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Your summer holiday movie warning

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Do not, I repeat, do not go see G.I. Joe. Do not rent it when the time comes. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect 200 dollars. Saints above. It is very, very boring.

Underwhelming is not big enough a word:

…fans were underwhelmed by a trailer that premiered in February during the Super Bowl football championship, the most-watched television event of the year in the United States.

I wonder whether that’s because fans still expect a story line, possibly even dialogue that works, to accompany the many explosions in a movie?  Quaint notions, I know.

Say it with me

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Abortion is not medical care.

That’s why Americans should be concerned about abortion coverage in their current health care reform bills:

The two major health-care bills that Congress is examining would, according to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, “result in federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans, federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws. They would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale.”

North of the border, we manage to maintain the spectacular inconsistency that abortion is a woman’s choice, and that at the same time, it is medically necessary. (Abortion is medically necessary when the woman says it is medically necessary.)

So why do even good doctors comply with women’s demands even when they are not necessarily comfortable with abortion and can, with all clarity, see that it is not medically necessary? (That’s another blog post for another day.)

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On the other hand, Brigitte would like to add the following: I was in Montreal this afternoon and I heard a story on the radio (CBC, I believe) that made a reasonably big fuss about timely access to abortion there and how the city’s health and social services agency wanted to reassure citizens that they were doing everything they could to guaranteed access to the procedure. You’d have thought they were discussing care for something serious and medically necessary like, say, heart attacks or cancer patients. But no. Those people can wait while the public systems scrambles to guarantee quick and easy access to abortion.

Your summer holiday movie recommendation

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17 Again.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MClYhxyYC0M]

Some very funny moments, all involving how a Dad would think, and how that might look if a very cool Zac Efron were to put those adult ideas forward as a 17-year-old in high school. A passionate defence of abstinence in sex ed class ranks up there as a favourite scene:

Teacher: Okay, today we will be continuing our discussion with human sexuality and us we discussed the official school policy “abstinence”.

Zac Efron: Now that is very sensible! I’m glad some here has there head screwed on straight! I think all of us should make a pact to abstain from sex! now who’s with me?

Future carbon footprints and the Artwalks of today

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This article is about only having one child for fear of increasing future’s carbon footprint:

In some sense, you are responsible for the carbon emissions of your descendants,” he said in an interview. He added that the impact on population growth and consumption of resources are also important to consider.

Then yesterday, I went to this event:

As soft-impact tourism, ArtWalk is non polluting and is inclined to attract people respectful of the community while generating community pride.

The random question for today is: Am I also responsible for the non polluting art of my descendants? Who will buy this non-polluting art (and let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap) if we have no descendants? What is my carbon footprint when I drive to the non polluting art event? Hmmm. High class problems, to be sure.

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Ouch! Brigitte hurt herself falling over backwards while trying to fetch eyeballs that had rolled a little too far.

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Tanya ponders: More art (AKA stuff) and less decendants (AKA consumers)… isn’t that what Al Gore wanted from the start?

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Véronique adds: Excuse me while I pull out my soapbox. I think the one-child-as-environmental-statement is a cop-out. It’s the kind of excuse people who are too self-absorbed to have a larger family use to make themselves look more self-sacrificing. It’s like couples who live in expensive houses, driving expensive cars, going on expensive vacations and tell you they would have “much preferred staying home to raise the kids but couldn’t afford it…” Why not just assume the fact that kids get in your face? Not giving a child a sibling is a decision that the only child does not make but that he or she will have to live with for the rest of his or her life. Even after the parents die. I personally think it’s unfair but I have six children so take it or leave it.

There is a mansion on my street. It’s likely three times the size of my house and my house is about 3,000 square-feet. Like me, the owners have two vehicles that they use to go shopping etc. But unlike me, the owners have two kids. They are driving the same distance I am to buy food and gas and drive their kids to activities. Except that they are doing it for four people, I am doing it for twice that number. So who has the bigger carbon foot-print? The problem is not the number of children. The problem is our lifestyle.

Excuse me while I pull out my soapbox. I think the one-child-as-environmental-statement is a cop-out. It’s the kind of excuse people who are too self-absorbed to have a larger family use to make themselves look more self-sacrificing. It’s like couples who live in expensive houses, driving expensive cars, going on expensive vacations and tell you they would have “much preferred staying home to raise the kids but couldn’t afford it…” Why not just assume the fact that kids get in your face? Not giving a child a sibling is a decision that the only child does not make but that he or she will have to live with for the rest of his or her life. Even after the parents die. I personally think it’s unfair but I have six children so take it or leave it.

There is a mansion on my street. It’s likely three times the size of my house and my house is about 3, 000 square-feet. Like me, the owners have two vehicles that they use to go shopping etc. But unlike me, the owners have two kids. They are driving the same distance I am to buy food and gas and drive their kids to activities. Except that they are doing it for four people, I am doing it for twice that number. So who has the bigger carbon foot-print? The problem is not the number of children. The problem is our lifestyle.

That would be a negative

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In today’s Post (sorry I can’t find the link), an item asking whether high school kids in music class should sing Lady Gaga songs. No, they shouldn’t. Those should be banned or relegated exclusively to remix versions for my kickboxing class. High school is the time to learn obscure classical and broadway tunes and choral music sung in a fake British accent. How else could I snap my fingers while walking down the street singing the alto part of Rhythm of Life?

How to ensure you are never hired, ever

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Seems to me a public lawsuit against your college for failing to help you find a job would do it. (My job fresh out of university was very boring. I just never realized I could sue for that.)

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Brigitte tsk-tsks: Andrea, Andrea, Andrea. You can sue for anything. Want to help me launch a class-action suit against Al Gore for allowing us to think the weather was going to get warmer?

Birth control

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Perhaps not the best item for the childless girl in the crowd to comment on, but I tend to agree with this:

We need to celebrate birth as a normal event, not a surgical condition in waiting,” he says. “We need to give pregnant women the care and the support that they rightly deserve in this country.”

I’m not saying we should go back to home deliveries. But I don’t think we treat pregnancy like a normal event these days, either. By wanting to control absolutely everything, do we actually make it harder for everyone?

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Véronique adds: Being allowed to give birth at home is not considered “going back” in any way. In fact, when I moved from Quebec to Ontario and was able to give birth at home with a qualified midwife – as opposed to the “self-taught” midwife my Quebec friend had to use. Call me over-regulated but “self-taught” is not something I want to see on any of my healthcare professionals’ resume – I saw it as progress in healthcare. I had three children at home and three in hospital (one baby with a family doc, one with an Ob-Gyn and one with a midwife). Each experience was unique but the home births were by far the most beautiful and empowering experiences of my life.

In any case, I find it interesting that we are now talking about giving women freedom of movement during childbirth to reduce our ridiculously high c-section rate. My oldest daughter has seen the birth of two of her siblings: one at home with no medical interventions and one in hospital with induction and constant fetal monitoring. The attending obstetrician, when it was all over, asked her what she thought of witnessing the birth of her baby sister. Without missing a beat she said: “It looked a lot easier when she wasn’t lying on her back!” She told me recently that when she saw the hospital bed her first thought was: “How is she supposed to move around on a bed that small?”

So basically it makes perfect sense to a 13-year-old girl with no medical training but gynecologists are still wondering…

Little House on the Prairie

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As a child, I read and re-read that series, starting with Little House in the Big Woods and moving on from there in circular succession. I couldn’t get enough of it. I learned how to smoke meat, to make candy in the snow, to use all parts of a pig when slaughtered. (These are skills I have yet to put to use–but imagine my delight when I saw for the first time here in Ottawa that they too, as part of Winterlude, pour maple syrup taffee on snow and then you can eat it. Amazing.)

An article here, about the women behind the books.

Scrambling in the propaganda ministry

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I wonder how to nuance this message? From Shanghai, China: Have more children, but only have one child. Good luck with that.

A birth rate that has crashed to .88 children per woman and a population ageing fast have led officials in the Chinese coastal city of Shanghai to start knocking on doors to get couples to have more children. But they are still straight-jacketed by the national one-child policy, so only certain “eligible” couples can expect a visit along with counselling and financial advice.

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Brigitte wonders: How exactly does the first activity (city officials knocking on doors) encourage the, er, desired activity (couples doing, ah, what’s needed to have more children)?

Two can play this game

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We all know by now it was Sarah Palin’s last day in office last week. Here’s the Globe and Mail‘s oh-so-funny take on it. But I won’t begrudge them their satire, no.

Instead, a short post we will call “A diligent Globe and Mail reporter and editor work on a story about Sarah Palin.”

Sarah Palin’s last day as Governor was Sunday, July 26. Woo-hoo! [Remove “woo-hoo.” We do not cheer her resignation; Look, in Alaska she was at least contained. Now she could turn up anywhere.–ed.]  Location: Far away! Even further than the 905. [Add “Can’t see the CN Tower there,” for Canadian content and context. Remember, show, don’t tell–ed.] Background: Crazy gun-toting fundamentalist religious nutbar [Enough already!  You’ll look unfair; try “crazy gun-toting moose-field-dressing religious Barbie-doll grandma” and drop fundamentalist nutbar–ed.] appears on scene, poised to steal American election from rightful heir, Barack Obama (May His Holy Name Be Praised) [Do you think that might offend Muslims? Please do solid fact check.–ed]. Couldn’t have that again. Not after George W in 2000. Bygones–we have Barack now. No more is America a land of fat, overbearing rubes.  Just redneck governors with five kids, one of whom just resigned. [Good place to insert joke about the out-of-wedlock birth of her teenage daughter? Just a thought. Good start, but I think there’s more we can do with this one–ed.]

…Look, I was never getting published in the Globe anyway. Might as well have a little innocent fun, right?

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