Enough is Enough!
An eloquent anti-immigration speech. Round ‘em up and ship ‘em out!
Additionally, an eloquent response from the guy in the NRA hat.
Popularity: 2% [?]
My knitting blog is now located at the Needle Exchange!
The new Canadian Citizenship Guide: Gender Equality Fail
The Globe and Mail had a piece on the new Canadian Citizenship Guide, including a quote by Historian Margaret Conrad, who had this to say a-boot it:
“It’s kind of like a throwback to the 1950s. It’s a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men.”
I thought to myself, that can’t be true, can it? So I went about trying to prove to myself that the new document couldn’t be all boys and no girls. Well, it’s a little shocking.
#1: The gender equality section
First, let me reproduce here the entire section on The Equality of Women and Men.
“In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation, or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.”
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. 4 lines (in the original document) that basically amount to “don’t torture your wife.”
#2: Female and male pronouns
Let’s take a cursory look at the number of times female and male words are mentioned:
| With Queen/King | Without Queen/King | |
| # female words (she, her, hers, (*)woman, (*)women(’s), female, mother, queen) |
52 | 30 |
| # male words (he, his, him, (*)man, (*)men, male, father, king) |
50 | 43 |
I found this incredibly surprising. Why? Because I was expecting that frequent mentions of the Queen, gender equality and votes for women would put them way ahead. And yet they only win by 2, mostly because the word “queen” is mentioned 22 times. If you remove “queen” (22) and “king” (7) from the lists, the numbers are 30 for women and 43 for men. And that number still includes the number of times “her” refers to the Queen.
#3: Great Canadians
We’ve come to the most disgusting part of it all. Here’s the proportion of men and women representing the best and brightest of modern Canada. It makes me sick.
(Numbers have been scaled to give an impression of proportional differences.)
| Number of male artists mentioned (3 individuals, plus 7 in the Group of Seven and 10 in Les Automatistes) |
20 |
| Number of female artists mentioned (2 individuals, plus 6 in Les Automatistes) |
8 |
| Number of male athletes mentioned | 6 |
| Number of female athletes mentioned | 1 |
| Number of male scientists, thinkers and inventors mentioned | 20 |
| Number of female scientists, thinkers and inventors mentioned | 0 |
That last one really turns my stomach. Zero. Goose egg. And yet, why am I not surprised?
Right after the list of great Canadian male discoveries is this paragraph:
“The prosperity and diversity of our country depend on all Canadians working together to face challenges of the future. In seeking to become a citizen, you are joining a country that, with your active participation, will continue to grow and thrive.”
Perhaps “diversity” is a word about which they should spend a bit more time thinking.
Popularity: 3% [?]
A hilarious reflection of Torontonian apathy
Facebook page for TTC Riders’ Strike! Protest by not doing anything!
Confirmed guests at time of posting: 3,524.
Facebook page for TTC Meeting about raising fares! Actually do something and have a say in what happens to the fares!
Confirmed guests at time of posting: 11.
And more investigative journalism:
“Riders are going to have to pay more to maintain the level of service we currently have,” said TTC chairman Adam Giambrone, adding that he and other commissioners prefer a fare hike over cuts to a system that carries 471 million people a year.
Oh really, Adam? Because from the highlights of your last meeting, it says that you recently put off $548 million in TTC “improvements and expansion projects” that were approved a month earlier. These cuts include mid-life bus rebuilds ($258 million) and fire ventilation upgrades ($55 million). Which means that you’re not maintaining the current level of service.
The situation with the TTC will only improve by getting rid of the bloat associated with paying an old boy’s club to pat itself on the back. Get rid of the bloat and I won’t have to pay extra for old, loud buses and twice extra to drive 5 minutes north of Steeles.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Who owns the Special Olympics?
I was just watching the Colbert Report and Ahnold’s wife was on talking about the Special Olympics, and how her mother had started them. I was surprised because I’d thought it was a man who originated them. At least, I’d seen an ad about a man whose brother had an intellectual disability and whose mother adored him, who decided to start the Special Olympics. So I went to Wikipedia for the answer and here’s what I found:
From Special Olympics Canada:
In the early sixties, testing of children with intellectual disabilities revealed that they were only half as physically fit as their non-disabled peers. It was assumed that their low fitness levels were a direct result of mental retardation. A Toronto researcher and professor, Dr. Frank Hayden, questioned this assumption. Working with a control group of children on an intense fitness program, he demonstrated that, given the opportunity, intellectually disabled people could become physically fit and acquire the physical skills necessary to participate in sport.
Inspired by his discoveries, Dr. Hayden began searching for ways to develop a national sports program for intellectually disabled people. It was a goal he eventually achieved, albeit not in Canada. His work came to the attention of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the Kennedy Foundation in Washington, D.C., and led to the creation of Special Olympics.
To ensure that Canada was represented, Dr. Hayden called on an old friend, Harry “Red” Foster… Inspired by his mother’s devotion to his younger brother, who was both blind and intellectually disabled, Mr. Foster began early in his career to devote much of his time, energy and wealth to addressing the problems faced by individuals with an intellectual disability and their families.
The following summer, 1969, the first Special Olympics Canada event was held in Toronto. From that modest beginning, the Special Olympics movement quickly spread across the country and grew into the national sports organization it is today.
Interesting.
Popularity: 1% [?]