wait wait wait... toronto pride ISN'T political?

this year pride toronto is selling t-shirts and merch that say "I BELONG" and "CAN'T STOP/WON' STOP" on them.. very interesting considering the following:

yesterday at rabble andrew brett wrote about how "pro-israel" lobbyists(b'nai brith) threatened the government and corporate sponsorship of the toronto pride festival unless pride bans pro-palestinian marchers from participating in the parade.

apparently martin gladstone has met with and written to the pride committee many times asking them to ban queers against israeli apartheid( a totally legit group, btw), claiming that their presence has "very eerie parallels to nazi germany"

umm... you know what else has parallels to nazi germany? banning groups from participating in their community's own parade and festivities and punishing people for their political beliefs by pulling these seedy and totally unethical 'im holding your funding hostage' moves.

remember how under the nazis homosexuals were also persecuted?

b'nai brith did this last year as well after pro-palestinian marchers participated in pride i guess this year they're threatening to "go after funding from the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, the City of Toronto, Heritage Canada, and corporate sponsorships."

gladstone has said that the city of toronto and td canada trust, who are major sponsors of the event, have both contacted the pride committee and expressed their "opposition to the inclusion of the anti-apartheid contingent."

this morning an update was posted that pride banned queers against israeli apartheid. according to their statement
"Pride Toronto wishes to state publicly that it is a non-partisan organization created to serve the LGBTTIQQ2S* community of Toronto in all its cultural, religious, ethnic and sexual diversity. The organization does not have any affiliations whatsoever to political entities or causes."

complete and total fucking bullshit. really? the organization does not have any affiliations whatsoever to political entities or causes? what about the corporations whose money you're beholden to, those corporations ARE affiliated to political entities and causes and by affiliation pride is as well.

also, thanks pride for deciding who and who may not participate in an event that is supposed to be inclusive.

ANYONE who is participating in toronto pride this year should not do so unless they contact pride and tell them how disgusted they are with their decision. pride is pride, and queer political groups should have just as much right to march as anyone else--queer political groups are the most targeted, the most marginalized, and the most willing to go to the frontlines to fight for queer rights and pride toronto is just going to ban them?

right, because its just better to fucking plaster yourself with corporate logos and glitter and strip your clothes off down church street because pride "isn't political."

like it or not it IS political and this decision sets a disgusting precedent that noone should feel settled with. queer and gay rights don't exist in a vacuum, they are intrinsically linked to political and human rights across the globe and to ignore this issue and just march around all day pretending that all is well with the world is not only lieing to yourself and your community but also being totally complicit.

do something, we don't let people tell us who we can fuck or love so why is it alright for the pride committee itself to ban people from participating in their own fucking parade!?

this is a list of pride's sponsors(including bud light, pepsi, pizza pizza, yellowtail, trojan, and via rail), pick one, send them an email:

http://www.pridetoronto.com/sponsor/sponsors/

city of toronto helped this happen? write the mayor and tell him what a douchebag move this is:

mayor_miller@toronto.ca

td bank put the pressure on? if you're a client call your bank, i am a td client and i'm going to call today and tell them i'm closing my account with them:

phone: 1-866-222-3456

email: td.capa@td.com

you can go here and contact b'nai brith directly: http://www.bnaibrith.ca/contactus.html

and let's not forget pride toronto, who would have us throw away our politics for one day in the sparkly corporate sponsored sun: office@pridetoronto.com

update.. did you know?

we recently posted on the united state's policy on not allowing foreign nationals who are known to be HIV positive across the border HERE.

martin rooney just let us know that the waiver we talked about is no longer stamped permanently onto the passport.

still, the idea of someone who is HIV positive needing to apply for a waiver to travel to the u.s should make your stomache turn.

at aidsvote.org they have posted a series of questions that obama answered about HIV/AIDS in the states and this was one of the questions that he answered YES to:

"10. Do you support the repeal of the ban against people living with HIV entering the United States as travelers or immigrants, and which bars those in the U.S. from legalizing their immigration status?"

this isn't one of those long process things, obama can revoke the ban pretty much right away.

you can go here and send a comment to president obama demanding that he take the course of action that he promised he would and that he do it immediately: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

want to throw your shoes at bush?

this friday(may 29th), george bush and bill clinton are speaking in downtown toronto

there's a city-wide rally planned " to say that war criminals are not welcome in toronto"

i think this is a good idea. ever since obama was elected people/media have been acting like george bush is just this silly footnote in american politics. like he's just this simple man who got trapped in the presidency and just couldn't avoid the horrible things he did.

that, is bullshit. people have agency. the president of the united states especially has some agency and can decide things like 'hey, do i want to go to war with iraq illegally and for no good reason, needless murdering countless civilians?" or things like 'hey, do i think that women should be able to access safe and legal abortions?' you know, minor decisions like this.

the rally information is below. i especially like the shoe-throwing. if you don't know about the shoe-throwing, in december an iraqi journalist muntadhar al-zaidi threw his shoes at george w. bush during a press conference in baghdad to which bush made a "surprise visit"
in march, al-zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state and in april his sentence was reduced to one year.

there are a lot of varied reactions to the shoe-throw but the way i see it, it was the most honest reaction to bush i've seen in a really long time. here's this president who is acting like he has no idea what the hell is going on, isn't taking responsibility for the inhumanities being perpetuated on iraqi people, and is all 'ima surprise visit you suckaaaas'. that a person would feel so much rage that he would take the only weapon he had, his shoes, and try to pummel the president with them is a reminder that what bush did shouldn't just be passed off as mistakes or 'bad choices' because what he did didn't just effect lives--it destroyed lives. and maybe the careless and willing destruction of life is something that deserves a shoe to the head.




R A L L Y
Friday, May 29
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front Street West
(the location of George Bush's speaking engagement)

3:00pm to 5:00pm: 'Unwelcome' Bush activities
- Music, drumming, shoe-tossing (bring your old shoes), unveiling of the 'unwelcome' mat

5:00pm to 6:00pm: Main rally
- With guest speakers and musical performances


For more information, please e-mail info@nowar.ca.

The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War is Toronto's city-wide anti-war coalition, comprised of more than 70 labour, faith and community organizations, and a member of the Canadian Peace Alliance. www.nowar.ca | info@nowar.ca | 416-795-5863


Event on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=89123079461

what would bill henrickson do?

do people still read archie comics? i remember reading them pretty religiously when i was younger, but the lack of sexual activity eventually contributed to the dissipation of my interest.

apparently on september 8th an issue with be released in which archie gets married. everyone knows that betty and veronica have been having a tug of war over archie for like 60 years and now he's going to choose one and marry them!

so now the guessing begins.. who is archie going to choose? betty v. veronica has never been an easy choice, they each have their own merits and faults, and they also have the same face and body but just have different hairstyles/colours.

will archie choose veronica for the money? will he choose betty because she's solid and down to earth? veronica is clearly a dominatrix and archie is definitely in to that scene. betty, however, is the girl next door and everyone wants to go to town on the girl next door. archie walks all over betty, so he clearly likes that scene too.

suppose archie isn't going to choose a wife based on his sexual desires.. well.. who the hell will he choose?

i propose that he choose them both. archie has been leading these women on for decades and to choose one over the other at this point would be the wrong move. if archie isn't man enough to live up to his responsibility and marry both women, he shouldn't have been playing them for so long.

they both have something unique to offer not only archie, but eachother. betty and veronica, besides being rivals for archie's affection, are also best friends and if they have stayed best friends for 60-some years with archie between them chances are they'd be more than willing to make it official and marry archie and one another.

there are laws against polygamy in both canada and the u.s which means archie, betty, and veronica will have to do a lot of lobbying and policy changing before they can make their union legit but laws haven't stopped other people from getting married to more than one person.

they should go for it, it seems like the only acceptable conclusion for this love triangle.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/blogs/popculture/2009/05/archies_getting_married_who_wi.html

shit bitch, i have to wash this bag?

i read this little number in the toronto star today(which is a complete and total rag) :

"Cloth Bags Condemned"

apparently the plastics industry put out a warning to consumers that cloth bags are a health risk because they get...wait for it....

dirty.

cloth bags get dirty!

according to the canadian plastics industry association(who represent the interests of... the plastic industry), the bags can become contaminated with "fungus and bacteria" and that two laboratories tested 24 reusable bags and found "mould, yeast and bacteria, including intestinal fecal bacteria" in "many" of them.

according to their spokesperson cathy cirko the plastics industry is surprised by these results and they have a lot of health and safety concerns.

um, earth to plastics industry.. you have to fucking WASH cloth. of course there is bacteria and mould in a bag that you toss not only your groceries in every week but also everything else you can stuff in there!

should we all start wearing plastic underwear as well? throwing our clothes out after one wear? we should probably only eat from disposable plates and use disposable cutlery, and just start living in plastic houses as well.

so it's better that we use plastic bags that we can dispose of rather than simply washing our cloth bags once in awhile...? isn't that the whole point of the cloth bag? that we dispose of too much plastic?

probably we should only use plastic because, unlike their cloth counterparts, when animals in the oceans accidentally swallow them they won't be covered in bacteria and mould.

everyone wins!

did you know...

that the u.s.a refuses to allow foreign nationals into the country if they are known to be HIV positive?

it's true. in some cases they'll allow a stay of 30 days but you have to apply to do that.

as well, immigrants with HIV are not granted legal permanent resident status except under very, very specific and rare circumstances.

if you're HIV positive and you want to cross the border into the u.s.a and you don't want to have to hide the fact that you have HIV because, you know, you believe that you should accorded full human rights regardless of whether or not you are positive you have to apply for a special waiver. the waiver is actually stamped onto your passport and is a permanent and visible record of your HIV status.
according to martin rooney, an HIV rights activist who was denied entry to the US in 2007,
"Barack Obama has not, and apparently will not sign the Executive Order to repeal the US HIV Travel Ban imposed back in 1993 by an act of congress. In July of 2008 congress voted for PEPFAR Bill with an amendment attached to repeal that Ban - Bush signed the Bill into law at the end of July 2008, but failed to sign the executive order "(from martin's facebook group "obama revoke the HIV travel ban now"-which you should probably join).

seriously? just sign the executive order. for real. denying people who are HIV postive the right to enter the u.s.a based on despicable stereotypes and bad science is beyond abhorrent and totally ridiculous.

honestly, obama was all 'im going to repeal don't ask don't tell', 'i'm going to close guantanamo bay', 'im getting a puppy', but he won't even allow people with HIV their basic human right to access and mobility?

walk the walk obama.


you can go here for more information on travel bans and HIV/AIDS___>http://www.plwha.org/(people living with hiv/aids)

Guest Blog: Hardy Boys and the Case of The Looker

(our friend mac is our guest blogger today, enjoy!)


To those of you who think that homophobia doesn't still exist.. that "nobody cares" anymore.. that being queer is the new hip fad..

I work at a large format bookstore in one of the busiest areas of the financial district of Toronto. Specifically, I work in a section of the store which includes the photography section. Within our section, we have two sets of visitors: "real customers" who occasionally look up good ol' Ansel Adams and occasionally make a purchase, and the large majority of our photography "creepers" who spend an entire shift looking at our large assortment of scantily clad porno books. Do not get me wrong: I love my porn. I love the female body. I love photography. I love men that love women's bodies. What I do not love is customers who leave sticky, perused copies of Naked Girls Smoking Weed in the gardening section - especially when it is not the designated, unwrapped "display" copy. So, in light of spring, sexuality, the upcoming Toronto Pride festival, and the abovementioned creepers, our Arts section decided to order in large quanties of nakidly skad books and make a sexy nudity display. We've got your XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits . We've got your artsy, naked Klimt/Schiele paintings. We've got Suicide Girls , cartoon nudes, and naked mothers and their also naked 12 year old daughters (sorry - couldn't remember the name to that keeper of a book).


For the purpose of this post, the book that started it all was Hard Boys.

So, as I'm walking by our great display (which has so far been a large hit with customers) - a young man (late twenties, early thirties) is browsing through one of our biggest and most travelled books, The Looker. Long story short, he was furious. He demanded to know how we could dare have such a display. His side of the conversation included many a reference to "fucking faggots", how Adam and Eve weren't Adam and Steve (he didn't actually say this, but he did make many great bible references) . He screamed at me (no exaggeration) for at least a solid five minutes, and stated many times that as a "straight man" (seriously, The Looker was in his hand, he had to be straight, right?) this display "offended him". All I could offer was that our store had an anti-discrimination policy, and that I found what HE was saying to be offensive. I was told I was a sinner. And that I wouldn't be alive if my parents were gay. Not only have I never been screamed at as an employee (for something that had absolutely nothing to do with me) and within a book store (in the heart of freaking Toronto no less).

As an employee of our organization, I wasn't aware of what I could say, and where to draw the line between being a (non-visibly) queer individual who is getting screamed at, and representing my company. Not only was I bound by my "work vest" - I was in a BOOK STORE for Christ's sakes. I wasn't about to swear or scream at him to get out. I was an active participant within a hate crime, without this man having any clue that half of the shit he was saying applied directly to who I fuck, what I believe, what I went to school for, and the personal lives of so many of my coworkers and people that I love. Needless to say, I left work immediately, quite upset.

So for all of these people who don't understand the need for a "pride parade", who mock the concept of heterosexism, who think that gay marriages somehow align the queer world with that of broader society... homophobia still exists, loud and proud baby.

Needless to say, he didn't even end up buying The Looker.

potential werewolves or doppelgangers

someone commented on the previous post about denis rancourt being fired from the university of ottawa so i checked out their blog.

compelling. the argument is that denis rancourt and allan rock are actually the same person.

potentially this is true, however, i have met denis rancourt and he's almost ten years younger than allan rock and quite a bit taller.

as well, allan rock was born in ottawa and denis was born in north bay. i'm not even going to get started on the differences between northern and southern ontarians.

http://rockourtwatch.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html

all in all, a good read. thanks rockourt watch!

"your soul for a place in the sun"...

there was a really great interview with denis rancourt on rabble.ca yesterday(listen to it here!). denis was fired from the university of ottawa for giving away too many high grades(according to the university). he was a tenured professor and his firing raises a lot of important questions about what tenure even means right now and whether or not it's providing the kind of security needed for academics to be free of reprisal for political or pedagogical 'deviations'.

"Denis Rancourt was fired in March ostensibly for his practice of refusing to grade students in his classes. He explains what he believes is the politics behind his dismissal"





a statement from denis:

"Most students agree to give up their independence of thought and enquiry and to serve the insane system of due dates and senseless assignments in exchange for the certificate (the degree). Most students give up four vital years of their lives in order to be certified persistently obedient. This certificate, in turn, gives students access to a privileged position in the wage hierarchy and professional social status. It’s a trade. But the certificate is not just a certificate. It requires survival and that, in turn, requires both adopting the ideology of the profession (for professional, science, and engineering degrees) and self-indoctrination to drive out the natural impulse to learn (often called setting priorities or time management). Your soul for a place in the sun."1


sign the petition: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/component/petitions/?view=petition&id=4

police brutality.. yet again

so after a day of headlines proclaiming a peaceful and incident free blockade on the gardiner, reports are now coming to light about police attacking protesters:

http://www.rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/200905/features/police-aggression-tamil-protest-gardiner-expressway


of course the police did bullshit like this. they've been waiting to unleash their wrath on the peaceful protesters since the protests began. what makes the situation worse is the public outcry.. against the tamil protesters.

comments are flying around telling the protesters to "go back where they came from" to be "civilized", and on and on. the racism, colonialism, and imperialism that canadians are hurling at the protesters is beyond disgusting and the people engaging in those kinds of attacks should be ashamed to support a government that has stay silent in regards to this genocide.

human beings are being killed in the crossfire of a political battle, peoples families are being murdered, and canada is just letting it happen.

contact your member of parliament:

"The Canadian Peace Alliance has produced a sample letter that you can send to your Member of Parliament. Download the letter here:
http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/TamilSolidarityletter.pdf

Please copy the letter and circulate to family, friends, co-workers, etc. Remember that no postage is required to send a letter to your Member of Parliament. Just mail your letter to the following address, and it's free of charge:

Member of Parliament (add your MP's name)
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6"

if swine flu is this cute, sign us up!

according to this blog, afghanistan has taken swine flu very seriously: the country has quarantined its only pig.

the pig lives in kabul zoo, and is fucking adorable.

this day in 1994

nelson mandela is inaugurated the first black president of south africa today in 1994

more on your emails...

blog of change has posted about the situation at york u, here's an excerpt:

"Redefine the possible,’ this is York University’s (in Toronto) motto. You would think this is just a strange, marketing sentence, but you would be wrong. For this what the administration of this university is apparently trying to do with the privacy of its faculty: redefining the real possibilities of Internet invasive potential."

it's completely true--all yorku has done this year is try to "redefine the possible" in the worst ways imaginable..

check out the rest of the entry here------> http://www.blogofchange.com/?p=1138

your email? not so private after all.

those of use who have university affiliated emails ( soandso@yorku.ca, soandso@utoronto.ca, etc) know--or should know--that our email address and everything to and from that account belongs to the university and can be accessed at any time.

because of this, many of us in the university set up outside accounts at gmail, hotmail, or some other email to avoid the invasion of our privacy by the university.

well, i guess it's too bad for us that York University is trying to set a very dangerous precedent.

a group of anonymous faculty at York U(York Faculty Concerned About the Future of York University) recently received an eerie message from google:

"Hello,

Google Inc. has received notice of application for an order to disclose
information related to your Gmail account yfcfyu@gmail.com in a case
entitled York University v. John Doe.

For more information about the application, you may wish to contact the
party seeking this information at:

Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP
Suite 2600
130 Adelaide Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 3P5
416-865-9500

Unfortunately, Google is not in a position to provide you with legal
advice. If you have other questions regarding the notice, we encourage you
to contact your attorney.

Best Regards,
Google Legal Investigations Support"

having not been able to figure out who was involved in the group legitimately YorkU has decided to go after the information in a manner that is completely underhanded and threatens to set a precedent regarding information in private emails.

YFCFY has released the following statement regarding this disturbing attack on privacy:

"We are a group of faculty (York Faculty Concerned About the Future of York University) at York University. As a recent CAUT investigation has documented, York has in recent years iinfringed upon the free speech rights and academic freedom of faculty and students. For that reason many people at York have chosen to use private email accounts rather than York's email accounts, to avoid administrative surveillance. YFCFYU has likewise made use of a private gmail account to provide us with some anonymity and privacy protection in our efforts to make York a better place. Now we have learned that the University has taken legal action in an attempt to gain access to this gmail account, a worrisome initiative that, if successful, could establish a chilling precedent for email users at York, on the nation's campuses, and beyond."

this has ramifications beyond just this group and the information related to their account. this is a serious breach of the privacy and anonymity that the internet has provided many activists or people who don't have the freedom or just aren't safe to publicly express their opinions.

yet again, those in power at yorku have proven beyond a doubt that they will go to any and all lengths to try to control dissent.

contact the president of york university, ask him if there is actually a law suit pending that would even remotely justify this kind of move, and tell him that you don't support york university setting this kind of precedent:

416-736-5200 extension x55200
presidnt@yorku.ca
mshoukri@yorku.ca

contact google and pressure them to not give in to this request if there is no proof that there is a lawsuit:


Google Legal Support <legal-support@google.com>

[#432283319]

it's funny because it's true

stickycomics.com

this day in 1948

Shelley v. Kraemer was decided by the Supreme Court on this date in 1948. The ruling provided that no state or federal court could enforce restrictive covenants that prevent individuals from owning or occupying property due to their race.

because "we" would never do something like that..

i imagine this was during the whole 'don't let china hold the olympics' thing or possibly even the 'don't let vancouver have the olympics' currently underway.

i think the olympics are divisive bullshit that should basically be cancelled indefinitely, but not everyone feels like that.

whatever this was for, it's hilarious. if you don't know why, google "1936 olympics"

sushi cake will save the world..

one of my friends posted these pictures on her facebook today and i was all 'that sushi has fruit on it!'

turns out, it's not sushi. it's CAKE.

seriously. she made these little sushi cakes with her bare hands. amaaaaazing

unlike eff, who whips things up like honey roasted almonds, i can only bake things that come out of a box and have like zero chance of burning.

it also doesn't help that i don't own measuring cups.

sushi cake! who knew?!

.