NOT GLAMOROUS BUT...

The Huffington Post today had an article about glamorous CEO wifes.  Certainly, many of these women have careers of their own and probably rock their worlds but they are all a little too tarted up to be taken seriously except for eye-candy.

I prefer my power woman role models to look ordinary, as if  a person could approach them and have a friendly chat about the children or swap recipes over the proverbial fence. I think Melinda Gates fits not only her Bill but the bill of CEO wife who has not forgotten that what is in the heart is more important than what meets the eyes.



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GOOD GOING ACE

The Religious Right has again slit their own throats on an issue.

During the debates on health care reform, the evangelical community protested the inclusion in a proposed law, HR 3200, of paid Medicare for end-of-life counseling. You may read the details here by scrolling down to pages 425-430 but the summary is doctors would be paid for helping patients make the patient's choices about important matters such as choosing simple palliative care over a continued fight against a terminal illness, or being resuscitated or having a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) on file. The counseling legistlation would have also mandated that the doctor talk to the patient about living wills, hospice, and other resources for the patient to access in making end-of-life decisions. The legistlation was very pro-life in offering patients the ability to decide to live with dignity and control over their final health care decisions.

The evangelical community, in killing this legistlation, has unwittingly shortened the lives and made the lives more pain filled of those they publicly defended. The Obama administration was not the "death panels". The Religious Right pulled the plugs on those with terminal illness and for the elderly.

Technorati Tags: end-of-life,HR 3200,religious right,

A RIGHTEOUS LAW

The European Union has banned seal products that are exported from Canada. The ban covers all products such as meat, fur, and omega3 fatty acids made with seal oil. The ban does not extend to seals culled for native Inuit use.

This was a humane and noble choice for the EU to legislate a ban on seal products. It is unnecessary for seals to be hunted and destroyed for food and fur when many other options, including a vegetarian or vegan diet, exist for human consumption. The seal hunts are a waste of time and effort in a modern economy because they are not part of a subsistence lifestyle but are hunted for a luxury market. It is cruel and immoral to destroy seals and other creatures commercially when alternatives exist to using fur and exported meat.

However Native seal hunts, if there are no other alternatives, are acceptable because the hunting is survival use.I have no problem with the thought of my First People ancestors hunting deer or other game and fishing salmon. They needed those foods to live. It is good that the EU made the distinction in its seal hunt legistlation to halt abuse of what should be local,indigenous, and necessary not exported, commercial, and exploitive.

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GLAD TO SEE YOU BACK

Steve Jobs has returned to work after a liver transplant five and half months ago. He will be working at the office a few days a week and telecommuting the remainder.
This is a sigh of relief not only for the economy but also for the tech community, us geeky nerd types, who think of Mr. Jobs as one of the tribe. We at Radio Free Canada wish Mr. Jobs continued health and many more years of life.


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HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILIP JACKSON!

Happy Birthday to the actor who is Inspector Japp on the Hercule Poirot series. Mr. Jackson was born on June 18, 1948 in Retford, Nottinghamshire, England, UK.

I am tickled that he was born on the same day (different year) as me.I am a fan of the Poirot series and I think that Philip Jackson acts as Japp perfectly.

I hope that he has many more years of acting.

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IT'S ALRIGHT, IT'S OKAY....

that James Bolam has received a Member of The British Empire knighthood for his acting career.

The seventy-year-old actor, who is Jack Halford on New Tricks, has the knighthood as part of Her Majesty's Birthday Honours List.

The knighthood is well-deserved for a man who is a spokesperson for Cats Protection, a cat and kitten rescue service in Britain. Mr. Bolam has also, with his lovely wife Susan Jameson, championed the cause of kind training of dogs. He is a humane and decent star that has done good not only in his career but also for those creatures that have no voice against maltreatment. Radio Free Canada congratulates him and acknowledges his birthday on June 16th,1936 We wish for him and his wife many more years of happiness.


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FEEL OUR PAIN

The Christian media is feeling the economic pinch. Several evangelical magazines have folded including Today's Christian Woman and Campus Life.

Welcome to the funeral. I do not feel sorry in the least that the conservative religious media has the same financial worries as us atheists, Pagans, feminists, gays, and liberals in the downturn. This should be a rude and long-time coming awakening for the evangelical set that what is important to their communities is not religion and lack thereof, or the "pre-born", or sexual orientation but the basic survival needs of food, clothing, and shelter. The Religious Right, in its hubric quest to take back America, has lost the country. There is no salvation for evangelicals, or for those of us who are "unsaved", but to regard the current difficulties as secular problems to be resolved without appeal to any deity and with rational concern for science-based goals. The Religious Right should put aside its piddling so-called moral agenda and pitch in to create a society without want and without fear.

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PULL THE PLUG ON PETA

I would gladly, as a vegetarian, like to see People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals go up in flames. The organization, which created such iron-deprived idiocy as comparing butchering animals for food with the Holocaust, has now capitalized on the Dr. George Tiller murder with the witless slogans of "Pro-Choice? Go Vegetarian." and "Pro-Life? Go Vegetarian."

Original, it ain't.

I honestly could run a better media campaign than those bunny-hugging losers which would be more appealing to a general audience. I would emphasize the health and ecological benefits of a vegie diet. Ya know, something that engages the intellect that PETA members so sorely lack.

PETA has outlived its usefulness for the vegetarian cause. The organization should be put away like the downer cow it has become.

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WHAT PART OF PRO-LIFE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

The pro-life movement should be banned. The murder of Dr. George Tiller is a wake-up call that this is a group of fanatical and ignorant religious terrorists that has no place in a rational society.

Let's think this one through. I know such an exercise is difficult for those of you who are now celebrating, in your usual illiterate and misspelled fashion, on various Web forums that another abortion provider is dead but I'll take it step by step so you will not slack-jaw what I have written.

The first principle is that the anti-abortion movement is irrelevant. Its priorities are not even in the ballpark of reality, being so out in right field that the game is finished and the klieg lights were turned off hours ago. Religious conservatives and their attendant whack jobs obviously lost the memo about the downturn in the economy and the ecological threats to the planet. The situation is quite plain. There is not any reason to have children without a healthy economy and a healthy world. If pro-lifers would create a sound financial base and an Earth without pollution or climate change, then they can advocate for saving babies. However, as most anti-abortionists are rather microcephalic in their beliefs, any help for the economy and ecology or for the "pre-born" from that quarter is unlikely. Religious conservatives, because of their short God-sighted views, devolve and do not forward their communities toward better ends. Pro-lifers, as shown with Dr. Tiller's murder, have a limited and destructive not a holistic and constructive approach to modern problems.

The second principle is that the anti-abortion movement is tarnished with Dr. Tiller's murder. He had a life. He had a life that was brutally ended. Existence, according to the pro-life movement, is a continuum from embryo to old age that is sacred and should not be taken by human means. The homicide of Dr. George Tiller evidences that the pro-life movement is a lie; it is a fraud that a decent civilization should not tolerate.

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SHE WENT THATAWAY....

Chairman of the National Republican Committee Michael Steele needs to keep up with the times. He has cited Christine Todd Whitman as a pro-choice Republican to emphasize that the GOP has a big tent.

Well...it seems that the tent was not large enough. The enclosure must have been the polyester/cotton mix favoured by the church ladies to cover their tax write-off girth. The fabric is so easy to shrink during those waterboarding coffee klatches. The elephant's big top has experienced something of a squeeze and not the kind that your fundie minister might take with the choir boys. Christine Todd Whitman, like many who are disenchanted with the limited perimeters of a narrow-minded ideology, left the GOP in 2003 over Bush's laxness about pollution. She has challenged the GOP in two books about her experiences as a Republican and the wrong direction of the right.

Michael Steele and his lackadaisical handlers have lost their moral and political compasses.Modern leadership on current events is not about homosexuality and abortion. These are issues that are the sideshows to more important concerns. The economy is badly damaged. The Earth and all life on the planet is imperiled. The conservatives need a GPS for the GOP or the party will continue to shrivel and enfold on itself until the tent is nothing but a small and insignificant bivy sack.

Technorati Tags: christine todd whitman,gop, michael steele

TIME TO KICK A LITTLE ASS

by the name of Clarence Thomas.

Obama, with the resignation of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, has the opportunity to appoint a judge to the highest court in the land.



There are only two words that will fit the position: Anita Hill.


Yeah, girlfriend, that would make Injustice Thomas turn a cold shade of grey underneath his honourable robes. The appointment of Ms. Hill, a woman that Thomas sexually harassed, would make the perv cross his legs in fear and quiver scared in his trousers. I, along with other feminists, would delight in making the bastard sweat for hurting a sistah. The knives are sharpened and we would all love to do a scheduled judicial Bobbit....

It's payback time against the conservative agenda. Let justice, with Obama's Supreme Court pick, roll down like thunder and let that Justice be named Anita Hill.

Technorati Tags: anita hill,clarance thomas,obama

HELLO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Microsoft is introducing a new social networking service in May called Vine.MS created the service to keep families in touch with one another in case of emergencies. Vine would use alerts and news source feeds to keep people informed during a crisis situation. Information from NOAA and other agencies would be available on the site through a dashboard that connects friends and families. However, the technology would be available only if the user had XP2 or Vista on the computer's hardware. The site, furthermore, would be available through subscription.

Pfft. The best friend for information that one can have in a critical predicament is a low-tech gadget called a transistor radio with fresh batteries or a radio that can be cranked by hand. My family owns both. A computer will not work as a source of edification if the power goes out. The hand-cranked radio also has a flashlight which is something that the monolith in Redmond can't supply with this late-in-the-running SNS attempt.

Microsoft does not understand that there are plenty of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, and innovations like RSS feeds, that can deliver on-demand information in the presence of an emergency. There are also ample non-software based venues for creating crises intelligence in a community. Microsoft's Vine deserves to be chopped.

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CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY ARE TAUGHT

The British Columbia Teacher's Federation wants the government to abandon the Foundation Skills Assessment tests for students in fourth, seventh, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. The tests measure basic skills like maths and reading. The teachers' union is afraid that the tests are harming education by allowing parents to know which schools fare poorly.

I think the term necessary at this point is truth in advertising. I am a parent and, naturally, I wish to know the status of my child's education. The BCTF's reluctance to have accountability is devious and self-serving to the union. Put up or shut up comes to mind. Either teachers will perform well in the classroom or they will fail. The FSA is a measure that they need to consider while they teach.

There should be higher standards for education but I am dubious about BC school workers' ability to deliver excellence. The public school education that I have seen in the province is crap. Teachers with mental and competency issues are styled into "education experts". Curriculum is either dumb downed to the level of a nematode or is esoterically academic. It is a blessing that the only correct thing that BCTF has promulgated is the call for less homework for younger children. The reading material provided in most classrooms is idiot makelit and the maths are pigeon droppings from an ivory tower.

Education south of the border, in America, is as clueless. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wishes to have classes meet seven days a week, eleven months out of the year. What fyking planet is he on? When will children be able to learn on their own when the school system has them captive for an entire week? There will be no time to read literature but only the unimaginative and sanitized pap spewed from the textbook companies. Literature is a bold, messy, rude middle finger to the corporate niceness of most school test-based dribblings that masquerade as genuine books in the typical classroom. Less schools and more libraries would be the best remedy for education. Children, the plastic deities of academics forbid, might learn to think... and to think for themselves.

Technorati Tags: arne duncan,bctf

HAPPY PI DAY

Today is a day to recognize the importance of math and science to the American economy around the theme of Pi or the Greek symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter that is rounded to 3.14.Committee on Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) offered a resolution in the House to honour the day. The resolution passed 391-10. It is interesting to note that those who voted against the resolution were all Republicans. I checked a list of Representatives and vetted the findings. There were a few GOP members who voted alongside their Democrat colleagues but the 'Yea' votes were mostly along blue state political lines. The GOP needs to make science more of a priority if they are to gain any credibility in public confidence.



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BEING GAY SHOULDN'T HURT

In South Africa, men gang-rape and murder women for being lesbians. Last year, a group of men raped and stabbed to death footballer Eudy Simelane, an open lesbian. The men rape lesbians in the false belief that the forced sex will correct the women's orientation.

First, no one should be coerced into any manner of life that they were not born to follow. Being gay is a genetic predisposition, not a choice. It is not a condition that can be "cured" or remedied through terror. Homosexuality is within the weft of a person's DNA and RNA.

Secondly, why the hell is it anyone's damn business as to whether or not another person is gay? I think the phrase, "Don't you have anything better to do?" applies to homophobes that seek to impose heterosexuality on lesbians and gay men. Fundamentalist Christians et alius who harass and torture gays should, in sum, go take a piss and leave others to their own lives.



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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TUX

This is more fun than wishing a Bonne Fête ! to Alan Rickman. The actor certainly is the handsome one but he can't boot my laptop hard drive like my main Linux squeeze,Ubuntu. Sure, there have been the unsatisfactory flings with Microsoft software but I've said "Hasta La Vista" to everything Windows after too many relationship crashes and blue screens. I have had no regrets. The Linux distro, that was named after creator Linus Torvalds, offers a stable and low cost alternative to expensive and faulty Microsoft products during a downturn economy where businesses and people struggle to survive and do not need to pay blood money to Redmond. I'll stick with my 15-year-old penguin (45 in human years) who was born this day in 1994 and chosen as a mascot by Torvalds after a fairy penguin at the Australian zoo nibbled at him. Bon Fête Linux!


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GAY IS COOL EXCEPT.....

..when you are the last three Blue Ducks in England.

Happy Blue Duck couple Ben and Jerry have formed a romantic bond in Arundel Wetland Centre in West Sussex. The male loving birds have ignored the advances of a female duck named Cherry who has preened, coaxed, and tried to show the lavender duo how to nest as straights without success. Cherry, despite rejection from both males, has settled into her own enclosure and seems to take no heed of the males' Boston marriage. The proprietors of the wetland centre have taken the unusual pairing with aplomb, calling the two male ducks "a lovely couple", but with some regret that there was not a last clutch of eggs.

Radio Free Canada respects the cosy pair but a few eggs would not hurt to save an endangered species. There are conservation efforts in New Zealand but these are the last British Blue Ducks. We would like to nudge Ben and Jerry, in this instant, to be 'turkey basters' (pretend Cherry is Nadja Suleman) who may afterward return to their preferred living arrangements.


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PLEASE SIGN

Please sign the petition against Chris Brown to get him kicked off the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice awards.

Love shouldn't hurt.

Thanks.
Anne



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GIVE THEM HELL

This tickles my anti-censorship heart. The student paper at my old alma mater has gone on strike rather than cede control to a publisher's oversight. The staff, for the first time in the 109-year-old Daily Emerald's history, has shut down the paper to protest being reined in by publisher Steven Smith who finally resigned.True, the newspaper does need fiscal direction but this was at the cost of editorial independence. I hope this is a lesson for writers and commercial media everywhere that hard times do not equate to loss of editorial control.

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UPDATE: The staff of the Oregon Daily Emerald have gone back to work.

MOTHER, MAY I?

The House in Congress would like to ban bloggers and other freelance journalists from protection to not reveal confidential news sources. The specific language is in HR 985 IH, The Free Flow of Information Act of 2009, is

"COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person' means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person's livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person."

The gist of this legistlation is that if a blogger has a confidential news source that informs about a crime, then the blogger could be jailed if the news source is not given up to the police or other appurtenances of the law. The Senate bill, S 448 IS, Commentsdoes not define the term journalist so explicitly and merely states that a

"COVERED PERSON- The term ‘covered person’--CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(A) means a person who is engaged in journalism;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(B) includes a supervisor, employer, parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of a person described in subparagraph (A)".

There are obvious unconstitutional aspects of the House legistlation. The language in the House legistlation seems to make it fit for parents of adults to supervise their offsprings' blogging (?)and to define that a journalist is someone who works under the auspices of a corporation. The term is paternalistic in that it forces adult journalists to beg for their right of speech or to be chained to a company if they chose to pursue action against corruption. This proposed law stifles the press' free accumulation and dissemination of knowledge. President Obama, who publicly has championed a more accountable White House and administration, needs to put up or shut up on his shtick about government transparancy. If Obama gives his imprimatur on the House law, he has lost his game.

The legislation, besides the dictatorial machinations from the House, is a neon sign with bold caps that people in Congress DO NOT UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY or are afraid of what this new realm purposes. They are old nags, in the information marketplace, that should not be put out to pasture but should speed dial Do Not Pass Go on a one-way trip to the knackers.

Information is currency. I'm a blogger and have not derived much standard revenue from my blogs but I think of blogs as a form of currency in the information marketplace. What the House in Congress does not percieve or fears is that information is as valuable as cash on the Internet. This is the new exchange rate that those who are out of the technological loop do not comprehend. For example, I trade information with people in my "social" networking groups. Information, for a writer, is currency. A person cannot buy material objects with that form of exchange because money still has that necessary role but received knowledge can buy access to other people who will in turn use or circulate the "coinage" of data. These knowledge exchanges, and the attendant accountability that comes with the rise of bloggers and citizen journalists, is what frightens the House authors of this legistlation. The law should not go to President Obama's desk because it goes against the interest of government transparancy, free speech, and the continued livelihood of Internet journalism.

Technorati Tags: free flow of information act,HR 985 IH,obama,S448 IS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAN RICKMAN

I am writing this greeting as a matter of perforce to the anniversary of Mr. Rickman's birth but I am less enchanted with the handsome one's career. Bottle Shock was a mistake and died a well deserved, boozy death. I can't remember it making it past the first week in the theatres. I show my biases. I don't drink alcohol and I consider each land jolt that moves California to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, from the battle between Thunderbird and Whale of Native People's mythology, a great blessing.

Rickman's next roles are a mixed lot. He is a randy professor in Noble Son which, from the reviews sounds less than dull, and the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. Ooooh... I am eagerly awaiting the latter. He can smoke my hookah anytime.

Er...where was I? I had to write the sentence about the Caterpillar three times over because I got somehow off track.

I think that Mr. Rickman needs a serious talk with his agent about suitable roles for his talents. How about Rochester in Jane Eyre. Or Branwell in a drama about the Brontës ? These roles would be suited to his acting, not a prof chasing undergrads. A mashup, however, between Noble Son and Harry Potter has distinct possibilities. Maybe Hermione could change the old goat, well, into a chastened Bovidae.

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SWEETIE, WE ALL DENY IT

Vladimir Putin has denied getting funky with the ABBA tribute band Bjourn Again at one of his parties. Spokespeople for Prime Minister Putin have refused that the judo black belt holder was grooving to 'Super Trouper' and raising his hands at 'Mamma Mia' during the £20,000 ($29395.82) gig.

Aw....fess up, Vlad. Your dacha has a disco ball and you wear bling down to the navel of your white spandex suit. Just part of ah, ah, ah, staying alive, politically.


Technorati Tags: bjourn again,vladimir putin

DEAD IS, LIKE, DEAD

I have fondness for pets like any rational person but then I am a rational person. I am not the couple, Nina and Edgar Otto of Florida, who paid $155,000 to clone their Lab dog who died of cancer.

Let's look at this logically. The cute fuzzy puppy, that cost more than most yearly incomes, has the same genetic structure as its predecessor. This will be an expensive heartache because the dog probably has cancer lurking in its genes. Those people were out of the loop when the teacher discussed Mendel or Watson and Crick. The Ottos' wish for a genetic similar pet to their beloved deceased is animal cruelty. The owners' tampering with nature, on a philosophical level, is a dishonour to their lost friend. When you love someone, even an animal, there is that only one. The Ottos have disparaged the uniqueness of their former pet as just a product.

In human terms, with so many that will lose their jobs and that have lost their jobs, the Ottos' purchase of this re-created animal is a slap in a face to all humanity. Why does a cloned beast have more worth than a starving child? They should be widely condemned for their lack of consideration to humans and to non-humans.Three to four million animals are euthanized each year. The Obamas, unlike the Ottos, show what true leadership means in this country. The President and First Lady plan to adopt a shelter dog.


Technorati Tags: dogs,barack obama, shelter dogs

STAY IN

This is the LinkedIn profile screenshot of a man who killed his wife and then committed suicide two weeks ago. The man, 33-year-old Jason Montes, was a writer for a game company. His 25-year-old wife, Serena, was a pastry chef. Jason Montes had declared bankruptcy and the couple had planned to divorce. The weapon was a military service pistol stolen from Mr.Montes' parents.


Times are tough. Microsoft just laid off 5,000 people and there is talk of more cuts. The company that my husband works for just laid off 30 in a small organization. He is looking at a pay slash. However, there is no reason to be so despondent as to kill oneself or another. Stay connected to the world even if it seems everything around you has come unglued because tomorrow might be better. And you will never know unless you stick around.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,jason montes

GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE

I have created a send-off for George Bush as he leaves office today. The song is by Canadian Kim Stockwood. Enjoy.JERK

Technorati Tags: george bush,digitus impudicus