That crazy idea that people are people, and therefore we don’t ever own or control them, just keeps coming back, here in a short movie called Volition. (I logged on because I couldn’t sleep. So how about a short film that combines the Holocaust, slavery and abortion? Mental note: find new interests.)
Archives for 2008
We’re everywhere…
…women who are pro-life, I mean. Read about the Ottawa-based Lea Singh here.
Now I happen to know Lea–we have the Czech Connection in common (and that’s not very common: Who else can I go to for a “palacinky” recipe, if my mama is not around?) plus a devotion to Life-Related Things. From time to time I hear her call into Ottawa talk radio to make the point I’m thinking. (Thanks, Lea.) She’s an all-round great girl, and this is a nice portrait of her, and her very empowering choices. (Man oh man, she gave up quite a salary. I on the other hand entered into this fray with a very high-quality hybrid bicycle.)
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Brigitte was about to ask: What the heck are/is palacinky? But instead she used her amazing Googling skills and came up with this picture. Horrible! Chocolate on crepes, with whipped cream, too?
Ew! Czech chocolate!
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Andrea adds: “Brigitte Pellerin”–nope, don’t see it. Just checking my invitation list for the massive Czech fiesta I’m planning–replete with good food, Czech beer and all those who can appreciate the finer things in life, like palacinky. (I trust that was sarcastic. Brigitte is after all the woman who asks for Extra Whipping Cream on her Starbucks, when we go for coffee.)
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Brigitte smartens up real quick: Palacinky, you say? (And exactly how you say it I know not…) Sounds delicious! Lovely! Especially the whipped cream on top!
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Andrea as Czech teacher: PA-LA-CHINK-A (one), PA-LA-CHINKY (Two or more).
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Véronique says: Feeling bad — not really — for going back on topic when off topic involves yummies.
I don’t want to sound like misery loves company but I love reading about lawyers who long for something more and give up all the bells and whistles in favour of a (presumably) simpler, more meaningful life.
I never felt like I had a choice in the work-life balance. I got pregnant young and it always seemed obvious to me that my loyalties should lie with my children as opposed to my employer. But I had a choice and I would be lying if I pretended not to wonder whether the life I didn’t choose wouldn’t be nicer. Nicer as in: “if I had more money I could buy a new pair of designer boots instead of wearing the old boots my daughter grew out of this year (yes, I wear hand-me-downs from my children. You know you’re not getting younger when…).”
The thing is that there isn’t that many role models for people making counter-cultural career choices. Like having a half-dozen children or working for a Catholic organization. But the good news is that I am always inspired by people who make the tough choices. And I feel thankful every time somebody makes me feel normal for choosing life and family over money and prestige (assuming I would have had either as a legal animal, which is not a given).
ProWomanProLife nominated for Best New Blog
Canadian Blog Awards has nominated us in the category Best New Blog. Weeeeee!
If you’d like to vote for us, please do so here.
Day two at the University of Calgary
Some coverage of the UofC campus pro-life display, here. That’s a link to CTV, with video too. As usual, the comments are very interesting. Here’s my personal fav–“Andrew” argues he shouldn’t be distracted from his education by, well, learning:
Even giving pro life the argument that a fetus is a person, a woman still has a full right to decide what goes on inside her body.
Also these signs are disruptive to our education. In one of my classes I had a test and while preparing for it, I overheard one of my colleagues saying “I can’t stop thinking about abortions”. Although the comment had a humorous intent it still reflects the disruptive qualities of this “protest” so to speak. Some people are paying a lot of money to attend university and the last thing they need are disruptions about issues irrelevant to them.
The calibre of a university education, and those who want one, continues to climb and climb and climb. Shoot for the stars, Andrew.
For the gal who has everything
A, ahem, different kind of gift certificate. To help celebrate the holiday we observe in honour of a very famous, er, whatchamacallit, oh yeah, birth.
I wish I were making it up.
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, November 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood of Indiana has announced just in time for Christmas that it will begin selling gift certificates at its clinics and online, which can be used for all PP services, including payment for birth control, STD testing, and abortions.
The Planned Parenthood of Indiana website says the gift cards can be used for “services or the recipient’s choice of birth control method,” and poses the question “Why not buy a loved one a gift this holiday season that they really need”?
I like this idea of ‘choice’, really
So Michelle Obama describes her role as “mom in chief”. I find that splendid – and I am not a big fan of hers. She has two young daughters and she is choosing to devote her energies to raising them.
My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom in chief,” she explained, “making sure that in this transition, which will be even more of a transition for the girls . . . that they are settled and that they know they will continue to be the center of our universe.”
So of course it annoys prominent feminists, like this one:
I was okay, actually, with what Obama said. But I worried: Did she have to say it out loud, quite so explicitly? Is it really good for the team — the team here being working women — to have the “mommy” stamp so firmly imprinted on her identity?
And most of all: What does it say about the condition of modern women that Obama, catapulted by her husband’s election into the ranks of the most prominent, sounded so strangely retro — more Jackie Kennedy than Hillary Clinton?
Hey, I thought feminism meant women could choose to be anything they wanted and not let societal expectations dictate their choice. Whatever happened to that, huh?
This is the day…
…to see whether pro-life students at University of Calgary get arrested for doing the Genocide Awareness Project on campus. Imagine the visual in the media if students were to get arrested for protesting. Not that I wish that on those poor students, but it could be a powerful statement, whether or not you are pro-life. University campuses are typically hotbeds of protest, and when students get arrested for doing just that–it might wake a few Canadians up.
Pro-life students at the University of Calgary
Great article from the Calgary Herald here. Indeed, there’s no point in a protest people can’t see.
Let’s just talk about this business of which way the signs are to point–in or out. The argument for turning them in is so people who don’t want to see them, don’t have to. Sounds reasonable, but is it?
What’s wrong with just walking by, as many people do when confronted with something they don’t like? Obviously nothing. I am reminded of a scene in the film depicting the life of antislavery crusader William Wilberforce, (Amazing Grace,) when he obliged a party of influential Londoners to actually look at a slave ship: People for whom forced labour in the colonies hadn’t been an issue, now found they could no longer ignore it. Same idea. …
According to protest leader Leah Hallman, they’re going ahead anyway tomorrow, signs pointing out. There’s no point in a protest people can’t see.
When you’re poor, powerless and 20, that’s ballsy. As for the university, words fail me.
Grammar mistakes are theirs
The Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) drops fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis because the disease is not diverse enough. No really. From the CFRA web site:
This is the wording of the Motion (grammatical mistakes are their’s)
“Motion to Drop Shinerama Fundraising Campaign from Orientation Week.
Whereas Orientation week strives to be inclusive as possible;
Whereas all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve the their diverse communities;
And Whereas Cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.
Be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign
Be it further resolved that that the CUSA representatives on the incoming Orientation Supervisory Board work to select a new broad reaching charity for orientation week.”
The only person to vote against this motion was Nick Bergamini, interviewed this morning on CFRA. He said, and I agree, that this is reminiscent of how they banned the pro-life club back in 2006. Meanwhile, Queen’s University is deploying students to monitor private conversations on campus, and University of Calgary is prepared to expel some pro-life students who are planning a demonstration on campus.
So–let me get this straight–we have a bunch of students, who run the student unions, who can’t write, who are willing to ban fundraising for a disease on the basis that it affects white men, which, as it turns out is factually inaccurate. Words fail.
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Brigitte found the answer to the age-old question: What do they teach them in school? To worry about whether an illness is “diverse” enough, that’s what. Two generations of modern educators brought us to this. And people still save and make all sorts of financial sacrifices to send their kids to college. I wonder why.
And another thing: In one part of the world, girls get attacked for going to school (where I’m pretty sure they’re not learning about the proper PCness of various illnesses) whereas here they can’t be bothered to learn how to write simple sentences in their own language. Golly, what a mess.
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UPDATE, Wednesday afternoon: They are apparently about to repeal their decision.
Feminists need apply
Stories like this one really get me.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghan police have arrested 10 Taliban militants involved in an acid attack this month against 15 girls and teachers walking to school in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said Tuesday.
[…]
The attackers squirted the acid from water bottles onto three groups of students and teachers walking to school in Kandahar city on Nov. 12. Several girls suffered burns to the face and were hospitalized. One teenager couldn’t open her eyes days after the attack, which sparked condemnations from around the world.
Girls are attacked for going to school. Teachers are attacked for teaching girls. Because they are girls, and because in this retarded culture girls are only good for sweeping floors and generally uphold the family’s “honour” by not stepping out of the house unless covered from head to toe and accompanied by a male relative. Yet girls in the area continue to go to school anyway. These kids are more brave than any of us. The least we can do is add our voice to those demanding harsh punishment for the criminals who think nothing of burning their faces.
One of the attack’s victims, a teacher named Nuskaal who was burned through her burqa, called Tuesday for a harsh punishment for the attackers.
“If these people are found guilty, the government should throw the same acid on these criminals. After that they should be hanged,” said Nuskaal, who like many Afghans goes by one name.
President Hamid Karzai earlier this month called for a public execution of the perpetrators.
I say: Anything that would help stop those attacks works for me. You?
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