(On abortion) Trost said the government should “take a position that’s at least moderate, rather than the extreme left position that we’re taking.”
- CBC News article

During the 2011 May federal election, Stephen Harper stated that the abortion issue would not be revisited. Given how tightly the Harper government muzzles its Cabinet ministers, much less MPs, I find it quite puzzling that Trost could just come out with guns flaring and shoot off to CBC News, all the while providing misleading comments about the role of Planned Parenthood (which does not actually fund abortion, only 2% of its work is abortion-related and the rest relates to reproductive health and maternal health), especially when the government has just committed $6 million to the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (which does a lot of abovementioned work in rural areas and developing countries).

Thoughts so far? Is Trost simply being brazen in trying to bring up an issue that Canadians are frankly not interested in revisiting? Or is this the Harper government’s way of introducing the abortion issue while distancing it from the party? Or a deeper split in the party between former PCs and Alliance? I’ll be keeping a close watch on this issue over the next few weeks.

Disclaimer: This is a rant. I really don’t understand/and am really confused about the issue to follow.

All the media attention on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret child – and how the general public has been lapping it up – is nothing short of confusing. This American Puritan obsession with the private lives of politicians and celebrities is baffling and incomprehensible. But somehow, these moral judgements on their lives are transferred into a question of their competence in their jobs.

I’ve been wanting to write a post about this absurd moralistic judgment on politicians’ and celebrities’ lives since the Tiger Woods revelations, where the media clung on to the story of his infidelity for months. In case I had failed to note correctly, Woods was a golfer, not a marriage therapist – who cares how many women he had slept with – it doesn’t make a difference.

It can be argued that the media furor surrounding Schwarzenegger and Woods stem from their celebrity – but that’s not the case.

Take Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, or Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni. In the former, how are the sexual relations between Clinton and Lewinsky any of the business of the rest of the country? And surely, to use it as a case for impeachment is absolutely preposterous. And in the former, if people in France don’t think it’s a big deal (and it’s their president)*, why do North Americans feel the need to make a big deal about the fact that Sarkozy is marrying a much younger woman, and a singer at that? It’s this absurd moralistic view that god forbid sexuality in public discourse or amongst elected officials – this Puritan view of telling people how they should conduct their private lives – in the public eye.

When it comes down to it, they’re just people anyway. And for everyone who ‘feels bad’ for Maria Shriver, wanton media consumption of such material is simply going to feed the demand for such salacious stories and drag it through the media further.

*I know some people will use the argument that French are being much too tolerant, even in the recent case of the IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s sexual assault charges. The difference there is that sexual assault is a criminal act, private sexual relations between consenting adults are not. That should be pretty self-explanatory.

Yes, what irony that a political junkie like myself has missed multiple chances to vote due to being underage, or moving countries and not yet acquiring citizenship. I’ve never felt so fortunate in my life (okay, maybe the day I got my Canadian citizenship tops it) to have the opportunity to take an active stand in saying that this is what I want for my riding, my country.

I’m lucky to vote here because in so many other parts of the world my vote would not mean anything. Backtrack a hundred years and women wouldn’t even be able to vote. Backtrack seventy years: if I lived in Quebec, women still wouldn’t be able to vote. And Southeast Asian immigrants wouldn’t get the vote until 1947. The utter complacency of not exercising your democratic rights – when people have died struggling to do so, and continue to – is staggering. Yes, our electoral system is deeply flawed and needs a great deal of reform before it can truly be considered representative. But to not vote at all returns even more flawed results. Under 60% of eligible voters participated in the 2008 election, which led to a government which was even more unrepresentative and represented the minority of Canadians.

Tonight, I’m keeping my fingers crossed and staying hopeful for elected representatives who will take an active stand defending women’s rights and reproductive choices both domestically and internationally, work towards investing in green technology solutions to replace the tar sands, and focus on student issues such as tuition and student loans.

Vote. Shape the Canada you want to see.

A convicted rapist will walk free because the judge deemed the victim to be sending signals that ‘sex was in the air’.

Let’s just pause to take a look at my favourite infographic of the week, which I found on this Tumblr.

There. It doesn’t matter if the woman was wearing (in this case) “tube tops with no bra, high heels and plenty of makeup” or wearing a turtleneck sweater and jeans. It doesn’t matter if the woman was prancing naked around a man in public. It doesn’t matter what kind of “signals” she is sending out (really, how vague and subjective could you be?) It’s still rape.

When a woman gets raped, it is absolutely 100% the rapist’s fault. It reeks of misogyny to say that men cannot control themselves and that it is somehow justifiable to have non-consensual sex with a woman who is dressed in a provocative manner – which, frankly, is an entirely subjective matter. Men are absolutely not entitled to rape women in any case at all, regardless of clothing choices. To say that this rapist shouldn’t be punished for his actions because the victim’s outfit was “provocative” is synonymous saying that it is okay to stone or assault women not wearing the burka in Iran because “they were dressed provocatively”.

Furthermore, this kind of victim-blaming only reinforces the idea that men can’t help it if they rape women if they are dressed provocatively (or walking alone, or whatever other stupid ideas which have been used by rape apologists). Well, instead of blaming women and telling them that they shouldn’t be walking around late at night or wearing whatever they wanted, how about educating men and reinforcing the idea that rape is absolutely not acceptable? Institutionalized tolerance (old boys’ culture, “men can’t control themselves”) hinders efforts at reducing rape, and makes it more difficult for rape victims to come forward as they are most likely going to be blamed for the situation.

I sincerely hope this sentence will be appealed and overturned – there should be absolutely no room in the legal system for rape apologists and victim-blaming.

I started this post last week and finally got around to finishing it. Though the hospice issue is not quite as recent any more, it continues to demonstrate why exorbitant private housing on campus is a terrible idea and undermines the goals of the university, which should always be, first and foremost, to academics, research excellence, and student life.

The idea that wealthy condominium owners at UBC are planning on protesting the building of the 15-bed St. John’s Hospice behind their million-dollar homes is absolutely preposterous.

Using the “culture” defense, a resident quoted in the article stated that the majority of residents in the apartments were Asian, and it was incompatible with their culture. “We cannot have dying people in our backyard…It’s a cultural taboo to us and we cannot be close to so many dying people. It’s like you open your door and step into a graveyard.” Essentially, the blanket of money allows wealthy property owners to erase realities they prefer not to see – death, a perfectly natural process included – with condominiums on a university campus, far away from the realities of poverty, the homeless, drug-addicted, and near-death on the streets that people (yes, including Asians) who live in less upscale areas look in the eye on a daily basis.

This is simply a front for a much more elitist view that their million-dollar condos are worth enough that they can dictate the building process of the hospice, despite the fact that the land belongs to UBC (and we haven’t even got into the issue of the justifiability of having million-dollar condos on a university campus where student housing is woefully insufficient and painfully expensive). From the article, “…residents are worried the hospice will have a negative impact on their property values.” This is exactly why we shouldn’t have private housing on a university campus – because the residents’ priority is not the university, or its educational and research facilities. Their priority is their money and the prestige of living in an upscale area, and as with Arts County Fair, they attempt to browbeat the university into catering to their will. It will be an absolute joke if the university panders to these residents ahead of continuing with the hospice and its associated research facilities. There is a serious need to re-look at what the focus of a university is, and what needs to be prioritized.

Earlier this year, in response to the Ann Coulter debacle at the University of Ottawa, I wrote this post about the potential for words to spark violence.

This weekend’s massacre at US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ constituent meeting only reinforces the fact that inflammatory political rhetoric can lead to tragic consequences. Freedom of speech is of utmost important, but politicians and other public figures must never forget that their words are very influential and have the power to sway audiences and incite action. The violent imagery and extremist tone which has been taken by much of the American far-right, notably the Tea Party and its demagogues, hold sway over uninformed masses who are eager to believe and seek information which only reinforces their prejudices and preconceived notion. By trumpeting a warped version of the ideals of the American Revolution and engaging in bigoted hyperbole, the leaders of the Tea Party have set in motion a political atmosphere of hate and violence.

Sarah Palin’s tweet, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” and the map of twenty targeted Democrats which voted for the healthcare reform bill are both examples of this violent rhetoric. During the 2010 midterm elections, Giffords’s opponent Jesse Kelly held a campaign event titled “Get on target for victory. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly“. All these have been since removed from their respective websites, even as they continue to claim that these materials have no effect on public consciousness about politics. By mainstreaming hate speech through bodies such as the Tea Party Movement, American politics has become more vitriolic, creating an atmosphere where the use of violence is seen as a normal and proportional reaction to unfavourable policies.

As Giffords herself put it, “The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences to that action.” Rationality needs to trump senseless violence, and it is the duty of influential public figures to re-examine the consequences of their rhetoric.

BC Liberals leadership contender Kevin Falcon stated on Tuesday that he would push for a merit-based pay system for teachers – that is, to pay teachers not according to length of time on the job, but instead pay them based on measurable results, such as standardized test scores and literacy levels. Indeed, pay benefits and bonuses are already used in most professions to reward effective employees; likewise, Falcon is the next in a string of politicians (including Barack Obama) who claim that merit-based pay offers an incentive for teachers to improve their teaching and raise classroom standards.

There are, of course, many issues with this. Teachers in the US under massive pressure to raise standardized test scores have been found to cheat on behalf of their students. This is apparently also an issue in Australia, where parents of poor-performing students are told to keep their children at home during test days. Having teachers’ pay being contingent on the grades students produce will only lead to more incidences of teachers resorting to such measures in order to obtain pay raises.

Furthermore, the number of external factors which affect students’ grades are extraordinary, and success or failure at school, based on a very narrow view of what education should look like, cannot be fairly attributed to teachers’ efforts alone. Funding of schools, school facilities, courses offered, and individual learning styles all play a role in students’ abilities to learn and absorb information. In addition, learning experiences from previous years of school affect students’ grades vastly. To take test scores from a certain year and attribute them to a teacher who has taught the student for one year ignores foundations that have been built (or not) in previous years of schooling.

However, the most troubling is the devaluing of education. The criteria used for merit-based pay demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to learn. If teachers are to be rewarded on their capability to educate, what does it mean to be educated? Grades and entrance rates to Ivy Leagues are an inaccurate benchmark for learning. It most certainly cannot be wholly quantified through standardized test scores, which do not reflect problem-solving abilities and creative thinking skills. Focusing on tangible, measurable results in education says that there is a right way to learn (through memorization and rote learning) and one way of reflecting that knowledge (through test scores). This automatically marginalizes students who learn or think in different ways, such as kinaesthetic learners, rendering it fundamentally more difficult for them to succeed in school. It perpetuates society’s idea that subjects which are testable with one correct answer are the only ones worth focusing on, ignoring subjects which require students to think outside the current framework, such as the fine arts or creative writing.

Here’s a sweet video/cartoon by Sir Ken Robinson on the necessity of fundamentally restructuring the current model of education, and how to teach so that students can learn.

As I write, the two couchsurfers who I’m hosting at the moment are snoozing in the living room, catching a few more moments of shut-eye before we traipse off for some Vancouver exploration – the second last destination in their West Coast road trip before leaving for Seattle on Tuesday. Over the past year and a half, I have both hosted intrepid travellers and couchsurfed all across Canada through the Couchsurfing website. The most common adjective I’ve heard from friends when I tell them about this particular hobby of mine has been “sketchy”, despite the fact that I’ve only had positive things to say about my experiences.

Mary’s Couchsurfing Tips:
(This is by no means comprehensive – these are just things which have helped me greatly in my past experiences. For more details, check out Couchsurfing’s own tips sheet here)

1. Read the references. On Couchsurfing profiles, people who they’ve previously hosted or stayed with can (and are highly encouraged to) leave references about their experience. Also check out the people who’ve left references and see if they seem to be reliable or active in Couchsurfing. Generally, references provide a pretty good picture of their character, living habits, and preferred activities. An additional check is whether the member has been “vouched” for. In order to vouch for someone, you need to be vouched for by three other Couchsurfing members, who each have been vouched for by three members, etc. This forms a pretty solid network of reliable members, which is good to look for.

2. Read their profile. Chat with them about the trip plan when corresponding with them. Sure, the person you’re staying with can be an absolutely lovely individual, but if you’ve got nothing in common and you’re not interested in seeing anything they deem absolutely necessary to see about their city, your trip will probably suck. Same goes for hosting: if you’re into nature, hiking, and outdoorsy stuff, hosting someone who’s in Vancouver for the nightlife and club scene is probably not a great fit.

3. When contacting a host, also ask about the general area where they live. Do some research on it and see if it fits your trip plan. If you’re not driving, you probably don’t want to stay somewhere in suburbia with few public transit options. I once stayed with the most delightful lady in Seattle, but her home was simply so far out of downtown Seattle in the suburbs that it made catching the early Greyhound back to Vancouver a veritable exercise in bus coordination and sprinting.

4. Meet your couchsurfers or host in a public place, such as a coffee shop, bus station, etc. This gives you the opportunity to chat with them in person and suss them out a little. Trust your instincts – if they make you uncomfortable, it is perfectly okay to turn your couchsurfers down and provide them with the contact details for a nearby hostel or some other form of accommodation. If you are staying with someone, always have a back-up plan for accommodation.

5. Let your family and friends know where you’re staying.