Case against Bush Admin might help the fight against the BOA?

I just finished reading this article.

"Next week, the group started by Gaylor and her mother in the 1970s to take on the religious right will fight its most high-profile battle when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on its lawsuit against President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative.

The court will decide whether taxpayers can sue over federal funding that the foundation believes promotes religion in what could be a major ruling for groups that fight to keep church and state separate."

Now that's news! And this Anne Gaylore lady sounds great!

"The 51-year-old once donned a nun's habit as a college student in 1977 to protest a judge who blamed rape on women who wear provocative clothing."

Apparently her mother fought for pro-choice rights back in the day.

There is a follow-up article here. The case is Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., 06-157. for interested parties. It's pretty interesting to me. I was thinking if tax payers can sue the government for giving money to religious organizations, what about the situation with Boyscouts of America? -where the mormons have invested money and now corrupted the standard beliefs with anti-gay beliefs...going so far as to eject life-long members from the organization who are suspected of being homosexual....

The organization's right to set such policies has been upheld repeatedly by both state and federal courts. Reason being is that the Bush Admin is big supporter of the BOA...would this case help the people who have been trying sue the Boyscouts of America for descrimination? Maybe they can sue the gov for giving the funds to a religious organization.

Stem Cell Research eh?

This article on Canada.com says that the Hospital for Sick Children has received an anonymous $5.1-million donation which will be used in stem cell research.

I don't really know where I sit on stemcell research. I always think of that ....South Park episode where Christopher Reeves sucks the juices out of fetus to heal himself. It's weird to me because I know where I sit with abortion, I'm pro-choice. And I was thinking, well when people have miscarriages, they don't burry the fetus. It usually gets flushed or removed and tossed. Thats a really interesting arguement...

Black Snake Moan....

I was reading a huge article about this movie on a feminist blog today. People were freaking out about the movie. I saw the previews for this about 3 days ago. I thought "I'll have to see that movie" Here's why: chained promiscuous girl with catholic preist hovering over her preaching. I figured it was going to be halarious. I thought it would have been a funny statement. Apparently the movie is not done in this light. Feministing.com reported that Christina Ricci told MTV that she is playing "a girl who suffers physical flashbacks to a childhood rape. Some women and young girls freak out, panic, and need to cut themselves. [My character] needs to cause herself the same kind of pain when she has panic attacks by having anonymous sex."
Sort of wrong.. but sort of right. She sounds vague and uninformed. There are very complex issues surrounding what victoms of rape go through. Many people who have suffered a childhood rape become hyper-sexual in their teens and adults but this isn't always the case.

I wanted to post my thoughts on this movie (that I have not yet seen btw) on my own blog since my comments would either be ignored or cause anger on Feministing.

As a uber sexual person, I like movies that are erotic and see nothing wrong with them. However, the general consensus at feministing was that the movie was selling Ricci's body, and basically erotisicing the submission and torture of a traumatized girl. However these are all valid complaints, I immediately figured the movie was done in a different light, maybe to make catholic and chaste beliefs look silly and fascist. and of course being somewhat sexy in the process.

*On a different note, I must write a rant about the complex issues of wanting to be sexually submissive i.e. being tied up and such, with your lover but obviously not wanting to be submissive in life or being raped. Also,I like watching S&M porn but don't like the exploitation and oppression of women that they portray even if it's all in good fun..

Effects of Global Warming?!

This is so freaksome! Scientists wonder if global warming may be polluting oceans with massive and alien looking jellyfish! I wonder what other developments mother nature has in store for us, as retaliation to global warming?


Blue Jellyfish Article
Giant Jellyfish Article

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be A Junkie

When I was younger I was pretty much convinced that once I made it out of high school, I would become a junkie. I figured that I would buckle under capitolism when I realised I couldn't go on working 40 hours a week at $6.50 an hour. I figured I'd live the rest of my days in a crowded, delapitated house with a bunch of cracked out useless musicians and we could create some stability in the chaos of sex, drugs & rock'n'roll. Exert control over our powerless lives. Perhaps this was a silly goal for a teenager to have. But look at it from my perspective- I didn't have anything to live for. My life seemed carelessly devoid of meaning. As if someone had put me here to aimlessly run around the planet for their own amusement. There's is where it all makes sense. Being a junkie gives your life meaning in a sick & twisted way. Addiction gives you something to focus on. If you have a goal of always trying to get your hands on that next fix.. you've got something to live for.

Maybe that sounds sick.. but slowly killing yourself sure beats waitressing...or suicide for that matter.

Interview with Celia Rivenbark ..

This article got me really upset a few months back when it was published in MacLeans Jan 01, 2007 issue. The columnist and author of Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like A Skank, get an interview and half of everything she says makes me angry. Not that I'm a parent so maybe I have no right to speak against her opinion.. tooo bad I'm gonna anyway. A particular part that pissed me off was this:

" Q:... and Nelly Furtado too. What's Nelly's song, Promiscuous, I think?
Yeah, isn't that lovely?
A:I guess we're a leading exporter of skank music.
Who'd have thought. Yeah, that song will come on my daughter's favourite radio station and I'm like, "No," and I turn it off.
Q:You turn off the radio?
A:Oh yeah, when that comes on? I do. I don't think it's appropriate for a nine-year-old kid to be singing along to how promiscuous she is. I mean, I don't even know if she knows what that word means, but it's just a little early for that, you know? Of course, I'm a realist. I know when she hits 13, 14, 15 and she lives with an iPod glued to her ears, I understand that's inevitable, but she's nine, barely nine -- she doesn't need to be singing about how promiscuous she is."

Ahh,...you turn off the radio. She is totaly offering a great a lesson to her daughter. Come on, kids aren't retarded. If you were to explain how you feel the song contains a lack of morals that you want your daughter to have,(or that you feel the content of the song is innappropriate) the kid is going to understand what your saying. I think people need to be more explainitor with their children. Simply stating "NO!" is more apt to pit the child against you. It wasn't all that long ago, that I was 9! I dunno if censorship is really the solution to the problem. 9 year olds are smart and discovering the ever-fun past time of doing the opposite of what your parents tell you to do.

There is also the issue of female promescuity...I was lucky with my mother not telling me to keep it in my pants until I'm married...

More ranting about this later..

India Doesn't Like Gals

What's with India killing off all its baby girls? Have they decided to turn into China? They don't have restrictions on birthing so you wonder.... But This article explains it all.

The article says that in the last 20 years, India has lost over 10 million female infants to feticide. (yea thats right) The world is a sick sad place.

Racism and Feminism

This is something that has been bothering me:

As a self proclaimed feminist, I read a lot material on the internet related to persecution or women.. duh. People may not know this about me. Anyway I read an archived entry on Feministing.com that kinda urked me in a way that I have been urked before. The article was great and addressing the the subject "women are not all oppressed on equal terms" and by this addressing racial issues.

Racial stuff makes me squeamish and has always done so because I never understood racism. It seemed like a fantasy to me growing up because I didn't really see much racists acts. I only heard about it. I didn't think it existed in a way. Anywho, when I read articles about white suppremists and horrible news about white people being at the root of a hate crime, I just feel awful. First of all I don't understand the motivation behind such things and I tend to think "another crazy person". Yet there is this feeling I get like I'm backed into a corner. I wasn't able to define it until today it dawned on me. I'm feeling defensive about myself. I am actually feeling as though because I'm white and white people are always the center of such evils as hate crimes, I am feeling persecuted by it in some bizarre backwards way!

When I thought this through it finally made it possible for me to read the article without this weird feeling. Even though I am horribly (almost to a fault) egalitarian oriented in all aspects of life, I got these subconscious hurt feelings. I was thinking- because I'm white does that mean that I can't understand racial persecution?- because as a white person, I feel persecuted for being associated with hate crimes and racial slurs.

Has anyone else felt this way?

look what I found : http://video.evilmp3.com/swordfight-askyourwife.mov

Lately, I'm just plain sad.

Time passes at a rate I cannot understand. Either it becomes a slow crawl in which I loose all ambition and succumb to feelings of isolated stagnation or I am bustled along so quickly that I trip over everything that is thrown at me.

Lately I've been reading the blogs of old friends, people I use to know, people whose friendship meant something to me. These are also people that currently live all over the world and whom I never speak to. Some people remain dedicated bloggers and for this reason I can sort of keep up with their life even though no words pass between us. Others are more aloof and their personas are only a vague memory of who they were when we last spoke. It's sad to think that I may not see them grow or change. I fear the day that I may see a once dear friend and not recognize her/him. Is that a normal fear to have? Maybe its just silly. No one will ever remain friends with everyone they meet forever. Peoples lives take them all over the place. Circumstances occupy them and friends I'm beginning to believe, depend on circumstance.

Still its a sad thing to realise you've lost someone. Half the time I don't even know how I manage to lose people. Maybe they lose me. Whatever the case may be, I'm very sad that I can no longer speak with people who were once good friends.

Films. Whats your favourite?

Lately I've been overly interested in screenplays. It's mostly due to my complete love and fascination for Woody Allen and Wes Anderson films. As a result of this interest I have been toying with make-shift scripts and reading essays about films and directors. It almost made me want to go to film school. Almost being the key word, since I really haven't made up my mind about post secondary education, only because as Canadians I don't think we look at education the right away. We deffinently do not approach it the right way. A rant for another time.



The first Woody Allen movie I ever saw was probably "Hollywood Ending" on cable tv. I didn't really know who he was or that he was a writer and director. I didn't actually fall in love with Allen films until I saw "Husbands and Wives" a few years back when I met a 30 year old man named Jamie.


Jamie was a musician who told me that "You can't like the Stones and the Beatles, so I'm a complete contradiction" and I agree as I could never decide either and didn't see why I would have to. Jamie had an apartment that was like being on Woody Allen set. It tidy but very cluttered and lived in.Lots of interesting things on the walls and funny old collectables. Anyway, he was a huge Allen fan and we saw a number of allen films together. Husbands and Wives was the first I remember and remains today as my very favourite. I think a next close runner up is Deconstructing Harry. It's really hard to say. I like every one of his movies for different reasons and in different ways. I suppose I could easily write a book explaining why I like each film... but that would be really really lame.

Being a big fan of Wes Anderson films, I don't think 2008 can get here fast enough. I'm anticipating the release which he is currently filming "The Darjeeling Limited" with man of the same characters used in the last few films. It looks great. Rushmore and the Tennanbaums are among my favorite movies of all time.

For fun, whats everyones top ten favourite movies of all time.. in any order? How about Directors? Who's your favourite?