Category Archives: Laws

RANT: You're Stupid And We Know It, School Board

A six-year-old has been suspended for singing the words an LMFAO song: “I’m sexy and I know it.”
The school board thinks he should’ve known better.
You know what the six-year-old knows? That these people look like they’re having a LOT of fun when they’re bouncing around singing this song in the video. They’re cool, weird, neat performers with great hair, exciting lives, and they’re singing a super-catchy song that makes the six-year-old come to life when he sings the song too. And they were on top of the world because of it. That is what he knows.
Know what the adults on the schoolboard know? Better. They damned well know better than to suspend a six-year-old for mentioning the words to a ludicrous song by a campy band. And to call it sexual harrassment?
“Zero tolerance” laws are for a moronic people in a moronic world. We’re smarter than that. We know that not everything’s a crime. We know that kids tell lies, adults make mistakes, and shit happens. But we want to seem tough, strong, and like we’re in the moral right, and so we say HEY, ANY CONTRAVENTION OF THIS LAW, AND YOU’RE SCREWED, PAL.
So what happens? A kid gets suspended because he’s singing lyrics to a song he probably doesn’t even understand.
When I was a kid, I was 8 when I found an Elton John record with my brother at a yard sale. On it was “The Bitch is Back.” I didn’t understand the lyrics, but I loved the way it sounded when he sung the words, and I remember dancing around the room singing all summer long.
In grade 7, I loved the song “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It would be years before I’d understand it was about premature ejaculation, or even what “premature ejaculation” meant.
We can hear songs as kids and love the way they sound, but not have a clue what the premise is.
Even if the kid had any gleaning of this song’s meaning, to call it sexual harassment when he’s just emulating what’s in pop culture is a ridiculously hypocritical move.
I don’t want to live in a world where there are no shades of grey. We’re boring enough already, people.
Let’s get over ourselves and stop the stupidity. Zero tolerance makes zero sense. Look at cases on their merits, not just under the dimwitted light of asshat politicians who pass laws under the guise of looking tough on crime — because it’s we who pay the price, not actual bad guys.

STUPID PEOPLE win money for believing NUTELLA IS HEALTHY

Oh, you think that title’s politically incorrect? Well, then, buckle up.
I’m kinda pissed after reading the makers of Nutella, that incredibly addictive chocolate-hazelnut spread that pimps out a crepe like nobody’s business [shudder/twitch], are settling a lawsuit with consumers because people actually BELIEVED the commercials.
Nutella claimed their meal was part of a nutritional breakfast. You know, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, if it’s on whole-grain toast with a banana sliced on top, and a bowl of strawberries on the side, plus a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ and a shot of insulin.
Unfortunately, people didn’t grasp the “PART of a balanced diet” bit. Nor did they read the sugar content or the fact that North America’s lesser-than concoction of Nutella (Europe gets the REAL thing, we slum it) has PALM OIL.
See, I had this “holy SHIT, is THIS STUFF CRACK?” phase of Nutella addiction, and then, one day, I read the packaging. I saw the fat, the sodium, the sugar, the palm oil, and I thought “Whoa.” There was a really tasty Real Canadian Super generic version that had all CANOLA, not PALM, oil, and it was pretty good, so I switched for a month, but then I just realized I was eating too fucking much of it and I dropped it altogether.
Because I READ THE LABEL.
Some of us do that, you know. It happens. It’s RIGHT THERE. You don’t have to walk two blocks, catch a bus, and SOME of us have educated ourselves, or were taught in public schools, as to what the calorie count we’re after, how many grams of fat are bad, and so forth. I mean, I barely stumble through this stuff and YET I have an inkling of the right information, and even I was scared off by reading Nutella’s nutritional low-down. I mean, holy crap! There’s crack in them-thar jars, Batman! ask someone —  you just have to turn the jar over and READ THE LABEL.
But, no. People who don’t read labels, who don’t empower themselves, who are ignorant of any basic logic (sugar + nut butter + chocolate = not awesome for your ass) and believe commercials with violin instrumentals, they’re all being rewarded with $3 million of Nutella’s dough.

OH, THAT LOOKS HEALTHY. HOW COULD IT NOT BE? IT'S SO SMOOTH, SHINY, AND GLOOPY.


You know what? I call bullshit.
 
Fucking learn your stuff. Don’t trust advertisements. Be judicious. Empower yourself. Don’t be a victim.
This rewarding-people-for-not-caring thing, it’s just not cool. Apathy and ignorance are not excuses. They don’t deserve this.
There’s ZERO incentive to being a proactive, informed individual anymore. Society only rewards the opposite.
I’m fed up with it.
Here’s an idea. Let’s stop this “I don’t need to know because I can just sue them later” epidemic of STUPID in North America and totally change the game. If a manufacturer misleads you, and it’s not something like, say, a life-saving drug or something like a car’s safety where your life is literally on the line, you don’t keep the money from the lawsuit.

They’re really angry that chocolate spread is unhealthy? It’s FAT-FILLED NUTS and CHOCOLATE and SUGAR. Yeah, that’s a fucking surprise — unhealthy. Idiots!
No. They’re angry enough to sue? Great! Do so from a Good Samaritan, Kantist “for the greater good” standpoint, and I will applaud you — so long as the money paid by the offending party is distributed among relevant charities. (ie: Food banks.) NO MONEY FOR STUPIDHEADS.
Let’s STOP THE BLEEDING. Let’s not reward apathy. Let’s make ignorance less profitable. Let’s just try to be in it together, so we’re shutting down corporations for irresponsible behaviour, but we’re not being a part of the Cash Cow System that’s so detrimental to our civilization. Let’s start caring again.
You can’t fucking tell me you put a couple tablespoons of that chocolatey-hazelnutty crack-like concoction on bread and think “THIS TASTES SOOOOOOO HEALTHY.”
Jesus. It doesn’t taste like sawdust. Do. The. Math.
Fuck. I’m gonna start taking a parachute EVERYWHERE I GO, because society is going DOWN, man. Score one for the stupids.
No Nutella for ANYONE. EVER. Pass the whiskey.

Riot Report? Fuck the Report. Charge Someone.

This riot report business, man, I don’t know.
You want to know what it says? Go ask someone who cares.

Important facts are pretty simple: Here in Vancouver, we had us a little hockey riot. Everyone made a big deal about it, ‘cos it IS a big deal. We’re civil Canadians, we don’t do that shit. Want to do that shit? Hand in your Canadian passport at the door. You ain’t Canadian enough.
Well, cue the UK riots. That brought a lot of perspective to Vancouver folk.
All our hockey-riot hullabaloo passed — millions of dollars in damages, people injured, and all those things that come with mass destruction unleashed by drunk assholes — and not one charge has been laid. Not one.
In the Queen’s realm, not only have charges been laid, but people are already doing HARD time for their actions! Our riot was a couple months before theirs, and much easier to dissect, being all of 3.5 hours in Vancouver, versus four DAYS in the UK.
What happened in Canuckistan?
The same thing that always happens in North America, but that BC politicians have perfected.
The relevant happenstances get forgotten. All the players turned the riot chaos into a political free-for-all ‘cos there’s an election in five months. Next thing, everyone’s pointing fingers about whose fault the thing was.

Maybe these guys didn't burn this car, but they're celebrating it, so that makes them assholes too.


“I didn’t do it. You did it! It’s your fault! Hey, people, blame him! And, psst… vote for me!”
No. You know who fucking did it?
Assholes who got loaded and trashed our city. Young, angry, stupid people who deserve to be in jail, on probation, or doing civic service to atone.
It’s not THE MAYOR’S fault. The city wanted public parties and viewing in the streets. We were longing for the communal bliss of the Olympics, and a little recreating didn’t hurt.
More than 150,000 or so folks convened downtown to watch the games. They thought it was a good idea. Those who didn’t go down mumbled thoughts that Vancouver would riot no matter how the game transpired, because some folks just look for the excuse, but I didn’t hear many of them saying “don’t do the public showings,” because they figured riots would happen with or without public events.
Still, there were plenty of politicians and would-be candidates in the mix, wearing their jerseys, cheering like it was the best thing since Oprah handed out hams.
Public parties are an awesome photo op, it would seem. “I’m a good citizen! I like hockey too. Look, I bought a jersey!”
The riot ain’t the chief of police’s fault. Our fine officers stopped the riot without firing a weapon, without using rubber bullets, and when it was all said and done, the citizens were so impressed they literally wallpapered a department squad car with THANK-YOU notes.

When you cover your face, you know you're a thieving fuck and should be ashamed of yourself, so that makes these guys fucktards.


In 3.5 hours the riot was done and dusted, honey, ‘cos our boys & girls in blue ate their Wheaties before the shift.
The fault of the great Hockey Riot was simply people who wanted to kick the shit out of things because… who the fuck knows why, “BECAUSE”? Because they did.
Why doesn’t matter.
The problem we have here is, the citizens don’t CARE about the mayor or the cops, and antagonistic media DOESN’T GET IT. We don’t care about the politics! SHUT THE HELL UP. Stop sensationalizing! Contribute to the solution! PLEASE.
We understood what happened THAT DAY. We didn’t need any fucking inquiry. The increase in cops wasn’t enough, the confiscation of liquor wasn’t consistent enough, the ability to get alcohol downtown on the day of the game was a part of the problem, even with sales ending at noon. The sunny weather brought out even more people. We got it. It was booze, numbers, and shitheads. Pretty simple.
How do we prevent the next riot? Well, we don’t. It’s always a possibility. Our riot response just needs to improve even more. The response improvement from 1994 to 2011 was impressive. Continue that.
In the meantime, we want justice. We want these punk-ass bitches, many of whom were caught IN ACTION, to be punished!
And if they’re NOT punished, FIX THE GODDAMNED LAW so they can be charged NEXT time. Get us some fucking politicians in chambers who execute new legislation that makes it possible to prosecute for incitement and agitation when it’s not related to a political protests. Those get a different measuring stick.
Seriously, write a law that escalates punishment if in conjunction with civic celebrations. If a riot happens within a day of a sporting finals or major sporting event, or public celebration like The Symphony of Fire, have it be a charge of hooliganism.
Or something. My University of Phoenix correspondence law degree ain’t done yet, so let’s not make me think so hard. Write somethin’, lawmakers.
But stop the fucking finger-pointing. If leaders weren’t so damned afraid to bust out a dance in this province’s political scene, we might actually have progress happen and effect some real change. God knows we need it.
That’s fantasy thinking, there. Here, in Lotus Land, everyone’s prepared to play the blame game before the record even starts to spin.
I’m tired of it. Guess what? Most taxpayers are tired of it.
Assholes that are “the future” went out there and tore my city apart, assaulted my police officers, broke our hearts, AND THEY’RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.
They’re on TAPE! We have photos! There are witnesses!
AND THEY’RE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.
I’ve never considered politics in British Columbia to be more pathetic than it is now, and any politician campaigning with “riot speak and blaming” as a major part of their platform will not get one damned bit of support, or a vote, from me.
It’s time to grow up, BC politicians. And grow a pair.
Shut up and solve some problems that need solving. Get these punk-asses charged and answering to society.
If these jerks can’t be prosecuted, then I want laws in place by June 1, 2012, that make it simple to lay charges and have them stick, when it comes to wanton sports-hooligan violence like this.
Because right now the legal system and political system in British Columbia is an embarrassment. An EMBARRASSMENT.
People wrecked our city. We know who to blame. Prosecuting them is just not brimming with enough political cachet.
Well, we, the people, we don’t need politics.
We want justice.
Now give it to us.

FILE UNDER "OBVIOUS": Alcohol+Speed=Death

TV star Ryan Dunn is dead because he was a jackass.
Oh, sure, people are mourning his death, but not me. I’m mourning his incredible stupidity.
You see, he was legally drunk. He had twice the legal limit of booze in his system. Then he went driving at speeds up to 140mph. Tell me: How was he supposed to survive such stupidity? The odds were low the moment his keys hit the ignition.
All this “oh, it’s so sad” shit just pisses me off. Sorry, kids. Not me. He’s dead and we’re lucky it happened before he could kill many others.
Because that’s the reality of drinking and driving.

Your Choices Don’t Just Hurt You

25 years ago, when I was about 12, my mother got a phone call. “Did you see the news?” she was asked.
It was Mother’s Day. Her friend’s twin boys, 18 years old, were over and teasing their mom, having a great time for her special day. But she realized she’d never bought cream for the dessert coffee. She asked the boys to go to the store and pick up some cream.
Then she never saw them again.
That Mother’s Day eve, a drunk ran a light, T-boned her sons’ car at super-high speeds, killing both good-looking, star-athlete 18-year-old identical twin boys on impact before they’d ever cash in on their university scholarships.
She was never the same. She went from being a great community member and artist to someone who left town to live a reclusive artist’s life on the waterfront up coast. The last couple times I saw her, years after her sons’ death, you could read the tragedy in her face. She never left that sadness behind.

Friends Don’t Drive with Drunk Friends

That’s what excessive alcohol does behind the wheel.
I see friends drinking to excess and driving. I don’t ride with them. I worry about them, but I can’t change their choices.
They’re not drinking double the legal limit and driving 140mph in a Porsche, but it’s bad enough when it’s a big city like this and veering off a road at 80 k/hr can kill a crowd.
Ryan Dunn didn’t just kill himself, he killed a friend.
If you ride with drunk friends, you’re taking your life in your hands. Or, rather, you’re giving your life to someone who was probably too drunk to get the keys in the ignition correctly before starting the car.
Talk them out of driving. Tell them you won’t ride with them.
And if they choose to drive despite you saying you won’t ride with them, don’t change your mind. Your being in the car is even more of a distraction to an already-unfocused drunk.
Trusting your friend not to “hurt” you doesn’t mean you can trust them if they’re drinking and driving. Alcohol impairs judgment. It doesn’t only impair judgment if there’s no good friends involved.
After all, Dunn’s friend is just as dead as he is.
They died immediately of “crash and thermal trauma.” Thermal trauma means they burned to death.
Want to go that way?
Don’t drive with drunk friends.

My Anger is Justified, and I Don’t Apologize

No, Ryan Dunn’s death isn’t a tragedy, it’s stupidity. It was entirely preventable. If you can afford a Porsche, you can afford a cab.

Ryan Dunn's car. No, your car isn't indestructible. Think you can survive this? Don't drink and drive.


I get angry when I hear people die for stupid reasons. I get angry at the pain and loss that those left behind will endure.
If my anger and lack of boo-hoo about Dunn’s death, my story about my mom’s friend’s tragic Mother’s Day that made her childless, and my harsh words affect just one person’s future decisions, then that’s awesome.
Meanwhile, if you want to be pissed at me for calling it like it is, so “soon” after his death, then you’re a goof.
The fact is, if we wait until a “respectable” time has passed to call Ryan Dunn an idiot for dying an unnecessary death, then we lose the emotional impact his death can have on those who need a wake-up call.
So.
Ryan Dunn was a good-hearted, great-souled, wonderful man who was a jackass. He died needlessly.
Don’t be a jackass.

The Dark Lord versus Perez Hilton: Bullying

I never thought I’d type these words:

I’m with Lord Voldemort.

But there you have it.
On Twitter, I luckily caught the retweet of this pretty perfect comment of @Lord_Voldemort7’s tirade against the hypocrisy of PEREZ HILTON having the fucking audacity to lead a campaign against bullying, despite it being started by the well-intentioned Dan Savage.
I’ll let the Dark Lord have the floor:

Perez’ website is designed to ridicule & mock others. Whether it be a a smarmy comment, unoriginal nickname (kiki drunkst, Mischa Fartone, Slutty Cyrus etc) or a photoshopped picture with drool added; his posts garner attention through bullying. Currently Perez has made anti-bullying his pet project. He has gathered videos from celebrities & reiterated over & over the importance of putting an end to the very ridicule & comments that have made him “famous”. Additionally, celebrities have responded to his requests & made their own videos (many of them the celebrities that he mocks on a daily basis). Whether these videos are genuinely because the care about the cause or were created to gain favor with Perez is up to individual discretion. One thing is certain, creating these videos is simply the victims aiding the bully that terrorizes them. It’s Pettigrew all over again. (See what I did there? With the reference to the wizarding world? Yeah.)
In spite of my efforts for world domination, there still remains freedom of speech. He is entitled to say whatever he wants. However, to turn around & chastise others for writing “belittling, hateful comments” while calling teen celebrities promiscuous & other celebrities ugly or fat makes him a hypocrite.

I got chills when I read his rant, because this is how I’ve felt about the celebrity gossip world for years. I’ve hated it, I’ve ranted against it, and I love to see the sentiment shared by people who nail it to the wall.
The Dark Lord and I, in short, concur.
I don’t DO celebrity gossip. I don’t respect it, I don’t think it’s funny, and I don’t believe it’s a past-time. I think it’s an example of everything that’s wrong with today’s society.
I think anyone who’s ever been insulted, mocked, bullied, and hurt by others who enjoys spitefully tearing down public figures, yet cries out about the injustices they’ve supposedly suffered is a big fat h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e.
Making a passing comment is one thing, but making a career out of finding things to spite in other people is something I will never understand.
Living in that headspace? Daily? How can you hold such contempt for people? I don’t get it. I need to hope and believe that we’re better than that as a society.
Everybody hurts. Everybody gets betrayed. Everyone’s all alone in their head.
When it comes to celebrity, I don’t believe that getting famous suddenly makes you impervious to pain. I think it makes you a target.
But, hey, in today’s society, everyone’s spiteful of success. We celebrate it, then we throw darts at it.
The only thing more hypocritical than writing those gossip columns is when one lives and dies by reading their favourite trash-slinging daily, especially devouring the juicy bits, then goes about life pretending they’re Little Good Citizen. Seriously?
I don’t really get this whole “It Gets Better” crap coming from Perez Hilton’s site. I don’t. The Dark Lord points out an absolutely fantastic ethical paradox.
Somehow, it’s okay to be the completely cunty gay man who slams the shit out of everyone’s self-esteem, using “gay” epithets as insults, but if someone’s cruel to a gay teen, that’s the world’s most horrible crime?
I HAVE AN IDEA. LET’S NOT BE CRUEL TO ANYONE.
Bullying sucks. Belittling sucks. Mockery sucks. Laughing and pointing? Really sucks.
I always reserve the right to comment on clothing that’s way over the top. And, you know, toupees and comb-overs. A lot of other stuff, though, really crosses a lot of lines.
It’s really pretty simple, you know.
Would it hurt YOU if someone said that about you?
Then shut your fucking mouth.
My interpretation of the “Golden Rule”. Enjoy. Apply liberally.
I’ve been mocked, bullied, harassed, insulted, and betrayed. Not just 20 years ago, but even weeks ago. I live on Planet Earth in the Internet Age. Of course it’s happened recently.
I will not knowingly do it to others. I will not support websites who do it. I will never behave that way on my blog.
If you don’t see the hypocrisy in reading gossip sites and you’ve ever been hurt by a thing people have said about you, perhaps you need to rethink your behaviour.
You need to rethink your integrity and your ethics.
Really.
Hypocrisy isn’t less offensive just because you’re pleasant to talk to at cocktail parties.
But, hey, it gets better. Chin up.

My thoughts about “It Gets Better”?
I love Dan Savage and I know his heart is in the right place, and I know Dan speaks out often about all kinds of injustices — he’s awesome.
However: the Bullying Problem is bigger than dressing it in platitudes. Instead of saying “It gets better, chin up!” I’d rather see all these stars use their power and high-profile to get some motherfucking laws up in here.
Bullying needs to stop, and it needs to stop in administrative levels at schools and workplaces.
Platitudes won’t do a thing long-term, but I really hope the campaign does change some thinking on the ground right NOW. Still.
Less ain’t more here — time to petition congress, parliament, whoever the hell makes laws in YOUR world.
Gay teens have longattempted suicide, but now it’s apparently en vogue to make videos about it.
Laws, people.
LAWS will save lives. And education. Videos will just make people warm and fuzzy for three minutes. Get real. Make shit happen. Change this. Go to lawmakers. Be adamant.
For those so motivated, check the bottom of this page for a list for how to accomplish getting laws passed against bullying.

Pride Day in Vancouver

The Canadian government has been keeping its nose out of people’s bedrooms since 1969. Since then, any consenting adults could have any sex they like, provided the participants were of legal age, not dead, and not an animal. Basically.
From the Canadian Encyclopedia:

From Confederation to 1969, under Canada’s criminal law, homosexuality was punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In 1969 the law was amended by exempting from prosecution 2 consenting adults of at least 21 years of age who engaged in these “indecent acts” in private. Since then, the speed of social change in attitudes toward homosexuality has accelerated because of general tolerance (eg, for common-law couples and single parents) and organized gay liberation campaigns.
Many Canadians no longer consider homosexual acts “indecent.” At the time of the 1985 edition of this encyclopedia, one province and several cities had enacted laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. By 1996 the majority of Canadian provinces had legislated against discrimination, as is also the case in the internal rules of numerous public and private institutions ranging from churches to universities to Canada Post to major banks. The Canadian military have gone much further than the American military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. When the age of consent for vaginal and oral sex was lowered to 14 in the criminal code, consent for anal sex remained at 18, until a high court decided in 1995 that this distinction unlawfully discriminated against homosexuals.

Gay rights have taken a long time to evolve, despite that forward-thinking law. Vancouver, however, has been considered a very “pro-gay” city for a long, long time.
Some could argue there are aspects of the “noses out” policy that are lip-service more than reality, and cite examples like Little Sisters’ Bookstore’s epic legal battles to get materials across the border without being tapped with some vague obscenity legalities.
They’d be right, too.
But today we celebrate how far we’ve come, and we’ve come a long way, baby.
My best friend’s been out for 10 years now. Mostly out, anyhow. Mostly’s pretty good, when it involves his career and community services. The only people who don’t know would seem to be choosing ignorance, at this point.
And that still happens.
Tomorrow, we worry about that.
Tomorrow, we remember that there are places gays don’t marry, don’t get accepted, can’t live out loud, and have to fear repercussions for being themselves.
Tomorrow, we acknowledge the idiocy that is religious sanctimony that believes “gay” can be doctrined out of ungodly homosexuals.
Tomorrow, we remind ourselves that even in forward-living towns like Vancouver, gay-bashings happen, discrimination continues, and education needs improving.
Today’s about it being today. It’s about the fact a gay female judge can flirt with the girl contestants on a mainstream show like American Idol and it not won’t be a controversy. It’s about gay marriages gaining steam in America. It’s about men holding hands in the streets without being worried about the average person attacking or slandering them.
Today, it’s about the change we’ve seen, so that, tomorrow, when we’re daunted by how far is left to go, we can know it’s less a journey than it once was, and that’s something to take pride in.
Today, it’s also about being proud to be a Canadian, and living in a country that said, 41 years ago, that governments had no right to tell anyone who they could love.
That’s what today’s about.
Pride, baby.
Happy 10th, M, and anyone else who’s come out at work, with friends, or with family. Way to represent.

The Dishonour of Honour Killings

Recently, here in the Great White North, a murder trial ended and the accused were sentenced to life.
A father and his son killed his daughter, all because she was too progressive to be a good little Islamic girl.
Muhammad Parvez and Waqas, his son, murdered Aqsa Parvez on December 10, 2007, in the guise of avenging their family pride in the face of her scandalous embracing of Western culture and lifestyle, even though they lived here.
These cultural-killing cases weigh heavily upon me.
I loathe what they do to the image of Islam, and what they do to my thinking, despite my best efforts.

Honour killing: image from The Baltimore Reporter.


I used to teach ESL a long time ago. Here, there. In people’s homes. It always gave me an interesting perspective on cultures I’d only ever seen from the flipside of a take-out menu or on the big screen.
For the most part here in Vancouver, that meant working with Taiwanese, Koreans, and the Mainland Chinese.
Once, though, I worked with two young Islamic women from Saudi Arabia. They were both married, under age 25, and would wear full burqas when out in the world, but, at home, wore tight jeans and cute trendy t-shirts that clung tightly to their breasts.
Their husbands were charming kind men who spoke to me often about our culture and tried to compare that with their traditional culture at home, so I could know more about them.
Their hospitality and the respect they showed me was warm and sincere. I always felt welcomed and appreciated, and never judged for being “Western” and very liberal. They even knew I wrote about sex, and the men found my blog entertaining.
I truly thought they were all wonderful people, and the kindness and graciousness shown me by them has lingered long in my memory as an example as what the true basic beliefs in Islam are — very similar to any a “good Christian” might follow.
But the burqas never sat well with me — the hypocrisy of bouncy, beautiful breasts being savoured in private but the pretense that this feminine beauty doesn’t exist in the world, or the suggestion that they’re doing what is right and good by Allah when hiding the feminine form from the world at large, despite the fact that Allah created all they hold in esteem.
But that’s a whole other issue that’s too large in scope to tackle, and which I’m not nearly informed enough to weigh in on without research.
It is, however, indicative of just how large a chasm exists between fundamentalist Islam and the standard Western world-view.
So, when a  family like the Parvez move here from Pakistan, there’s a galaxy of culture-clash to contend with.
Me, I’m so white I’m of the fish-belly variety of humans. With Irish/Scottish and French dotting my ancestry, I don’t even have a culture, let alone any experience with culture-clash — except for that which lands on our shores.
But that’s who we are. We’re Canadians.
We’ve got an open-door policy, and because we’re the most multicultural country on the planet, we’re constantly shaping who we are as a result of the immigrants who land here and build lives, for better and for worse.
You know what? I love that.
I love that, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau died, I had to take a cab that day and my driver was a man from South Africa. He was constantly wiping his eyes and sniffling as we moved slowly through rush-hour traffic.
In his thick, thick accent, he told me how hard he’d struggled to move to Canada two decades ago, that it had become his dream after this Canadian Prime Minister had been the only leader in the world to cry out against Apartheit in South Africa in the 1970s, that he saw Canada as being a place that held true to the belief that all men were equal — even beyond our borders.
This man made me cry that day — this immigrant, he and his love for my country, what we stood for, and what he wanted it to keep standing for now that he had given up his S.A. citizenship to become a Canadian. We cried together over a leader who divided the country but ultimately contributed more to what “being Canadian” meant than any leader in our history.*
It’s conversations with men like him who make me believe deep down inside that the majority of those who emigrate to Canada are those who ultimately admire our lifestyle and our tolerance of others.
So, yes, when I hear of honour killings, I’m left wondering how much it hurts the progressives who’ve immigrated long before these fundamentalist assholes, and how hard it makes life domestically for them.
Muhammad and Waqas Parvez are not your typical Pakistani-Canadians.
They are not your common Muslims.
And while honour killings aren’t common in Canada, they do happen.
From Wikipedia:

Human Rights Watch defines “honor killings” as follows:
Honor crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce — even from an abusive husband — or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that “dishonors” her family is sufficient to trigger an attack on her life.

Let’s face it. Much of what women have gained in the West, in terms of freedom to be who they want to be, has come in the last 60 years. We’re a young culture, too.
Islam, however, and its main regions of practice (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq) forms the seat of all of civilization.
For thousands of years these principles have been in place. They’ll come undone, but it’ll be slowly.
The world needs to stand against honour killings, and while these sentences are a start here in Canada, they’ll do little to effect change in the high mountains of the Khyber Pass and throughout Mohammad’s land in Saudi Arabia.
Here, in Canada, some will experience anger and disdain toward Islam, as if these men represent all of what the Qu’ran teaches.
Like most religions, Islam teaches some pretty fucked-up things. Ask any cartoonist.
Any religion has proverbs that, taken word-for-word, could unleash hell with the devout. Islam is certainly not far from the path of nuttiness with ideas like Jihad and honour killings and the rants against cartoons and Salman Rushdie.
It doesn’t mean Islam’s unholy and hell-bent on destruction or death. That’s bullshit.
What men like the Parvezes do, though, is, they give validity to those who would tar Islam and rail against its practitioners with the belief that all who practice it are extremists who are literal about Allah’s messages in the Qu’ran.
And they make women like me scared of dating Islamic men.
I hate that.
The thing is, I’m not particularly afraid of dating a Muslim man — as long as he’s not a fundamentalist.
But I wouldn’t date ANY religious fundamentalist. I’d probably try to avoid most men who practiced religion of any kind, really, but I would think a Muslim would better understand why I’m not following his faith than a Christian would, since I was raised in Christianity and now reject the practice of it. Try to make sense of THAT, eh?
So, yeah, I’m not afraid of dating a Muslim man at all.
I’m afraid of dating his extended family.
Let’s face it. Families are nuts. You should meet mine.
There’s some serious fuckin’ wackadoos in the extended-family works here, and I would hate for anyone to judge me on the basis of being related to them. But they’re there.
And that’s the thing. A Muslim guy might be incredible, and god knows I find men of Persian descent incredibly hot, but I’m scared what Uncle Mojinder might be like or what distant Cousin Navez might get up to if I get a little rowdy one night, since I’m not exactly Miss I Don’t Drink.
It’s hard enough keeping philosophically on-page with a lover, but when there’s a cultural heritage that has the potential of honour killings in their extended family, it’s a little unnerving a concept for some of us who are given to misbehaviour.
I’m not sure how to end this piece, I don’t think there’s a comfortable “pat” conclusion I can offer.
It’s a terrible thing, honour killings — for what it does to women, for the rise of the fear and suspicions we nurse against an entire faith, all because of what some select group of them do.
It’s horrible that I feel justified in my fears, that I’m apprehensive of men based on their faith, not because I don’t trust them but because I fear their families.
And even that is hard on me, because I love what I know of the traditional Indian, Pakistani, and Middle Eastern family lives.
Yet.
Yet this one thing exists, a small niggling fear — this negligible concept of  “honour” and what it is for and to others, and the price one can pay for damaging it.
In the end, there’s a reason I’m not religious anymore. I stopped believing in Catholicism in my teens, and by rights all other religions, because of the fear and judgment they sought to have me live life under.
Life has many chains that will bind me, but religion will not be amongst them.
I want to know, I guess, how honour killings affect you.
What do you think of them? How have they changed your thoughts on Muslims?
If you’re a woman, does it make you apprehensive of dating men who are Muslims but super-hip and very liberal, just because you fear their family?
Have you ever had a friend who has been under the thumb of this religion and wanted out?
Talk to me. I want to hear about this.
*On his death, the stories I heard from second-generation Canadians who immigrated to Canada with their parents when Trudeau was leader, just blew my mind. The reverence they held for P.E.T., and the esteem they held Canada in, made my heart explode with patriotic pride. Yeah. That’s who we are, Canada. We’re the port in the storm.

Diving into Safety Head-First

We have helmet laws here in British Columbia. Even if we didn’t, I’d be wearing mine.
One saved my life. And still I’m different than I used to be.
When I saw this article come up on Twitter, I got pretty choked about it. I started thinking of the friends I’ve seen riding without a helmet — whether for a block or in the thick of city traffic with bad weather — and I found myself clenching my teeth in frustration.
Head injuries are horrible.
They change you forever.
They affect you emotionally, spiritually, physically.
And I’ve had far too much personal experience with head injuries to let the topic of helmets disappear easily into the cybernight without some commentary.
My personal experience, with just people my age?
Well, personally, I almost died. Had I not been wearing a helmet, I would have died when I somersaulted off my scooter and hit the pavement at Columbia and 2nd back on August 29th, 2004.
I spent the next year trying to get back to who I was while I laboured without a diagnosis on my head (because judgment is the first thing to go; you can’t be objective about yourself and you don’t think about the reasoning behind why you’re such a “fuck up” now; it becomes a self-esteem and time/skill-management thing when it should really be a head-injury thing).
I changed as an employee — it cost me my job security and made me first on chopping block when needed lay-offs came rolling around. (We didn’t know then that it was my brain-bouncing that was the cause of my production getting slower and less sharp.)
That started two years of job insecurity as I hopped around the employment world, learning that I couldn’t handle stress like I used to anymore, and realizing I couldn’t learn new skills or organize as well as I once could.
Experience 2 with head injuries is my brother. Hit by a Chevy Suburban, he spent 5 days in a coma in late 2005 and has never been the same person since. He takes longer to understand things, has a hard time processing his emotions, is more inclined to depression, and it’s all a result of the severe head injury he took — since he had another one within 6 months of the first.
Experience 3 with head injuries was a beloved old friend, in 2008, just 34 years old, who was out adventuring with friends just 9 days after the birth of his little baby girl. His ATV tipped, crushing his head on rocks, and leaving him washing down the fast river, where he drowned and died — orphaning that beautiful baby girl in her first two weeks of life.
Yes, head injuries are bad.
So, when I see brilliant, fantastic friends hopping on their bikes in their almost-hipsterness, cruising around town without their helmets, it fucking kills me.
Know what a head injury feels like?
Take equal parts of STUPID, ANGRY, and CONFUSED, throw them into a martini shaker and mix liberally with IMPULSE CONTROL ISSUES and BAD JUDGMENT and you’ll have the start of what you’re after.
Now, take that horrible mood cocktail and spread it over your days — 24/7, 365.
I spent a year at a loss about what I felt, what I needed, where I wanted to go, how to get there. I’m lucky, I’m a writer, and somehow through the act of writing EVERY SINGLE DAY for a year, I managed to get my brain to finally start firing again.
I don’t even remember ANY of the first 6 months except a Pocky Incident and being unhappy about a hamburger while watching World Cup Hockey.
I’ve never been as good at learning things as I used to be, I need more guidance and have more questions, but I’m smarter than the average person so I get it together sooner or later on new tasks, but only after a lot of frustration.
I’m still smart as hell, no doubt, but I forget large chunks of my life.
Large chunks.
And my mother’s dead.
And some of the chunks are of her. When death rolls around with your loved ones, memories are all you’ve got left, and your head is all you got to protect that with.
It kills me, you know. Just kills me.
When you’re a writer, your memory is your most valuable tool. I’ve lost a lot of mine. My years are a hazy blur when they used to have crystal clarity to them.
I have to live the rest of my life with the very real knowledge that head injuries are like a good savings plan — they compound infinitely.
Every time I hit my head, I run the risk of making myself less of who I was.
Every time my noggin bumps a doorframe or something, a shock of fear runs through me.
You parents failing to put helmets on your kids, I’d be all right with calling that child abuse, given what I know has changed in my life from my head injury.
Protect your children. It’s your job. It’s the law.
I can’t tell you how much I wish I could have that day I almost died back. How much I could undo the stupidity that led me to thinking I should be on my scooter that morning.
I just can’t tell you.
Most people who know  me would never think I’d had a head injury. I’ve got razor-sharp wit, keen conversational abilities, and I’m sly as the day is long.
But they’d be wrong. I’m different. Just in little ways I can work around.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t anger me still that I’m different now.
I used to test at Mensa levels on IQ tests, you know. Between 145 and 170, depending on the day, over the years. “Smart” is a commodity one can’t afford to trade on, not via head injuries or anything else.
Really, it’s not that the head injury takes you out of the game — because it doesn’t. That’s kinda part of the problem — you become the “walking wounded” afterwards.
You go through life okay enough — you look fine, everyone thinks you can do your job, they think you’re as normal as can be. But because you’re rendered some lesser part of yourself as a result of the changes, you’re not even aware of how much you’ve changed — you’re in a fog, a daze, so you can’t say “Hey, something’s off here.”
And because you’re not defending or explaining yourself, those around you think you’re just in some depressive funk and that you need to “shake it off.”
But you can’t.
You hit your brain and you have a boo-boo that can’t be bandaged, doesn’t get air, never sees the sun, and can’t be displayed to others. You’ve seen how long a bruise on your leg takes to heal? What about if it’s under a skull, and all the bruised areas affect how synapses and thoughts and neuro-body-controls occur?
It was two years after my head injury that I finally realized how much I had changed, and only because I was seeing the same stuff happening to my brother with his head damage. A strangely consistent downward spiral in his life mirrored the one that had been happening to me.
Finally, I went to see a shrink I’d been to in the past, who’d had muchos experience in head injuries, and I learned what was going on inside was all part of the healing journey a head injury victim usually takes.
I had a helmet on and I’ve luckily lived to tell my story, even though I’m changed and will probably always have to live with the legacy of that day in small ways.
In fact, everyone I’ve written about here today was wearing a helmet, and yet, look at our stories.
Put your fucking helmet on.
Get over your haircut. Get over yourself.
If not for your own life and the hell it will likely be if you survive a head injury and have to live with it for the remainder of your life, then at least wear it so my fucking tax dollars can go somewhere more intelligent than dealing with your dumb-ass negligence.
Please.

__________________________________

Think you might’ve had a head injury and wonder what the indicators are? Check here. The New York Times has a good cheat-sheet HERE on what to do or look for after a head injury has first been suffered — please read it NOW, not when you need it. Remember how quickly Natasha Richardson died from a ski fall? Yeah. Know your shit.

Opting Into Ignorance

Freedom of education? Not on my tax dollar, bub.
The province of Alberta, here in Canada, has opted to make matters of sex, sexual orientation,* and religion OPTIONAL for their students. Parents can yank their kids out of school when they disagree with the premise at hand. [Story here.]
Religion? Okay. Fine. I’ll give you that. Make that optional. I not only understand having strong beliefs on faith, I respect it. I do not, however, understand refusing to listen to other views, not having faith in your children to be intelligent enough to hear more than one viewpoint, or shutting down education when it seems fit,  because I feel that teaches children that the teachers and education itself are not credible.
But on matters of sex? Sex education?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Continue reading

RANT: BDSM Films are "Torture-Based" Porn?

One of the most offensive things to me is when journalists — people who are paid to get messages right — get things wrong.
Like here, in the San Francisco News, where they describe fetish films with bondage and sado-masochism as being “torture-based” films.

Talk about an economic stimulus. California taxpayers have paid $46,791 so that employees of the San Francisco pornographer Kink.com might produce more perfect web-based depictions of motorized dildo impalements on www.fuckingmachines.com; do a better job displaying women as they’re bound, gagged, and repeatedly electrically shocked on www.wiredpussy.com; and more effectively transmit images of, well, people doing pretty much what you’d imagine they’d be doing on www.whippedass.com.

That’s right: California’s government has been subsidizing torture-based pornography.

I’m going to ignore all the content in the article about government funding and who’s right and what’s wrong, because the only thing that matters is clarity right now, and on that count, SF News, from a city who KNOWS about kink, calling a little sexual brutality TORTURE is way off the fucking mark.
Torture is what happens to you against your wishes.
AGAIN, let’s remind the whole world how the kink and BDSM community work: It’s consensual. People not only agree to be beaten, bound, gagged, and whatever else makes your little conservative cockles shrink in fear — they BEG for it, DESIRE it, and SCHEME to get it.
THAT is not torture.
Let’s remember that language exists to allow us to communicate. It’s there for us to put to words what springs from our minds. WORDS matter. Precision counts. Especially in a motherfucking newspaper.
When we denigrate someone’s sexual preferences as being a fondness for “torture”, you belittle actual incidences of torture in places like Abu Ghraib, China, and wherever else inhumanities occur.
Mary getting paddled while in leather restraints on film as she squeals and moans is hardly akin to high-value prisoners being water-boarded and deprived of basic human rights while off-the-record and on the hush-hush.
So let’s open our fucking dictionaries, editors & writers of the world, because what’s a blase and catchy little term for YOU is something that’s subjecting whole demographics to judgment and ridicule. Learn a little professionalism. It’s the least you can do.