Greening Up the Poop Brigade

This Saturday is the day - Earth Hour will begin at 8 p.m. Although it is officially planned to last for just one hour, the hope is that the consciousness-raising it will achieve will last untold hours into the future.
A recent online survey of 1,023 adult Canadians conducted in March by Angus Reid Strategies seemed to show an eagerness on the part of Canucks to get involved. Saying that they plan to participate, 70% of the respondents declared a desire to raise awareness of the issue. Planned activities for the hour range from star gazing to getting up close and intimate with a significant other. I wonder how many little ones might arrive to swell the population nine months after Earth Hour?
Although there are many who need to pay more attention to the issue, one group in particular that I'm hoping will get bitten by the Earth Hour bug is dog owners. When I was out at a local grocery store this week, packing my purchases into the cloth bags I had brought with me, the cashier surprised me by saying that someone pulling out their own bags was an unusual sight there. I said that it was disappointing and a little surprising to hear that so few people declined the plastic bags. "Actually," said she, "many people even ask for extra bags." When I questioned that, she went on to add that some even walk across the front of the store, and help themselves to any bags that might be lying out at the end of the cash-out, without having bought anything at the store. I stared at her in puzzlement and she cleared up the whole thing with a simple: "Dog owners".
Since the bags are made available to those who spend at the store, and that is certainly the general understanding of their availability, it seems to me that swiping them off a cashier's desk on a run-by shit-bag grabbing constitutes petty theft. How pathetic, people. Have you no pride? No concern for the Earth you will be handing on to your children and granchildren? Is bagging your dog's shit "for free" really the most important thing on your mind? Once again - how pathetic - especially since the use of grocery bag plastic really does not come for free. That plastic will result in a greater environmental price tag to you and yours then you seem to be capable of understanding.
Ever since a walk through a local ravine park last year showed the evidence of how painfully inconsiderate dog owners can be - a grocery-bag of shit left tied to the fencing around the baseball diamond - I have kept an eye out for alternative solutions to the problem. If you're in the market for them yourselves, check out the "Flushable Bag", an environmentally-friendly product that dissolves in water, allowing you to cart the refuse back home and flush it down your toilet. Described on the site as "The responsible way to deal with your pet's waste!", a 50 count package will set you back a regular $16.15, although they're on sale at the moment for $14.25. Come on, how can you resist these 100% bio-degradable poop-scoops?
Of course, since the idea of toting a bag of shit back to your ensuite is not for everyone, rest assured; there is another way to step up to the environmental plate. "BioBags" are 100% bio-degradable and 100% compostable and can be tossed into the nearest waste receptacle with a clear conscience, leaving you and Fido poop-free for the rest of the walk. These bags are available at the same site as the Flushables are, but these will only set you back $8.15, regular price, for a package of 50.
If you're a dog owner who cares, click your way over to Wisconsin Pet Products, and do your part to green up the poop brigade.

It's St. Patrick's Day today. Previously it was a day I would pay no attention to at all. Of late, it has been brought a little more to my awareness by the presence in my life of a dear friend who has a wee bit o' the leprechaun in her. For my good friend and for every other member of my species, Irish or not, I offer this Irish blessing.

May Life grant you always ...
A sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you,
A sheltering angel so nothing can harm you,
Laughter to cheer you, faithful friends near you,
And whenever you pray, heaven to hear you.

Solving the Climate Crisis

Two easy steps for you to take, if you're interested in handing on to your children and grandchildren a world in which they can hope to survive:
One is to follow this link to sign on with The Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-partisan non-profit organization founded by Al Gore, that focuses on stopping global warming. It will take you a minute or two, max, to sign the petition which more than 800,000 have already signed.
The 2nd easy step to take is to click your way over to the Earth Hour site and get yourself involved in Earth Hour 2008. You could keep it to one hour, just one, out of your busy schedule; but you might also find yourself getting all caught up in the cause and becoming an all-day-every-day person. Who knows?At the moment, more than 60 cities across Canada have signed on to take part in Earth Hour at 8 pm on March 29, 2008, and Canadians individually are leading the world in sign-ups. You'd be in great company, so why not join the stampede?

Airing Canada's Dirty Little Secret

From 1840 to the 1950's, Canada made its way through a time of covertly vicious treatment of its First Nations people. Those were the main years of the residential schools; the time when the government was to seek eradication of its aboriginal population.
What could possibly seem more benevolent on the surface than a church-run school? A faith-based institution centred on the gentle Jesus of Christianity would have been seen by most whites as a blessing to the children taken away from their parents, people viewed as backward by the euro-centric majority. At least, that's how it looked from the outside to those who weren't really too interested in taking a very close look. From the inside, those government-funded hell holes were meant to be mind-washing correctional institutions. (Follow the link to see a list of the residential schools.) They were set up to correct the perceived "Indian problem" by teaching the children to be so ashamed of their heritage that they would turn their back on it and seek the oblivion of assimilation with the white population. This perceived problem was summed up by Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs between 1913-1932, when he declared in 1920, "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed."
In 1846, P.G. Anderson, Indian Superintendent, declared, "You will not give up your idle, roving habits to enable your children to receive instruction. It has therefore been determined that your children shall be sent to schools where they will forget their Indian habits and be instructed in all the necessary arts of civilized life and become one with your white brethren." Such attention from "brethren" is the kind that passed between Cain and Abel, and we all know how that story ended. If you want more detailed information on those schools and the resultant chaos they fostered, follow this link.
Since those years, countless instances of abuse in church-run institutions have been exposed in all their sordid detail. Anyone with even the least bit of social awareness knows now that "church-run" guarantees nothing. Anyone with the least bit of social awareness here in Canada knows that the residential schools saw atrocity after atrocity committed against the helpless Native children imprisoned there, and all of it with impunity for the perpetrators.
The following is taken from "The Healing Update Has Begun" issued by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in May 2002: "Then there are testimonies of hundreds of former students whose list of abuses includes kidnapping, sexual abuse, beatings, needles pushed through tongues as punishment for speaking Indigenous languages, forced wearing of soiled underwear on the head or wet bed sheets on the body, faces rubbed in human excrement, forced eating of rotten and/or maggot infested food, being stripped naked and ridiculed in front of other students, forced to stand upright for several hours -- on two feet and sometimes one -- until collapsing, immersion in ice water, hair ripped from heads, use of students in eugenics and medical experiments, bondage and confinement in closets without food or water, application of electric shocks, forced to sleep outside or to walk barefoot in winter, forced labour and on and on."
Thousands of children who were dragged into these horrendous establishments simply "disappeared". The abuse was too much for some, and they suicided. Others succumbed to diseases their bodies were unable to handle for various reason, one being that the nutrition at the schools was so poor they had little strength with which to battle any contagion. Again, the redoubtable Duncan Campbell Scott had something to say about this, as well, declaring: "It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this does not justify a change in the policy of this Department which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem."
By the late 1950's, it was beginning to dawn on the vicious racists who had championed and run the schools that they might perhaps be missing the mark. They began to realize that substance abuse was on the rise on the reservations and among the Native population, much of it directly attributable to the abuse suffered in the schools. Even so, it was not until 1990 that the last residential school, in Yellowknife, was closed. Once into the schools, there was no respite for a child until they were spewed out at the other end of the abysmal tunnel; often emerging with little more than a grade 5 or 6 education. Obviously, these schools were never really meant to truly educate the students. They were only meant to break spirits and fit the students to take menial labour roles in the much-touted white civilization when the school was finished with them. Even during summer break, the children were allowed no breathing space from the relentless eroding of their very souls. At those times, they were forced to billet with white families where one can safely assume the treatment they received would never have reached five-star status. This was done to prevent any renewal of cultural connection with their families. Such birds of ill-omen have got to come home to roost sooner or later. It should be no surprise, therefore, that alcohol and drug abuse among Natives is five times the national average; sexual and family abuse eight times the national average; suicide rate among Native teems five times the national average. It is, however, desperately sad; a wrong that needs to be made right.
Now, here's a news flash for you - the government of Canada is dragging its heels on addressing the issue, as are most of the religious orders and institutions involved. In 1993, Archbishop Michael Peers of the Anglican Church of Canada offered an apology, that was accepted by a Native Elder; and, in 1998, the Right Reverend Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada read an apology to former students, their families and communities. It is interesting to note that the United is named in eight per cent of the claims brought by former students, while the Anglican Church is named in approximately eighteen per cent. The Roman Catholic Church, however, is named in a whooping seventy-two per cent. Shouldn't the Pope be getting off his ass anytime now to offer an official apology on behalf of the church which he is supposed to lead? The individual orders and parishes should all be lining up right behind him to offer unconditional, humble apologies. It hasn't happened yet.
The Native people have launched lawsuits, it is true, more than 4,500 of them seeking monetary recompense on behalf of approximately 9,000 claimants, but it can never be enough. They are, however, seeking more than dollars and cents. They want an official apology to be issued by the government of Canada. It has yet to happen. The Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal People, issued in 1996, contained "sweeping condemnation of the attitudes and behaviour of the federal government". In January, 1998, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs issued a supposed government apology, which stated among other things, "We must recognize the impact of (our) actions... and state formally that the days of paternalism and disrespect are behind us..." The thing of particular interest about this apology is that it was not offered by the Prime Minister. One has to wonder why. Stephen Harper saw fit to offer the June 22, 2006 apology to the Chinese Canadians for the racist head tax imposed on them. What do you think made the difference between the apology to the Chinese Canadians, and that made to the Native Canadians?
Another mournful note was added to this elegiac litany of woe here in Toronto this past weekend when peaceful Native demonstrators gathered at the Metropolitan United Church to raise awareness of the residential schools' efforts at genocide. They are demanding that the federal government and church leaders reveal the whereabouts of unmarked graves they need to find. These are the graves of the victims of the schools; the children who lost their lives to this campaign of "aggressive civilization". Why should there be any need at all for these demonstrations? How can there be any justification at all to even one more second of silence on the part of the government or the various churches? How can anyone involved pretend to really feel any remorse at all, any desire to ameliorate the situation at all?
Canada needs to step up voluntarily and admit publicly to its dirty little secret. Canada needs to take full responsibility for its attempted eradication of the culture, the traditions and languages, the very souls of its First Nations People. Until we do that, any actions on our part to protest the human rights record of any other country lacks the ring of sincerity.

Get a Different Ride, Baljinder

Baljinder Badesha has been slapped with a $110.00 ticket for riding his motorcycle without a helmet and Ontario Court Justice James Blacklock just issued a 35-page ruling that Badesha was not facing religious discrimination when it happened.
I completely agree with Blacklock. The law requiring that riders be helmeted was not passed in order to discriminate against anyone. It was passed in order to safeguard the health and welfare of the riders. Period. When passed, the law affirmed that all riders were to be helmeted, without exception. Why should anyone be granted that exception now? Why should the rest of us be stuck with paying his hospital bills if he is injured in an accident while riding without a helmet? If Badesha's turban remaining uncovered is of such importance to him; more so than his own personal safety, then perhaps he could consider switching to some other form of transit. No-one would issue him with a ticket for failing to don a helmet before he climbs in behind the wheel of a car, or boards a TTC vehicle.
I would like to suggest that Badesha and others like him, who want to whine the poor-discriminated-against-me litany be allowed to ride their cycles without protective headgear as long as they agree beforehand to receiving only as much medical aid as they can personally afford to pay for, if they sustain head injury in an accident. The only problem is, this is Canada, and no matter how stupid Badesha was in refusing to take reasonable precautions for his own safety, he would not be denied treatment. That brings us back to the idea that he trade his motorcycle in for a different ride.
You want to come here to Canada and enjoy the benefits of living here, do you, Badesha? Well then, get over it, buddy. The law here requires you to wear a helmet, and it's not because you're a Sikh and anyone's discriminating against you, you moron. It's because the law is trying to look out for your safety, even if you won't.

What are you - a feminist?

It's a question meant to imply insult; meant to make a woman back off from whatever cause she might be espousing. "What are you - a feminist?" is the question often asked with a suggestion of a sneer, and many will trip over their own feet in their haste to assure the questioner that they are not. The only problem is; we still desperately need feminists. Of course, when you make a statement like that, you lose some of your audience right away. If you're unsure about the issue, but you're still here, please read on.
Do the violent actions of the mutaween directed against women seem too far away from home shores to be real; to lend credence to the idea that those who believe women are of equal value to their male counterparts are still very much in need? People who support the existence of the mutaween are among the immigrants coming to make your country their home.
Does the fact that there were actually some who felt the need to debate whether or not sharia law should be instituted in Canada not raise red flags of alarm for you, or send you running in search of the nearest feminist? If even the story of Amarpardeep Kaur Rai of Mississauga, Ontario, who was stabbed in the neck by her own father for refusing an arranged marriage fails to make you concerned that more and more people who believe women are not really persons of worth in their own right are coming to this country, then here's a little tidbit for your consideration.
We already have the problem here, right now. We don't need anyone to come here and bring this noxious attitude with them. We already have it. Here in Ontario, our own government is treating women as second-class citizens. The attitude of a people's government in a democracy should be viewed as being of great import. What they do leads directly to what they will tolerate and what the people as a whole will view as the norm. The actions of our government are speaking loud at the moment.
A study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just been released, showing that the government is ignoring its own pay equity legislation by failing to pay the adjustments owed to working women - child-care workers and community health workers. Lawyer Mary Cornish, author of the study, says the accepted practise is to pay women 29% less than men. Whether female or male, there isn't a one of us who has not had at least one significant woman in our lives; be she wife or sister, cousin or aunt. We have certainly all had a mother. How can anyone fail to see the need to correct this inequity for all those important people? Why would anyone direct at a woman the insult implied in the question if she is a feminist, when our society needs more women and men who are exactly that?
Labour Minister Brad Duguid has apparently declared his party to be proud of how far they have come on pay equity. Which party is his doesn't really matter, because not one of the governments who have held power so far have wiped the stain of this inequity off the province's ledger. How can you feel pride in a government that continues to facilitate the existence of any situation which devalues women? Why do we as a group continue to stick our head in the sand and pretend that everybody is playing nice and there is no need for feminists or the active upholding of the values they espouse? Once again, I hear faint echoes at the edge of my society's consciousness, where most people banish them; where it is, unfortunately, too easy to ignore them. I hear the voice of Pastor Martin Niemöller as he spoke out against political apathy, and what else is a society guilty of but apathy, when they accept inequitable treatment of half of their population? Niemöller's words spoke originally of the situation in Nazi Germany, but they fit our time as well.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

Statistics show that the rate of spousal abuse has not changed here in Canada, since 1999. Those stats show that while men are abused, it is overwhelmingly the women who are likely to sustain injury; the women who are likely to fear for their lives. How can we, as a society, be content to allow such figures to ride? Maybe it is time for us to begin asking the question "What are you - a feminist?" with a note of hope in our voices; a feeling of pride in the possibility of meeting such a person. Anyone who works to make the world a better place for any of its citizens works to make it better for us all. Who wouldn't be proud to meet such a one?

Alton Logan Should Be Set Free

The most incredible secret has been just exposed by the two lawyers, Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz, who have kept it hidden for 26 years. They knew, when Alton Logan was charged in 1986 with the murder of a McDonald's security guard, that he was innocent of the crime; but, they did nothing to prevent his being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. A man they were defending at the time on charges of being a cop killer confessed to them that he was the one who had pulled the trigger on the guard. Pleading lawyer-client confidentiality as the reason for their previous silence, they have finally come forward to reveal the knowledge that could have spared an innocent man years of hell. "It's been difficult for us" they whine, when asked in an interview on "60 Minutes" what they would say to Logan if they met him face-to-face. "Alton, whether or not you can understand it, we've been hurting for you for 26 years," says Kunz. When they were quoted to Logan, his succinct reply was the question, "How has it been difficult for them?" A valid question, indeed. During the interview, they were asked if they would have continued to maintain their silence if Logan had been sentenced to death. They insisted they would have been allowed by the code of lawyer-client confidentiality to prevent a death, but they could not explain what the difference was between saving him from death row and saving him from wrongful conviction and incarceration. Logan's comment on the difference between the two sentences is that there is no difference. A death sentence and life behind bars is all the same, according to him. Asked if they couldn't have somehow leaked the news to anyone, the two attorneys deny it would have done any good to do so. How can they say that? If they had leaked the truth, it might have resulted in a mistrial being declared. It might have resulted in life continuing on for Alton Logan, a man who was at home, asleep, when the security guard was killed. Instead, it all came to a screeching halt with his conviction, and he lost 26 years of his life, at the very least. The total time loss to him can not yet be calculated because there has to be due process of law, and the wheels of justice grind slow. These two pantywaist attorneys and their affidavit should be enough for Logan to be declared innocent and set free without another trial. The man should be allowed to leave the jail; to leave the state of Illinois, as he wants to do; to get on with a life already truncated by the injustice Kunz and Coventry foisted on him. How they can have the nerve to declare they were "hurting" is beyond me. If they truly had been hurting, they would have come forward. If doing so had cost them their livelihood as lawyers, so be it. Keeping their pay cheques and comfy lifestyle cost Logan everything he valued in his life. He was not able, for instance, to attend his mother's funeral. I wonder what monetary value Coventry and Kunz would set on that; how they would assign that a value on the "hurting" scale? When you are made privy to information that could have such a disastrous effect on a man's life in its absence, you are not being put into an easy position. No-one would argue that. The bottom line is; what is right and what is wrong? It was wrong of them to sit back and see Logan imprisoned for 26 years. Watch the video and you'll see the two of them trying to paint themselves as heroes for obtaining the permission of the actual murderer to come forward after his death. When I saw that, one thing that crossed my mind was the unknown aspect of his time of death, at the time they were obtaining this permission. What if he had outlived Logan? They had no way of knowing whether or not he would.
Watch the video and see what you think. Be prepared for an annoying ad at the beginning of it, but stay with it and you'll meet Logan and the two conspirators who took part in the ruining of his life. See what you think of their actions.

A Thing of Beauty, Indeed!

Last night, God donned her Toronto Maple Leafs jersey and smiled on the lads as they skated to an 8 to 2 victory over the Boston Bruins. The Leafs used those NHL jersey-clad minor leaguers to clean up the rink with. They smeared them all over the ice! It was wonderful. It was glorious. It was a treat to behold. Go, Leafs, go!

Water, Water, Everywhere

New Age Beverages - it's the name given by the food industry to a category of beverages that includes quaffs like herbal teas, smoothies and flavoured waters - alternatives to soft drinks. A lot of people may check the labels on teas and smoothies, looking for a calorie count. While they're doing that, they could end up reading the ingredient list. Most people, however, tend to think of water as calorie-free, and so no label reading would take place. You might want to take a minute for a little label perusal, if you are a flavoured water enthusiast. Although the waters generally make use of natural sugar cane or fructose rather than the high fructose corn syrup dumped into most soft drinks, some of those 16 ounce water bottles can still pad your waist with up to 180 calories. The real heads-up should be the number of syllables or capitalized letters involved in an ingredient. My general guideline is that any item that sounds like it comes from a science experiment is not something I want to imbibe.
Check those labels for this one, in particular, EDTA. It has a most fascinating list of uses, among which is included industrial cleaning, agrochemicals, laundry detergents, and the pulp and paper industry, to name a few. Yes, it has been approved by the FDA as a preservative, but you don't normally think of water as a preservative, do you?
Anyway, read those labels first, and then decide if you still want to chug back that water.

8,000 Solidarity Clicks

The objective is to collect those 8,000 clicks by this Saturday, March 8, and present them to "Canadian policymakers in charge of aid and development. This gesture will celebrate the essential role of women in international development and underline the impact of gender equality on the health of developing nations."
Follow this link and you'll find yourself at the "Uniterrs" website where you can find enough reading material to keep you busy for hours. Uniterra is "Canada’s biggest international voluntary program, is jointly operated by CECI and WUSC and is present in 13 countries. Uniterra offers citizens and organizations the possibility of making a contribution towards reaching Millennium Development Goals". One click will take you to the stories of eight women helping Uniterra to spread a message of female empowerment and working, each in her own way, to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals.
Objective 1: Reduce extreme poverty and hunger
Objective 2: Ensure primary education for all
Objective 3: Promote gender equality and the empowerment of women
Objective 4: Reduce infant mortality
Objective 5: Improve maternal health
Objective 6: Fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Objective 7: Ensuring environmental sustainability
Objective 8: Create international partnerships for development
If any of those make sense to you, visit the site and get involved by adding your click to the hoped-for 8,000. Who hasn't got a sister, or an aunt, a grandmother or a female cousin? Who hasn't had a mother? For your own sake, or the sake of one of the women in your life, go and click.