Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline Launch Day

 

Photo: Calgary Herald

The Harper Conservatives have pledged to launch a police hotline to report "barbaric cultural practices" should they be reelected. This is despite Canada already have a national 24/7 hotline, 911, for reporting emergencies and crimes, barbaric or otherwise. It got me thinking about what those calls would sound like. In my head it sounded like a topic that needed to be explored all the way to absurdity.


Operator: Thank you for calling the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, this is Jenny, how can I help you?

Caller: Hi Jenny, I'm riding the number seven bus and the man across the aisle from me has a throat and face tattoos. He looks really scary.

Operator: Hmmm. That wasn't in our training. I'm going to put you on hold while I look at the caller manual. It's our first day.

[Pause]

Operator: Hi there, I'm back. I'm sorry, but there's nothing in the caller manual about face tattoos. Apparently it is not a barbaric cultural practice.

Caller: What do you mean face tattoos are not a barbaric cultural practice? I mean, these are life choices that can seriously damage his ability to be a productive member of our society. He's got cobwebs and teardrops on his face. On his face! I bet he got them in jail. He looks dangerous.

Operator: Hi there, I'm sorry, but there's nothing in the manual about this, but let me ask a few more questions. There may be something else. Does he look like a foreigner? Is he wearing foreign clothes?

Caller: No. He looks like a scary redneck in a wife-beater.

Operator: A wife-beater? Is there a woman with him? Is she oppressed into covering her face?"

Caller: No. He's all alone, but the "Fear" in the "No Fear" tattoo on his throat is spelled with two Es. I can see it really clearly. He's looking right at me.

Operator: I'm sorry, there's nothing in the caller manual about tattoos, misspelled or otherwise.

Caller: Uh oh. He's coming towards me. He looks angry. Jenny, I gotta go. I think I need 911.

[End call]


Operator: Thank you for calling the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, this is Jenny, please report your barbaric cultural practice.

Caller: Hello Jenny. Two young men showed up at my door this morning and they wanted me to join a cult.

Operator: Oh my, that sounds serious. Were they members of ISIS?

Caller: How would I know?

Operator: Did they sound like they were from the middle east? Did they have long beards? Black pajama-like clothing?

Caller: No. They sounded like they were from here. They had on crisp white shirts and black trousers. Ties. They were clean shaven and had short hair.

Operator: Well, they could have been in disguise. What did they say?

Caller: They asked me if I could spare a moment to talk about our Lord Jesus Christ. They were very insistent.

Operator: Hmmm. Let me do a quick key-word search of the caller manual. Hold please.

[Pause]

Operator: Hi there, I searched the caller manual and the words "Lord", "Jesus" and "Christ" didn't appear, so this is definitely not a barbaric cultural practice.

Caller: Hey, I worked a 12-hour back-shift and had just gotten to sleep. Those jerks woke me up and told me if I didn't embrace Jesus I'd burn in Hell. That's barbaric!

Operator: Sorry sir. Your complaint isn't in the manual. I hope you get some rest.

[End call]

Operator: Thank you for calling the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, this is Jenny, do you have a barbaric cultural practice to report?

Caller: HELP ME, JENNY, MY NEIGHBOUR IS AN EVIL MONSTER!

Operator: Oh my, this sound serious! I want you to take a couple deep breaths to calm yourself. You're safe with us.

[Pause]

Caller: Thank you, that feels better.

Operator: So tell me, what is your neighbour doing?

Caller: He's having a pig roast next weekend!

Operator: Are you of a religion that doesn't eat pork? Is this why you're reporting this?

Caller: Religion? No! I'm a vegan! PETA SAYS MEAT IS MURDER!

Operator: I'm sorry. I think you missed the intent of this hotline. This is for barbaric cultural practices and a backyard pig roast doesn't qualify.

Caller: MEAT IS A BARBARIC CULTURAL PRACTICE YOU MONSTER!

[End call]


Operator: Thank you for calling the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline. Jenny here, do you have an actual barbaric cultural practice to report?

Caller: Yes I do! My granddaughter and I are waiting to get into the Justin Beiber concert and there are half-naked teenage girls everywhere. I mean some of them are wearing belts instead of skirts.

Operator: I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't believe a lack of clothing qualifies as a barbaric. The manual only speaks to overly covered up as culturally barbaric.

Caller: It most certainly a barbaric practice! This is Canada. Do you have any idea how cold it is tonight? It's freakin' freezing outside. These girls are going to catch their deaths! And the shoes! My granddaughter says they are called "stripper stillies". If they keep wearing them, they are sure to have no end of foot and back problems when they're older.

Operator: I'm sorry, there's nothing in the manual about stripper stillies. Enjoy the concert though.

Caller: Are you [expletive] kidding me?

[End call]


Operator: Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, Jenny here, do you have an actual real barbaric cultural practice to report?

Caller: Yo Jenny, I sure do. It's a crime not just against Canadians, but the core values of the Canadian way of life.

Operator: That sounds like exactly the type of thing we're here for. Please go on.

Caller: I just found out there's a Justin Beiber concert here tonight. I need you to make it stop before he destroys our Canadian legacy of musical excellence. The Band. Neil Young. We are the home of Rush!

Operator: I'm sorry, the Beiber is not in the caller manual.

Caller: What about Nickelback? Nickelback is playing here next month.

Operator. Sorry. Still no.

[End call]


Operator: Hello, this is Jenny at the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, do you have something culturally barbaric to report?

Caller: Hi Jenny, I want to report someone for creating promotional material that uses images and video of ISIS executions. These are horrific acts. People were tortured - slaughtered - on camera and now they are being exploited again to spread fear and distrust.

Operator: Well, that's exactly why this anonymous hotline exists. We are here for you. Tell me all about it.

Caller: It was in a 2015 federal election ad paid for by the Conservative Party of Canada.

[End call]


Operator: This is Jenny, do you have a barbaric cultural practice to report? A real one?

Caller: PIGS ARE PEOPLE TOO, YOU MONSTER!!!

[End call]


Operator: Jenny speaking, do you have a barbaric cultural practice to report? One that involves an actual oppressed minority group.

Caller: Hi Jenny, why, yes,  yes I do.

Operator: That's great! Lay it on me.

Caller: There are over 1,000 murdered and missing aboriginal women in this country and the government refuses to take action. It's like when it comes to women they don't care about anything other than niqabs.

Operator: Let me put you on hold while I perform a key-word search for "missing and murdered aboriginal women" in the caller manual.

[Pause]

Operator: Hi, I'm back. There were no instances of "aboriginal", women or otherwise, in the caller manual. There were over a two dozen instances of "niqab", though.

Caller: Hi Jenny. In that case, I'd like to report that hundreds of aboriginal women are missing. I believe they all want the right to wear niqabs while receiving public services.

Operator: I'm sorry. I don't understand.

Caller. Well it's like this. Given the uproar two niqab-wearing women can cause, the government will surely want to locate these missing women immediately and liberate them from oppression. Or take away their services. Either way, their families will finally know where they are.

[Pause]

Caller: Hello? Are you still there?

For Shawn on his 42nd birthday

Happy birthday my darling,

I missed your 25th by a couple months, but in person or, less often, in spirit, I've been with you for all the birthdays since.

I like birthdays more than you. You balance it out by thinking my obsession with birthdays is funny.

I maintain birthdays are the best day of the year. Especially yours, because you were born; and you and me became we.

For 16 of your birthdays now, you and me have been we.

Us.

A package deal.

It doesn't seem nearly so long a time 'til I look back at the stretch of life already lived. The road behind and the road ahead are of similar distances now. The road behind improved dramatically when you arrived.

The road we've travelled has some rocks and bumps, deaths and debts, school and career changes, sickness and surgery, recoveries and renovations. Thank you for being there through it all. I can imagine what that road would have been like alone. To that end, thank you a hundred times over.

And thank you for the best times, the exciting times, the good times, the every day times, and the lazy in pyjamas times. All the joys in this world are made better because I witness them with you. They are the brightest of lights that illuminate the road ahead.

You are my partner in life, my companion in all adventures. You are my heart and my soul, and as brief absence so clearly demonstrates, you are, unequivocally, my home.

Free markets, as a dumbed-down fairytale

Martin Shkreli in his new office  Photo: Universal News & Sport (Europe)

Once upon a time in the early 20th century, we, as a people, became inflamed by the gospel of the free markets. This lasted until such times as we fell into utter ruin and cried no more! We have nothing to fear but fear itself and no house of commerce shall be too big! Then we legislated the hell out of the markets to make sure it never happened again. 

There was some civil rights and union stuff too, you know, interesting things if you give a shit about people, but as it turns out, completely irrelevant to the story. So carrying on.

Once upon a time in the late 20th century, we, as a people, became inflamed by the gospel of the free markets...

For whom the dog whistle blows

Photo Credit Flickr s_sultana06

I've noted some anti-Muslim sentiments flowing through my Facebook newsfeed over the last few days. An uptake caused in no small measure by the Conservatives pledging to reintroduced measures to ban niqabs at citizenship ceremonies within 100 days of reelection, but also by a less than critical assessment of the worthiness of that argument and a basic ignorance of the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

According to the Conservatives, banning the niqab means they are standing tall for women's rights against an anti-woman culture. They are doing so by forcing a woman to do something she doesn't want to do in exchange for something. In terms of women's rights, both modern and historically, think about that for a minute.

They are also making a really big deal about it, despite the fact that Muslim women make up 1.6 per cent of the Canadian population and only a tiny portion of those women wear niqabs. In a country of 35 million, it's an insignificant number. 

It's especially insignificant when compared to bigger problems, like the nine per cent of Canadians who live in poverty, a disproportionate amount of whom are single mothers and Aborigines. As of 2012, over 1.3 million of our children live in poverty, worse still, one in four of our indiginous children live in poverty, yet a veil worn by a fraction of one per cent is worthy of a federal election platform? 

This is where critical thinking needs to be applied. If you respond favorably to Conservatives dog whistle about the niqab ban, you’ve just become Pavlov's dog. Just as the dog drooled when the bell rang in anticipation of food, you’re putting support behind an insignificant policy expressly designed to divert attention away from actual issues that affect large portions of our population, like poverty, just because it coinsides with your beliefs. You are for whom that dog whistle blows.

Whilst we dabble in the cultural minutiae of win-at-all-costs election politics, we have more children living in poverty than when the Canadian government made a pledge to end child poverty 26 years ago.

Which brings me to the last bit: ignorance of the Canadian Charter. The Charter guarantees all of us

"(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;"

While the Charter recognizes the supremacy of god and law, it does not specify a particular god. To do so would violate our individual right to religious freedom and freedom of expression. 

If interpreted as such by the woman wearing it, a niqab is an expression of religious freedom. That's how beliefs work. You believe in something and that something becomes your belief. It may just be a belief you don't like. To that end, there’s plenty not to like in any given religion, but the Charter does not discriminate. Religious freedom under the Charter means a woman can cover her faces during a citizenship ceremony if her religious belief call her to do so (FYI once they become a Canadian citizen, that woman, like any other Canadian citizen, need never show their face to cast a ballot again, even after the Fair Elections Act). Heck, wear a pasta colander on your head and a hula skirt of wet noodles if the Pastafarian movement is what gets you through your big day.

It’s your Charter guaranteed freedom to worship or to not worship as you see fit, but don't for a second think your Charter given right to freedom of religion and of free expression gives you the right to dictate the beliefs of another, just because you like yours and you don't like theirs. It’s not your call, because that's not what the Charter sets out. 

If you don't like the niqab and you feel women are oppressed, rather than persecute the tiny segment of the female population that thinks differently than you, challenge the Charter that permits it in the first place. Seriously, pursue it like it's the last cubic metre of of air to breathe in the whole country. Just know that when you do so, you need inject those same feminist values, that same pro-woman culture, as a requirement into all other beliefs, expressions, policies, and laws in Canada. 

You do that and I will be your biggest cheerleader.

The day the war began

Photograph: Reuters

With the photo of a little boy dead on a beach, Canadians saw the real cost of the war in Syria today.

The news this morning did not draw our attention to the latest images of the atrocities of ISIS. Those fanatics in black devising ever more venal and gruesome killings to smear across the internet. To be sure, they are monsters to the very last man.

The images weren't of the horrific aftermath of a suicide bomber. The dead, the maimed, the traumatized. Another monster beyond all reason and humanity, intent on inflicting the greatest harm.

Our hearts were not engaged by the before and after photos of temples and monuments of the ancient world reduced to so much rubble. Over 2000 years of history, destroyed by monsters in hours.

No one hugged their child a little tighter after viewing an angry mob of foreign-looking refugees demanding to ride a train. These people are not monsters, but it's easy to imagine them as such.

Today we saw a dead little boy on a beach, washed up like refuse with his dead brother and mother. In the boneless way of youngsters, he looked like he was sleeping. His parents wanted to take them to Canada. Instead, his father is taking them back to Syria for burial.

It is easy to turn away from monsters. It is easy to vilify a people by reducing them to the worst of their people. We don’t just do it abroad, stereotyping and bigotry are alive and well on the home front. It is not so easy to turn away from a dead child. To cast a blind eye to all that hope and promise extinguished.

To that I say, publish all the refugees photos. Show us those suffocated men, women and children in the back of a refrigerated truck. Inundate us with hundreds of bloated bodies on the beaches and the bellies of ships. Go into the refugee camps and take their pictures, write their stories, tell us what they've endured and what they've lost. Rain down on us their suffering and their pain. Above all else, show us their humanity.

 

Do it over and over again and maybe, just maybe, we'll keep seeing real cost of war. 

The war that began today.

Adventures in plumbing

It's plumbing week on Chappell Street. In this unaired and conceivably finite home renovation series, we're tackling the last remaining vestiges of cast iron plumbing and putting in a new toilet.

As with everything in this temporary WWII house, the existing plumbing was poorly executed, crudely modified and deteriorated with age.

Ridding the house of its cast iron stacks is part of the larger downstairs bathroom renovation, which in turn is part of the larger downstairs renovation, which is encased in the larger renovation/rebuild of the exterior in 2012. It's like Russian dolls, but each one is a smaller Pandora's box that opens with the words "while we're at it."

In the duo that is us, one of us is incredibly handy. It's not me. I am best at ensuring everyone is fed, watered, and if necessary, libated. I am also good at holding the ends of things, carrying things, carrying one end of heavy things, unskilled labour, and retrieving well-described items from building supply stores. A smart phone helps significantly with this last task. Pictures do say a 1,000 words. On rare occasion, my geometry knowledge proves useful, but mostly I am an all purpose flunky. A sawhorse with hands, feet, car keys, a debit card and a compulsion to ensure everyone is hydrated and full.

And sometimes I have gaps in logic. 

After successfully retrieving ABS connectors and a toilet from Home Depot (because, while we're at it, let's get rid of the remaining water-pig toilet), I was draining the water from the old upstairs toilet. There was a bunch of gritty sediment at the bottom of the tank and the cloth I was using to sop up the water was getting very dirty, so I started to rinse it in the sink. This was rapidly followed by intense screaming from downstairs.  

I shut off the taps and ran, envisioning Shawn pinned beneath heavy cast iron. As I hit the top of the stairs I recalled how less than an hour ago I held the upstairs stack still as he cut through that thick metal pipe, then opened the door for him as he took it outside.

As I said, gaps.

On the upside, the flood provided some comic relief in a day of frustration and filth (poop goes through those pipes). The handy one of us was still laughing an hour later.

Thankfully, I was able to redeem myself later in the day. While applying ABS adhesive in the basement, the dabber slipped out of Shawn's hand and fell out of reach at the bottom of a 45 coupler, a foot down from the closest opening in the stack. Repeated retrieval efforts with coat hanger wire were unsuccessful. We couldn't leave it there. It was a waste inhibiting fluff ball of crazy glue attached to a metal stick. We also didn't want to undo what Shawn already put together. I told him I had an idea. I attached some fridge magnets to a string and fed it down the stack. The metal stem of the dabber stuck to the magnets and I was able to pull it back up to where Shawn could grab it through the hole.

This is not to say things have gone smoothly since then. I just put a fresh Band-aid over a small chunk of missing skin on Shawn's finger. He had to wait till I mopped up a tiny bit of blood and got more Band-aids from upstairs after accidentally impaling the side of my foot with a spade bit. Don't worry, I know first aid, we have a first-aid kit, and our tetanus shots are up to date.

Also don't worry because we've been at this for years. We're seasoned, experienced, and one of us is very handy.

Not Alone and Not of this World

I watched the Catholic Votes' parody Not Alone today. The video mimics the "It Gets Better" video series. The It Gets Better Project was founded by gay activist Dan Savage and his husband in response to the suicides of teens who were bullied for being gay or suspected of being gay. The goal of the It Gets Better Project is to prevent suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

Actually I watched Not Alone at least half a dozen times times. You're welcome for the views, Catholic Votes! Every hit counts. I suspect I'm, pardon the pun, not alone in multiple viewings. As I write this, the video has been viewed 1,330,214 times.



It starts off well enough, there's gender balance, visible minorities, nervousness, evident secrets. At 0:53, the absurdity starts. Watery-eyed, hesitant, Minority Female confesses that she's tried to change, but it's just too important. White Female says "I actually think marriage is between a man and a woman." Latino Minority Male reiterates his same belief.

That's right, Catholic Votes took a video series created to prevent gay teens from killing themselves and made it about their belief that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry. It took me two viewings to realize it wasn't satire. I wasn't sure if should feel impressed by their sheer audacity (or ignorance of irony) or revolted by their callousness. I settled on ignorance and callousness.

African Minority Male says "I already have an idea of what marriage should be. That will never change." I too have an idea of what marriage should be: brief and unrepeated, but that's my view on marriage for my own self; and that is open to change.

There were four cases before the U.S. Supreme Court that delivered the decision legalized same-sex marriage. In three cases, parents needed the legal rights marriage confers to be guardians of their own children. In the fourth, Obergfeld wanted to be named as husband on the death certificate of his partner of 21 years, and whom he legally married in another state.

Marriage may start out with a ceremony and pledges of love and devotion, but it is a legal contract bestowing protections, rights, and responsibilities, including children, property, taxation, health, retirement, inheritance, and death. These couples wanted parental rights to their children, they wanted the right to have their life together recorded in death. They wanted the same rights afforded to every other legally married couple.

In the Opinion of the Court, Justice Kennedy wrote "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.  They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law."

After explicitly stating their marriage beliefs, the people of Not Alone go on to express the discomfort that arises from expressing an increasingly unpopular opinion. They simply wish to speak openly about denying the same marital rights they enjoy to same-sex couples and not be judged for it. The first part is guaranteed under freedom of speech. The second part is guaranteed to have the opposite effect under freedom of speech. Everyone has an automatic right to hold and express an opinion on any side of an argument. No one has an automatic right to be liked because or in spite of their argument.

When the argument is  denying same-sex couples the right to marry, Kennedy wrote, "it is appropriate to observe these cases involve only the rights of two consenting adults whose marriages would pose no risk of harm to themselves or third parties."

No one is denying the people in this video of their right to believe and to say marriage is between a man and a woman. No one is denying them the right to appropriate an instrument to prevent suicide amongst LGBT youth to discriminate against LGBT people. No one is denying them the right to cry publicly about two consenting adults entering into a contract that does no harm to themselves or to others.

Everyone has a right to their own reaction and response. No matter how well crafted the video or how heartfelt the message expressed, even with "gay friends"(FYI, friends don't wish away friends' parental rights and spousal next-of-kin status), media is not a message sent-message accepted medium. This video is no doubt raising support and funds for Catholic Votes from its supporters, but with or without intent, it is receiving the attention of a majority that thinks differently.

Regardless of intent, whether fundraising, understanding, or support through perceived martyrdom by fictitious persecution (the denial of the right to discriminate against others is not persecution), it is likely only to resonate with an existing base and invites a Pandora's box of commentary, parody, and more parody.

When I was a kid I remember people being openly racist and it being acceptable. Those conversations wouldn't happen today, because beliefs do change over time. I may hold the Not Alone video in disdain and contempt, but in keeping with sunlight is the best disinfectant, I want their argument heard, because what can be reasonable among a group of people that think similarly, can become an obtuse, callous, and inhumane parody when exposed to the light of day of a broader audience.