Tag: Politics

Feels really good

Have you ever had one of those life changing events?  Where you have little choice but to heed it’s wishes? I’ve had a few. My accident is one. Going vegan is two. And the third one happened just this past Saturday. And all are equally momentous.

Saturday I attended the first annual Accessibility Camp Toronto. An unconference absolutely dedicated to the field of accessibility for and by professionals working in the field. What was so special? Great question. First it was a lot different than I’m used to. With 4 PhotoshopWorld’s, a few Adobe Launches, a couple Apple Presentation’s, a Lynda.com Web Conference and a couple other gatherings under my belt it’s safe to say I’m no stranger to these sorts of events. Or so I thought.

The format while similar in scope, as there was a presenter who presented ideas to an audience, but it was how and what was to be presented that was so different. The schedule wasn’t arranged ahead of time. The session ideas were proposed during the event’s opening then decided on before the event began. That’s not how these things are typically structured and run. The attendees, those who were most interested in what was to be offered, determined the direction of the event. But after, or in some cases during said “presentations,” the discussion was opened up to the audience. So not only were the attendees tasked with the conference schedule, we were able to influence the direction of the individual sessions, too…

Continue reading Feels really good

Further context into this context

So here we go again. This past Friday a man named Anders Behring Breivik allegedly detonated a bomb in Norway, killing 7. And, in a separate incident, while impersonating a police officer, but carrying a firearm (which Norwegian police don’t do, according to one al Jazeera interviewee) shot and killed up to 84 additional people attending a youth camp on an island an hour or so north of the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

The details, while absolutely horrific and entirely deplorable, aren’t what I’m most interested in. Or even the hysteria that predictably ensued for most of the day Friday, not to mention part of yesterday, following these events. You know the typical rush to judgement these acts were immediately thought linked, as terrorism, with Fundamental Islam without creditable evidence. Turns out it wasn’t terrorism at all, thank God, it was just right-wing extremism — like people are supposed to be assured because this is different somehow? Which is my point.

Give me a break. Please, I’m begging you. Shut the fuck up!

Continue reading Further context into this context

A pretty high price to pay

So I got to thinking last night, after reading Medea Benjamin’s and Charles Davis’ article Under Obama, Better to Commit a War Crime Than Expose One, if Obama regrets his decision to run for President? It will be hard to imagine he won’t come to. How on earth could he not?

Everything he’s supposed to believe — given he was a constitutional law professor previous to becoming President and should know a thing or two about his constitution — and does, are two completely different things. Granted, I’m no expert, but I’ve read, seen and heard enough to know his actions are everything but inline with what the American Constitution actually says.

It’s no secret I didn’t expect much from Mr. Obama. I realize there is essentially no difference between Democrats and Republicans. Even prior to Obama assuming office. It’s irresponsible to think otherwise. But even I’m shocked over where the state of American politics has gone in just two years following the election of a man who said so much that was contrary to where the world was headed. Yet, we’re here, regardless of everything he said?

Continue reading A pretty high price to pay

‘Someday it may come knocking on your door’

So with condemnation, and rightfully so, of John Galliano’s stupid anti-Semetic needle-dickery in the news this week, I can’t help but wonder why similarities, as in any, between Galliano’s bigotry and a recent US anti-Muslim rally, in Yorba Linda California, fail to be connected?

Elected Republican, Deborah Pauly, can be seen in this video from al Jazeera actually saying;

I don’t even care if you think I’m crazy anymore. […] I know quite a few marines who will be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise…

But I’ve taken her words out of context, you say? It’s quite possible I have. I can admit it. Not that I care. I’ve no idea where or why she was talking when the footage was shot that was featured in this piece. I guess it’s possible, like conservative Tea Party “activists” claim, she was speaking towards the “presence of speakers [that are linked, but not charged, in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing being] at the event.” Fair enough. Anything is possible. Even the validity, however unlikely, of some of the Tea Party’s extreme assertions. But, that said, it’s not like the Tea Party’s record against inciting reactionary ignorance is clean. But that’s not really my point…

Continue reading ‘Someday it may come knocking on your door’