The Male Mind

Back in the 80s, I worked at a communications company (they were all the rage) owned and run by four male partners. As a freelancer, I was given free office space in return for 'priortizing' their work. There were two other women working there under the same deal.

The three of us used to go out for lunch a couple times a week and talk inevitably turned to the partners. They didn't like each other. More mystifyingly, they didn't trust each other.

Partners would ask us gals suspiciously about the doings of another partner. We owed nobody any loyalty but it was uncomfortable.

Mainly, it was just plain weird. Every lunch ended with us shaking our heads and wondering how people who didn't trust each other could be in biz together.

Maybe it was then or later that I twigged: Men much more than women can compartmentalize. Hive off the personal from the business. I've seen it in sweetie. He used to employ a raging misogynist racist occasionally because the guy was a genius with an air brush. After much prodding from me, he agreed to shut the asshole up when he got on one of his rants. But he still used him.

(I fully realize I've opened a can of worms here. Men do this, women do that crap. But over my long life, I've seen many many more men than women willing to overlook personal failings, value failings, character failings, if someone is useful to them.)

OK, the reason for this. Today, on Twitter, someone retweeted a message from a male voter saying he'd just voted in an advance poll for Sarah Thomson, the Lib candidate in Trinity Spadina, my riding. I replied asking if the the voter knew that Thomson when running for Toronto mayor endorsed privatizing libraries and killing Transit City. Dude replied that he did know that, but did I know that she is the best choice for TrinSpa.

I replied that anyone who would privatize libraries was not my kinda person. In increasingly patronizing replies @Fizbandu, aka Bradley Hammond, kindly pointed out that these were quite separate jurisdictions.

Duh.

Here's his second-last tweet. (The last one was just dumb and irrelevant to this.)

@fernhilldammit @ThomsonTO You need to understand that as a MPP there is no direct connection, again municipal council. #VoteON

I need to understand that, do I?

Well, Bradley needs to understand that what a person says in one context is entirely applicable to any other context.

If Sarah Thomson would privatize libraries, what else would she privatize?

Inquiring minds. . .

But to the male mind, entirely separate issues.

The floor is open for excoriating me for essentialism, sexism, anti-maleism, whatever.

Trost: 'Suck it'

I don't know how the boundaries of ridings are decided, but it seems to me that some are deliberately drawn so as to ensure that a fair swath of the populace is disenfranchised.

Take Saskatoon-Humboldt. It's described as half-urban, half rural. From the spring election:

“You have to represent all of your constituents, not just those who agree with you and think the same as you,” Mr. Hill said, adding: “I think anybody looking to highlight [social conservative issues] and put them front and centre is going to end up hurting the campaign.”

The flaw, Mr. Kouri says, lies in the riding’s design. All of Saskatoon is carved up into sections that are combined with rural swaths, rather than having strictly urban ridings. “People in Saskatoon don’t feel they’re represented at all. It’s all social conservatism, and that’s not what they want representing them,” said Ms. Kouri . . .

But representing all his constituents is not how Head Fetus Fetishist Brad Trost sees things (bold mine):

Trost says he's not attacking the government but criticizing one decision. And he says he owes it to his constituents to be honest.

"Ultimately, I have the backing of my constituency association and the Conservatives there. That's who I represent. Because I've been vocal on this issue before, I owe them my democratic voice. I also owe my democratic voice to people who disagree with me so they know honestly whether or not to vote for or against me in the next election. It's the proper thing to do."

Isn't this refrain getting tedious? 'I/we/our party won, so suck it up, buttercup'.

And it's not like Saskatoon-Humboldt is any kind of Contempt Party stronghold.

In 2004, in what was the closest 4-way race in the country, Trost received 417 more votes than second place candidate, the NDP's Nettie Wiebe, 435 votes ahead of the third place candidate, Liberal Patrick Wolfe, and 2368 votes ahead of former Canadian Alliance Member of Parliament Jim Pankiw.

Trost was re-elected, in 2006, 2008, and 2011 earning between 50-53% of the vote defeating the second place NDP, and the third place Liberals in Saskatoon-Humboldt in each election.

The good citizens there have elected members from all parties. (OK, not the Bloc Québécois.)

If I were a resident of Saskatoon-Humboldt, I'd be on a phone, fax, email and letter-writing campaign. And not just in vehement disagreement with Trost's misogynist racist Christianism.

But because, despite Stevie Peevie's 'strong, stable majority', Trost is going to have absolute zero influence in the ruling caucus (bold mine again).

The headline read, "Government apathetic on abortion," according to Saskatoon Humboldt Conservative MP Brad Trost, a social conservative never afraid to poke the delicate issue of abortion.

Trost even demonstrated earlier this spring during the federal election campaign that he was prepared to discomfort his leader, the prime minister, and create considerable political risk in Central Canada that the Conservative party was intolerant on social issues.

Another headline came to mind: "Prime minister not apathetic about disloyal MPs." Trost's already light political capital inside the Tory caucus has moved to featherweight status.

Congratulations, Saskatoon-Humboldt. You've elected a bozo with as much federal clout as a Bloquist.

In related news, Planned Parenthood is fighting back.

Canadian funding for contraception programs will help cut the number of abortions in developing countries, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood said Thursday.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation is hitting back at a Conservative MP who's urging the government to cut the group's funding, pointing to new research that shows cutting contraception programs leads to more abortions.

On Wednesday, Conservative MP Brad Trost said anti-abortion activists should be more aggressive to force the government to pay attention to their campaign. He also reiterated his opposition to any funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which the government has approved for $6 million in funding for contraception and sex education programs in five developing countries.

Trost says the group shouldn't get any Canadian government money because they provide abortions in countries where it's legal.

The Canadian money is for projects that will provide contraception and sex education in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania. None of the money will go to abortions.

A spokesman for Planned Parenthood said research shows how much those programs are needed.

"If Brad Trost’s position were taken up and that funding was removed entirely, and those family planning programs had to be scrapped, then that leaves women very vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy," Paul Bell said.

"All the research shows that, regardless of the situation in a country, a woman, if she finds herself in a position where she needs an abortion, she will have an abortion, whether it’s safe or unsafe."

Bell pointed to a study released Tuesday by a research centre at Stanford University that looked at data from 260,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa between 1994 and 2008.

From 2001 to 2008, the U.S. government eliminated funding for groups like Planned Parenthood that offered abortion, along with contraception and other women's health services, which forced them to close clinics.

The researchers found that the number of abortions rose in those years over the previous seven years, as much as two-and-a-half times in some countries.

Ah yes, the fundie-driven Global Gag Rule. That worked out well, didn't it?

BREAKING: Former King Fetus Fetishist Maurice Vellacott tries to wrestle his crown back with this media release (PDF).

MORE BREAKING: Leon Benoit joins in to slag Margaret Sanger. *Le sigh.*

Image source. Aw, praying. Isn't that special?

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sarah?

Sarah Grunfeld, that is. One of her peers tackles that problem, in a zesty manner reminiscent of Molly Ivins' best take-downs of her goofy Texan political foes.

[...]York University senior Sarah Grunfeld [...] made shanda-esque headlines when she put her social science professor’s career in jeopardy over an anti-Semitic remark that turned out to be—well—not. The statement “All Jews should be sterilized,” Professor Cameron Johnston explained in the introductory lecture to his class, was an example of an invalid and dangerous opinion; his point was that in academia especially, opinions must be reasonably qualified. Grunfeld failed to catch that qualifier, though, perhaps because before the prof had a chance to offer it, she had stormed out of class and enlisted the on-campus Israel-advocacy group, Hasbara (Hebrew for “Explanation”), to call for his immediate resignation.

Word of Johnston’s so-called racism exploded virally online by way of what National Post columnist Jonathan Kay has dubbed the “Bubbie-net” (Jewish grandparents frantically emailing their kin with fresh findings of alleged anti-Semitism); at the same time widely-respected Canadian Jewish civil rights association, B’nai Brith (Children of the Covenant), leaped in with equal gusto to champion Grunfeld’s claim. Then came the big reveal: Ms. Grunfeld had made a mistake. Not only was professor Johnston not an anti-Semite, he was a Jew. To borrow a more accessible Yiddish phrase, political correctness at York University had effectively schtupped itself.

Another take on the Sarah Grunfeld problem, here.

Why the pic of Sarah Palin? (which I found at this great blogpost, btw) Well, I couldn't locate a photo of Sarah Grunfeld and Palin looked so ... ah, piquante in pink - well, there it is.

Grand merci to Dr Dawg for the link to Emma Teitel's witty item.

Keep flying your freak flag, Contempt Party!

PM SHithead’s Contempt government is planning to enshrine the legal right to display the Canadian flag. From here:

So it is lining up behind a proposed bill that makes it more difficult to ban, limit or otherwise disrespect the Canadian flag, as part of what appears to be a more concerted, Conservative focus on the symbols of governance around the capital and the country.

Heritage Minister James Moore wasn’t able to say on Wednesday what forms of display would be deemed as “desecration of the flag” under the proposed law, which has been put forward by a Conservative backbencher from the GTA, John Carmichael (Don Valley West.)

In front of a table laden with flags and flag memorabilia in the Commons foyer, Moore hailed the bill as a measure to reward Canadian patriots with legal protections “to ensure that Canadians . . . have clear certainty, that if they wish to show pride in their country — to display the Canadian flag — they are free to do so, without any intimidation by condo boards or other neighbours.”

Really? Will Stevie Spiteful's Cons jail all those *flag bullies* - there must be legions and legions of them, given the gravity and ponderousness of Moore's political theatre - in the new mega-prison complexes the Contempt Party cronies will be building?

"Show pride without intimidation" ... but only if it's the red maple leaf flag on display. If it's your sexual orientation, your lack of Kristian Dominionist beliefs or your misfortune to be a woman dealing with an uplanned and unwanted pregnancy, be afraid - be very afraid for the viability of your civil and legal rights.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, francophones are dissing this vacuous initiative - and flagging it with this hashtag.

40 Days of Treats

This is a great idea! 40 Days of Harassment has begun. Here's a push-back a 'regular person' in the UK started that needs to go international.

Instead of -- or maybe in addition to -- the usual counter-rallies at abortion clinics, pro-choicers are asked to participate in 40 Days of Treats.

Blogger Squeamish Bikini explains.

The 40 Days for Life people are back in the UK. Funnily enough I am not going to link to them. For those who need filling in these people hold vigil for 40 days outside clinics where abortions are performed in the hope of deterring people going in. Pro-Choicers have had a rather marvellous idea. Instead of holding debates or protesting the pro-life vigil, Pro-Choice people have organised their own 40 days.

Apparently coming out of nowhere, a Tumblr has been set up urging people to take treats in a show of support for those working at BPAS and other such charities. Squeamish Bikini thinks this is just bloody lovely and will cheer those who are just trying to do their job.

If you want to take part you can find out where your nearest clinic is at here and go deliver them a treat to brighten their day.

The 40 Days of Treats begins now. Pass it on.

Squeamish Bikini includes a link to a list of UK clinics.

Here's a list (PDF) of clinics in Canada.

Or, just contribute some kind words of appreciation and support on Twitter @40daysoftreats.

As Squeamish says: Pass it on.

Image source: the hilarious Cake Wrecks. Do NOT click unless you have some serious time to waste. :D

ADDED: 40 Days of Treats is happy to share the name.

ADDED: 40 Days of Treats makes it into the Gruniad.

ADDED: Link to PDF of clinics isn't working and I don't know why. Here it is in plain text; copy and paste. www.arcc-cdac.ca/list-abortion-clinics-canada.pdf

Fetus Lobby® Stamps Its Widdle Feet

Oh dear. During the recent federal election big-mouth Contempt Party back-bencher Brad Trost bragged that because of his hard work, the International Planned Parenthood Federation would ^NOT be funded under Motherhood Steve's Maternal Health Initiative.

Well, it seems IPPF will get funding but only for projects in countries where abortion is illegal.

Not good enough for Brad-Boy. He threatened last week to make a strong statement and now he has (emphasis mine).

Response to Federal Government's Decision to Fund IPPF

Late in the afternoon of Thursday, September 22nd, I received a phone call from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) about a news story on the CBC that had run earlier in the day. The CBC reported that the federal government had approved funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

A PMO staffer explained to me that the story had not been accurate when it ran, but due to the day's events, the CBC story was mostly accurate now. Apparently, six staffers in CIDA Minister Bev Oda's office had been working on a grant to fund IPPF -- and one of them decided to leak the story to the CBC.

Rather than deny the story, a decision was made to rush funding to IPPF to the tune of $6 million over three years. (I was told that the funding letter was sent out at 4 pm that afternoon.)

People have asked how funding IPPF squares with the repeated statement that Canada will not fund abortion internationally. The PMO attempts to square this circle by only permitting IPPF funding to go into countries that ban abortion.

Considering that promoting abortion internationally is central to the identity of IPPF, this sort of political hairsplitting only seems to make sense in the Ottawa bubble. This is a position I totally reject.

Since 2006, Conservative MPs have been asking to have IPPF defunded.

In 2006, our request that federal funding for IPPF be stopped was ignored because we asked politely--and behind closed doors.

In 2009, we became more aggressive and began to take our campaign public.

Many, many Conservative MPs pressed the PMO to stop the funds from flowing. Federal funding did stop for a time. Funds allocated to IPPF were considerably reduced. Furthermore, federal grants for IPPF also had more strings attached.

This only happened because of the pressure applied. This was a real victory.

Bureaucrats have fought for years to keep the status quo and continue the funding of the IPPF that was established by the Liberals.

The battle over the IPPF continues.

Pro-Life politicians have been taught a lesson.

The government only responds to Pro-Life issues and concerns when we take an aggressive stance.

We will apply this lesson.

Hmm. Seems Brad and other members of the Fetus Lobby® don't have quite the clout they thought they did.

Awkward, isn't it?

And doesn't it make you proud to be Canadian? Our Fetus Lobby® cannot defund or recriminalize abortion here, so they try to punish a good organization doing good work for desperately poor women and children in war-torn countries, one of them, Afghanistan, war-torn in our name.

Media coverage: CBC and Macleans, with the title 'Brad Trost Goes Rogue'.

This should be fun. Stevie Peevie does ^NOT enjoy backtalk.

Toronto: First Steps Toward Ugly and Mean

For those DJ! readers lucky enough to be watching Toronto's self-immolation from afar, here's a glimpse of what happened yesterday.

Basically, it was Kick Poor People to the (Nicely Plowed) Curb Day:

After two days of debate, Toronto Council approved $27.4 million in cuts from the city's core services review - sparing only a handful of programs and properties, including the Toronto Parking Authority and community Environment Days.

But gone this year is the city's Christmas bureau - a program that provides Christmas gifts to low-income children - and another program that helps destitute seniors with medical expenses.

There's a teensy bit of good news, though. Ford Nation is showing some cracks.

Six months, 19 meetings, more than 200 hours of debate. Total savings so far: $27.7-million.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford tried to put a brave face on the final outcome of his marathon review of city services, claiming “a huge victory for the taxpayers of the city” as council voted to explore selling the Toronto Zoo, cancel its free garbage tag program and outsource the Christmas Bureau, which co-ordinates holiday gifts to underprivileged children.

Matt Elliott has the scorecard and links to 'cheat sheets' provided to Fordsters.

At today’s special City Council meeting on the Core Service Review, the mayor’s team was on the losing end of seven votes. Though it’s not fair to call it a staggering rebuke, it stands as more evidence that Rob Ford is losing his grip on City Council and will continue to have trouble getting controversial policies approved without compromise.

Finally, that surprisingly large subset of City Hall watchers cum Star Wars fans came up with an amusing (to Star Wars fans, one of whom I'm not) hashtag, #StarWarsCouncil.

More at the Star.

Image source. Blogger says it came from the Hamilton Spectator, but I couldn't find an original link.


ADDED: How Toronto balanced its budgets before. Hint: think revenue.

Dr Wangari Maathai, visionary and Nobel Laureate

Though she was cut down by cancer, the legacy planted by Africa's "Tree Lady" will thrive, generation after generation.

Wangari Maathai, who died on September 25 aged 71, won the Nobel Peace Prize for encouraging women in rural Kenya to plant trees; from that simple idea sprouted a powerful movement that challenged what she saw as the incompetent, corrupt and often brutal rule of many male-dominated regimes in post-colonial Africa.

Wangari Muta Maathai was born on April 1 1940 in the village of Ihithe, near Nyeri, in the central highlands of Kenya. Her parents were subsistence farmers from the Kikuyu tribe. She was the eldest of six children, and in most families would not have attended school. But one day her elder brother, Nderitu, wanted to know why he had to go to school when Wangari did not. She was soon being taught by Catholic missionary nuns at Loreto Limiru Girls’ High School, from which she graduated in 1959.

Her teachers recognised her talent, and recommended her for a scholarship to study in America. In 1964 she obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St Scholastica College at Atchison, Kansas, then, in 1965, a Masters from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work involved new techniques in tissue processing that were largely unknown in Kenya, and on her return to Africa her expertise was in great demand. She became research assistant to the head of the department of Veterinary Medicine at Nairobi University, where she also taught (on lower pay than her male colleagues) and, in 1971, completed her PhD. [...]

Wangari Maathai began to focus on the vicious circle that links poverty, hunger, environmental collapse and women’s status. She saw how in poor families women scavenged for firewood to cook, eventually wandering further and further from home to find it. As more and more trees are felled, soil erosion leads to desertification; fewer cooked meals, meanwhile, results in malnutrition.

She decided to break this chain of impoverishment, developing a simple tree-planting programme. In 1977 the National Council of the Women of Kenya (NCWK) embraced her idea, initiating what was soon called the Green Belt Movement (GBM). On World Environment Day, June 5 1977, GBM began by planting seven trees in a small park in Nairobi.

It then branched out, offering free seedlings to women across the country. For every tree that survived more than three months (about 80 per cent in fertile areas) the women tending them were paid a few pennies. The more trees they planted, the more they made. As they were encouraged to plant more than they would need for firewood, women were soon able to earn extra from selling the surplus. Not only did the scheme reverse deforestation but, for the first time, many women discovered financial autonomy.

From here. And more here (also source for photo).

Meanwhile in Canada and the US, First Nations women and men are leading the charge against an expansion of the toxic Tar Sands development, by opposing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and the one that will be threatening the ecological integrity of the land as it snakes its way through Alberta and BC to the coast.

Tar Sands update: Our esteemed sister blogger Alison at Creekside has been covering a number of aspects over the last year. Here's an excellent overview of key players and interconnected issues.

Le Devoir also had a good item about the connections between Cons and the Contempt Party, with regard to Who's who in promoting the Tar Sands. It's in French; Google translate is your friend.

In Which DJ! Wastes 33 Minutes. . .

So you don't have to.

Recently, there's been a shitload of hype around 180, a supposedly award-winning documentary showing young people changing their minds on abortion 'in seconds'. (Note: Not to be confused with 180, a Tamil/Telugu romantic drama.)

The 33-minute long (and I mean loooong) piece of crap film can now be viewed all over the toobz, including the link above and this one, HeartChanger, where you can also buy the '180 course' for the deeply discounted price of $10.99.

If you don't want to give the fetus fetishists any linky love, it's on YouTube too. (But be warned. The makers are hoping it goes 'viral', having heard that this is A Good Thing.)

If you really want to watch it, don't read any further, or you'll miss the surreality of it.

I didn't know anything about it -- beyond the fetus fetishists' whooping about how revolutionary it is -- before hitting play, so the grainy newsreel footage of Nazis threw me a bit. I mean, we know fetus fetishists love them some Nazi-genocide analogies but, like, where was this going?

No clue in the next bit either, as the documentary maker asks a bunch of young people if they know who Adolf Hitler is. (I assume they're Murrican; they sound and look like Murricans.) They're mostly stunningly ignorant. Those who venture a guess try 'a Communist?'

So, we've established the sample group out of which the 180° turners will appear -- a gang of staggeringly ignorant doofusses.

Docu-guy asks if they are pro-choice or anti-choice. Both sorts are represented.

Then he asks them to do a thought-experiment. Tells the kids they are literally under a Nazi gun and being told to drive the bulldozer that will cover a trench filled with Jews, some of whom may not be dead. Would they do it?

Most are horrified and say 'no'. Some think it over and decide that they would do it to save their own lives.

Then he establishes whether the kids believe that a fetus is a 'baby' or a 'child'. We don't get to hear from those who may have answered 'Nope'. All on film answer 'yes'.

Now the arm-twisting begins. He says to the kids who wouldn't drive the bulldozer to complete this sentence: 'It's OK to kill a baby/child in the womb when. . . .'

They're flummoxed. He prompts with 'You wouldn't bury Jews alive, but it's OK to kill a baby in the womb when. . . '

They dither. They back down. 'Well, when you put it like that. . .' several say.

Yeah, when you make a totally false equivalency for a bunch of dolts who don't know who Adolf Hitler is, well, yeah, when you put it like that. . . .

Then, incredibly, it gets weirder. He says Hitler hated the ten commandments and asks them if they've lied, stolen, blasphemed, looked at others with lust, yadayada. Not surprisingly, most have lied, stolen, etc.

(The best bit -- and I hope some techno-wiz excerpts it for YouTube -- is when he asks a young woman if she has ever lusted after a man. A: 'Nope, I'm gay'.)

Having established that they are all sinners facing hell on Judgement Day -- really, I am not making this shit up -- he gets them to reaffirm their brand-spanking-new anti-choice position. Then tells them: 'Please, never ever give your vote to someone who would support the murder of a child in the womb'. (Fetus fetishists really loooove the word 'womb', don't they?)

The documentary-maker is Ray Comfort, a New-Zealand born Christianist. (The wiki page has not been updated to include this new venture, but you'll see what he's about there.)

Creationist, liar, strawman-aficionado -- just the guy to make a piece of dreck like 180.

In the accompanying bullshit promotional stuff, he says that the making of this was an accident. He intended make a DVD accompaniment to some book he's writing about Hitler and the ten commandments.

But serendipity!!!! strikes when he gets the notion to link Nazis and abortion. (Dude, we hate to break it to you, but this little act of mental gymnastics has been done. To death.)

So, as you cruise the toobz and run into members of the #FetusLobby crowing over this 'shocking, powerful, award-winning' piece of flimflammery, now you know what got their shorts jizzed.

More of the usual lying bullcrap.

This, BTW, is the award it won.

Entries are self-nominated with approximately 11,000 submissions per year as of 2010, and the awards are judged by past award winners. There is no set limit to the number of winners each year, but the total numbers in the thousands. The statue prizes are paid for by the winners using engraved information chosen by the recipient.

Well, scamsters are the easiest to scam.

Image source.

ADDED: From noah buddy in the comments, who seems to have the measure of nutters like Ray Comfort. Operation 360's spoiler and a Russian mirror site if you really must see the whole POS, while depriving the fetus fetishists of hits.