Friday Uke blogging - one for the missus

This one goes out to my wife, and the kids too - lately all three have been addicted to a Korean soap opera that uses this as its theme song.

our home on native land

And now for something completely different...



It seems odd at first, but it kinda grows on you after a second listen.

time travel?

You might be forgiven for thinking you'd fallen through a wormhole into Mississippi circa 1961 reading this. We Canadians sometimes get a bit smug watching the racial problems in the U.S. and forget that we have ignorant, knuckle-dragging, racist shitbirds of our own. If you want to hear seven minutes of radio that will infuriate and inspire you, check here (the interview is in part 1 of the program). The "victim" doesn't sound like she's taking having a cross burned on her front lawn in stride exactly, but sticks up for the larger community and doesn't sound like she's running scared either. The interviewer on the other hand is pretty clearly horrified that she even has to report on something this disgusting in this country in this day and age.
With all due respect to Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King:

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.
I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land.
I'd hammer on the skulls
of all the racist assholes
All over this land

Added ironical comedic value from the Globe and Mail story: the RCMP spokeswoman said the police are "examining all possible motives, including whether to consider it a hate crime."


Update: The local Mounties have made a couple of arrests in the case on the basis of information provided by the community.

"Paging Vice Principal B. Brother, please report to room 101"

Pennsylvania's Lower Merion School Board's efforts to give every one of its high school students a laptop computer are doubleplusgood!

A Lower Merion family has set off a furor among students, parents, and civil liberties groups by alleging that Harriton High School officials used a webcam on a school-issued laptop to spy on their 15-year-old son at home.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the family said the school's assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had "engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district."
The suit contends the Lower Merion School District, one of the most prosperous and highest-achieving in the state, had the ability to turn on students' webcams and illegally invade their privacy.

According to Philly.com, which is all over the story, this would not only be possible, but easy for the school board to do. The feds have gotten involved and felt the accusations were credible enough that they have subpoenaed school board documents and are investigating.

Setting aside the technological issues involved here, I have to wonder why the school thinks it has the right to regulate what a student does at home. Frankly, it is none of the school's business whether the student was shooting heroin, having bondage sex with goats or reading Ayn Rand aloud to his hamster while wearing nothing but swim fins and bacon grease-- he wasn't on school property, it wasn't during a school-supervised activity and there is no accusation that he was using the school-owned computer for an inappropriate activity like hacking or say, oh I dunno...spying on school board officials or his vice-principal.

Whether they were conducting completely illegal surveillance of this kid is separate matter. It doesn't really matter whether the information about the kid's activities outside school comes from a hidden camera, a nosy teacher or another student who is ratting him out - if it doesn't happen at school and it doesn't involve child abuse or a murder plot, it is none of the school's damned business what kid is doing and they have no right to discipline him for things that are not related to school.

As for the spying, where to start? If the school is doing this, it is so obviously, clearly wrong I can't imagine the kind of authoritarian protofascist numbskulls that are in charge and would sign off on this kind of program. A whole bunch of people should not only lose their jobs, but should end up in jail. Even prison inmates aren't under hidden video surveillance.

And just as an observation on the tendency of school administration not to pay much attention to things they are trying to teach in the classroom; While Orwell's "1984" was taught as part of the English curriculum and required reading for the students, clearly the officials either hadn't read it or had a sick sense of humor. The detention room at both my old high school in Ancaster, Ontario and the one attended by several friends in Sault Ste. Marie was room No. 101.

Two of the all time greats

Two of my all time favorites and kings of their own genres: Peter Gzowski meets Hunter Thompson



While Gzowski had a "great face for radio" he wasn't actually that bad on television, and Thompson actually seems sober. At 10:30 of the video, Gzowski quotes Kurt Vonnegut's perfect summation of Thompson. And no, I won't quote it for you, you'll have to watch the video.

Meanwhile, I've just discovered the blog that Thompson's widow Anita keeps from Owl Farm that regularly quotes the Master on various topics - definitely worth a look.

The politicization of everything

Kudos to Tom Oleson of the Winnipeg Free Press for hitting the nail on the head when it come to the Conservative Party of Canada's work to politicize, well, everything.

THERE is, apparently, no tragedy too heart-rending, no political situation too fraught with danger, that you can’t find a politician eager to exploit it for political advantage.

In Haiti this week for what seemed like little more than a prolonged and expensive photo-op, Prime Minister Stephen Harper regaled the Haitian army and the Haitian people with heart-warming tales of how his Conservative government had rebuilt the Canadian Armed Forces from a rag-tag embarrassment under former Liberal regimes into a slim-trim, fighting-fit military machine.

(snip)

Meanwhile, back on the home-front, junior foreign affairs minister Peter Kent was telling a Jewish magazine that any attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada and elicit an appropriate response, calling up shades of the mutual defence provisions of the NATO treaty. Canada has no such treaty with Israel, and the threat of waging war against Iran in its defence -- while noble in intent -- hardly puts Canada in the big league of negotiators it aspires to and that Iranians might listen to.

There was nothing untrue or dishonest -- usual political exceptions being allowed for -- in what the two Conservatives said. But both comments were unnecessary, untimely and unhelpful. Kent used defence policy to play to the Jewish vote; Harper played to the domestic audience rather than the Haitian one that had come to hear a message that hit closer to home. That's political, but it's not politic.

...so apparently we are going to war in the Middle East the next time Israel decides to bomb some Palestinians or finally carries through on their threat to attack Iran to keep them from getting the bomb. Oh goody. Maybe I won't apply for Canadian citizenship for my kids after all, since we seem heading for perpetual war and thus inevitably, conscription.

and also to Canadian Cynic for this video about the CPC's efforts to keep the Olympics from being tainted by partisan stupidity. This, apparently, is part of a video that was sent out to for party fundraising purposes.

Why what words mean matters

In the neatest bit of spin since some PR hack coined the term "collateral damage" for dead and wounded civilian bystanders, NATO now appears to be trying to convince us that murdering civilians is something for which no one is responsible - and most in the press seem to lazy to call them on it.



Exhibit A from AFP (emphasis mine):

Five Afghan civilians accidentally killed in airstrike: NATO
(AFP) – 20 hours ago
KABUL — Five Afghan civilians were accidentally killed and two others injured in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Monday, in an incident unrelated to a major US-led anti-Taliban operation.
The deaths were accidental, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, adding that the victims had been mistaken for insurgents planting improvised bombs.
"An ISAF airstrike against suspected insurgents accidentally killed five and wounded two civilians in the Zhari district of Kandahar province today," ISAF said in a statement.



An accident - as in "whoops, clumsy me, sorry about that! Could have happened to anyone. Completely unintentional, I assure you."



Bollocks.



This was not an accident. The bombs and missiles used didn't just happen to fall off the jets due to a loose bolt and happen to fall on this group of people by random chance. The pilot didn't unknowingly lean on the trigger of his guns while trying to find a dropped map or something like that. These people were targeted and killed by professional military pilots under orders to attack them. It was not an accident. If it had happened to a group of civilian workers on military firing range in the United States or Canada, the pilot would be facing murder charges.

An accident is an error involving random chance that occurs without any intent to do harm to the people involved. People don't get held responsible for accidents, because they are no one's fault and malicious intent is not a factor.

I'm not saying accidents don't happen on the battlefield, they do. Twelve people were accidently killed in an airstrike the previous day when U.S. pilots fire a pair of missiles into a house full of civilians. In this case, the pilots were trying to kill some Taliban, but missed the target. Now, admittedly they missed the target by 600m, but they didn't mean to blow up the house they hit. It was an understandable, if extremely unfortunate, accident. Oopsy!


A Canadian soldier died in a training accident just the other day on the firing range. It doesn't make his death any less horrible for his family, but he wasn't targeted for death by anyone in this case.


The aforemention airstrike was not an accident, it was a mistake. Whoever identified the target and called in the airstrike made a mistake, either through negligence or incompetence or garbled communication. Someone thought the people killed were Taliban planting a IED. They were not, and the airstrike was called in on bad information.

Mistakes happen on the battlefield, just as they do everywhere. Soldiers, despite what you may see on American television and conservative blogs, are no closer to perfection than anyone else. Friendly fire incidents have cost lives in every war and people make mistakes. Depending on the size of the mistake, sometimes people have to be held responsible. When it is a matter of people losing their lives, someone needs to be called to account - not only to figure out how the mistake occurred so that it can be prevented in the future, but to show that mistakes are taken seriously and carelessness will not be tolerated.

This applies whether you are talking about typos in a newspaper, filing errors in a medical clinic or hockey player who not playing to his potential. A minor typo in the paper isn't worth firing someone over, but if they consistently get the facts wrong or libel someone out of carelessness or negligence, they are going to cost the newspaper a lot of money and damage its credibility. A lost file in a medical clinic has the potential to be a very serious problem and a clerk who regularly loses files is not going to kept on the job for long. A hockey player who is constantly caught out of position or who takes stupid penalties or fails to execute plays properly is going to be benched at best or cut from the team.

This airstrike was not an accident, it was another in a long series of deadly mistakes that are turning the population of Afghanistan against the West. It is understandable that the military would do their best to protect their own and try to remove the blame by calling this an accident. It is unforgivable for the press to do so.

Update: Lousy intelligence, errors by forward observers or just a pilot who thought his job was to stop anything moving on the roads account for another 27 to 33 civilian lives in Afghanistan, but it's okay, because Gen. McChrystal feels really bad about it and stuff, so there is no need to do anything like halt the use of airstrikes without visual confirmation of an enemy target.

I really need to start practicing more

the official theme song of the Red Zeppelin

hat tip to Blevkog, who has evil taste in music, which is why you should read him.

Burning stick meets burning stupid

Burning stick! Burning stick!U.S. citizen Wayne Gretzky lit the torch and we television viewers were treated to a couple of hours of modern dance and extremely impressive stage effects to mark the opening of the Vancouver games. Nicely done, though neither of my kids would believe kd Lange is a woman at first. I liked Shane Koyczan's poem, but he should have started working on his beard a little earlier or shaved. And apparently Canada was settled by tattooed fiddling Celtic barbarians - who knew?

Burning stupid! Burning stupid!

And here's a newsflash for "Blayze" the masked protestor who speaks to the press at the end of the video here: "The next level" of a peaceful protest is not smashing windows and trying to provoke the cops and it isn't "the perogative" of the some self-important douchebag in a black hoodie and bandana to make the sensible people who are trying to make a point in a civilized way look bad just because he thinks he's a revolutionary who is going to bring racist exploitive capitalism to knees by throwing newspaper boxes through shopfronts. Dude, your friends are not activists, they are assholes.

These stupid self-proclaimed anarchists should be aware that The Man has 15,000 troops at his beck and call, 15,000 cops, soldiers and rent-a-cops who would probably like nothing better than to have a quiet two weeks, but who aren't above knocking the crap out of a whole bunch of people who don't deserve it because of the anti-social antics of a few shit-for-brains who think smashing windows serves the cause of social justice.

And yes, I have heard the theories about agent provocateurs that are already making the rounds. Those taking part in the legitimate protests won't be lead astray by such people. If you are at a protest and someone starts talking about "getting" the cops, or starts picking stuff to throw, the best thing to do is tell them to cut it the hell out and grow the hell up. There is not a crowd of protesting civilians anywhere in the world that is going to win a street battle against prepared, trained and well-armed cops, so there is no point at all in starting a fight. And trying to provoke a response by the police so that the news cameras can get footage of the "true nature of the fascist oppressors' brutality" is idiotic and is going to get the wrong people hurt.

There are many legitimate complaints to be made about the Vancouver games and the Olympics in general, but smashing windows and putting bystanders in danger is not the way to make the statement that needs to be made.

Friday Uke blogging - clone edition

Molly Lewis is so frickin' talented it takes two of her to perform this song

Art in Edmonton

Okay, so I'm a gazillion miles away and can't go, but those of you who are in Edmonton (and you know who you are Shini, Chunklets et al) who drop by here on occasion would make me very happy if you were to take in a couple of fabulous art shows by an old internet pal of mine from way back in the my preblogging days of hanging out on the BBC's Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy site - especially on the "Should Chief Gordon Lightfoot reinstate the Saskatchewan Rhinosceros Hunt" thread.

Whatever way your tastes run, you'll have to admit the guy is very talented.

The shows will be held:

• February 18 to March 20 at the VAAA gallery 10215, 112 st 3rd floor (reception Feb 18 7-9:30)
• March 15 to April 3 at the Spruce Grove Art Gallery 420 King Street, Spruce Grove (reception March 20 1-4 pm.)

And if you go the the receptions and you meet the artist and tell him Rev.Paperboy sent you, you'll probably score a glass of wine and some cheese on a cracker or something, or a least a bewildered stare for the rest of the evening.

Inevitable

Taken from the Houston Chronicle's coverage of a Rick Perry-Sarah Palin rally on Superbowl Sunday

And the pile on commences

Really, you'd think by now that the National Post, given its plummeting circulation, would shy away from going out of its way to offend roughly half the population. But clearly that is not the case. Now, after taking a potshot at Women's Studies in particular and feminism in general, they are backing water like a sculling crew approaching Niagara Falls. And I'm not the only one who noticed. Lots of others are now having a go and putting the boot in.

What war does

This story is beyond the mere garden variety child abuse nightmare tale. This is something that would not have happened the way it did if George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their gang of bloodthirsty ideologues had not decided to invade Iraq. This soldier pretty obviously has PTSD and will probably never be the same. And neither will the four-year-old daughter he waterboarded because she wouldn't say her ABCs.
And sorry to Gerard Alexander if I'm being condescending by pointing this out.
P.S. Gerard, when Obama says to a Republican congressman "That's factually just not true, and you know it's not true." That isn't condescending, it's what Driftglass so accurately described as "unsheathing three feet of Verdad" and using it to carve up the disingenuous, dissembling, mendacious, prevaricating opposition - you know, the lying douchebag Republicans.

Jesus saves, but Shutt scores on the rebound!

From the brain-dead goons who ape Christianity that brought you "God hates Fags" picket signs at military funerals, a new swan-dive into the the shallow end of the crazy pool.

Westboro Baptist, the group that puts the "mental" in "Fundementalist Christian" has decided to start picketing hockey games, because "God H8s Ur hockey!"

No, no, no. Admittedly, God hates the Toronto Maple Leafs, but that's understandable. God loves hockey and he's a Habs fan. Obviously, he's just been busy with other things lately.

I'd love to see Westboro Baptist ice a team against the Flying Fathers, or maybe just some old Flyers.

All in all, they're all just bricks in the wall

"When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children any way they could"

So many authoritarian nitwits, so little time to blog. This kid is probably lucky they didn't taser her when she started crying. Almost as disturbing is the reaction of America's least favorite conservative law professor and box-wine sommelier (as noted by Pandagon). Obviously, the teacher cannot ignore a student writing on their desk and must instill respect for the property of others blah blah blah, but I think handcuffing and arresting a12-year-old teaches another lesson - fear your teacher! Don't step out of line! fear school!


Way to put the "Pal" in "Principal" Ms. Grant! What do you do if the kids chew gum in class, waterboard them? I was a fairly well-behaved kid in school, and my high school shenannigans tended to the bizarre and comical, rather than the destructive, but if I had a principal like this running my school, there definitely would have been major problems. It may be that by completely overreacting and responding in a way that would be considered child abuse if a parent had done it, Principal Grant may have done 12-year-old Alexa a favor and taught her a lesson she won't soon forget. Not the lesson she intended, but a lesson nonetheless: The people in charge aren't here to help you. The people in charge will abuse you any chance they get. Property is more important than people to the people in charge. The people in charge are a vicious bunch of hysterical fools more intent on showing they are in charge at all costs than actually doing their jobs.
Twelve is pretty early to learn a lesson like that, but at least there is time for her sense of idealism and trust to grow back.
I don't mean to malign all teachers and school administrators, far from it. I think teaching is a noble profession and that teachers get too little respect, too little credit and too much blame in our society. The vast majority are hardworking,nurturing souls who care about the kids they are trying to educate. Hurrah for teachers.
That said, as in any profession, there are those who have gone into it for the wrong reasons, those who have been defeated by the challenges of the job and now just coast and most dangerous of all, those who abuse their authority. In teaching, as in the police, there is no one more dangerous than a petty tyrant. Bullies suck in any line of work, but one with a badge, gun and taser who has been given a licence to hassle people is dangerous, not only for the abuses of power they commit, but for the effect it has in undermining respect for the law and police.
The same is true of authoritarian principals, vice-principals, coaches and teachers who think that they are entitled to bully and abuse the children entrusted to their care. Not only do they traumatize the individual kids they "discipline," but they also destroy the trust of the other students and parents in the system. They teach kids not to ask questions, not to stand up for themselves, not to think independently. Ditto for those petty dictators who insist on enforcing ill-considered "zero-tolerance" policies to the absolute letter, even while completely ignoring the spirit of the rule. They teach kids that being tolerant, reasonable, flexible and even merciful is wrong and that the kid bringing a plastic butter knife in his lunch to spread cream cheese on his bagel has committed the same crime as a kid who brings a machine gun to class.
Principal Grant may think that by having a kid arrested and jailed for writing her desk that she is sending a message to the other kids that she and the school will not tolerate any misbehaviour, but the message the kids will take to heart is that if they are to be hung for a sheep, why not take the whole flock? If just writing on the desk gets you sent to jail, you might as well set fire to that sucker, and the classroom as well, since you are going to be treated the same way for any offense, no matter how small.

...and that is why they invented whisky

What Driftglass said.

Seriously, if you are not reading Driftglass regularly, then just what the hell are you doing on the Internet?

How to leave politics forever

Wow. Somebody forgot their jackass medication in the morning.

And that somebody is former Reform/Alliance MP Jim Pankiw. He called a press conference to announce he didn't need the media, that First Nations people are all racists and that he had a tough childhood.

Some highlights from the Regina Leader-Post

"And I'm gonna use the Internet. And my website is how I'm gonna communicate with people and do an end run right around the media. So, the media can misrepresent me all they want, but what I want is equality and that's what I'm gonna get."

When asked why he would call a press conference if he wants to avoid the media, Pankiw said, "I don't know, to rub it in your face. Because I don't need you."

Pankiw went on to say he considers aboriginal people to be racists.

He called attention to a picture of Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Chief Guy Lonechild in a traditional headdress on the front page of Thursday's StarPhoenix, calling it "a guy with a big headband thing on, like feathers and stuff. Like, if there was a guy with a white sheet with holes in the eyes, wouldn't you say that guy's a racist?" he asked.

Watch the video of the press conference and you can see that Pankiw seems pretty twitchy. I almost expected him go all Bud Dwyer or something. I have to wonder if the reporters in the room could hear an audible ticking sound coming from Pankiw.

Needless to say, Pankiw intends to run as an independant, since even the Conservative Party of Canada wants nothing to do with him. I suspect he's run a solid fifth in a four candidate race when an election is finally called.

A tip of the toque to David over at Jim Dandy Goodness.

Weekend uke blogging-daughters of friends I've never met edition

If you've been reading this or watching this you may know who this is and what she's wearing and why this is so very extremely cool.

Hail Satan, indeed! Rock on bigger E!

The National Post is political propaganda, not journalism

In an irate column Feb. 2, National Post columnist Barbara Kay denounces a letter to the editor penned by Penni Stewart, president of the Canadian Association of University Students, and Katherine Giroux-Bougard, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students that justly pointed out the idiocy of a Jan. 26 Post editorial that rejoiced in the demise of “Womens’s Studies programs” (sic). Kay clutches at her pearls and attempts to defend the unsigned editorial, which she very likely penned, and sets out, as usual, to prove that feminists and other liberals are bad. But the column actually vindicates the letter to the editor, because almost every sentence in it confirms that Barbara Kay’s column, and indeed the entire National Post are nothing more than conservative hackery on newsprint, not objective journalism.
She begins with a curious statement about no one at the Post or anywhere else believes that equality between men and women is a “radical idea” and that the authors of the letter have implied that only Women’s studies holds that value, a straw statement of remarkable disingenuousness. Nobody on this blog or anywhere else in their right mind would ignore the fact that vast swathes of the conservative religious community and other assorted douchebags very much consider women to be second-class humans who should be subservient to men, and I, who have often publicly railed against and been lectured about such oppresive sexism, take exception to the implication that even Post readers would be stupid enough to accept such patent nonsense at face value. All columnists at the Post, indeed the entire publication, reeks of this kind of conservative advocacy. Actually, all right-wing-funded institutions, their radio shows, their magazines and their churches believe in more than just inequality, they believe in specifically villifying feminism.
And if there is any nook or cranny in Kay’s writings or the National Post that is not used as a rhetorical platform for attacking progressive forces in society, I would welcome the enlightenment and be the first to give credit where credit is due. On the other hand, I can certainly show Ms. Kay many instances of her hackery and crimes against reason, such as her tendency to wallow in false equivelancies, which completely undercut any point she might try to make in her attempts to spin the facts. It isn’t facts that Kay and the Post are championing, though, it is pounding home conservative talking points. In other words, Barbara Kay and the National Post are merely the media arm of the neoconservative movement, which is nothing more today than a lobby group for wealthy interests, not at all a movement interested in true social, fiscal or environmental conservatism.
Political activism and recruitment to activism should not be the responsibility of newspapers to promote. It is rather “ironic” that Kay tries to argue that the problem with Women’s studies programs is that they are radical and “faith-based” by pointing to an irrelevant to the matter at hand but otherwise valid complaint from the Canadian Association of University Teachers that a university should not be allowed to apply a religious test for employment as it is a violation of academic freedom. She appropriates a line from the complaint that “A university is meant as a place to explore ideas, not to create disciples of Christ.”
How is the conservative bastion of the National Post any different? Writers may not have to sign actual Conservative Party of Canada membership cards, but anyone apply to write at the National Post had better believe in the ideology of neoconservatism, or they can take a hike. The hiring committees grill applicants with a view to exposing their ideological loyalties. Anyone deviating from the politically correct adamantine Rand-imbued party line will not be welcome. Indeed, I am confident that a student in a women’s studies program would be given far greater latitude to challenge the tenets of feminism with impunity than a National Post writer defying the lassiez-faire crypto-fascist doctrines of neoconservatism.*
I am sure, for example, that women’s studies programs do not include on their reading lists any writers who advocate the extermination and religious conversion of liberals and Muslims. Yet conservative publications across North America give pride of place to the odious Anne Coulter, whose mainstream media career died a couple of years ago (and whom we on the left love to drag out to show the batshit craziness of the right). Coulter loathed liberals and vaunted her loathing in her columns, going so far as to advocate blowing up the New York Times and bombing all Muslim nations, an extremist viewpoint that eventually got her booted off CNN. She preached a gospel that incited hatred for liberals who “putridly” sully the landscape of what could be an ideal world if not for their prescence. Coulter is an extreme extreme example of the lack of sense characterizing the conservative movement, but tolerance for her views and others like her that are embraced by the conservative movement point to the unhealthiness at the root of conservatism and its activist arm in the media.
If rich, white, corporatist theocrats want to advance the idea of returning Canada to the 1890s or have the nation run entirely for profit by the private sector, they are free to do so through the political process: Let them join our present parties – the Conservative Party of Canada is entirely at their disposal and there isn’t a ambition the extreme right espouses that is not mirrored in CPC policy- and work to make those changes as all citizens are free to do, or start their own Fascist Party if they think they can get enough people to support them. Which will never happen, since most Canadians understand that neoconservatism is not about freedom, but about giving money and power to the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.
The National Post is losing money because they are losing readers. The revolution is over. Rationality and compassion won. What is good about conservatism can be written about in other publications. What’s bad is unworthy of a publication of its own. Barbara Kay and The National Post are superfluous in every respect and calling it a necessary balance to the so-called liberal mainstream media won’t disguise that reality. Goodbye, salut, farewell, shalom. Don’t slam the door on the way out.


(* I have no proof that this is true. This is central to my point)

Uppity-date: It seems Ms. Kay doesn't care for my argumentation. A challenge offered and answered!