Archive for October, 2006

The Trickster, or Flash Fiction 2: The Return of the Fiction

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

The Trickster.

The room is like a sealed box floating on an endless ocean. Not much matters on the outside of the box. The world that is, is the ocean. The inside of the room is the box. There’s a door that leads to the cold harsh reality of the world. But not that that matters, leaving the box is certain death, and what lies beyond the door is utter madness.

Ghost in the milk

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

We have these glasses at home which have monkeys engraved into them from the inside.

So I was enjoying a glass a milk at dinner. I tipped the glass a little to get a better look at its contents after taking a sip.  As the milk ran down the side back into the glass, it contoured the embossed shape. It was supposed to look like a monkey. It looked like this:

spookymilk.jpg

Instead of a frollicking simian dangling off the edge of the glass, I get this white, grotesque spook.

Thus, with this event, Halloween was officially kicked off at Gluemeat HQ.

Newsey Quote: Pennsylvania State Police

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

“Obviously these schools are not like most public schools that would have some type of security.”

- Jack Lewis of the Pennsylvania State Police, commenting on the shooting at a small Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.

Quick comment on my part: am I the only person who’s bothered by the fact that a school without any security is considered as peculiar?

Stuff learned from feminism

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

The rights of women in Canada have been supported and protected by a government agency named Status of Women Canada. SWC has funded many already dangerously underfunded community organisations, such as pregnancy centers and halfway homes, to maintain operations and provide much-needed services to women (and sometimes, anyone) in need.

Our not-very-compassionate Conservative government was recently under pressure by an anti-feminist, “family values” type outfit called REAL Women of Canada to shut down SWC altogether. Instead of doing that, the government decided to cut $5 million in funding to SWC this year, despite registring a $13.2 billion surplus just laying there, gathering dust mites.

In order to attract attention to this situation, my bretheren at Progressive Bloggers have started up a meme of sorts which poses the question “What five things feminism has done for me.” And here is my contribution…

Feminism has made me the best dad ever.
Jump back 50 or 60 years ago, and I’m not quite sure I would have been priviledged enough to have the same level of complicity and attachment I have with my son today. Chalk one up for demanding that dads have a more involved role in raising their children.

Feminism has made me media aware
If one of feminism’s biggest battles was (and still is) the objectification of women in commercial advertisements, it has successfully instilled in me the critical mindset needed to weed through the garbage of crass commercialism. Not just to notice how women are manipulated into feeling/acting/thinking the way corporations want them to, but how everyone is affected by their machinations.

Feminism has taught me to judge people on their merits
Woman, man, black, white, hispanic, buddhist… it doesn’t matter to me. One’s actions, words, exploits however, they will speak volumes. I honestly believe that my mother is the person who made me the excellent judge of character I am today.

Feminism has made me a pretty good cook.
I mean, come on. Had feminists not gone through that whole “women in the workplace” thing, and my girlfriend would have been a stay-at-home mom because of it, chances are I would have never discovered the pleasures of fixing up a meal and sharing it with others.

Feminism has made me understand that gaining any rights is a battle
It’s the earliest civil rights movement I had ever been exposed to directly, and it’s still on today. And what it has shown is that civil rights are not gifts. They’re not hand-me-downs from those in power. They are fought for and warred over by people who are tired of being overlooked and/or suppressed for various reasons. People have fought very hard in wars to protect our freedoms, but others have fought just as hard in different battles to create more freedoms for more people. The last thing a person needs to believe is that these rights were granted to us. Because those in power don’t want little things like human nature coming to muck up their marketing plans.

Beijing Platform for Action and act upon it here at home and around the world.