Benefits of coma

It would be mighty irresponsible for an individual to live a life with their head down only being concerned with where they’re headed. That isn’t a general criticism directed broadly. It’s a specific comment directed at one person in particular. Me.

Truth be told, I haven’t honestly always (as in very recently) been the most accepting of change — when it comes to myself, at least. Being so strong headed about certain behaviours has proven to be the least productive of my efforts going forward. Especially concerning matters of the heart. Hard lessons learned. And I’m working on it.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I’m incredibly insecure about the “answers” I do have. And I hope that never changes. However as sure as I am about not being adequately informed about everything, I’m more than secure in proclaiming no-one is. As long as we refuse to listen and learn from each other we will never get to where we want and need to be…

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Usefully indispensable?

So with Canada Post’s workers heading back to work next week, regardless of your feelings towards unionized labour, I think a little context is required.

But before I get into it I should state I’m not going to provide, nor am I looking for, commentary concerning either the deal the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (C.U.P.W.) were after or the House of Commons legislation forcing them back to work. Honestly I haven’t been following either side closely enough to provide any sort of informed insight.

I am, however, ready to cite two recent news stories that appeared in the media recently where union’s, on the one hand, proved useful (read: indispensable) to an individual seeking justice. But on the other proved indispensable (read: useful) for a corporation resisting their worker’s their right to organize to temporarily dismiss grievances…

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Bullocks you say?

You say I can’t compare dairy with rape? And you’ve seen cows being milked before and they don’t looked terrified for their lives?

Yesterday I received an email essentially stating the two sentences above. And having never walked myself through, as in actually written out, the explicit facts I use to justify a statement as inflammatory as equating the sexual interference of a sentient being to the romantic notion of how it is we actually obtain “our” milk, I thought I’d share my response to that email below.

First off, and most importantly, the animal user industries have been extremely successful at selling us an image they need us to believe in order to conduct business as usual. That’s no mystery. It’s a fact. What is a mystery, figuratively speaking, is everything involved in providing us with “products” without a face or a story. Sadly the image they’re selling and what really goes on do not line up, even remotely, in the same vicinity of each other…

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Listening to the radio

There I was in bed this morning, while listening to the radio and contemplating starting my day, when a piece came on Metro Morning about Sean Avery — a professional NHL Hockey player — “coming out” in support of Gay Marriage. Instantly something didn’t sit right with me. Wasn’t this the same clown who, a couple years back, made some borderline misogynistic remarks concerning his “sloppy seconds” and a fellow player?

Now he’s supporting, publicly no less, Gay Marriage? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing he’s stepping up to lend his support for such a cause, but remember who it’s coming from. Where sexism resides it’s hard to believe homophobia isn’t a close neighbour, if not a completely welcomed room mate.

I’ll take that for what it’s worth, which isn’t much, thanks…

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