Really?

So, ancient museum statues by Italian masters must be sealed off and hidden because they are nude and will offend the visiting Iranian prime minister. 

How absolutely outrageous!

What has Italy come to?!  How can a country of such rich artistic heritage cover itself up for a visiting misogynistic primitive?  But it is hardly surprising.  The university world has been completely intimidated by Muslim cultural terrorism.  Witness the aggressive defence by Palestinian students at York University in Toronto of a mural which is offensive to Jewish students.  And, by the way, it is definitely offensive because it depicts a Palestinian youth holding rocks behind his back in anticipation of the launching of an attack against Israel.  This is not acceptable, but predictable.  Canadian university students' associations have been taken over by Arabs who have successfully managed to whip up protests against anything and everything that might give equal voice to the Israeli position. 

We had the same mess a few years ago when Allan Rock, the weak president of the University of Ottawa, caved to the protests of Arab students who demanded Ann Coulter be banned from a planned speaking engagement.  They won and Coulter had  to cower in the wings while Arab students yelled and demanded her removal. 

She had been invited by Jewish students.

Last time I checked, universities were supposed to be bastions of learning, free speech, exchangers of ideas and upholders of open-mindedness.  What has happened?!  When I taught at Ontario's Algonquin College, I was dismayed and offended by signs in women's washrooms which invited ONLY Muslim women to use separate, segregated washrooms. These women could certainly use all washrooms, but the rest of us could not use the designated Muslim washrooms.  Muslim women also managed to bully the City of Ottawa into designating women-only swims and the banning of the taking of family photographs.   

This is Canada.  We don't do this.

On another front, it's appalling that both Algonquin and Niagara Colleges have opened campuses in Saudi Arabia for...wait for it...men only.  How can this be tolerated!?  This outrage validates Sharia Law by Ontarian colleges and invalidates Canadian democracy on every level. 

How could this have happened?!  It cannot stand. 

   

Will food lines change their minds?

Having said and written it numerous times, I was not surprised when I read of yet another native group fighting a pipeline in British Columbia.  Unfortunately, this alliance of First Nations is celebrating its win in the provincial supreme court against Northern Gateway over what it claims was inadequate consultation with the Gitga'at and Coastal tribes. (I refuse to call them "nations" because they aren't.)  The problem was that BC ceded its review power to the National Energy Board, which the court ruled did not result in adequate consultation with the natives.  Poppycock.  The natives are consulted to the back teeth on every move anyone plans to make.     

"We're now at the point where if Northern Gateway wanted (sic) to move ahead, it would almost have to start over," crowed Gitga'at member Art Sterritt.  Do these people not realize Canada is in a financial crisis and the inability to get oil to tide waters is the main reason?  My G-d, Alberta has dumped 65,000 jobs in the last year!  Seriously. 

No, I guess they don't.  Why?  Because they are financially-supported regardless by the rest of Canada and because natives do not identify as "Canadian".

And to add insult to injury, our hapless PM has said he wants to formalize a tanker ban on BC's north coast, a move that on its own would kill Northern Gateway.  How does young Trudeau expect to move oil?  By row boat?  And we all know how safe rail is(n't).

In this instance, Northern Gateway has had its permit in hand since 2014 -- with 209 native-negotiated conditions attached.  The only reason it hasn't moved ahead yet is because it wanted to garner support from native tribes along the route. But instead of consulting, these groups sued over lack of consultation!  You could not make this up. 

This country is in dire straights, but even food lines won't motivate natives to get real.  So dumb. 

Can't put a sentence together

The dozens of UBC professors who penned a letter of apology for not doing more to protect students from sexual assaults can't write. 

This blog is not about the subject matter because frankly, I no longer have a clue about what is considered sex, sexual assault, consent, non-consent, drunken sex -- or even light-hearted flirting.  This is about the pathetic, public letter written by supposedly highly-educated people and published far and wide.  Here is an example:

"We apologize to the people affected for not doing and not demanding better.  We, as a group of UBC faculty members, wish now to publically acknowledge this harm that resulted from a failure of UBC to take as seriously as it should its duties of care to members of its community.  As faculty members, we share in a responsibility to ensure that UBC fulfill its obligations to protect its community."

If you know anything about grammar or sentence structure, you will have counted about nine outright errors and poor wording.  The late Maclean-Hunter editor, Mrs. Jean Portugal, the finest under whom I have ever had the pleasure of toiling and learning, would have instructed me to write it as follows:

We apologize to the people affected for our neither doing, nor demanding, better.  We wish to publically acknowledge (you don't need "faculty members" because they have signed it, and you don't need "now" because it's a dated letter) the harm this failure has caused our community.  (There are so many superfluous words in the original it's difficult to identify each.)  We share in the responsibility of ensuring UBC (you don't need "that") fulfill its obligations to the community.  (Again, you don't need to repeat "faculty members" and one writes "of ensuring", not "to ensure".)

It's appalling that people earning huge salaries -- and some presumably tenured -- can't write correctly. 

Please. 

   

'Twas Ever Thus

The stories in the news of late about the many homeless Canadian veterans don't surprise me at all.  For millennia, foot soldiers have been recruited from the ranks of those who have no other skills.  This is why they join the military; they have no other money-earning options.  Those who read history know this and know that, sadly, these soldiers are cruelly referred to as "cannon fodder".  Sorry folks, but it's true. 

Consequently, when discharged, the majority still have no specific skills and thus no options about how to function productively in society.  The fact is that Canada treats its vets very well.  They are well-cared-for by the military, when hospitalization or rehabilitation are required before discharge.  But once on their own, many revert to what they would have been had they not joined up:  unemployable and maybe homeless. 

I know this sounds harsh, but if one thinks about it, it is an inescapable fact.  This is a universal truth that hits hard when watching footage of WW1 or WW2.  Scores of the nameless and faceless drop in their tracks at tender ages.  They are the dispensable, the unknowns, the cast-offs -- forgotten occupants of the graves of the unknown soldier.     

Nevertheless, the question I ask is, why do men and women who joined the forces voluntarily, were paid, rehabilitated and honourably discharged expect to be funded and supported forever?  We honour them regularly and symbolically, but we shouldn't feel guilty about their chosen predicaments.

Remember this when you read about the next inquiry which will undoubtedly unfold.   













 

For me?!

"Do you want me to teach you how to breathe in the water?" I had said to a woman flailing around and having great difficulty (at least she was in the slow lane).  "I'll go over to the baby pool with you so you can touch the bottom and I can show you.  You just tip your head to the side and breathe in through the mouth, then back into the water and out through the nose."

Well, she tried and tried, but after half-an-hour, still couldn't get it.  I also failed at helping her manage her arms.  It's very difficult trying to teach an adult to swim because they have a lot of fear and can't relax.  She was also Chinese, where very few ordinary children learn to swim. 

So, I let it go, but continued to see her most mornings struggling along.  We became somewhat friendly, but only in the water; we didn't socialize outside the Y, as I do with a number of other woman.  So you can imagine my total surprise when she came to the edge of the pool deck this morning, as I was getting out, with a Christmas present!  I was especially surprised because I often shoo her out of the medium lane when she gets in there.  "You're too slow for this lane, you have to use the slow lane," I will say, as much as a favour for other swimmers and the lazy lifeguards who won't tell people to change lanes.

This is the lovely purse/wallet she presented me with.  "I hope it brings you luck in the year of the monkey," she said.  I was flabbergasted!

 

   

He was an a--hole

Watched a CNN special on Steve Jobs last evening.  The guy was an a--hole.  With $500 billion in his jeans -- yes billion -- he went to court to deny being the father of a daughter he knew he had fathered with a girlfriend.  A genetic test proved otherwise and he reluctantly -- reluctantly!! -- agreed to pay.....wait for it.....$500 a month to support the child!  To add insult to injury, he claimed the mother was a slut (my word, based on his description of her in court documents) who slept around so much who knew who the father was? 

It was Steve.

Rather than pay taxes, he formed dummy companies in Ireland where he parked his $500 billion and only paid one percent in tax.  That's obscene.  He also screwed many others -- including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak -- out of large legitimate royalties. 

Well, karma is karma and we all know what happened to Jobs.