The first time I ever saw a Burka was just over two years ago when we re-located to the Toronto area; prior to that I'd been living in other parts of Canada and other parts of the world and the much whispered about Islamic dress was just a rumor.
Soon after settling into a new home and a new life, I was out for sushi and looked out my window and sitting in the drivers seat was a little woman in a black sheet with slits where her eyes are and next to her was a ridiculous old man who looked like a little gnome wearing a white cap and a long white beard.
They sat waiting for the traffic light to turn green and I sat waiting for my disgust, contempt and anger to pass. My negative reaction was not because of any 'terrorism' link or anything that absurd because I feel quite safe in the world and my government is doing a portion of it's job to prevent attacks and Canadian foreign policy reduces our chance of being targets. In bluntness, to kill a bunch of Canadians is not going to have the same political weight as killing a bunch of Americans, 'terrorism' is after all a politically motivated crime regardless of how religion is used to galvanize recruits.
On a weekly basis, I see these women draped in black sheets with slits to allow them the smallest window to see where they're going and the feelings are always the same, I want to rage at them, shake their stupid little bodies and tell them to rip that shroud off and toss it in their men's faces. Instead I avert my gaze so they can't see the judgement in my eyes and finish my errands and go home.
Here's what I've learned: these women willingly wear the drapes of oppression as an expression of their faith and commitment to their husbands. I find it so beyond ludicrous and absurd but, what I think is irrelevant because they are making the choice for themselves and I know that is not what the propaganda machine wants us to know or believe but, these women in burka's are not trapped, they're not forced to wear this gear and they don't want anyone to free them from it because they do not view themselves as prisoners.
There are exceptions.
Afghanistan is an exception because the women there are forced to wear the burka or suffer violent repercussion's which America's presence has done very little to change; the Afghan's remain in the virtually the same state of chaos and violence that we found them in 2001. Instead of dealing with Afghanistan and the Taliban, the Bush Crusade took us to Iraq where he successfully enshrined Sharia Law into the Iraqi constitution and armed Blackwater, the worlds largest "Christian" Mercenary Army in the world to kill Iraqis with immunity. So while America is committing staggering and disgusting war crimes in Iraq, the Taliban is now a smarter, more organized, better armed band of killers.
Another exception:
Back in the burbs, the Burka clad women,like black harbingers of death, willingly move stealthily through life making choices I disapprove of but, defend as their right. Why do I do this?
Let me tell you why: several months ago there was a Canadian Muslim teenager who refused her father and brothers demands that she wear a head cover and this 16 year old girl went looking for someone , somewhere to help her. She went to homeless shelters and was turned away because she was not homeless, she went to a battered women's shelter and was turned away, she went to her school councillors and they had no advice or help for her. What about her mother, you ask? Her mother also did nothing to help her because she supported the father and brother in their demands. One day, her father and her brother killed her.
I am defending those girls and women.
This girl was completely isolated and marginalized by a world that doesn't care what happens to her and the more we push Muslim's into isolated communities, the more little girls are going to turn up dead because there is no one to help them, no one to offer a way out if they want it.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Five Ways to Keep Your' Children Safe from Predators
Canada is excelling on a shameful, horrifying front: Internet Child Pornography. Canada is the world's second-largest home to online child pornography and the second-largest online seller of child pornography material, such as images, videos or memberships.
My nation is home to some of the worlds worst abusers of our babies,I can not live with this status. The Canadian government is introducing legislation to make it easier for Internet Service Providers (ISP)to monitor report underage pornographic activity to authorities by closing legal loopholes and goes even further to place some onus of legal responsibility on the ISP to monitor and report illegal sexual activity on their Internet service. As a mother and citizen, I fully support this bill. It's always foolish naivete to rely completely on the government to protect our children so here are five ways to keep our little ones safe:
1.No sleep overs. Period. Ever. Children who sleep in strangers homes have a very high chance of being brutalized by males in the house.
2. No sleep away camps. Children get raped by camp councilors and older children.
3. Teachers, coaches, priests/rabbis/imams etc. should be closely monitored by the parent for any inappropriate behavior and excessive time spent alone with children.
4. All men in your child's life are potential predators and should be monitored and not left alone with young children.
5. Teach children two things: If it feels icky, it is icky. That is a simple, innocent way for them to know and tell. Finally, teach them that in your family there are 'No Secrets, Only Surprises'.
Finally, willful children who battle with their parents and are less 'nice' are less likely to be targeted by predators so do not destroy that fight in them by making your son or daughter too obedient. If there was a vaccine to protect against being abused it is this willfulness of spirit in a child that must be respected and adored so it will serve to help your child protect him or herself.
Look for symptoms of abuse: withdrawal, sadness, wetting the bed, anger, violence.
My nation is home to some of the worlds worst abusers of our babies,I can not live with this status. The Canadian government is introducing legislation to make it easier for Internet Service Providers (ISP)to monitor report underage pornographic activity to authorities by closing legal loopholes and goes even further to place some onus of legal responsibility on the ISP to monitor and report illegal sexual activity on their Internet service. As a mother and citizen, I fully support this bill. It's always foolish naivete to rely completely on the government to protect our children so here are five ways to keep our little ones safe:
1.No sleep overs. Period. Ever. Children who sleep in strangers homes have a very high chance of being brutalized by males in the house.
2. No sleep away camps. Children get raped by camp councilors and older children.
3. Teachers, coaches, priests/rabbis/imams etc. should be closely monitored by the parent for any inappropriate behavior and excessive time spent alone with children.
4. All men in your child's life are potential predators and should be monitored and not left alone with young children.
5. Teach children two things: If it feels icky, it is icky. That is a simple, innocent way for them to know and tell. Finally, teach them that in your family there are 'No Secrets, Only Surprises'.
Finally, willful children who battle with their parents and are less 'nice' are less likely to be targeted by predators so do not destroy that fight in them by making your son or daughter too obedient. If there was a vaccine to protect against being abused it is this willfulness of spirit in a child that must be respected and adored so it will serve to help your child protect him or herself.
Look for symptoms of abuse: withdrawal, sadness, wetting the bed, anger, violence.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Three people I met along the way ...
Before my children showed me what true love and joy can be, travel was my love and here are just three people I met along the way:
The Israeli
Shaded by the towering Buddha he starts talking and there's a desperation, a need in him that I didn't understand at the time.
"I am Israeli, I'm running away from the army" he told me.
This was over a decade ago, many years before September 11th had me looking for answers in Israel to help explain that terrible day, at the time I was still young and had no knowledge about the rumblings of madness that would explode in carnage in New York, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In absurd Canadian earnestness and innocence, I say "Why are you running from the Israeli army? What have you done?".
"I don't want to kill people who have done nothing to me, I am an Engineer. I want to build things not kill things" he says with a slight accent and that same desperation in his eyes.
He needed me to understand but, I couldn't comprehend his need. Now I understand. I understand too well what he was not saying.
He was running from country to country avoiding Israeli Conscription, the law that says every Jewish citizen over the age of eighteen must serve in the military and we met on this leafy day in South Korea.
"Where will you go next, Eli?" I ask him.
"Europe" he says.
"What will you do there?" I ask.
"Hopefully get a job as an Engineer so I won't have to kill people" he says with that same look of desperation, like a wild animal caught in a trap trying to release it's leg from the iron grip.
Oh Eli. I have thought of you more often than I can count in the decade since that day posing in the Korean sunshine.
I hope you're building things.
The Mexican
We met in Mexico City because I was lost and needed directions and she had a couple of hours to kill before her afternoon appointments so we talked in that rushed and intense intimacy of travellers.
Her story was filled with venom and regret; she recently returned to Mexico after living in San Francisco for five years with her gringo husband.
"How I hated that place and that country by the end of it; the racism was every where. I could not go to the corner store without hatred directed at me, I could not go to the mall without the glares and naked hostility, I could not go to a restaurant without racist slurs hurled at me. How I hate that country. I hate it even when my plane lands for a brief layover and I need to step foot on American soil for a short period, I just want to crawl out of my skin."
Her name is Guadalupe and she's dark skinned and lovely and tall and willowy with big liquid brown eyes and a lot of degrees after her name that could not shield her from the ugly face of American racism so she ran back to her homeland of Mexico for peace and refuge and to be left the hell alone.
Mostly she ran back because she didn't want to spend her life as a receptacle for American stupidity, hatred and ethnocentrism.
I was shocked by her vivid description of how unrelenting the racism and hate was, there was no let up except when she closed her doors to the outside.
Living in a prison, is no life at all, so she went home.
I can still feel the shudder of her revulsion as she said "How I hate that country".
The Korean
What remains in my memory is two things: her voice and this yellow light that seemed to glow around her. Her voice was soft but clear like a church bell on a crisp autumn day and it matched her gaze that always looked directly into me.
I didn't know it at the time but, she was one of my guardian angels in that cesspool of Korean teachers who would devour their own young simply to feed themselves.
On the days she worked, she would come running up to me with kindness on her tongue:
"Good morning, Rola! How are you today?".
"Hi Rola, you look beautiful today".
"Rola, can I tell you that you are a wonderful person".
It was always a little confusing and a lot shocking to hear such sweet compliments coming from her because Korean women are vipers and loath foreign women, like myself.
Her purity was all present. Her goodness and whiteness of heart was like another person, a second presence standing next to her;I've never experienced that since then with another human being. She appeared made of a lighter substance than the midgets of heart and mind we were both sharing a workplace with.
Just like her random kindness during many months at that upscale prep school, one unpredictable day, she rush up to me and breathlessly said "I have a letter for you, Rola. I must leave you now but, know that I'm your friend and I will be praying for you and always remember that you are a wonderful person".
Baffled and confused doesn't even begin to cover how I felt by her behavior and when I pressed her she only repeated herself and told me to read the letter, it will explain everything.
She disappeared that day; I never heard from her again but, I have her letter in a box of cherished things that I move with me from home to home.
Her story is tragic beyond measure: she comes from a Korean Buddhist family but, she found Jesus to be her calling and converted to Christianity which incensed her parents who then put her in an insane asylum. They demanded she renounce Christ and return to her Buddhist roots, she refused and they kept her committed.
I don't know what happened to her but, I hope Jesus gave her freedom from the prison she was trapped in because she was one of the most truly righteous beings I've ever known in this world of deceit, petty malice and careless betrayal.
The Israeli
Shaded by the towering Buddha he starts talking and there's a desperation, a need in him that I didn't understand at the time.
"I am Israeli, I'm running away from the army" he told me.
This was over a decade ago, many years before September 11th had me looking for answers in Israel to help explain that terrible day, at the time I was still young and had no knowledge about the rumblings of madness that would explode in carnage in New York, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In absurd Canadian earnestness and innocence, I say "Why are you running from the Israeli army? What have you done?".
"I don't want to kill people who have done nothing to me, I am an Engineer. I want to build things not kill things" he says with a slight accent and that same desperation in his eyes.
He needed me to understand but, I couldn't comprehend his need. Now I understand. I understand too well what he was not saying.
He was running from country to country avoiding Israeli Conscription, the law that says every Jewish citizen over the age of eighteen must serve in the military and we met on this leafy day in South Korea.
"Where will you go next, Eli?" I ask him.
"Europe" he says.
"What will you do there?" I ask.
"Hopefully get a job as an Engineer so I won't have to kill people" he says with that same look of desperation, like a wild animal caught in a trap trying to release it's leg from the iron grip.
Oh Eli. I have thought of you more often than I can count in the decade since that day posing in the Korean sunshine.
I hope you're building things.
The Mexican
We met in Mexico City because I was lost and needed directions and she had a couple of hours to kill before her afternoon appointments so we talked in that rushed and intense intimacy of travellers.
Her story was filled with venom and regret; she recently returned to Mexico after living in San Francisco for five years with her gringo husband.
"How I hated that place and that country by the end of it; the racism was every where. I could not go to the corner store without hatred directed at me, I could not go to the mall without the glares and naked hostility, I could not go to a restaurant without racist slurs hurled at me. How I hate that country. I hate it even when my plane lands for a brief layover and I need to step foot on American soil for a short period, I just want to crawl out of my skin."
Her name is Guadalupe and she's dark skinned and lovely and tall and willowy with big liquid brown eyes and a lot of degrees after her name that could not shield her from the ugly face of American racism so she ran back to her homeland of Mexico for peace and refuge and to be left the hell alone.
Mostly she ran back because she didn't want to spend her life as a receptacle for American stupidity, hatred and ethnocentrism.
I was shocked by her vivid description of how unrelenting the racism and hate was, there was no let up except when she closed her doors to the outside.
Living in a prison, is no life at all, so she went home.
I can still feel the shudder of her revulsion as she said "How I hate that country".
The Korean
What remains in my memory is two things: her voice and this yellow light that seemed to glow around her. Her voice was soft but clear like a church bell on a crisp autumn day and it matched her gaze that always looked directly into me.
I didn't know it at the time but, she was one of my guardian angels in that cesspool of Korean teachers who would devour their own young simply to feed themselves.
On the days she worked, she would come running up to me with kindness on her tongue:
"Good morning, Rola! How are you today?".
"Hi Rola, you look beautiful today".
"Rola, can I tell you that you are a wonderful person".
It was always a little confusing and a lot shocking to hear such sweet compliments coming from her because Korean women are vipers and loath foreign women, like myself.
Her purity was all present. Her goodness and whiteness of heart was like another person, a second presence standing next to her;I've never experienced that since then with another human being. She appeared made of a lighter substance than the midgets of heart and mind we were both sharing a workplace with.
Just like her random kindness during many months at that upscale prep school, one unpredictable day, she rush up to me and breathlessly said "I have a letter for you, Rola. I must leave you now but, know that I'm your friend and I will be praying for you and always remember that you are a wonderful person".
Baffled and confused doesn't even begin to cover how I felt by her behavior and when I pressed her she only repeated herself and told me to read the letter, it will explain everything.
She disappeared that day; I never heard from her again but, I have her letter in a box of cherished things that I move with me from home to home.
Her story is tragic beyond measure: she comes from a Korean Buddhist family but, she found Jesus to be her calling and converted to Christianity which incensed her parents who then put her in an insane asylum. They demanded she renounce Christ and return to her Buddhist roots, she refused and they kept her committed.
I don't know what happened to her but, I hope Jesus gave her freedom from the prison she was trapped in because she was one of the most truly righteous beings I've ever known in this world of deceit, petty malice and careless betrayal.
Yosemite Sam & the Hare-Abians!
There is a sleuth lurking in the neglected corners of this world, an upright citizen fighting for what's right and rooting out any and all un-American activities.
This is the story of Yosemite Sam and the Hare-Abian Nights!
Yosemite Sam is the mall cop with the big flashlight he waves around and pokes in the chests of Arabs and Muslims as part of his reconnaissance to root out non-white Christian American folk.
He fancies himself a spy, keeping America safe from those who secretly mean 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' while asking for a happy meal at the McDonald's drive-thru, very sinister stuff simmers beneath their brown skin and head cover.
Yosemite Sam is spry and quick on his feet, nothing gets past him! He's an American pioneer who can read between the lines and he knows America is in a battle against a great evil that threatens to destroy his rat hole, it's the Hare-Abians!
"Pow, pow,pow! Dirty Varmin!"
Those Hare-Abians can't pull the wool over his eyes.
He collects information and gathers the little threads to build a big gun to attack anyone who wrestles with him in the intellectual arena and pins him, pins him pathetically to the mat.
Yosemite Sam brings out his big guns when clobbered by his own ignorance, 'pow, pow, pow!', go his side holsters.
In the end, the real Sultan of the desert, Bugs Bunny, sends Yosemite Sam into the pit to be devoured by crocodiles and calls Yosemite 'the stupidest character of them all!"
"What's up doc?"
This is the story of Yosemite Sam and the Hare-Abian Nights!
Yosemite Sam is the mall cop with the big flashlight he waves around and pokes in the chests of Arabs and Muslims as part of his reconnaissance to root out non-white Christian American folk.
He fancies himself a spy, keeping America safe from those who secretly mean 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' while asking for a happy meal at the McDonald's drive-thru, very sinister stuff simmers beneath their brown skin and head cover.
Yosemite Sam is spry and quick on his feet, nothing gets past him! He's an American pioneer who can read between the lines and he knows America is in a battle against a great evil that threatens to destroy his rat hole, it's the Hare-Abians!
"Pow, pow,pow! Dirty Varmin!"
Those Hare-Abians can't pull the wool over his eyes.
He collects information and gathers the little threads to build a big gun to attack anyone who wrestles with him in the intellectual arena and pins him, pins him pathetically to the mat.
Yosemite Sam brings out his big guns when clobbered by his own ignorance, 'pow, pow, pow!', go his side holsters.
In the end, the real Sultan of the desert, Bugs Bunny, sends Yosemite Sam into the pit to be devoured by crocodiles and calls Yosemite 'the stupidest character of them all!"
"What's up doc?"
Fort Hood: Blame American Idol
I like facts. I like to build my opinions around credible information and I like to wait a moment for all the information to come in before I jump to conclusions, I'm a little kooky that way.
Blaming Political Correctness for Fort Hood is the same as blaming American Idol for the carnage: neither displays a rational connection to the events at the army base in Texas.
Matter of fact the evidence points to neither PC nor American Idol being relevant in what happened at Fort Hood.
Much of the information demonstrates a shocking lack of respect and political correctness by the shooters fellow military comrades. The holy saints of Fort Hood keyed Maj Nidal Hassan's car, tore off a bumper sticker that said 'Allah is Love' and subjected him to daily hostility, racism, mockery and open contempt, in other words the very PC folks at Fort Hood were actively engaged in a campaign of racism, bigotry and harassment.
Thus far, the evidence disputes the false claims that political correctness lead to Hassan falling through the cracks of military security.
Reliable information has emerged that Hassan was buckling under the strain of treating traumatized soldiers, facing regular derision and rejection by his fellow American soldiers and desperately wanted to escape deployment overseas. Remember, stating the facts and using them to build a viewpoint, does not mean I excuse the behavior, it means I am a rational thinking human being who would like to take reasonable steps to prevent this sort of violence from reoccurring.
There remains some confusion as to why Hassan was in contact with some of these 'terrorist' elements, authorities are saying it was part of his research as a military psychiatrist and some are pouncing to claim it's proof he was involved in a personal jihad. It's unclear at this point what is true, only time will shed more light on this aspect of the investigation.
Hassan is being charged with 13 counts of murder but, what I find offensive is military prosecutors are debating whether to charge him with a 14th count of murder for the unborn child he is accused of murdering.
That unborn child was an innocent angel and did not deserve to die in a hail of bullets. Hassan should rot for that murder alone.
Blaming Political Correctness for Fort Hood is the same as blaming American Idol for the carnage: neither displays a rational connection to the events at the army base in Texas.
Matter of fact the evidence points to neither PC nor American Idol being relevant in what happened at Fort Hood.
Much of the information demonstrates a shocking lack of respect and political correctness by the shooters fellow military comrades. The holy saints of Fort Hood keyed Maj Nidal Hassan's car, tore off a bumper sticker that said 'Allah is Love' and subjected him to daily hostility, racism, mockery and open contempt, in other words the very PC folks at Fort Hood were actively engaged in a campaign of racism, bigotry and harassment.
Thus far, the evidence disputes the false claims that political correctness lead to Hassan falling through the cracks of military security.
Reliable information has emerged that Hassan was buckling under the strain of treating traumatized soldiers, facing regular derision and rejection by his fellow American soldiers and desperately wanted to escape deployment overseas. Remember, stating the facts and using them to build a viewpoint, does not mean I excuse the behavior, it means I am a rational thinking human being who would like to take reasonable steps to prevent this sort of violence from reoccurring.
There remains some confusion as to why Hassan was in contact with some of these 'terrorist' elements, authorities are saying it was part of his research as a military psychiatrist and some are pouncing to claim it's proof he was involved in a personal jihad. It's unclear at this point what is true, only time will shed more light on this aspect of the investigation.
Hassan is being charged with 13 counts of murder but, what I find offensive is military prosecutors are debating whether to charge him with a 14th count of murder for the unborn child he is accused of murdering.
That unborn child was an innocent angel and did not deserve to die in a hail of bullets. Hassan should rot for that murder alone.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Fort Hood: Why the Shock?
Let us do away with the romanticism surrounding the military, whether it be American or otherwise. A military is a government killing organization used to murder as many innocent men, women and children as possible using minimal effort and loss of soldiers and all of this slaughter is done for money, power and currently for Israel by the USA.
The military is a male system of brutality; men brutalize with violence and terror via murder, rape, humiliation and mass destruction. Boot camp is a ridiculous phrase to describe the metamorphosis of average folks into unquestioning killers and rapists. It is an organization that creates a population of sociopaths and animals that are unleashed on civilian populations both at home and abroad and is a dysfunctional system of misogyny, racism, bigotry, machismo and silence.
Fort Hood is a base where some of the worlds worst war criminals are trained to kill brown people for America and Israel; patriotism, manufactured or false threats and promises of glory is the propaganda that lures young men and women to devote their lives to being a member of a club drowning in the blood and sorrow of murdered children.
If you're stupid enough to believe the lies they tell you to entice you to sign your life and innocence away, then you're stupid enough to die before you get to your deployment to start practicing the methods of savagery the military has infused you.
Soldiers are killers. They are highly effective murderers of the innocent, after all, that is the entire goal of boot camp and military training: to annihilate a man or woman's psyche and replace it with the psychopath who will kill children by day and rape women and girls by night and round up innocent men and put them in concentration camps called Abu Graib for daily humiliation and torture sessions.
Finally, once all the American killing is done and the soldier is tattooed with screams of babies and the wails of mothers and drowning in the blood of the blameless, then the government labels you a hero and places medals on your chest to further weigh you down as you return to a world too quiet for the unquiet mind.
Fort Hood: what did you expect to happen? Death. Soldiers or children, either way death is what the military does.
The military is a male system of brutality; men brutalize with violence and terror via murder, rape, humiliation and mass destruction. Boot camp is a ridiculous phrase to describe the metamorphosis of average folks into unquestioning killers and rapists. It is an organization that creates a population of sociopaths and animals that are unleashed on civilian populations both at home and abroad and is a dysfunctional system of misogyny, racism, bigotry, machismo and silence.
Fort Hood is a base where some of the worlds worst war criminals are trained to kill brown people for America and Israel; patriotism, manufactured or false threats and promises of glory is the propaganda that lures young men and women to devote their lives to being a member of a club drowning in the blood and sorrow of murdered children.
If you're stupid enough to believe the lies they tell you to entice you to sign your life and innocence away, then you're stupid enough to die before you get to your deployment to start practicing the methods of savagery the military has infused you.
Soldiers are killers. They are highly effective murderers of the innocent, after all, that is the entire goal of boot camp and military training: to annihilate a man or woman's psyche and replace it with the psychopath who will kill children by day and rape women and girls by night and round up innocent men and put them in concentration camps called Abu Graib for daily humiliation and torture sessions.
Finally, once all the American killing is done and the soldier is tattooed with screams of babies and the wails of mothers and drowning in the blood of the blameless, then the government labels you a hero and places medals on your chest to further weigh you down as you return to a world too quiet for the unquiet mind.
Fort Hood: what did you expect to happen? Death. Soldiers or children, either way death is what the military does.
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