady that he suffered.” (Your words? - likely not his, but then again if your gay male friend is a Republican he has learned to use the words of his persecutors judiciously to placate them.) He then relayed “an astonishingly insightful remark” his friend had made about the relationship between pornography and being gay:

SCHWARTZ: And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. (Schwartz, you are really clueless. Your astute "very good friend" is telling you that most porn is androcentric and gynophobic.) Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” (And your "very good friend" just told what he knew you wanted to hear.) You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. (And it's all part and parcel of your "very good friend's" lifelong strategy of how to escape from the murderous hatred of schoolyard and religious rightwing bullies.) It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people. (Your sons, you mean. The girls get to attend Purity Balls with their daddies.)

Schwartz then added a slight caveat, saying, “if it doesn’t turn you homosexual, it at least renders you less capable of loving your wife.”

Or more likely to grow up to become a Republican politician who gets caught with his pants down.

We Are Legion

Do you remember MP Ken Epp's private member's bill C-484, Unborn Victims of Crime Act from 2007? Joyce Arthur and I do. (We met for the first time in real life yesterday, appropriately, at Apiecalypse Now, the restaurant owned by pro-choice hero, Jen Bundock.)

We talked about how lonely we felt at the time, as two of a very few voices shrieeeeking about the danger it posed to abortion rights. Hardly anyone took notice. Certainly not the MPs. The bill passed second reading, only to die on the order paper when the 2008 election was called. Thank the goddess.

Now, things are very different. There is the ongoing and intensifying madness about abortion in the US that wafts northward. And social media is proving to be a powerful force used by individuals and groups to gain attention and amplify messages.

But it's more than that.

Joyce and I do not feel lonely anymore as dozens (hundreds?) of people have taken on the task of watching the Big Fetus Lobby and alerting others when they get out of line.

The media and other mainstream organizations are far more open to hearing these messages and acting.

For example, a screening of an anti-choice film at King's University College at Western University has drawn an amazing amount of attention. This morning I counted six media stories at Google News, including this pretty surprising demand from faculty for an apology for misrepresenting the school's values.

In a letter sent to Principal David Malloy Wednesday, professors from across disciplines, signed their names to a three page letter describing the "furor and fear" expressed by the school community when the movie was screened last Thursday.

Also recently, anti-choice MP Garnett Genuis's "survey" for constituents that included a question on abortion also drew online hell-fire.

Twitter user Ann Bibby (@anniegirl1138) expressed her anger in the tweet; “This is the bulls**t (Christmas) crap we get from our MP. Separatism and reopening the access to abortion issue. Ffs.”

Nearly 200 people retweeted the message and also tweeted their concern about the abortion questions. Others called the separation question divisive.

This is in Alberta, mind.

Other individuals are calling for buffer zones: around hospitals and clinics and around schools.

People are sick of seeing the enormous gory images of miscarried fetuses and demanding that towns and cites take steps to shut these displays down.

People are also sick of misleading or outright lying messages about abortion on their transit shelters and vehicles. Some cities are acting and having them removed.

Elsewhere, residents are fed up with their public spaces used to promote fringe values. Many cities and towns have (mostly) harmless flag- and banner-raisings. But they're realizing these minor events are more trouble than they're worth: in Nelson, BC and Saskatoon.

Also really encouraging is the Handmaids movement. There are more than a dozen chapters using the title Handmaids Local and the area code. Here is Handmaids Local 905 in their red finery.



And then, the entire country weighed in with the convincing defeat of anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ+ Conservative Andrew ("Yankee Doodle Andy") Scheer in the recent federal election.

Here is Peter MacKay's immortal quote.

"And yet that was thrust onto the agenda and hung around Andrew Scheer's neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly, and he wasn't able to deftly deal with those issues when opportunities arose."

So, that's where we seem to be at. In Canada, social conservatives are stinking anathema. The majority doesn't even want to hear their voices, let alone look at their manipulative images or listen to their lies.

As a country, we seem to be saying collectively -- and politely of course -- "Shut the fuck up."

No more shrieeeeking in the wilderness for pro-choice activists. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.