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’

Time, as it always has, will tell

Well it’s been over a month since I’ve written anything here. For shame, I know. And what a month to be absent from commenting on events happening around the world! It’s quite a remarkable time to be in opposition to power!

I’m speaking, of course, toward the uprisings in North Africa, the Middle East and the American Mid-West. “It is not a good season to be a tyrant.” And it’s getting increasingly more difficult not to think these bullshit hierarchies — or the way they are ridiculously structured at least — are all beginning to level out.

Finally, a real reason for hope!

Continue reading Time, as it always has, will tell

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Just this past Wednesday, after a month or so of trying to coordinate a suitable time for both of us to meet, I was able to get into the city and visit a friend and check out what he is really busy working on.

My friend, Colin, has been working in the field of computer technology — mainly by helping to make various software applications, largely internet related, accessible — for years now. In fact, that is precisely why and how we met, over an entire decade ago! He was involved, as a student, with the folks who set me up with the means to use my first computer. University of Toronto’s ATRC (who are now at OCAD University as the Inclusive Design Research Centre).

It was the ATRC who outfitted me with the original gear I used to interact with a computer. Keep in mind, that was a time when I was differently abled, well differently abled than I am now, at least. Where my interactions were entirely facilitated through a head switch and an on screen keyboard. Much like I’ve written here before — well not so much the onscreen keyboard aspect, I’d rather foolishly forgotten, but I was delightfully reminded during said visit…

Continue reading Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!