Shameful Things

I found this photo online, I can't remember the site I got it from. I'm using it because  a) I think it's awesome, and b) Shame on Uganda, indeed!

 Uganda is hoping that the world turns a blind eye to its evil of making being queer a crime punishable by death.

Nigeria too wants to criminalize being queer, including ending funding to queer rights organizations, so that queer people will be even more marginalized in that region of the world.

Now, on to Israel. So, Hamas, a militant, anti-Israel hate group and the State of Israel have agreed to an imposed cease-fire. Ok, fine. Though, here are the facts. Hamas has launched over 420 missiles into Israel, 420!! Israel has a kick-ass defense system and has stopped many of the missiles from entering the rest of the country.

Apart from Palestinians feeling justified in their vicious hate, with Hamas heading it all, the whole fucking world is totally biased against the state of Israel.

Two things: 1) Palestine is not a country. This fact has been recognized by the UN.

                     2) Anti-Jewish hate continues to frighteningly rise around the world. Organizations that sound legit, such as The World Social Forum, which I had to look up, and learned about in the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal newsletter, will be all about helping Palestine , at the event being hosted by Brazil, this year. What’s more, my idiot country is sending a rep. to the Forum from the postal worker's union. Why? What the hell do postal workers have to do with hate -based politics?! Moreover, postal workers are federal agents, ergo, our government is surreptitiously saying that it, in fact, doesn't support Israel, though, outwardly it says it does.

Ok three things: Israel not only has every right to defend itself, it is the ONLY country in that entire region of the world where queer rights exist.
  
This article outlines the politics of queer rights in Israel.
http://yulr.org/homosexual-rights-in-israel-balancing-the-religious-and-the-secular/ 

Israel, unlike all of its Muslim neighbouring countries, and area=Palestine, is very supportive of women's rights, and women's equality (the political Hasidim notwithstanding).

Here's an article written by a woman living in Israel working for the US-based National Council for Jewish Women, about women's reproductive rights in Israel.

 http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/09/3100216/op-ed-dont-set-back-reproductive-rights-for-israeli-women

This past year Israel created a law banning underweight models from working. This made headlines, no other country has followed suit..yet?

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/21/israel-bans-underweight-models/

Israel also rallies for the rights of non-human animals.

Last year, Israel outlawed the declawing of cats! Canada, among many countries, has yet to follow.

http://www.care2.com/causes/israel-bans-cat-declawing-will-u-s-follow.html

Here’s an article about the woman who founded the Israeli SPCA http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/a-pioneer-of-animal-rights-in-israel.premium-1.478223

That Israel fights back is a given. Violence and war are horrible realities, made worse by the fact that , in the case of Israel, that country has been having to defend its existence even before it was declared a nation-state. For all the shit that gets talked about that country, Israel unlike all the Muslims in the area is not a medieval throwback of a country where being queer will get you murdered, or where you will get stoned to death for, say, looking at someone you aren't married to.

Here in Toronto we have a hate group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid that has been marching in Toronto's Gay Pride parade for the past few years.  Friends of Simon Wiesenthal ( FSW) has been denouncing that group as a hate group. Pride receives funding for the parade, and FSW has been asking the city to revoke funding to the parade if it continues to support hate. To date, the group is still being permitted to march in the upcoming parade this Summer. 
 This link  gives clear facts about what has been going on recently in Israel and the Gaza zone.
http://www.friendsofsimonwiesenthalcenter.com/

Ignorance and sheer biased stupidity continue to fuel people's warped realities about Israel. Israel not only has no allies in its region, but, fewer and fewer people and countries and organizations choose to publicly lend their voice in support of the Jewish state and its right to exist, and that's what this is all about. 

I remember once, some years ago, talking about Israel with someone I worked with. I was shocked when he said that Jewish people didn't need Israel, they had Canada or Argentina as places to live. I was livid. He believed that Israel should  belong to the Muslims, or more rightly, the Islamists=Palestinians, and because the Jewish people had displaced them ,they, he felt, should leave. 

Sadly, I think many people similarly to him;that even after all the horrors of the Holocaust, Jewish people still don't belong in Israel. Israel is a Jewish state; it is the only one in the world. There are 50 Muslim states in the world, Palestine is not one of them because it is not a state. Israel has to constantly defend itself  against all the Muslim countries, not just because it exists, but because it exits among so much anti-Jewish hate. We can't say anti- Semitism when so many of those who hate Israel are also Semites.

Congratulations!!!

I knew that Barack Obama would win, though, I'll admit I was getting scared early on last night as the polls started to close, and the grand dragon seemed to be in the lead. Well, not for long! 

 Indeed, Obama is the voice for change and progressive actions for America. He won by more than 80,000 votes, say some analysts, or more than 100 electoral college votes; not counting the states that hadn't finished counting their ballots by the time he went past 270 to sweep to his victory!

Obama has done for America and voter turn out, especially among Black and other non-white voters, what Nelson Mandela did for his people during his election in apartheid stricken South Africa. Both men mobilized the masses, and got people  especially of colour to the polls, in droves. Both encouraged the "forgotten masses" to vote by using tools that are accessible to all. 

In his first term, Obama got people to the polls en masse, by heavily relying on social media as an important communication tool. His campaign was all about creating clear communication, and making himself accessible. It worked, he won. 

In 1994, Mandela got Black people to the polls for the very first time in South Africa's very racist history. Most of the rural people were illiterate, and wouldn't be able to read a ballot card, so the ANC created a ballot card with all the candidates colour photos on it. That was ingenious, and history was created, as South Africa finally had it's first leader of colour!
                      South African ballot card, from 1994

Obama, true to his words, always manages to get people "fired up, ready to go!", to quote him. This time around people knew how life-or-death this election was, and astoundingly waited in line for as long as 6 hours, or more, to cast their ballots. 6 hours! That's unheard of in first world countries, isn't it? But then again, a nation of 300,000,000 people battling issues that are usually reserved for the third world knew what the outcome would be if they didn't choose the only person with a feminist agenda, a socialist agenda, and an agenda of compassion, and direct action.
   
Thankfully, Obama's words fired people  up enough  and created an important impact   because Americans were sure not going to let a sheet wearing dragon called mitten win.

Some friends I made on my trip to Scotland

On my recent trip to Scotland, I made some cute friends; the 

 humans I met weren't nearly as cute.

 

This is a Highland cow, I've forgotten her name but she's 1 and a half. How cute?!

 This little cutie would greet me everyday by running full-tilt at me, which scared the crap out of me at first, until I realized that she was waiting for snacks. She would run, and come right up to me licking her little lips, waiting. Her little friends would stand further afield licking their lips too. She did get snacks from me:)Her friends didn't because they were too shy to really come close, and if I went too close to them they would trot away.

 I love this wee dog, Saffie. She walked me everywhere, showed me her belly, and even protected me from a big, scary biting dog!

How witchy and cute!

A Sign of the Times

                 How cute is this?! I think I may bring my girls..too cute

The Presidential Debates: Round 1

Last night, during the first round of presidential debates, Barak Obama was his usual eloquent, erudite self, and, as always, behaved like a gentleman as he debated against the grand dragon mit(tten) romney.

mitten, as he will heretofore be referred to as, behaved just like himself: the filthy, bullying, lying, hateful bigot, who had the nerve to imply very clearly that the President was a liar and simply made up his facts!

Obama didn’t stoop to the smear-tactics of mitten, he rose above the slander, always looked the dragon directly in the eyes with a clear countenance, and never once interrupted him.

The dragon not only bullied his way into interrupting the President, many times, but also the pathetic mediator whose job it was to mediate, and to not allow one opponent to railroad everyone. However, the mediator was a bumbling loser who refused to do his job, and so the dragon got heaps more air time.  How the hell is that fair?!

At one point mitten tripped himself up not hard with his zero IQ, and talked about “poor people”, and then quickly realized what he had just done; a modern-day ross perot- “you people”. He then tried to quickly redress it by covering it over saying instead “Low-income people”. Too late mitten. We saw your face as you realized you’d fucked up out loud, and live, and we heard you condescend to all non-billionaires!

I hope America won’t allow the wool of mitten’s grand dragon sheet to be pulled over their eyes.

America needs Barak Obama for another term, though if they don’t vote for him, they deserve the shit that mr. liar- liar- burning -cross -on- fire hands out.

It Takes a Village to Raise a Misogynist

 

Things I overheard today , the eve before my Federal Government decides whether abortion can, and should still be free and available to all women in Canada.

This first conversation snippet I overheard while at Rexall. There were 2 men and a woman, standing in an aisle holding a conversation. One of the men was talking at the top of his lungs:

“...Oh yeah, by the way, this is my wife.” She works for me.” The man who spoke had been talking for about 5 minutes before it dawned on him to vaguely mention “the wife”, no name, nothing else. Mind, she didn’t speak up either. Also notice the preposition he used, "for", not with.

“My wife works for me too” said the other caveman.

One of these two neanderthals, I don't know which, I was in another aisle, then went on to say he had children at home, and kept referring to them as his children, and how he looks after them or sees them when he gets home. I guess the wife of his who also works for him is exempt from “wife duties?” Could it be?

No, it’s just that men are very, very selfish. Men always talk about themselves, first. They see the world in terms of how it relates to them and their viewpoint.

“My kids, my wife…me, me me.”

Same store..while I was at the cash..the man manager to the female cashier:

“girl-managers, … we need to get the girls...”

 Me to the cashier: “He just said girl-manager, what about boy-manager?

Her: “Yeah, girls vs boys. There are some things that need heavy lifting, so…

I raised my eyebrows in disgust.

Earlier this evening I was watching stupid shows with heterosexual couples who want to buy houses. In the first show, the male provided the oooh so big, $15,000 down payment, and then said to the woman, who was purportedly his girlfriend, never “partner”, that he should make the decisions about what to put in the house because he had paid.

 She was upset, but did nothing. He  kept saying  he was happy to have a space for himself, in his new home. She kept trying to correct him, and get him to be inclusive, but really, if you have to correct someone and fucking remind them to value you, you've lost the plot!

The idiot man who was designing the house, put up black and white photos the caveman had taken on trips.The designer said he hadn't seen even one photo with the girlfriend in it, and still he put them up. She playfully punched her boyfriend, cuz she was real upset. Meanwhile the boyfriend complimented himself on his artistic skill. Wow!

What I want to know is, why do women stay? Why put up with a demented, barbaric, rude, and, lest we forget, selfish caveman? Why?

The next show, same idea, only this time said young, het couple were getting an $85, 000 down payment from the husband’s parents. Sounds ok. The problems?

The parents were very openly rude to their son’s wife, and their son had absolutely zero backbone. The parents were insulting their daughter-in-law in front of the son, and he’d keep quiet.

Again, I gotta ask, why the fuck would you stay?!!! Your spouse won’t stand up for you, and your in-laws are misogynist throw-backs. If you stay, you too have no spine.

“Abortion should always be free. Do not support motion M-312! Supporting it will erode Canada's image as a freedom-supporting, progressive nation. If you criminalize my right to choose, you will turn Canada into an oligarchy of misogyny”

( my comment on today's petition https://leadnow.netdonor.net/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1694&ea.campaign.id=16616&forwarded=true)

Another Fast

First, I gotta say, I hate " the new look" of Blogger.Why does everything have to always have a " new look". Clearly, people have too much time on their hands  and that's why they feel compelled  to mess with the old look that worked perfectly fine. Hotmail is forever doing this, a system I use at work as well. Why on earth can't these people leave well enough alone is what I'd like to know.

Anywho, here I am doing a(nother) fast...My last one was back in April, so 2011, and it was your bog-standard 24 hour lemon-honey-water fast.

I'm aiming for 30 hours-maybe 36, this time round. I'm not ready for 48 hours just yet. I'm at hour 25.5 now. This time I'm doing water only. I started with lime ( I have no lemons) honey and water. Then, moved on to water with a pinch of Himalayan salt in it.

Why add salt to water? Pure salt helps to pull toxins out of you, while helping your body to stabilize itself.

Here's a great link I found about the pros of using natural salt vs. the evil cons of using  processed "table salt" http://innerwealth.me/2012/06/23/use-himalayan-salt-2/

Right now, I'm not  too hungry, but yesterday and last night were killer. So, what did I do? I  watched "Come Dine With Me", naturally!  I stayed up as long as I could, so I'd be really tired and sleep without feeling hungry. Kind of worked.

 Here's another interesting link all about Himalayan salt; how to use it, what's it's benefits are, and such like.
http://www.himalayancrystalsalt.com/salt-your-health.html

Right now, I'm closing in on 26 hours. I'll see how much longer I can go. I feel kind of lethargic, and it's a task to not focus on food.

Well, we'll see how I go, and more importantly, how I feel when I finish.
 A belated Shana Tova to all, and a pre-emptive Yom Kippur!