GORDON: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening
KAT: Greetings fellows!
GORDON: This is Gordon of Evan and Gordon Talk, and with me tonight is Kat- filling for Evan who is wandering the Canadian wilderness naked in a desperate bid to find himself.
KAT: We all wish you good luck Evan, beware of bears.
GORDON: Our subject for this evening’s discussion is regulation (primarily of the food and beverage industry, though the subject obviously spans far more than that). Continue reading
Posted in America, business, Canada, Economy, environmentalism, Evan and Gordon Talk, food, health, news, politics
Tagged America, anarchist group, Barber, BP, california, Canada, capitalism, Clarence Thomas, Dumpster Diving, Famer, farm, farming, FDA, food and beverage industry, Food Not Bombs, government, Homeless, law, legal, MMA, Monsanto, Raisin Committee, regulation, USDA
These are some of the kids at the Place of Rescue orphanage in Cambodia.
The reason I want to talk about these kids is because on June 20th one of my best friends was evacuated from her home in Calgary, B.C. due to extensive flooding.
There was actually a lot of cool stories I began hearing after the flood. Like the time the city asked for a few hundred volunteers to come out and help clean out flooded homes and a few thousand showed up instead.
But the coolest story I heard was actually about those kids at the orphanage in Cambodia. About six days after my friend was evacuated kids and staff at the place of rescue pulled together and sent a total of $900 to help with flood relief in Calgary. Apparently they had each been given the equivalent of about $12 Canadian money by the Cambodian prime minister’s wife not long before the flooding here in Canada. When they heard about the damages they decided to send some of the money they had been given to help with flood repairs. The reason I find this so exciting is because here in North America we tend to think we don’t actually have any real problems.
And we are constantly told about the horrible things happening overseas and why we should send money to help stop these horrible things from happening.
I’m not saying these horrible things aren’t happening. I’m not saying there isn’t a real need, or even that we shouldn’t send money overseas. All I’m saying is that we need them just as much as they need us. When the discussion of poverty is constantly framed in a way that leads us to believe we have the power to save lives it tends to lead to a bit of a god complex.
Not to mention that it also allows us to forget that often we are part of the problem. According to Blaine Sylvester, director of the Calgary-based Canadian
Foundation Place of Rescue, the kids at the orphanage don’t feel like they are so poverty stricken that they can’t share with their Canadian friends: “The children may live in spartan conditions and sleep 10 to a house with a house mother, but they’re safe, they’re secure and they’re loved.” While Canada and the States are ranked well below countries like Fiji, Nigeria and Ghana on the Global Happiness Index we still assume North Americans need to teach countries we perceive to be “3rd world” how they ought to live.
But while more and more North Americans begin to suffer from donor fatigue, the kids at Place of Rescue seem more than happy to teach us how to give.
Many people were introduced to the concept of Human Trafficking via the movie Taken where Bryan Mills’ (played by Liam Neeson) daughter is kidnapped and groomed for prostitution and he has to save her by killing everyone who has an accent.
Good Luck
Around the same time I watched the movie Taken I read a book called Invisible Chains by Benjamin Perrin. The book is a well documented account of Perrin’s investigation into human trafficking in Canada, an investigation that began internationally but ended up in his own backyard when he was “shocked to learn of a case of human trafficking in his hometown.” The book delves into several specific cases, and by specific, I mean horrific: “a 14-year-old from Ontario sold for sex on Craigslist; young women from the war-torn Congo and Colombia trafficked to brothels and massage parlours in Canada; a 21-year-old from Alberta who went missing in Las Vegas in 2006.”
Posted in Canada, Europe, morality, politics, sex
Tagged abolitionists, Canada, Culture, decriminalization, feminism, human trafficking, Invisible Chains, legalization, morality, Nordic Law, politics, prostitution, Red Umbrella, regulation, regulation model, sex, sex trade, sex work, sex workers' rights, Taken, victimization, Violence
What do the following senators Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy have in common?
They are both under scrutiny for wasting government money. Wallin, for charging 300,000 dollars of travel expenses to the Canadian Government under what she claims to have been “an accounting error” and Duffy for billing “both the Senate and the Conservative Party on the days that he campaigned for the Tory candidates.”
But that’s not all. Continue reading
Posted in Canada, politics, Shame Day
Tagged appointed, Canada, Culture, elected, Mike Duffy, money, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, Peggy Butts, politics, Senate, Sexual Assault, shame day, society
The CN Tower, putting on a special light show for Pride Week.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that this upcoming weekend is a long one due to Canada Day [July 1]. Imagine my continued surprise when I found out that not only is this weekend Pride Weekend, but that it actually coincides with the national holiday more often than not.
I’ve been in Toronto for the past six or so summers, and it really has taken it this long for the latter to dawn on me; that’s in spite of the fact that this city hosts one of the largest gay pride festivals on the planet. We have an entire week dedicated to celebrating LGBT people, an event that has one of the most user-friendly websites I have ever laid eyes on. Continue reading
Behold, dear readers, a post about sports that does not directly have to do with race issues. This may be the only one I ever write, so treasure this while it lasts.
I understand if you have no idea what’s going on here.
As people who know me know, I don’t really watch professional sports. Heck, I’ve watched way more StarCraft II matches than I ever have actual sports games. The truth is, though, that I have watched a lot of Blue Jays baseball.
It’s partly because my granddad always has it on during and after dinner, and partly because I’ve really gotten invested in the state of my team. We recently had an 11 game winning streak, and I’ve found myself looking forward more and more to each game.
One of the reasons for this was Numenori Kawasaki.
Posted in bizarreness, Canada, Fame Day, sports
Tagged antics, baseball, Blue Jays, Buehrle, dancing, fans, GIFs, heart, Japanese, John Gibbons, Jose Reyes, Major League Baseball, missed, MLB, players, Rogers Centre, shortstop, Sky Dome, sports, stretching, Toronto, Toronto Blue Jays
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