So, they decide that those priviledged white assholes at Duke are "innocent" because they couldn't build a de3cent case against them?

They sure built a fantastic case about the "defendent" whose name they managed to keep so secret. A woman whose allegations we3re considered "suspect" because she had been sexually assualted numerous times before? A woman whose allegations were considered suspicious because she has suffered a mental illness in the past?

Did it ever occur to you fuckers that she experienced mental illness because she was a woman? A working class woman of colour in the united states who experienced sexism, racism and classism on a daily basis.

These boys - no matter if they actually sexually assaulted her or not - ARE NOT HEROS.

THEY ARE RACISTS AND THEY ARE MISOGYNISTS.

When the DA drops teh case, we suddenly forget that they hired two "exotic dancers" to entertain them, and then abused both of the women with racial slurs after they got whatever it was they wanted.


DO NOT FORGET DUKE. WE WILL NOT FORGET YOU.

This morning, sad news. Canada's inveterate broadcaster and voice of all the late evenings of my childhood has passed, at the age of 85 years. Lister Sinclair died early this morning in a Toronto hospital and as I listened to the story on the news, I could not help but cry. IDEAS was the programme that came on jsut as my bedtime approached in my early childhood, and later in my teen years became to programme I stayed up to listen to. The tone was quiet, contemplative. The stories beautiful, profound and wide-ranging. And burnt into my memory, like a smell of home, Lister's colonial British accent opening each programme with "I'm Lister Sinclair, and this is IDEAS". That voice, and that phrase, brings me back to childhood everytime I hear it.

Perhaps this is why his death has saddened me so much. It is not just his mortality that has been proven, but my own as well. The memories of sitting in my kitchen as a child of 5, hearing Lister's voice without true understanding of the words, take me back to a safer, more innocent time. I time when I was less cynical, and believed in more. And Lister's death reminds me that that past is gone, that time marches on, that we move forward and progress, but maybe in all that we lose something. We have certainly lost Lister Sinclair.

Lister was a math student - did graduate work at U of T in the faculty of math - and yet still managed to put together some of the most thought-provoking arts and humanities programmes that the nation of Canada has ever heard. Longtime friend and Ideas co-producer Bernie Lucht said:

"He felt that the job of humanity was to find out what it was about, what we were about and what our surroundings, the universe into which we had been born, were about."

Lister Sinclair was a true philosopher - seeking wisdom, always learning. It is said Sinclair once said he wanted to die learning, and if there is a mantle that I may take up for the rest of my life it is that. Lister Sinclair you inspire me. I also want to, and will like you, die learning.

(maybe one day, if wishes really do come true, I too will work for Ideas...but thats another wish)

Today is dedicated to Lister Sinclair, always one of my favourite voices of my favourite radio station, the CBC.

so, you may have noticed i have been less than vigilant in updating this blog. its because i am feeling less than inspired to write these days.

when i first started a blog, the world of internet journaling was exciting and new. there was a voyeurism about reading other people's lives and there was an exhibitionism about writing my own. plus, i was mostly lonely out in halifax and writing gave me a way to while away my time on the computer without feeling so alone nor so useless.

but things have been busy in my life for the last 6 months or so. vancouver was a blast, and also a lot of work. at the end of the summer the explicitly NOT CONSERVATIVE, possibly moderate, definitely interesting rafeh hulays threw me a going away party at mona's, a Lebanese restaurant downtown. we danced and ate and it was great. i should have properly  thanked him in this public forum sooner, but as i said, i have been feeling not much like writing these days.

so, thank you rafeh (not a conservative).

perhaps one reason to explain my lack of excitment about writing here is that i am writing constantly at school. my first thesis chapter is done, and i am trying to revise and add to it now, and so its a constant balance between reading reading reading and writing writing writing. i'm all tuckered out.

avi mograbi, the (in)famous israeli director is coming here on monday with his film "Nekam Achat Mishtey Eynay" or, in english "Avenge But One of My Two Eyes" about the treatment of palestinians by members of the israeli army. i heard him speak on cbc the other day. he is AMAZING! ABSOLUTELY FREAKING AMAZING. on cbc he referred to the palestinians as living under a military dictatorship. when the interviewer mentioned that this might be considered contentious by some mograbi responded "well, you live in an area of the world constantly invaded and occupied by a foreign military. i don't know what else you would call it. a military democracy?"

check out some reviews HERE and a better one HERE

 

Finally, you may be and probably are aware that researchers associated with Johns Hopkins Blumberg School of Public Health recently released a report averaging the numbers of deaths of Iraqi's that could be directly correlated to the US-led war to be approximately 655,000 since the war began two and a half years ago.

655,000.

thats the average.

researchers stated that the number could be as low as 400,000 or as high as 800,000. as low as 400,000.........

needless to say Bush deems the report "not credible".

it was, i should add, published in the medical journal "the lancet". in case anyone is not aware, getting published in a quality and respected academic journal is not an easy task and if you are going to publish something with such an inflammatory premise as this one, you can be sure that the editorial board would want to ensure credibility in the reports findings. not to mention that these journals are most assuredly peer-reviewed, which means a bunch of other medical researchers, with PhDs and post-doctoral training, all reviewed the report and found it credible. But Bush, with his C- average from university, deems this report "not credible".

anyway, i don't have time to analyse this stuff further, nor do i really want to because it just will make me enraged, but i have to say this - and i know "this" that i have to say is going to win me no friends, but i am going to say it anyway:

I have some American friends. They are good people. They are nice, and they are kind and they care about the world and none of them deserve to die.

regardless of that. regardless. no argument can convince me otherwise:

The 3000 stockbrokers and office workers and mannhattanites and firefighters and cops who died in the World Trade Centre in 2001 ARE NOT WORTH 655,000 IRAQI LIVES! 3000 Americans DOES NOT AND NEVER WILL EQUAL ANY 655,000 ANYONES.

September 11th (and I hate calling "it" that, as if it deserves this high and special status in my mind) WAS NOT THAT BIG OF A GODDAMN DEAL THAT YOUR COUNTRY GETS TO CHANGE AND ALTER THE COURSE OF THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD. The world trade centre attack happened. its over. GET FUCKING OVER IT!

shit. i don't want to not care about those 3000 people who died but i gotta tell you - and you'll hate me for it, but right now, i don't give two shits about them. this "war on terror" is fucking terrorising ME (not even to mention how much our struggle to end terror must be terrorising the Iraqis)

talk about racism.

 

oh by the way, i read a statistic the other day that said that as many people died from terrorist attacks since 2001 as had died from drowning in their own bathtubs. ORANGE ALERT! DO NOT BATHE!

i was gonna leave it a whole month. a whole month in virtual silence. but then, i got bored so here i am.

i have a lot to recap, although now i am in london, so it sure seems like nothing is happening. anyway, the recapping will come later. first,news:

I got scared:


and then i cut my hair:


Then I went to a hat party:


I taped the veil on myself:

(I cannot get it to flip around, so..youknow, use your imagination)

I went to the hat party with Blair:


I had a great look going on:
(again, why is this rotated when i save it, and not when i upload it? I am in too bad of a mood to try and figure it out)

I had great shoes:



I also had a craptactular time. i talked to no one. i missed my love and i wanted to go home so i did. but i looked good doing it.

hey i have so many more photos, and lots to write about - from personal anecdotes to world events to hilarious local goings on. so, i'll write more later. check in.

So, my summer here is almost at an end. I booked a ticket, as mentioned, for September 5th. I thought I had a place to stay until then, but it turns out I was wrong, so I am going to go to Victoria and up island for the 5 days that I will be officially homeless. That means that, if you are in Vancouver, that my last week to see you will be this one.
And I have so many millions of things to do this week. Call me if you want to hang out.

Otherwise, come to the Going Away Party that I am throwing for myself. It will be Thursday August 31st starting around 530pm at Kits Beach. There is a reason for this. Ordinarily I like to stay as far as humanly possibly from Kits Beach and its svelte healthy lululemon swathed ultimate playing denizens BUT...
the wonderful and kind Alnoor has offered his rooftop in Kits for an after beach barbeque party. So Kits it is.

So, where was I? Oh right. Ok so Kits Beach, near the concession, restaurant thing at 5:30 until like 8 or 9. Bring a barbeque (habachi) if you have one, and goods to grill and we will cook up some foodstuff and drink some hidden and surreptious alcoholic beverages until the time that we head up to Alnoor's rooftop to sit or stand and dance or sway or gyrate suggestively under the stars until you all want to leave. Please come. I would be/will be sad to leave Vancouver without seeing you.

You can call me or email me for more details.

hey you know what i just realised? I have not even once made it to wreck beach this summer. What a tragedy!!!!!

Has the world gone completely racistly insane? Or, On Why I am Starting to Really Hate White People:

This from Britain's Sunday Mail: (Please note: The passengers were heard speaking a foreign language that was thought to be Arabic

Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed

Passengers refuse to allow holiday jet to take off until two Asian men are thrown off plane

By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE and ANDREW CHAPMAN 12:08pm 20th August 2006

Reader comments (5)

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The last few weeks have reached a new level of busy. I am trying to work on my thesis (going poorly), coordinate this GD magazine (not really happening), organise an anti-war movement (up and down), have a social life (teeny bit) and be in love (a lot).

I am stressing about my thesis work - 25 pages due by Sept 15 and i have a severe lack of ideas - and about this magazine - I leave town on the 5th and need ot have all of my work done by then - and about how i will manage to see and say goodbye to all the people i love for another 8 months while i go off to school yet again.

I want to see all those people i love. hopefully we can work it out.

Next week?

But, in the mean time, I will be unable to blog for a bit. ha! have you noticed that i haven't been doing much of it lately anyway?

So, yes, official hiatus until mid-September at the latest. Check back then though. I might post a party invite here before then.
Love llove love

i booked a ticket back to ontario. straight back to london this time, no stopping in toronto. my loves in toronto - i am sorry. i need to get back to school and finish my thesis chapter asap. but i will visit you soon. very very very soon.

i booked a ticket back for the 5th of september. i want to extend my stay here in the city for as long as i possibly can. i was talking to someone the other day about my situation - my romantic situation. my friend said: its like the bus. you wait for half an hour and nothing comes and then suddenly you get three buses, all at once.
yeah, thats what it has been like lately. there was a lull in my romantic career, and then it suddenly perked up again.

have you ever dated the french? they are so romantic, it is almost unbelievable.
and the accent? swoon. ahhhhh, the french. the french. sometimes activism brings along with it all sorts of good things.

last nights meeting for our coalition was fantastic. it was shorter than ususal, and we really talked abotu stuff. now begins the more philosophical discussions, the conversations about ideas, about beliefs, about who we are and what we represent. its so much more satisfying than simply coordinating rallies and marches. But thats just my opinion, heavily inflluenced by my love of theory and a good argument.

i don't want to leave vancouver, and i am angry that of course i meet all these fantastic people, and one particularly romantic francophone, in the month before i leave. i hate leaving. i am always leaving.

Yesterday's rally at the art gallery was different. There was a tension floating in the air, an anger that I haven't felt in public since that one rainy night 3 years ago at an Iraq war protest when someone got hit by a car that smashed into the march. It was rainy and cold and dark that night. Yesterday was sunny, bright and hot.

The music was loud and intense, billowing out of loudspeakers. It too sounded angry, and the pictures of dead people looked angry and the voices coming out of microphones were angry and anger was everywhere in the crowd.

And the crowd seemed smaller. I know, a lot of things were happening yesterday - the Dyke March, and Powell St Festival and the fireworks. But the march seemed small. Marginal. Some of the co-organisers put the march at 1500 people. I really really think it was no more than 500.

A girl spoke. She was maybe 10, and she broke down in the middle of her speech. "Why?" she asked. "Why is the Israeli government killing people." It was really hard to watch. Really hard to listen to. I ran into a friend on the outside of the march after that. "I think I need to leave." he said. He looked really shaken up. "I don't know if I can handle this. Its too much. Its too intense". I've never seen him look so stunned before. So shaken. Usually he is laughing.

I have to admit, I am getting scared. People are polarising, the reaction is getting more and more angry and vicious. Rifts are being created, or exacerbated. The lines drawn between Muslim and Jew are NOT being healed, no matter how hard I push in our little collective for them to be. A man from Jews for Just Peace spoke at our rally. He was amazing, but at the end people had some criticisms. Fine. Valid. But then someone said "I guess what he said was good for a Jew." Sigh. I dunno. How do I feel about that? On the one hand, its good that someone's expectations of what a Jewish person can think and feel and believe about the world are upturned and upended. Its good that solidarity can be displayed from all sides.

But it freaks me out a little. The way in which these lines are hardening. Everyone is hardening. People are angry and everywhere there is bitterness and rage and bile and distrust. And sometimes, as was said at the march, in a climate of utter distrust and fear, someone like Hasan Nasrallah is whom you turn to.

And I know he is a resistance leader. And I know Hizbollah does things for people that our governments don't even do. But I fear that our movements will get marginalised and stereotyped if we don't do a better job of explaining ourselves as we shout solidarity with the resistance. Already reactionary mouthpieces in the paper - even the Georgia Straight - accuse us all of being "terrorists" and even followers of a "pro-war, fascist Jew-killer". We are positioned as rabid dogs. Terry Glavin's piece (of shit article) accusing StopWar.ca of organising for the sole purpose of "opposing Israel" attacks us all - big names like George Galloway, activists in general and one of our coalitions co-organisers, and local business man Rafeh Hulays. Glavin takes Hulays' comments out of context, twists them, and re-contextualises them to make a fairly conservative businessman look like, well, a monster. The media can create such things. It can create monsters , but it will never EVER be able to uncreate them. Just like you can't unsay a thing you have already said

So see. I feel it. I really do. I feel that we are polarising. We are "with us or against us"-ing. We are falling apart here, on the left, in the anti-war movement, in the world in general. I don't know what to do.

I waver back and forth over whether we will actually manage to pull all of this together. Over whether we will ever be able to convince anyone. Over whether or not we can ever adequately solve to problems that confront us. Today I am feeling no. I am feeling very worried. I am stiffening for the soon to be prevalent increased racism and profiling and distrust and fear of "Arabs" in North America, and the continued hardening of views towards Jews all over.

A synagogue was attacked yesterday in Rio di Janiero, Brazil yesterday.

I am bracing for the worst here.


In the meantime, I suppose I just keep trying to do what I have been doing.

please let there be an election soon. please please please please please.