Archives for May 2010

I missed this, but caught the letters section in the Globe today which pointed me back to this interview with Camille Paglia. A great read. Love this part:  

Then feminism came along and decided greatness was a conspiracy foisted on us by men. People would criticize me by saying, “She’s writing about Michelangelo when the really important person was this woman….” But wait. There’s no way she came up to Michelangelo’s ankle. So what we’re getting now is people who never heard of Michelangelo or Leonardo because they are dead white males. 

Today’s letters section has Camille Paglia clarifying that no, she doesn’t think all of York University is a backwater, but that

The York coterie whom I did indeed call “shallow” were snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology that continues to plague many Anglo-American universities.

I plan on memorizing this: “snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology” for the next run in with the York student union over pro-life clubs. Or any student union for that matter.

A priest offers advice on which men not to marry.

Step forward, Senator Nancy Ruth!

OTTAWA – Aid experts alarmed by Canada’s new anti-abortion stand in foreign policy have received some raw political advice from a Conservative senator: “shut the f— up” or it could get worse.

“We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f— up on this issue,” Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told a group of international-development advocates who gathered on Parliament Hill on Monday to sound the alarm about Canada’s hard-right stand against abortion in foreign aid.

“If you push it, there will be more backlash,” said Ruth, who fears that outrage will push her boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to take further measures against abortion and family planning – abroad, or maybe even in Canada. “This is now a political football. This is not about women’s health in this country.”

Me, I thought she’d hit rock bottom with that comment. But apparently I was wrong.

Abortion should be part of our development commitments abroad because it helps reduce child mortality and better the lives of children. Or so says the Green Party of Canada.

Of course. Why didn’t we think of that?

Now I get it:

Abortion, then, involves the killing of a human being. But that abortion involves the deliberate killing of a human being is no reason for abortion to be illegal. Nor should one be morally troubled by it.

This is one of the less troubling citations from the article by a philosophy prof at Saint Mary’s. People with disabilities, watch out. Calling on Stephanie Gray to have a sit down with this man (she’s rather good on how/why/when we are all human).

It would take a great deal more philosophising for me to be untroubled by killing a human being, just by the by. Even if I were well-versed in what would make me totally happy and independent, and understanding that a human being is not a person.

_________________________

Brigitte would like to highlight some other troubling bits from that piece: Specifically…

A human fetus, on the other hand, though human, has only a rudimentary awareness of its environment and lacks self consciousness entirely. It has no interest in living, for it can have no interests at all.

Because a fetus is not a person, killing a fetus is not killing a person. That established, now comes the time to speak of a woman’s right to choose. A pregnant woman is a person, and because easy access to abortion helps her to live her life as she wishes, we as a society should make sure abortion is easily available to women generally.

Now it is true that each human fetus is potentially a person, in that, most likely, in the fullness of time, any particular fetus will become a person. But this is an argument against abortion only if it is better to have that particular future person walking around than it is to respect a here-and-now person’s autonomy.

The overall point is that abortion is not in any degree a morally fraught option. A woman considering whether to have an abortion or, instead, to raise a child is making a practical decision, not a moral one. This is what we who are pro-choice have to make more widely known.

I’m not surprised. But many will be:

Women who have had an abortion are nearly four times as likely to have problems with drugs and alcohol as women who have not, according to a study conducted by University of Manitoba researchers. The authors of the study caution though, that their research shows only that abortions and substance use disorders are linked; they have not established any causal relationship.

On May 8, 2010, Lorna Dueck will come to Ottawa to speak about human trafficking.

The event details:

Where: Sunnyside Wesleyan Church, 58 Grosvenor Ave.

When: Saturday, May 8, 2010, festivities start at 7 PM

Cost: Free of charge, suggested donation of $10.00 much appreciated (tax receipts available)

Why: In support of a trip I am on this July to Ukraine with World Hope Canada

The event is for everyone, and Lorna will address “Why Canadians should care” about the issue of human trafficking. The Ukraine team of which I am a part will round out the details about the situation in Ukraine.

This is the fourth team going from Ottawa and we work in a street shelter for kids in Odessa as well as running a summer camp in a small town near Odessa, called Kremidovka. I’m excited to be part of something bigger with this standing commitment through World Hope Canada.

It’s an event that is open to the public–come one, come all.

(Apologies for hijacking this site briefly to advertise a different cause. I spoke to The Management and me, myself and I were okay with it.)

Lorna Dueck, creator, host and executive producer of Listen Up TV, and president of Media Voice Generation, the Canadian charitable organization that produces the weekly broadcast. A popular television personality and public speaker, Lorna is also a regular commentary writer on faith and public life in Canada’s leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail.

Around the 13 minute and 30 second mark, a good segment, here.

I wake up. I turn on my radio. I make my toast to this song.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlBQiHtCZk4]

Gonna be a good day.