Join the Growing Group

   You must have guessed by now - I'm a big believer in causes, so I'd like to tell you how to get involved in one that's at the top of my list. Supporting "Give Shelter From the Storm: Stop Violence Against Women" won't take any more effort than buying a T-shirt, and since the warm weather is around the corner, it's a time you might be looking to pick up a T anyway. How much easier could it get? Anytime from April 18th to May 15th, drop in to any Home Sense or Winners and you can purchase a "summer chic" shirt for just $14.99. Net proceeds will go to "Shelter From the Storm" and you'll look good, strutting your stuff in your conversation-piece attire.
   Last year the campaign raised $310,000.00 to help support 274 shelters for abused women, and 42 violence prevention programs across Canada. This year will see the Canadian Women's Foundation partnering with Winners, Homesense, Rogers Media, BMO Financial Group, Royal LePage Shelter Foundation, and W Network to work toward their goal of $400,000.00. If you're not sure of the worthiness of the cause, take a minute to drop by their website, stopviolence.ca and read a few stats, and survivors' stories.
   If violence is allowed to touch any of us arbitrarily, it could touch all of us. We can always sit back, do nothing, and just keep our fingers crossed that the whole problem will go away, or we could get involved. "Only action defeats violence. Join the growing group of Canadians committed to ... building safe, strong communities for all of us."

   What a perfectly wonderful ending to the day - Montreal's #73 just fired the puck past the Carolina Hurricane's goalie to take the game, 6-5, early in the 2nd overtime period. The Habs now lead the series 2-0. All is right with the hockey world tonight.

Futility Music

   If you've been here before, you might have some idea of my feelings about Britney and her "music". For me, everything about that broad is like mammoth, filthy fingernails scratching their way across the cosmic blackboard. That's why, when I saw this little gem from Wired Mag's "jargon watch", it made total sense to me.
"Futility Music" they call it, and define it as: " noun. U.S. military jargon for sanctioned aural torture, such as round-the-clock repetition of songs by Eminem, Metallica, and BRITNEY SPEARS (emphasis my own). It's designed to convince prisoners that resistance is futile."

Say What?

   The Alabama Legislature has given final approval to a bill that would facilitate the granting of a pardon to Rosa Parks. The bill passed through the House on a vote of 90-0, although Governor Bob Riley has yet to sign it. Parks was convicted under the Jim Crow laws that aimed to enshrine segregation. These same laws saw convictions passed against many other civil rights activists, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and he, too, would be given a pardon under the "Rosa Parks Act".
   There are two ways to look at this, I suppose. One is the "it's-never-too-late-to-apologize" viewpoint. The other is to wonder why these people aren't already staggering under such a load of shame over their Jim Crow past, that they don't just shut the fuck up, put their heads down and wait quietly for the stink to gradually clear away.
   I am reminded of the Catholic church and their "apology" to Galileo Galilei. The man was already an established mathematician and great thinker when his troubles with the clergy began. In 1597, for instance, he had invented a military compass that brought him fame, as well as his already having been a lecturer at the Florentine Academy, the University of Pisa, and the University of Padua.
   In 1604, a new star appeared in the "complete and perfectly ordered universe" in which the church declared the Earth stood at the centre. The sudden appearance of this star led to Galileo's downfall, because he began publicly to espouse Copernicus' theory of a rotating earth and a stationary Sun. In 1614, a Dominican priest filed charges against Galileo at the Office of the Inquisition, and before it was all over, Galileo, while having escaped the death sentence meted out to most of those who found themselves in conflict with the aforementioned venerable Office, nonetheless found himself under a life sentence of imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. He served this sentence under house arrest, until his death in 1642.
   In 1757, when the theories espoused by Galileo were proven beyond all doubt, the still-active Office of the Inquisition removed its ban on all books dealing with the theory except for those written by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. You would think that any time then would have been just the right time for the church to put its tail between its legs and slink away in shame, just as the legislators of Alabama should do now.
   Instead, in 1992 pope John Paul issued a statement expressing regret for the way the church had treated Galileo. The only problem - great, BIG problem - with the Pope's ramblings about Galileo is that they are viewed as working to "pardon and rehabilitate" Galileo. Say what? Likewise, the only problem with the Rosa Parks' Act is that it seeks to grant a pardon as though there is actually a need for one.
   The signatures of both J.P. and B. Riley should be affixed to documents that state: "We purposely used violence in our quest to silence all those with the courage to speak out against our refusal to relinquish a claim to superiority. To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our wilful stupidity, we do humbly apologize."
   Period. End of story.

Bury This Ludicrous Institution

   Queen Elizabeth II of England is celebrating her 8oth birthday today. Happy 80, Liz!
   At the same time as Liz wades her way through the 20,000 congratulatory cards and 17,000 e-mails sent her by well-wishers, comes an article written in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland who says, " Let's thank her for all she has done, but let's decide now that, when she goes, we bury this ludicrous institution with her."
    Hear! Hear! Spot on, Mr. Freedland!

Work Like Crazy to Make It Happen!

   In an earlier post, I mentioned the teen curfew being enacted at an increasing number of malls. I support the idea. At the same time, I also mentioned the need to avoid painting all members of the demographic with the same paint brush. As someone who taught teens for years, I'll be the first to stand up and say they number some absolutely wonderful people among their ranks. Although I have never had the privilege to meet him, Ryan Hreljac is certainly one. He believes in a better tomorrow and exhorts others to join him in working like crazy to make it happen.
   Ryan was profiled in Reader's Digest before he became a teen, since his activism started when he was quite young. His dream has not died. In fact, he continues to work constantly to bring it to fruition for more and more of the globe's unfortunates.
   When he was six, his grade one teacher reached Ryan in a pretty remarkable way, starting him along the pathway that would take him to Ryan's Well Foundation. Knowing that 6,000 children, the equivalent of 20 full jumbo jets crashing, is the number of children who die daily from water-borne diseases was something this young world-changer could not live with.
   Says Ryan, " More adults need to start taking young people seriously. We are the future but we are also the present. Kids and adults need to work together. Change is really hard work. It doesn't happen overnight, and it works best when everyone works together." Maybe some of those teens spending so many wasted hours idling in malls could listen to Ryan's plea for involvement and start using a little of their time for something a whole lot better than any mall offers.

The Dogtrot

   As a U of T grad I receive their news magazine and April's issue carried an article about the "Dogtrot". Have you heard of it?
   With partial funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the university's Professor Shane Williamson is working on the design and construction of a foldaway cottage. The first one is presently being built in Orillia, Ontario for a private client.
   The Dogtrot is "an easily manipulated type of housing required to be 100 square feet or less which doesn't need a building permit..." The building can be folded down into a box-like form when cottage season is over, and during the summer, its walls can be folded up or down to form the enclosure. The Dogtrot is touted as placing less demand on the environment because it takes up less green space. It would also ease a source of headaches for cottage-owners because a folded-down box is not likely to attract the vandalism that a traditional cottage might. Dogtrots certainly would not be for the type of cottage enthusiast who needs a dishwasher and an AC unit for their version of "roughing it" but for those more hardy, this might be just the way to go.

   This one is just plain bullshit. Defence lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui are presenting their client as the survivor of a troubled childhood. His mother was beaten and he was in and out of orphanages for his first six years. Apparently, as a teen, he was rejected as a "dirty Arab" by his girlfriend's family.
   As a teen, my husband came to Canada from Guyana and was immediately treated to violent discrimination by high school thugs who called him names and waited after class, more than once, to beat him up. He works today as a gainfully employed member of society. As a child, I was beaten by a father who broke more than one wooden yard stick over my sisters and me. I have not turned to acts of violence. There are countless others like my husband and myself. We all carry around our own baggage and we all have to find non-violent ways to deal with it.
   Give me a fucking break on this one. I don't care what the man's childhood entailed. It does not justify his part in 9/11.

Meowing for Medals

   OK, I'm a cat person. My home has always been shared with a noble feline. Through they years, Burma, Muffin, Boudicca, Chiquita, and now Angel have all deigned to grace my humble abode with their regal presence, and I have felt my life to be the richer because of them. Maybe that's why this little story delights me the way it does. Let me share it with you.
   The incident took place last Thursday night, in Cologne. A baby was abandoned on a doorstep on a night that saw the thermometer drop to zero. Hypothermia would have killed the baby boy except for the intervention of a cat. The animal settled near the newborn and began meowing. It continued to loudly vociferate the baby's need until the homeowner opened the door to see exactly what was the matter. That is how the little one came to arrive at the hospital at 5 a.m. with only mild hypothermia. Uwe Beier, spokesman for the Cologne police, is calling the cat a hero.

A Guluwalk Update

GULUWALK SEGMENT TO AIR ON TUESDAY, APRIL 18
CO-FOUNDER TO APPEAR ON "THE HOUR" TONIGHT

    GuluWalk co-founder Adrian Bradbury will be in-studio with George Stroumboulopoulos for an appearance on CBC Newsworlds The Hour. It will air this evening, Tuesday, April 18.

The feature will also be shown later this week, so please check www.guluwalk.com and we will post the new day as soon as it's available.
'The Hour', a current affairs show, will include footage from GuluWalk's recent visit to northern Uganda.
For more information visit www.cbc.ca/thehour.

Go Away, Kid!

   An interesting trend has been shaping up in the malls of America over the past couple of years that has seen them adopting policies to limit the access of teens to stores. The Mall of America, the largest of the 46,990 malls in the U.S., has in place a version of the policy that it first instituted in 1996, and tightened just last fall. The mall's parental escort policy requires every teen fifteen and younger to be accompanied by a parent or guardian 21 years or older after six o'clock P.M. on Fridays and Saturdays. Security guards stop teens at entrances to demand ID and constantly check corridors and courtyards for unaccompanied teens.
   The parental escort policy meets with much screaming of protest from teens wherever it is enacted, but it also sees a drop in shoplifting and a rise in sales, most interestingly in youth-oriented stores, as well as others. The exact reason for this is still up for speculation, but it may have to do with teens regarding malls as a place to be seen, a place to spend time in the evening, as much as they think of it as a place to spend money. It may also be because making your way through a crowd of loud, unruly teens to get to a store is not a pleasant prospect for many shoppers, especially when the expletives used by the adolescents are often enough to make a sailor blush, and you've got a toddler in a stroller or Grandma on your arm.
    Even though teens are a demographic that spent $158 billion last year, they are also the demographic most responsible for incidents requiring police intervention at malls. While it is true that you should always be wary of painting every member of an age group with the same brush, it is also true that incidents requiring police intervention have declined markedly at every mall with an adult accompaniment policy. Just as evident is the truth that families return to shop at malls they had begun to avoid when they were "taken over" by a teen presence in the evenings.
    At the Mall of America, for instance, there were 300 incidents involving teens under sixteen that required either the issue of trespassing citations or the police being called. The year after the policy was put in place, there were only two incidents, according to Maureen Bausch, the mall's vice president of business development. That same mall also had approximately 10,000 teens under sixteen on any given Friday or Saturday night before the policy. Now Bausch says the weekend evenings see even more shoppers there opening their wallets and buying.
   Teenage Research Unlimited says that 68% of 12- to 19-year-olds spend an average of three hours at the mall each week. What value do they really derive from those hours? Maybe the curfew policy could be a blessing in disguise. It could perhaps become a part of more parents getting more directly involved in their kids' lives. If fewer families used the malls as adolescent daycare centres and began spending a little more time together, it might not be a bad thing.

Flip Me a Burger, Brother!

   Absenteeism and constant employee turnover are two big problems that the fast-food industry has to deal with. In an attempt to smooth a way past these obstacles to efficient workplace functioning, the giant burger corporation, McDonald's, is instituting the "Family Contract" in some of its 1,250 British restaurants. If the Contract is successful in jolly old England, McDonald's may extend it to some of the other 117 countries where its more than 31,000 restaurants currently employ more than 1.5 million people.
   The Family Contract will allow family members, including same-sex partners to sign on as pairs that can take each other's shifts, if the need arises, without having to clear it in advance with the boss. If absenteeism and turnover have dropped at the participating British outlets by the fall, McDonald's will deem it successful.
   The idea is an interesting take on the concept of job-sharing, and a needed acknowledgement of the stresses and occasionally necessary "time-outs" that family life and other duties can demand. Maybe, if successful, it will spread to more than just other McDonald's outlets. What do you think?

   To those of you for whom it has particular significance: Happy Easter!

   To everyone: May you be blessed with a day of peace and happiness today!

The Most Beautiful Kind of Empowerment

   Kalle Lasn, editor of Adbusters Magazine, and moving force behind Black Spot Sneakers, was talking about the power of the people to have a business climate to their liking when he spoke the above words about empowerment.
   Lasn is very much about empowerment, especially for those who labour under the "abusive, anti-labor, anti-union sweatshop manufacturing practices " used by Nike. He really has a problem, big-time, with Nike CEO Phil Knight. Knight, once quoted as saying his biggest fear is that some day one of his grandchildren might ask, "What's a Nike?" is regarded by Lasn as too small-minded and personal-riches-centred to care about the welfare of others. Knight's current worth exceeds $5 billion, leading Lasn to wonder how rich an individual needs to be before they gain a broader concern for their fellow man.
   Lasn also has a great deal of trouble with what he calls "America's Suicidal Consumer Binge", having penned a book about why we need to take a better look at this societal trend, and begin work to reverse it. I'm with Lasn on that one. Buy, buy, buy. Spend, spend, spend. That's the litany to which most people look for some feeling of fulfillment, some sense of filling up the empty holes gaping through the fabric of their souls. There are so few with an understanding of how concern for others can fill you up; how giving can really, truly be receiving. How will we get the message out to our young people, especially? With "role models" like Brittney Spears and self-declared pimp 50 Cent, how we will ever help them to understand that everyone is special and worthwhile, not just those with bling bling?
   Maybe the solution to this overwhelming quandary will come one little step at a time. Maybe, if you haven't before been an active fighter on these front lines, you could begin your participation with the purchase of a pair of "Black Spot Sneakers", the shoe designed to kick megacorporate ass. No animal died to make these shoes, and no person slaved in a sweatshop to get them to your feet. Black Spot "Unswooshers" are made with eco-friendly touches like recycled tire soles. How could your little twinkle toes not feel good sporting a pair of these?

A Prayer for Provenzano

   "Undisputed", that's what they call him; the undisputed chief of the Sicilian Mafia. Bernardo Provenzano , aforementioned head of horror in Sicily, capo di tutti capi, has finally been arrested, after leading the Sicilian constabulary on a 43-year-long chase. He was tracked to a farmhouse near Corleone in Sicily on April 11, and 50 officers swooped down to make the arrest.
   Provenzano did all he could over the years to evade the authorities, including refusing to use telephones. He issued orders instead via handwritten notes. Many of those that have come into police possession have been signed off with religious blessings, such as "May the Lord bless and protect you." Quite a send-off to give someone who is about to commit a murder by your order. Actually, his version of religion seems to mean a great deal to Mr Provenzano, so much so that he even appeared at a Cosa Nostra meeting in 1992, garbed in the purple robes of a bishop, according to a Mafia informant.
   So, since you are such a believer, I shall say a prayer for you, Mr. Provenzano. I shall pray for your immediate execution.

Idiot Alert Continued

   Mayvis Coyle has been issued a fine for obstructing traffic in busy Los Angeles. Mayvis, however, is not the idiot. The motorcycle officer who issued the ticket is.
   Mayvis, you see, is 82-years-old and needs the use of a cane, so obviously we're not talking an Olympic sprinter here. The octogenarian says she set out to cross when the light was green but was unable to complete the crossing before the light turned red. At that point,Mr.- I -Shall-Save-the-World-from-Dangerous-Seniors had a choice. He could issue the ticket, or he could step forward and help the woman safely across the remaining distance. He went with issuing the $114.00 ticket.
   What a mountain of intellect.

How Sweet!

    During the Olympics, Canada's Sara Renner broke a ski pole during the Nordic ski sprint relay final. As she came around the bend in the trail, Norwegian coach, Bjoernar Haakensmoen, saw her predicament and ran forward to hand her a spare ski pole. She went on to take the silver medal. "It was natural for me to do it. I didn't think about it", said the modest Norwegian.
   I just found out today that Canadian fans were so impressed by this generous act that they got busy expressing their thanks by starting Project Maple Syrup. Anyone interested was encouraged to make donations or bring cans of maple syrup to one of 300 participating Bell Canada phone stores. The project ended with 5.2 tons - 7,400 cans - of the sweet liquid being presented to Coach Haakensmoen on Wednesday April 5th. Norway and Canada cooperated on the waiving of any import duties to facilitate the gift to Haakensmoen, who was stunned by the response he received from the Canadian fans. The coach looked at the 5.2 tons of syrup and said, "When you get this kind of response it is, well, just enormous."

You Tell 'Em, J.K.

   I was sitting here this morning looking at a copy of Toronto 24 Hours, and staring back at me were a couple of shots of big names in the entertainment news. They are both female and both as scantily clad as you could possibly be without simply chucking all your clothes. The "clothing" they are wearing serves the purpose of almost, sort of, kinda' covering their breasts, but not so much as to ruin it for those who have to be titillated in order to pay any attention at all. It does nothing to cover up the stick-thin arms and heads that look almost turtle-like on the skinny necks supporting them.
   The quotes being attributed to the "stars" are peppered with expressions that clearly demonstrate anything but an adequate command of the language that is supposedly their mother tongue, never mind an echoing, cavernous emptiness in the mind phrasing the inanities being quoted.
   Just to the left of all this is a short blurb detailing J.K. Rowling's attitude to these characters. "(E)mpty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones" she calls them. These "talking toothpicks" come in for a verbal lashing at her official website
    Rowlling, you said it beautifully. I've ranted about this more than once before. As someone who spent years teaching grade eight, and deploring the wasteland of role model availability that the girls had to make their way through, I loved every single syllable Rowling set down in her articulate denunciation of these bubbleheads.

   Just a wee bit of bitchin' here.
   The handsome one and I have just returned from an afternoon jaunt out into the countryside circa T.O. and I saw it again and again. Five times, in fact! I'm talking about the five let's-pretend-patriots who have a flag flying on their property, a flag that has truly seen better days. Each one of them had been torn and frayed by the wind until it had completely destroyed the right-side's red bar or even more. The most recent edition of "Flag Etiquette in Canada" declares that "(W)hen a flag becomes tattered and is no longer in a suitable condition for use, it should be destroyed in a dignified way by burning it privately."
   If these people want to fly a flag, they should take on the responsibility of finding out the rules for properly respectful display of it, and make sure they follow them. It is, after all, the symbol of their country, and if they are unwilling to follow the aforementioned rules, they should not fly the flag.
   Enough said.

Lab-Grown Transplants

   The story below deals with heights of idiocy. This one deals with heights of endeavour and hope.
   Researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. have given new bladders to seven patients aged four to nineteen who had spina bifida and the bladder complications the condition often entails. The origin of the new bladders is the cause of wonder and hope.
   Led by Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest, the team "grew" the bladders by taking cells from the patients' own bladders and seeding them onto biodegradable bladder-shaped scaffolding in the lab. They were implanted back into the same patient. This procedure would save the transplant recipients from a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs and could mean a way to circumvent the current shortage of donated organs.
   Dr. Atala began this work in his lab at Boston Children's Hospital, transplanting lab-grown bladders into six beagles in 1999. Tracking of the dogs with lab-grown transplants showed no difference in their health compared to those with their original bladders.
   Atala's team is currently trying to grow twenty different types of organs and tissues, including hearts. "To see this technology in patients --- that's really the goal. Nothing else matters.", says Dr. Atala. If the good doctor brings his dreams to fruition, patients would no longer have to wait for someone else to die so that they might live.

Joining the I.A. Files

   Angela Hollis, welcome to the ranks of the Idiot Alert membership.
   On Sunday night, Hollis left her ten-month-old son sleeping in the back of her car while she went into the store at a gas bar in St. Albert, north of Edmonton. The idiot left her car idling and unlocked. She was "in the store for just not even a minute" before she cam back out in time to see the car being driven away. An Amber Alert was issued and the child was found on Monday morning, asleep in the back seat of the otherwise empty car.
   How incredibly lucky for the little one. How incredibly stupid of his mother.

   You can view this story as one more indication of how manufacturers can handle anything, or as a sad indicator of how epidemic obesity really is becoming. It has been announced that more than one quarter of a million U.S. kids are too hefty for the car safety seats they should be riding in. Most of them, apparently, are three-year-olds topping the scale at 41 pounds, ten more than the age group's mean weight of 31 pounds. Canada, unfortunately, is often not far behind the stats for their southern neighbour.
   The cost of the seats needed to handle these overweight kids is between $240. to $270. while a usual model runs about $80. They are also harder to find, not even being listed by Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the U.S. That combines with the cost to have more and more parents taking the chance that their kid is big enough to go without restraints, or belt them into an adult seatbelt, in the family vehicle. The problem is that three-year-olds, whether they're husky or not, are 54% more likely to die in a car crash when they are unrestrained than when they are in the proper seat for their age, and adult restraints can decapitate kids in a crash. Car accidents are, in fact, the leading cause of death for U.S. kids and account for almost a third of pre-schooler deaths. Again, Canada's statistics are likely to mimic these horrible numbers.
   Obesity has doubled for U.S. kids in the 2 to 5 year range over the past fifty years, according to a 2000 study published in the AMA Journal. Morgan Downey, head of the Washington-based American Obesity Association predicts that the number of overweight toddlers will keep rising.
    Now for the way to view this story. Britax International PLC does manufacture four models of car seats to fit the little piggies riding off to market with their parents, so we can relax about all this and just wait for supply to catch up with demand, or we can take note of the alarmingly increasing dimensions of this problem, and start to do something about it. That would take major commitment from parents on behalf of little ones, and continuation of the commitment from the kids themselves as they grow, and that might all be just too much to ask. After all, what if it starts to eat away at the time needed to be an appropriately dedicated couch potato?

No Duh!

   This just in, folks! Sexually charged media content is pushing kids into sexual activity at an earlier age!
   Either a big surprise, that announcement, or a "No duh!" I'm going with the latter. How anyone could think otherwise totally baffles me. Media has long been touted as able to influence the younger members of the populace in positive ways. Think early education and Sesame Street. There is, however, two sides to every coin ever minted On the one side of this coin is the positive and on the other is the negative and there is nothing to prevent kids from flipping the coin over to examine both sides. Get real, people. Stop hiding you heads in the sand and thinking that some kind of magic is going to protect your kids from the lousy portrayal of sexuality that the media is constantly bombarding them with.
   Jane Brown, a professor of jourmalism and mass communication, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has released a report based on a study of the effects of media portrayals of sexuality on adolescents This age group watches an average of five-and-a-half to eight hours of TV daily, as well as being exposed to other media, such as magazine ads, and music videos, plenty of time in which the media's message can sink home.
   For the study, in-home surveys were conducted with 1,017 white and black teens, first when they were between the ages of 12 to 14, and again two years later. The link between sex-filled media and early-age intercourse was found to be apparent, to varying degrees. How could it not? Think of any teen's room, likely to be plastered with posters of idolized stars. Who would argue that the room's occupant doesn't try to emulate their chosen role models? When the media viewer is six, the hope is that they'll emulate Grover in his efforts to conquer reading. Why imagine that the behaviour would disappear with the passage of only a few years? Talk to any intermediate-grade teacher about this.
   The role models might change, but the behaviour is only likely to intensify. Now think of the portrayal of sexuality common in today's media. Having multiple partners, all young and slim, and sometimes with less than an hour's acquaintance, using sex for an evening's entertainment, a tool of power, or revenge, but rarely, rarely to express life-long commitment are all the "norms" shown. How can an average teen navigate their way safely through this mine-field?
   If you're interested in the study's findings, follow the link here. Acknowledge what effects the media can have, whether you have adolescents in your life or not. We can all pick up a pen to write letters to the editor. We can all exert influence for change. We all have to stop the naivete of declaring "Our kids are smart enough to know, "that's just TV".

A Martyr or a Toilet Cleaner?

   Moussaoui a martyr? That's exactly what might come from serving the death penalty on this pile of excrement currently standing trial at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Reading the latest news on the progress of the trial and the flip-flops Moussaoui is doing about whether or not he will seek martyrdom via the death penalty had me thinking of the this miscreant in terms of offal, which is the very best I can bring myself to term him, and that's how I solved the problem of what to do with him.
   There are many concerned about adding fuel to the terrorist fires by serving the death penalty and so creating another martyr around which they can rally their troops. Some point to Ramzi Yousef as proof that the better course is to sentence him to life imprisonment. If you said "Ramzi who?", you added to the accumulating evidence that life sentences are indeed the better way.
   Now, to combine the two, I suggest the evildoer be sentenced to life in prison with absolutely no chance of parole, not ever. Allah's would-be martyr should be assigned to the ranks of toilet cleaners until he's too old to even lift a toilet brush. That way, especially if the other inmates cooperate and block the toilets on a regular basis, Moussaoui can spend the rest of his life around matter he best understands.

Your Daughter on the Board of Directors?

   Further to my post yesterday about encouraging girls to pursue an interest in science, math and technology. Dropping these subjects as they make their way through school also drops the girls out of the running for many a career. Workplace inequality is still a fact of life for women, and more needs to be done to address this issue. A study just released by "Catalyst", a research organization, finds that women sit in only 13.6% of the board of director seats at Fortune 500 companies. It's a percentage that is rising, but only "at a snail's pace", and according to Catalyst analyses of the current rate of change, "women will not make up one-quarter of board directors 20 years from now."
   We need to make this different. We need to make it better. As I said yesterday, girls have to be encouraged by their parents, the people who should be their biggest fans, to stand strong in the face of the buffeting they'll receive from the fickle winds of societal favour. Those winds will blow hard against the girls, pushing them in the direction of fashionably skinny , properly made-up clothes hangers, but it will do nothing for their intellect. When was the last time you saw Paris Hilton or Ms Spears being praised for some pearl of wisdom they had uttered? Girls are pushed too much in the direction of the beautiful decoration on a man's arm. Parents need to push back, on behalf of their daughters. If you have a daughter, sit down with her tonight in front of the website I enthused about yesterday. Help her to see there's a lot more for her to aspire to than simply imitating the likes of Hilton and Spears. Who knows? Maybe someday, she'll be sitting in one of those Fortune 500 director's seats.

Here's One for the Girls

   Have you seen the ad campaign yet? The campaign is called "Girls Go Tech" and it's being brought out by the Girl Scouts of America. It was precipitated by the lamentable fact that many girls who begin with an active enjoyment in math and science begin to lose it by about the time they're entering grade six. The campaign aims to encourage girls to maintain that interest instead, and go on perhaps to pursue a career in math or science. "Set your sights on math and science.", declare the ads. "It's a great way to see the world."
   Their website is a really great way for girls to see math and science. They're both presented in a context of fun and when you have a chance to view anything as enjoyable, you're much more likely to want to stay with it. Don't get the wrong idea, though. The games offered at the website are not just little time-consumers that babysit kids for a while and leave them with little more than they had to start. There is a game based on cryptography which allows the girls to send "secret messages" to friends if this piques their interest. If art is the basis for a girl's delight, she'll find that in the "Mandala" game which takes her through the wonders of symmetry while she creates her own mandala. If music sparks her creativity, she can compose digital music to her heart's delight with the "Sounds of Science" game. If physiology tickles her fancy, she can explore the different pathways of the brain and learn to play a trick on them, in "Mixed Messages".
   The site gives its users information on careers associated with math and science, and offers tips to parents who find their daughter is either losing ground in these areas, or eager to pursue them. You'll find them in a pdf file titled "Its Her Future: Encourage a Girl in Math, Science and Technology". The booklet begins with the admonition "Relax!" and goes on to reassure parents that they do not need to be a scientist to use the booklet, or help the girl in their life explore and enjoy math, science and technology. It offers a range of activities for a range of ages, and it's a positively great resource. As a teacher and a mother of daughters myself, I would recommend this booklet to absolutely every parent/daughter team, and teacher out there.
   The "Jello Mountain" will help you to investigate geology and taking core samples, while "Blast Off!" will help you and your budding rocket scientist make a rocket and create the chemical reactions needed to fuel it. The list of fun ways to broaden her (and your) horizons goes on and on. Take some time to go to the site and see what it's all about. It may well be some of the very best time investment you'll ever make.

Arthritis Be Damned!

   I was back out on the ice this past Thursday with the students of "little Robbie's" class, skating my way through another adventure that my arthritic knees are still complaining about. Follow the link to get the background for this one, and then read on.
   The young fellow whose particular challenge requires that he be on a sledge was strapped onto said conveyance and I "took the helm". We had partnered before, in the previous outing, and I was prepared to do all I could to help him enjoy the hour, but endless circling of the ice, at basically ice level seems little more than cold pleasure to me, even with a "driver" who occasionally steers the sledge straight at other adult skaters and hollers "crash!!!" for all to hear.
   After a circle or two about the rink, the teacher dropped a couple of pucks on the ice, for the skaters to kick around, and that was it, or adventure had begun. I encouraged him to use his hands - an easy reach down - to slide the puck across the blue ice, and when he did so, my cry of "He shoots! He scores" caught the teacher's attention. "What can we use to improvise a hockey stick?" he asked and came back in a moment with a small orange plastic cone used to mark off areas of the ice during public skating hours. The marker was proffered to my partner and away we went. At first, the puck simply rolled its way across the straight edge of the base and was lost to him, so I showed him how to move the cone with a rolling left-to-right and back-again motion, keeping the puck with him. He mastered it quickly and the stick-handling began in earnest. We skated end-to-end over and over, traversing the length of the rink in search of ever more fancy puck control and shots from further and further back from the crease.
   The first day out, my partner had been squired about the ice by several of the adults and all the while, he had worn a little smile, that grew larger when his teacher raced across the ice a few times with him, and slipped right off his face many a time, when the ride was merely a calm circling. On this day, however, my partner caught fire. His interest had been grabbed and that puck wasn't letting go of him until it had made its way right into his blood. He knew little about hockey, but I'm one of those who is always glued to the set on Hockey Night in Canada, so I could do all the commentary for him, every time we approached the blue ice. From "going upstairs" to "deking out the goalie", his play was broadcast with all the appropriate ballyhoo.
   I asked if he knew about sledge hockey. He had never heard of it. I told him about the Canadian men's team that brought home the gold from Turin, and explained that every one of the players was the same as him, needing a sledge for whatever reason, but totally independent and fiercely proud of their game out on the ice. I asked him if I might read about him being out on the ice for Canada eight or twelve years from on, and his eyes shone as he looked at me and said, "Everyone needs a goal."
   I manoeuvred that sledge end-to-end on the rink, and he manoeuvred the puck, getting better and better at it as the clock's hands continued their march around its face. We were both totally engrossed, lost in our own world out there on the ice, when the teacher's voice broke through our reverie. He was asking us to return the puck. We looked over at him, and found ourselves alone out there. Everyone had gone. They were already back in the changing room and we hadn't even noticed their absence.
   Even after that young man had come off the ice, the smile did not come off his face. The shine stayed in his eyes, and the glow stayed in my heart. I haven't often felt such a total satisfaction before. I was floating along on the tide of pleasure at the part I had played in his happiness, and it carried me well into the evening.
   When it finally ebbed, I found myself with a pair of knees that were screaming their displeasure at me, for the punishment I had submitted them to. A heating pad was found and laid gently across my aching joints after they had been rubbed with some ointment. They abated the complaints just a little but their displeasure with me has continued. I woke up with it still going on this morning, but, you know what? I would lace right up and do it all over again, every single, knee-abusing minute of it, to see that young man's smile again and hear him declare once more, "That was good!"