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The concrete wall

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The headline said “Women still earn less than men for same work”

But that’s not what the Equal Pay Coalition said at all. What they want is that “female jobs be paid the same as male jobs of similar value…”

Big, BIG difference. But in the end George Jonas is still right. These folks aren’t worried about evidence. There’s no glass ceiling, so they continue to bang their heads against a big ole’ concrete wall.

I’m not sure what we know about “glass ceilings.” Was there one, or do the equality people make that up too? One of the problems in the history faculties these days is the rewriting of history to suit different perspectives and a “gendered perspective” is top of the list. It always made me wonder about the veracity of what I was studying, and whether we weren’t layering on way too many of our own perspectives, without letting the historical facts and faces tell the story.

You’re offended, I’m offended… so what?

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havewegonetoofar.jpg

All it took was a couple of complaints and Don Hull, Hamilton’s director of transit took the ad above down.

Councillor Brian McHattie said he asked for the ads to come down after his office heard from upset residents. “For me personally, it definitely was offensive.” Personal opinions on abortion aside, he said the city shouldn’t been seen to support or promote either side of such a controversial issue. “It’s totally inappropriate for the city.”

What part of “have we gone too far?” is offensive? Your answer might be no, it might be yes, it might be a shrug – which is to say, you never pondered it before.

I’m offended that they took the ads down. But I don’t suppose that means they’ll put them back up.

What is it about “being offended” that has become sacrosanct these days? Since when must we not offend? Life without offense would be very boring, as I’m sure any hockey fan will agree.

Shutting these ads down because a simple question was posed? I think that’s “totally inappropriate.”

ProWomanProLife in the news

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580 CFRA, an Ottawa radio station reports about our ideas here.

And Lifesite news reported about us here.

Numerous blogs have been kind enough to mention us as well, here and here…

Thank you also to all who have emailed–and so many of you have. Your appreciation is, well,  much appreciated, and I’m going to respond to each note individually as soon as I can.

Then there are the detractors, of course, which to be perfectly honest, I appreciate as well. Votelife Canada’s blog wrote about us here. One comment on that. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, founder of the largest abortion clinic in New York City a couple of decades ago, turned pro-lifer (and after he became pro-life he converted to Roman Catholicism) says this, and I’m paraphrasing: The country that can outlaw abortion doesn’t need to, and the country that needs to, can’t.

It’s Ye Olde Catch 22 of this thing we call democracy. I may well be Canada’s first pro-choice pro-lifer. But I’m not “OK” with the abortion choice and that’s why I started this group.

Incidentally, there are more radio shows to come and we’ll keep you posted on those as they get closer.

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Brigitte agrees wholeheartedly: I don’t believe the issue should revolve around who’s pure of heart and who isn’t. There are 100,000 abortions in this country every year. True, if abortion were illegal there would be a whole lot less. But unless you spend your spare time burying your head in the sand, you know it’s not likely to be made illegal soon. So in the meantime, instead of griping that some of us aren’t pure enough, those of us who’d rather work on that aspect of the issue ought to try our best to change the culture. There should be room enough in the pro-life movement for all of us. 

When “years of reading” are not enough

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In the Globe today, a story about Stalin’s great grandson, who has this to say about is his great grandfather:

Stalin, he has concluded after years of reading, was not the murderous villain who killed millions of opponents including intellectuals, peasants, and artists like him.

You could be shocked, or you could be totally unsurprised. I am the latter. If many Canadians lack the visceral horror over Joseph Stalin’s endless atrocities and murder of millions – it’s not that surprising that his own family would think him a “great leader.” Overturning years of misinformation is a tricky business.

 

Pity they can’t both lose

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So there’s some kind of hoopla in the world of tennis. Apparently some male commentator said something tasteless and dumb about Venus Williams’ bottom. Well, pfft. While I agree his comment was stupid and inappropriate, I also have to have a good laugh at the girls. Players nowadays display A LOT more than a mean backhand. Not that it excuses idiotic comments. But you know, when you dress like a tart, don’t be surprised if people treat you like one.  

Lakehead and life

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  So apparently the students at Lakehead University could have had a pro-life club, they just can’t

  1. advertise
  2. educate
  3. and they have to apply for express permission to use their own university’s logo

Next thing you know they might want to hold an event. Clearly, this club is demanding.

I’m not even going to get into the delicious irony of a university that forbids education from student clubs. A new motto perhaps? “Lakehead University–no learning, now or ever”

I’ll keep brainstorming…

Fixing boys? Why, are they broken?

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It’s not just feminists who bother me when they mistake particular women’s difficulties for systematic discrimination. For the most part, Hillary Clinton’s electoral troubles are hers and hers only – and she would have them were she a middle-aged white guy. I used to think the exact same thing back in the day Pauline Marois could not get herself elected at the head of the PQ (she has since become the party’s leader). It’s not your gender, I once wrote in a column. It’s you.

But then, I’m also not wild about those who say society is now hurting boys. See, assuming society does something bad to one gender takes responsibility away from individuals because it encourages them to blame their shortcomings on discrimination instead of blaming themselves. Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself has never been a good idea. Why promote it?

Madness takes its toll

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu7xoHU9DA]

I know I enjoy a good walk down memory lane so whilst you are enjoying this clip from the 1973 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, let me discuss today’s news. Today Judith Timson in The Globe and Mail writes an article called The unthinkable shmashmortion: When did abortion become a dirty word again? It’s another article despairing that Hollywood has not put enough effort into glamorizing “women’s choices” (read abortion) and has made movies like Juno and Knocked Up, showing other options. To quote:

When I was a teenager in the mid-sixties, an unwanted pregnancy was a nightmare. One girl I knew who did not want to tell her parents travelled secretly to a small town to visit a semi-competent abortionist. Another 17-year-old friend had an abortion performed on her family’s kitchen table by two women who injected a saline solution into her as her wealthy mother stood by. She delivered a fetus into the frilly wastebasket in her bedroom.

She also touches on the gritty 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a film about an abortion in communist Romania, which had Timson “protectively pressing my legs together, thinking back to those comparatively benign but still bad old days in Canada.”

Someone send this woman a history book: Comparing communist Romania with Canada in any fashion is hopelessly naive and historically untenable. Did I say “hopelessly naive”? Back to the topic at hand.

Abortion has not become a dirty word “again.” It was always a dirty word. She’s cheering the normalization of death that never happened, the women’s right that never materialized, because whether into a wastebasket or a sterilized hospital dish, women, girls, none of us, are comfortable with delivering our unborn children–dead.

Timson says she feels like she’s living in a time warp. How to put this delicately-that’s because she is. Her own 1970s time warp. Since then, time has shown the supposed liberation of abortion to be nothing more than science fiction–a cast of eccentric characters dancing over graves. The modern and hip know how abysmal the whole affair is.

Is it primary season already?

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If I were in an endorsing kind of mood, I wouldn’t pick Mike Huckabee.  Nonetheless, his sudden uptick in Iowa is fascinating.  In a contest that has so far dealt largely with the economy, immigration and national security, rather than social and cultural issues, David Broder makes the argument that there is something going on under the surface (free registration req’d.):

Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. […] [R]eal middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

Social and human capital are what enable individuals and groups to thrive.  When communities can’t generate this capital for whatever reason, governments step in, and their solutions are usually ham-handed, expensive, and inefficient.  Fiscal conservatism, small governments and shrinking budgets are only viable when most people are functional, stable, and autonomous, and there has yet to be a more effective way to develop such people than in a family.  I’m a bit puzzled that this theme has been lacking so far in the primary season, but perhaps it’s there, in the subtext.  It will be interesting to see if it emerges more clearly in the debates ahead.

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