Katamat Musings

Congratulations to Roël Photography

2008-10-09T21:46:00.003-04:00

A big congratulations to Roël Photography on being named Studio of the Month, October 2008 by WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International). WPPI is the largest professional association worldwide, with over 30,000 member studios.

Joe Biden Debate Training

2008-10-05T13:30:00.004-04:00

Here's an inside look at the rigorous preparation Joe Biden went through prior to last week's vice-presidential debate.

Poor George Dub ...

2008-10-04T08:12:00.001-04:00

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Women Taking Action

2008-09-25T10:11:00.003-04:00

Now here is a creative win-win way to stand up and be counted in the fight against Sarah Palin and all her cracked ideas about god, women and virtue.

Make a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name. It's explained here.

Have a great day.

And Yet Another Post on Sarah Palin

2008-09-24T21:52:00.001-04:00

This woman is unthinkable in public office, and yet ... Oh good grief.

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 09/13/2008 - 3:44pm. Guest Contribution

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.

Another View on Sarah Palin as VP

2008-09-22T14:06:00.001-04:00

When Atheists Attack

A noted provocateur rips Sarah Palin—and defends elitism.
Sam Harris
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008

Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady's misfortune—and, above all, upon the "liberal elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom." Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times." Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you"?

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy "baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of "demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options remain on the table"?

It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that Palin's impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family values; in the case of one of Palin's daughters, however, teen pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who "intends" to marry her. Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of "the dysfunction in the black community"?

Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst, as in the Palins' case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism. Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds. She has also fought vigorously for a "parental consent law" in the state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of 21st-century family planning—or, indeed, of the 21st century.

We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of Judgment.

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.

I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.

Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York Times best sellers “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” His Web site is samharris.org.

URL: http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Gloria Steinem on Sarah Palin

2008-09-08T15:42:00.004-04:00

I know I'm not American ... I am, however, a woman and Gloria Steinem is my hero!

From The Los Angeles Times, Sept. 4, 2008

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Kate Visits Canada

2008-07-27T22:02:00.010-04:00

We were thrilled to welcome Kate home for a visit from Australia this month. The two-week visit has flown by far too quickly and she's on her way back to Rob in Newcastle and her last term of Uni.

We'll miss you, Kate ... probably as much as Rob has these past two weeks. Here are few photos to remind you of us.

Love Mom

One Use Packaging vs Refillables

2008-06-30T12:18:00.002-04:00

Our grocery stores are pushing the sale of reusable cloth grocery bags as one way to battle the needless use of plastics. Okay, this is a good thing.

Then walk through that same grocery store and count the number of products sold in plastic containers. Even fresh produce is often packed in plastic. Fresh meats sit on their little styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic.

So, isn't this just a breath of fresh air and a common-sense good idea?

Read the Globe and Mail article here.

If a grocery store in my town were to leap onto this kind of program, they'd have my loyalty for life.

Dr. Zëus Spotted

2008-05-28T11:07:00.006-04:00

Stratford, Ontario ... May 26, 2008

Dr. Zëus Spotted in Stratford, Ontario

Famed blogger and photography rock star, Dr. Zëus, was spotted this week at the prestigious Stratford Shakespearean Festival premier performance of Romeo and Juliette. When asked for comment on the Festival, living in Stratford and the meaning of life, Zeus responded, "I just wanted to poop on the red thing over there then this broad grabbed me and picked me up! I'm just a little dog, so what's a guy to do?"

Stratford locals were out in droves to spot the stars and celebs showing up for the premier performance of Romeo and Juliette. When Zëus was spotted, the theatre was all but forgotten in the rush to get his pawtograph and touch his silky white fur. Dr. Zëus has gone into seclusion today to recover from the emotional trauma of the throngs of adoring fans swarming him.

Dr. Zëus' press agent said today he may reappear at the park this afternoon for walkies.

For more on Dr. Zëus, his philosophy of life, his observations on the world, good recipes and reviews of dog food, check out his blog here.

See the Beacon Herold article here.

Culling Swine in Ontario

2008-04-25T00:40:00.005-04:00

Letter to the Editor, The Toronto Star:

In response to the article of April 24, 2008: Meat Prices Rising with Grain

In light of increasing food costs perhaps Mr. McCain, Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Pork Council can explain to the Canadians who will be bearing the higher cost of food in the very near future why they have engaged in a program to reduce the breeding swine in Canada.

The program, called the 'Cull Breeding Swine Program' states as one of it's purposes, to "assist Hog Producers to address the current market situation of low hog prices, higher feed grain costs and a stronger Canadian dollar by helping to return the industry to a competitive position".

Simply put, this program proposes to pay farmers $225 for each breeding swine that is slaughtered and disposed of, but is not sold for human commercial consumption.

If I understand this correctly, as this is a government sponsored program, it is tax dollars that will be used to compensate the farmers for removing breeding stock and reducing the supply of pork to Canadian consumers thereby raising cost of pork to the taxpayers. The same organizations supporting this program currently underway, are in the news today discussing the imminent increase in food prices.

Surely in a world where we are predicting that millions will die from starvation this is not a program that should even be considered.

Our Canadian farmers are suffering as much or more than any of us from rising fuel costs, rising fertilizer costs and rising costs of living in general. I am positive more suitable programs can be tabled to assist the farmers and at the same time protect Canadian consumers.

A PDF of this program can be found on the Ontario Pork website at www.ontariopork.ca. It is listed under "What's New" and is dated April 9, 2008.

I wrote this letter last night / this morning around midnight. The Toronto Star article I am referencing is here.

The PDF with the details of this obscene program is here.

I've been thinking for some time now that our world is going crazy ... well going crazier than ever before. I had the opportunity to listen to Stephen Lewis talk to us on Earth Day this week and though nothing he said surprised me, the way he said it was so vivid that it frightened me.

It is time for us all to stop talking and start acting.

Be informed.
Take a stand.
Write a letter to the newspaper.
Write a letter to your MP.
There's an election coming soon ... get involved.

Military Wives

2008-04-20T20:31:00.004-04:00

Here's an excellent article by Christie Blatchford of the Toronto Globe & Mail with some insight as to the inner strength of our military wives (and husbands) of our troops in Afghanistan. It's hard and dangerous to be in the front lines of the military. And it is hard, in a different way, to be the one who stays home.

How about a toast to the stay-at-home spouses of our troops.

Here's a link to Front Line Army Wife blog. It's excellent and I suggest you take the time to have a look ... especially endearing is the Guppy post.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

2008-04-14T21:45:00.003-04:00

The following is copied with permission from Susan at Toddler Planet - a brave and tenacious mother/wife/woman fighting this terrible disease. Many thanks to Susan for sharing her journey with us and bringing more awareness of IBC to us. Here's wishing for a full recovery for Susan and women everywhere who have to fight this monster.

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

P.S. Feel free to steal this post too. I’d be happy for anyone in the blogosphere to take it and put it on their site, no questions asked. Dress it up, dress it down, let it run around the place barefoot. I don’t care. But I want the word to get out. I don’t want another young mom — or old man — or anyone in between — to have to stare at this thing on their chest and wonder, is it mastitis? Is it a rash? Am I overreacting? This cancer moves FAST, and early detection and treatment is critical for survival.

Thank you.

From Just One Sheet of Paper

2008-03-27T22:04:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I've been spending (ah, wasting?) a little too much time on the internet lately. But this is really worth checking out.

Hirshhorn Modern Art Gallery

A Little Off the Wall

2008-03-27T21:42:00.002-04:00

Amidst war, famine, human rights abuses, looming recession and a myriad of other woes, let us break now for a moment of silliness. My body can feed 9 cannibals. Find out how many you can feed.

How many cannibals can my body feed?

Happy Easter

2008-03-25T09:38:00.004-04:00

A belated happy Easter to all.

For those of you who also follow Roël's blog, here is an update on the career of Zëus, our Chief Executive Dog.

Zëus has been busy settling in to his new position here at Roël Photography.

We had a brief update from Zeus at the beginning of March.

Now that Zëus feels he has fully assumed his mantle of power, he is willing to share some personal and intimate moments from a typical day on the job.

Zëus is a very paws-on executive, involved in virtually all aspects of album design.

He works closely with me on the technical aspects of colour correction and retouching for all our images.

Of course, as Chief Executive Dog, his is the final approval on all quality control decisions.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed your family, friends and lots of yummy Easter treats.

What's My Name?

2008-02-21T17:40:00.000-05:00

Here's something fun, just for a change of perspective. Try it and pass it on.

What's My Name????

A fun meme and a way to waste 10 minutes. I found this at In Season and shamelessly stole it.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Candy Acura

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Jamocha Almond Fudge Oreo

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
A-dix

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Purple Maltipoo

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Louise Sarnia

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Dix-An

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Blue Wine

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
John Simon

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Angel Cadbury

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )
Lois Kenneth

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
Deacon Detroit

12. SPY NAME/BOND GIRL: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Summer Astilbe

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Raspberry Jeanie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Granola Ginko

15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”)
The Crosstitch Thunder Tour

The Best Screen Cleaner I've Ever Seen

2008-02-21T16:50:00.002-05:00

Check this out ... no really ... check it out, it's great.

Screen Cleaner

Kate Goes to School

2008-02-18T23:46:00.012-05:00

Yesterday marked another Milestone of Motherhood. My firstborn has started school.

Again.

In Australia.

Here she is on her real first day of school at age 3...

And here she is now entering her last year of university in Oz at age 23 ...

A Prince Among Swans

2008-01-09T23:30:00.001-05:00

One of the many things wonderful about Stratford ... all summer we are graced with swans on our peaceful Avon river.

Being new to Stratford, I hadn't really thought much about what happened behind the curtains on the swan scene, though I had heard that we have a swan-keeper.

As it turns out, Stratford seems to have a lock on effective swan management - to such an extent that we make Ottawa look a little foolish. Imagine that!

Here's the article from the Ottawa Journal.

Loving Stratford ... Not So Much

2008-01-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

Okay, so last post I mentioned some of the things I really like about living in Stratford. This post isn't quite so upbeat.

The renovation I posted about earlier this year that was to have lasted 10, no 12 weeks from start to finish wasn't quite complete after 27 weeks when we fired our first general contractor.

I won't go into details here, but you can read more about it (with pictures) at stratfordrenovations.com.

Loving Stratford

2007-12-04T21:33:00.000-05:00

Ten things I love about Stratford ...

1. You don't really have to lock your doors.
2. If you put a loonie in the parking meter, you get to park for about 3 days
3. Strangers you meet on the street always say hello.
4. Evil swans that chase your dog.
5. The streets are filled with tourists all summer.
6. The tourists leave in October.
7. House prices.
8. Gossip at the Canadian Tire gas bar.
9. You just might spot someone famous on a walk through the park.
10. Snow, glorious snow. No need to join a gym, just shovel your driveway.

Let the Work Begin

2007-07-19T14:05:00.000-04:00

Well the move to Stratford has come and gone. We have been in our new home in this great little community for one month as of today.

I'd love to say the yard is looking good (it isn't) and the gardens are all in full bloom (they aren't), but wouldn't it be great to be able to say that?

We took possession of this house last February when the yard was under several feet of snow. Since then our attention has been focused on the squadrons of workmen busy inside the house and not so much on the outside. With the coming of spring and the inevitable melting of the snow it was pretty apparent that there was a lot more work to do on the yard than we remembered.

My guess is that yard and gardens haven't seen much maintenance in about 3 to 5 years. The garden work this summer will, of necessity, be mainly weeding, edging, re-claiming gardens from grass and cutting back that which has gone wildly out of control.

Here are a couple of before shots of a little plot beside our (nasty) garden shed. One of the rhubarbs is about 7 feet tall. The thistle beside it is at least 6 feet, though it was initially dwarfed by the rhubarb (The-Plant-That-Ate-New-York).

Then there is a shot of what that little garden looks like now. I intend to make it into an herb garden. Since it is so late in the season now, most of the herbs will have to wait until next spring to get started. I did manage to find two very sad looking basil plants in the sale bin at Zehrs and bought them for 26 cents each!

For the record, it took me almost 5 hours and 3 yard waste bags to clean out this one little corner of paradise. I salvaged some decorative concrete edging from another sad little garden to keep the soil and plants safe from the driveway. I don't normally like this edging, but it was handy and there is no point in adding to the Stratford landfill site unnecessarily.

Before:

After:

There is an old cast iron stove of some sort in the back of this garden by the cedars. I'm reasonably sure there are no human remains inside it. I did make a brief, half-hearted attempt to dig it up but since I was hot and tired I arrived at the conclusion that it will add interest to the herb garden and really should just stay there.

And here's the original home of the concrete edging that I re-purposed. It's a little hard to tell which side is garden and which side is lawn.

I'll end today's post with one more before-after pair. There are mature gardens around the entire house and deck. All are overgrown and under-weeded. Most have been planted with things that need full sun to thrive though our house is surrounded by very large shade trees and these gardens are pretty much in full shade most of the day. Lots of work to do yet as I've only finished cleaning out on one side of the house. I guess that means I am about 1/4 done.

Before:

After:

What? Me Stress?

2007-07-18T17:27:00.000-04:00

With our move to Stratford, apparently we have caused the dog undue amounts of stress. He does seem to be handling it well, though.

This is how Zeus spends his days while we slave away to earn enough to buy kibble and lamb cookies for him.

As Bob Dylan Would Say ...

2007-07-02T18:13:00.000-04:00

The Times They Are A-Changin.

I will have to change the 'About Anne' part of this blog as I no long live or work in Toronto.

It is official now, I live in Stratford. As for the working part ... I'm taking a brief pause before leaping into the next phase of my career. At the moment I don't know how long that 'brief pause' will be nor do I know quite know what the next career will be.

It is enough, just now, to play with Zeus, work on the gardens and completely and totally enjoy our new home in Stratford.