So today marked the finale of a two year campaign to re-design, re-engineer and re-everything the flagship website where I work. And after the most excruciating day of bickering about DNS changes, being incredulous about block translation bugs, and general angst, this was waiting for me at home. My heart
Continue readingTag: Family
Blast Furnace Canada Blog: My thoughts on "death with dignity"
The recent passing of Dr. Donald Low, who guided Toronto through the SARS crisis in 2003, unexpectedly sparked a revival of the difficult issue of assisted suicide when his widow, CBC alumna and medical expert Maureen Taylor, released Low’s final home video where he asked Canadians to consider what it
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: PTSD: No Room for Denial
What if NO ONE knows your name? Belonging? It’s pretty important. We don’t always have to go where EVERYone knows our name, but we do need to have people. People who know, understand and affirm us. People with mental health issues, however, are often made to feel not so normal,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Kate, Robin and Stewart’s Challenge To Us All About PTSD
I will be doing regular updates on two events to increase awareness about PTSD, particularly as the Canadian Forces spends too little on treatment of its members and PTSD. Regardless of all the ways we could improve our military or the Canadian government’s often imperialistic foreign policy, the real human
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Got Cancer?
9:58 am, pre-run, great fog! Well, Terry Fox did. And millions of other people. You likely know someone who has or had cancer. Maybe you encountered it yourself and went through the #FuckCancer process. But raising over half a billion dollars for cancer research in the last few decades is
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Altruism + Community
“It almost hurts me to walk down a road and have people grab my hand and ask for my autograph and not sit and talk. When I’m finished I’m not going to be on the front page, but I’m going to be just as happy without the publicity.” – Terry
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Women As Meat, Volume 874,597
Backlash 101. Every attempt we made to start a serious debate was met with responses such as “feminism and rape are both ridiculously tiring”. via What happened when I started a feminist society at school | Education | theguardian.com. For all the sons and daughters that you know and love,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why We Must #HonourTheApology to Residential School Survivors [#INM]
I don’t know why we still have to do this kind of thing, but here goes. The federal government “apologized” to survivors of residential schools 5 years ago. It is clearly quite empty, considering how much neglect, abuse, victimization and racism has spewed forth from Stephen Harper’s government since then.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: It’s 12 O’Clock, Have You Boycotted IKEA Yet Today?
$3.85 billion in profit is just not enough. Union busting and global greed now! Gratitude, then and now. It used to include a t-shirt and more, for all employees around the world. Now, union busting. The best part of the Teamster Local 213 rally in Richmond on Saturday was the
Continue readingknitnut.net: The Little Wedding that Grew
GC’s brother Charlie, GC, me, and my sister Deb GC and I originally planned on having a very small civil ceremony, maybe one step up from eloping. But during our five-month engagement we kept adding little upgrades. Like family, food, booze, cake, flowers, balloons, photographs, a poem, homemade wedding favours,
Continue readingcultural sn:afu: Little Victor Update | Finally, he can fly
A few days ago Victor and Andrew, his older brother, were playing what was essentially ‘motionless tag’ in the living room. Basically it was Victor tapping Andrew’s shoulder, then yelling “tag, you’re it”, and Andrew immediately doing the same right … Continue reading →
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Zimmerman and Alexander: Racism and Sexism in America
Can you handle the contradictions? I’ve been seen things in twitter for the last few days that puts some grotesque perspective on the American culture. I’m actually quite speechless: Two Florida towns, 125 miles apart. Two people firing weapons at unarmed aggressors, purportedly in self-defense. George Zimmerman, the 29-year-old neighborhood-watch
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: OMB caves in to idiots at Hamilton City Hall with "Aerotropolis"
Earlier this week the Ontario Municipal Board gave final clearance to Hamilton destroying 555 hectares of virgin farmland for “development” lands around the Hamilton airport, when at least half that much exists in the wasteland of brownfields in the lower city. The so-called “Aerotropolis”. The claim is that businesses
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: At The Squamish Nation Powwow This Weekend!
Enrich your understanding at the Squamish Nation Powwow this weekend. In the quest for a better Canada, one that is more democratic, inclusive, consultative and less rejecting of science and climate change realities, it is important to reach out. Sovereignty Summer is part of that movement, coming out of Idle
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Feminist is Politics, Re-Spun?
How many Canadian feminist blogs do you know about? Politics, Re-Spun didn’t make it into the Spring 2012 landscape of Canadian feminist blogs. But that’s understandable, considering the scope of the research project: it was bound to miss a bunch. Granted we deal with lots of different topics that do
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: A more perfect "union" closer than ever
A huge, huge victory for human rights today in the United States with two decisions from the US Supreme Court. And it means the States is one step closer to joining the civilized world regarding equal marriages. First, in United States v. Windsor (12-307) the court voted 5 to 4
Continue readingcmkl: My mom (guest post by Irene Jansen)
My mother, Wilhelmina Jansen, passed away April 4. I wanted to write this personal note about what my mother gave me.
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Lord Love a Duck
Did I ever tell you about the time my Gram and her neighbour took me for a drive in their small town in the 80s, and we saw a Young Man wearing Very Tight Trousers, and my Gram, who was usually so proper and reserved, said “Gol, if he passed
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Gay marriage getting closer in States — hopefully
After two days of hearings at the US Supreme Court it’s not for certain whether gays and lesbians will finally win their hard fought for right to marriage equality across the States. The transcripts don’t in my opinion give too much of a clue, at least in the first case. But
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Gender identity wins, and Justin proves he`s a loser
What a pleasant surprise to hear that the House of Commons gave third reading to an opposition bill, C-279, that would include gender identity as an aggravating circumstance in determining if a criminal act was motivated by hate and therefore deserved an extended sentence. More astonishing is that 18 Conservatives,
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