Commenting on the German School shooting in which a 17-yr old kid killed 16 people, I found a disturbing throw-away line in two of the reports that I’ve read- from the Washington Post and from BBC News World. Washington Post published:

“I don’t want to speculate too much about this,” Rech said at a news conference. “But it is noteworthy that primarily girls were killed — eight girls and one boy . . . The teachers killed were women.

Three teachers and nine students were killed inside the two-story school building, where about 1,000 students ages 10 to 16 are enrolled, authorities said.”

The BBC had a single sentence at the end of the article that expressed the apparent targetting of women in the shooting. However, some very loud silence followed after these short sentences.

The German Police said that they found pornography and violent videos on the kid’s personal computer, which isn’t all that surprising, after all, what 17 yr old boy doesn’t have these things on their computer nowadays? It would be more informative if it was violent pornography or, say, a letter describing the boy’s motives.

What bothers me is the relative silence on news sites about the possibility that women were the main targets in the school shooting. What, there can only be one Montreal Massacre? Or is the violence-against-women thing too banal? Too passe?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yet another Reason why the Catholic Church should go down in Flames

The BBC World website reported today that the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Olinda and Recife (Brazil), Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, has excommunicated those involved in giving a nine-year old rape victim an abortion. The nine-year old child became pregnant with twins after being repeatedly raped by her step-father. Her mother helped her find a hospital and doctors who would give the poor girl an abortion. In Brazil, the law only allows for abortion in cases of incest, rape or considerable risk to the mother’s health. All three of these conditions applied to this little nine-year old girl. The Archbishop condemned the abortion and all those that were involved in arranging it, save for the little girl, who the church agreed not to hold responsible for the abortion because of her young age.

Now think about this. If the girl is to young to be held responsible for undergoing an abortion in the church’s eyes, then how could she possible have been able to go through with the pregnancy and be responsible for two infants when they would have come to term?? After the holocaust denier caused the Catholic church to come under fire just a while ago, all of the members of the Catholic church should take the hint, and shut their self-righteous and misguided traps once and for all. Or at least untill the outrage over their last debacle has died down.

Spinning like a stationary bike

January has me whirling about in a crap shoot of sorts. I’ve been a non-stop action flick, and even though I’ve tried desperately to find a plot, there doesn’t seem to be one. However, it has been ALL ACTION, ALL THE TIME!!!

A few points to ponder:

1) Why the hell are all Montreal bar owners such sketchy assholes? Once again, I’m bartending/waitressing a few nights a week in a Montreal bar, and even though I had such high hopes for this one (such as the possibility of working in a harassment-free, reliable and honest atmosphere) the auspices do not bode well. I keep getting flashbacks to bell hook’s All About Love, in which she describes working in night clubs, pubs and restaurants while working on her thesis, and then her first book. She laments having had to work in places that do not operate under an ethic of love. I’m considering calling up bell hooks to ask if she’s willing to hire a research assistant who’s willing to work for nothing but an ethic of love. (and room and  board, of course)
2) Why are Montreal bar regulars such sketchy assholes too? Last night, someone tipped me a tablet of Extacy and invited me to join him at a strip club after my shift. I kindly suggested that he go alone. He’s have more fun, and less mace in his eyes.

3) Why does setting up a new apartment take so long and cost so much? I love this new place. All that’s left to finalize is the set-up in my massive new bedroom. All of my stuff- which used to look so cramped in the old apartment- now looks like hobbit furniture in an auditorium. I  can definitely afford to get a bigger desk…

4) Why do wood-burning fireplaces and orange shag carpets go so well together? I believe that this question can obviously afford to stand on its own.

Surrender to the Absurd

Ha! The Montreal Mirror has picked up the story of our encounter with the police. Just today, the reporter called me up to ask if I knew that I was also being charged with assault against a police officer. My jaw dropped to new depths. No, I can’t say I did know that. Actually, I had no clue whatsoever. I was never given a slip with any charge on it, unlike the two friends who were there that night (2 1/2 months ago) who did get arrested. I was never told I would be under arrest. But hey, the whole thing has been so absurd, why stop now?

I’m being charged with assault against a police officer.

It will take a few repititions of that phrase before it sinks in.

Ps. this is an update on the Watchdogs.

When Idiots Speak

‘Pat Robertson has described feminism as a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” ‘-Wikipedia

I guess he’s afraid of having to cook his own meals, and this:

Goals of Feminism:

1: Strike fear into the hearts of idiots. CHECK.

2: Attain gender equality.

Remember, ladies, we might have won the battle, but we still have to win the war.

The Closer you Get, the Further you Are

Sometimes, I feel like I’m finally getting it, but this feeling never lasts for any significant amount of time.

For instance: when facebook first gave me the option of throwing sheep at people, I was ecstatically delighted. I went on a sheep throwing rampage. It was beautiful, and I got it. Then Facebook gave me the option of “pwn”-ing, which immediately brought on the realization that I had alreay lost whatever it was that I thought I had. I have been stumped ever since.

This elusive vowel-less word meant nothing to me. Even after looking it up, it still doesn’t make much sense- along with many other acronyms that are thrown around in cyber space. It took me ages to figure out ‘lol’, then as soon as I did people started using ‘lmao’, which threw me for another loop. Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t make sense when I read it in regular English, it’s not worth knowing about. This is something I have to come to terms with about myself: I will never be on the cutting edge of internet slang. Never. Thankfully, Wikipedia put some of it into perspective:

“Like most jargon, Internet slang aggrandizes authors and readers, causing them to appear to have specialized knowledge of a complex medium. However, there are cases where using Internet slang is considered ridiculous, due to association with the stereotype of the internet n00b.”

Even the definition of internet slang includes internet slang! Ugh.

On to Other News:

I found the coolest inflatable pig ever!

Upon further inspection, I realized that this pig was not like other inflatable pigs. It had both an air valve, and some other valve of some kind:

…and then it dawned on me: Holy Shit, this pig is a sex toy.

Which, I guess explains the lipstick. I will never look upon inflatable pigs in the same way again. It also goes to show that there is a whole lot more that I don’t get in this world than internet slang.

For Flux’s Sake!

I’m sure that everyone has received the “change is the only constant” memo by now, so why does change still have the power to offset as it does? Every once in a while, I get this strange visceral feeling that tells me that things are no longer as they were. I realize that not only are things not as they were, but events have precluded the possibility of reversal. And it freaks the fuck out of me. But why?

Perhaps the reason is because change can be so imperceptibly slow that when you realize it has happened, the accumulated changed hits you all at once in its amassed form.  It knocks the wind out of you. It is the boiling frog syndrome in all its treacherous glory. ie: if you throw a frog into boiling water, it jumps out right away; but if you place it in cold water, and then heat it up slowly, the frog won’t realize the water is boiling until it is too late. 

Getting destroyed slowly is worse, in my eyes, than being thrown into a vat of boiling water. At least if you are subjected to the latter, you are forced to have the awareness of change. The latter affords reactive agency. So why does it strike more fear into the hearts of us frogs than the former? We expect neither situation, and both amount to the same thing. The former may be a slower destruction, and hence can be considered somewhat smoother, but both lead to the same little nook in Hades.

 And then there is that perception that change is inherently bad. My own acclamation of its destructive force fuels this perception. However, fearing and fighting against destruction is obviously short sighted. Of course we realize that in the same way that change was brought about, it will become normalized. The destruction wrought by change is inherently creative. There can be nothing new if we let go of nothing old.

The Hindu goddess Kali is a representation if this conundrum:

“I am the dance of death that is behind all life. The ultimate horror. The ultimate ecstasy. I am existence. I am the dance of destruction that will end this world. The timeless void. The formless devouring mouth. I am rebirth. Let me dance you to death. Let me dance you to life. Will you walk through your fears to dance with me? Will you let me cut off your head and drink your blood? Then will you cut off mine? Will you face all the horror, All the pain, All the sorrow, and say “yes”? I am all that you dread. All that terrifies. I am your fear. Will you meet me?”

We fear the unknown; and the unknown can only be encountered through change.  We know this. We also know that the unknown that we stumble upon might very well improve that which is known to us. Yet, still there is still an instinctual adversity to change because we fear that it might also herald that which is much worse. I mean some people even fear getting new haircuts for flux’s sake!

The problem is that no matter how we intellectualize it, no amount of mental masturbation will bring about the courage to face change without fear. There is no route to courage, it seems. Unfortunately, all that is left to us is practice.

Boy, am I Glad I Don’t Have a Brudder…

The Scientific American has recently put forward the destructive effects of “mommy’s little boys”:

“[Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England] found that those who bore sons had shorter life spans than those who gave birth to daughters. This discrepancy has to do with birth weight—male babies are typically larger—as well as testosterone. “Testosterone can compromise your immune system; it can affect your health,” Lummaa says, and the mothers of sons proved especially susceptible to endemic infectious disease, such as tuberculosis. “Boys are a little bit more costly” to raise than girls as well, because they drain more physical resources from their mothers, she adds, as has been seen in other mammals, such as the red deer. Sons also are not as likely as daughters to stick around to help their mothers out later in life.

More recently, Lummaa and her colleagues have been studying how sons are not just tough on their mothers but also hard on their siblings. Those born after a son were physically slighter, had smaller families and generally had a greater chance of dying from an infectious disease. The effects held up whether the elder brother died in childhood or not, suggesting that the negative outcome is not a result of some direct sibling interaction, such as competition for food, regular beatings or the practice of primogeniture, in which the eldest brother inherits everything. “Big brothers are bad for you,” Lummaa explains. “If the fifth-born was a male, then the sixth-born is doing worse.”

This phenomenon is particularly evident in twins where one is male and the other is female. Of 754 twins born between 1734 and 1888 in five towns in rural Finland, girls from mixed-gender pairs proved 25 percent less likely to have children, had at least two fewer children, and were about 15 percent less likely to marry than those born with a sister. This brotherly influence remained the same regardless of social class or other cultural factors and even endured if the male twin died within three months of birth, leaving the female twin to be reared as an only child.”

Could this be just another extension of the imperitive to make one sex better or worse than the other? The old “one sex is weaker” argument? Or is it scientific proof that the patriarchy is bad for women?

Reason, Truth and the Spider’s Web

 ”Reason is to humans what the web is to a spider,” remarked Hutter, that endearing Plato-phile. (BTW, Hutter, you have stolen my heart.) He managed to coalesce all the things that had been itching my neurons ceaselessly for the last couple of weeks. Reason and logic are indispensable to the systems that govern human society. Without reason and logic, no transaction, agreement nor understanding could be reached. But what happens when reason and logic break down?

Reason and logic are touted to be universal. Case in point: common sense. Most Hollywood movies offer up some protagonist or another that the majority of plebs can relate to and identify with. We watch with bated breath as they make the decisions most reasonable, the ones we could not dispute, cannot deny- the ones we believe we, ourselves, would make. We cry out against injustice together (re: Myanmar), but ONLY when the injustice becomes obvious enough. It must glaringly defy ethical reason in order to elicit a choral dissonance.

 Is it all just faith? Any political system, just like organized religion, is self-referential. It’s own justifications are found within itself. Reason would falter if the system were deconstructed and blown apart. Just like Descartes’ ‘proof’ of the existence of god hinges on the religious concept of the almighty, benevolent being itself. Descartes questioned god, and posed the question: what if god is just some trickster demon, that has placed us in a world of illusion, and maliciously left us to our own devices? Of course, Descartes quickly assuaged the doubt he had conjured, (lest he get written into the Inquisitors’ black books) and answered (roughly, in a Cole’s Notes sort of rundown) thus: Humans cannot conceive of things that do not exist.  A unicorn is simply a horn placed on a horse. Our conception of god must be based on the existence of god. Our concept of god clearly states that god is the most benevolent being, so much so that we cannot even imagine the extent of his goodness. Therefore, god must exist, and god must be good. In other words:

  =  

Descartes’ argument is clearly self-referential. So are most of our ideas and beliefs. Yet we continue to seek out this thing called truth, and become outraged when it is denied!

“Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live.” says Nietzsche. He may be right, but how can we full-heartily agree with him? Without truth, reason and logic are useless. Without reason and logic, all human contracts (social, economic, and political) break down.  My sixteen-year-old self has just whined in my ear “then what’s the point?”, as if I were arguing with my mother over the efficiency of making the bed in the morning when I’m just going to be unmaking it at night.

It just scares me that what I consider to be obvious unreasonableness is becoming more and more common (or perhaps more apparent) among the number of people I’ve met. Including those cops down below, my roommate who refuses to do her dishes for weeks, and then says it’s ‘retarded’ that someone has done them for her (since she was JUST about to do them herself), cell phone company employees that don’t see a problem with continuing to charge you after you’ve cut off your line, and a myriad of other daily annoyances. (and let’s not even mention matters of the heart here.)

Then again, maybe I’m confusing reasonableness with reason itself. What do I know? My socks smell like cat pee, how do you like them apples?