No no no no

Singer Lhasa de Sela has died. (CBC Media Blog)

Sunday Sermon: Unhappy Anniversary

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre. Twenty years since a disturbed hater took his insane politics and a rifle to a Montreal school and murdered 14 female engineering students because his life was garbage and in his mad little brain it was somehow the fault of successful, independent women.

Twenty years later, and everything still sucks. (Toronto Star)

In some ways it sucks more, since the Conservative minority government has no idea what the hell it needs to do for women. Here's an article on that by Bernadette Wagner, which we published last year (reprinted on Rabble).

Anyway.

Twenty years ago I was a know-nothing volunteer at a student newspaper. On Dec. 6, 1989, the production night of the terms' last issue, we got the Canadian University Press wire story of the shooting. It was late, the paper was nearly done, and we decided not to run it. For the next month, the University of Manitoba's holiday edition newspaper sat in it's distribution stands shamefully free of any reference to the biggest story at a Canadian university in memory.

Oopsies?

The thing is, this oversight is just typical. Every day women are menaced, threatened, frightened, hurt, abused and killed by their partners, co-workers, acquaintances and strangers. The scale of violence is so enormous we can't even see it right before our faces. And when we do give our attention to the horror we look at it as "isolated incidents" rather than seeing the bigger picture--that even now, in a time and place where many things are better, there is what amounts to an undeclared war on women.

This "can't see the forest for the trees" problem is what makes governments like our current awful Conservative one comfortable dismantling the programs and protections women need, from attacks on Status of Women to killing national day care to wrecking the firearm registry to undermining reproductive rights. The way right-wingers see things, there are no patterns or trends, only individual situations. It's deranged. But I'm getting off topic.

The point is, we as a society have problems. And pretending that we don't or that they're all behind us does not help us move forward.

I'll wrap up by sharing something I realized today. I have a friend who's an engineer. I've never thought of this friend as an engineer--I think of her as a fun pal, a comrade in restaurant adventures, a travelling companion to NHL games and my second-most despised arch-enemy in our hockey pool. (Her partner, code-name "Flipper", remains villain #1.)

But if my friend was older, and if she'd gone to a different school to be an engineer, I might not have met her. She might have been shot. Because she was female, succeeding at something some people still think women shouldn't be allowed to do.

Kind of brought it home today.

Reginans are invited to attend a candlelight vigil today with special focus on Bill C-391, which would scrap the federal long gun registry. The vigil starts at 4:00 at Conservative MP Ray Boughan's office, 2631 28th Ave. More information here.

Je m'en souviens trop...

20 years later and I still feel like crying.

"Au-dela du 6 decembre" is a firsthand doc of the experience, filmed in 1991.

Other coverage:

CTV Montreal has a few good pieces on the anniversary, including a typical "Marc Lepine was crazy (but you can't blame him, can you?)" comment, as enraging now as it was then. I remember many men saying this at the time, or variants of it, in the days after the killings. Many men didn't. 20 years later and that divide is exactly where it was then.

JohnInMtl It's time to put this thing to rest. It's unfortunate that 14 women had to lose their lives to a crazed killer. The gun registry has never deterred a killer and the gun registry will only determine after the fact if the killers had a gun. Harper was fully justified in redirecting $5 million from the administrative budget of Status of Women Canada, closing branch offices and ending funding for women's research and advocacy groups. Do such entities exist for men's rights? Advocacy groups do nothing except to espouse entitlement views. The research group are there to produce unfounded study after study and very often conflicting studies to support the advocacy groups! We already have gender equality legislation and even more in the works!

The Sunday Edition had a great anniversary show in its second hour today. The audio for the show is posted on Monday.

The Globe and Mail on the Conservatives scrapping the gun registry. There are a few doozies there in the comments too, from men and women. Yikes.

Oh, and JohnInMtl?

Fuck off.

Ugh.

Sucks.

(TSN)

Little Boy Whisked Away By Flying Saucer

Don't try this at home: A six year old boy climbed into a home-made helium balloon which then untethered itself and floated away. The balloon has now landed, sans kid. (AP)

Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera, who must also find this really really sad and weird.

UPDATE: Boy found hiding in a box in his family's garage, waiting for a lickin'.

UPDATE #2: What the hell kind of name is "Falcon"?

Patrick Swayze is a Ghost

Patrick Swayze has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 57. (NYT)

Fidel Castro Is Not Dead

So I'm over at my friends' house sitting on a patio drinking scotch and puffing a cigar and suddenly my buddy (code name: "Flipper") mentions Fidel Castro died today, and I'm like, "WHAAAAT???"

Ten seconds later I'm on his computer, searching the Guardian's Web site--then the New York Times, then the Globe and Mail for verification.

And you know what? Fidel Castro is not dead.

The person who's dead is Juan Almeida Bosque, a Cuban revolutionary and beloved national figure. You can read the story here in the Globe and Mail.

But it would've been a hell of a strange turn if I'd learned of Castro's death with a Cuban cigar dangling from my mouth. I probably smoke a Cuban cigar once every 18 months. Incidentally, Flipper was ironically given this cigar from a very generous (and profoundly misguided) staunch Stephen Harper supporter. I rather doubt Stephen Harper is much of a Fidel Castro supporter. So yeah, weird chain of events.

In other news I just found out now:

1.) Larry Gelbart, creater of TV's M*A*S*H, died today (Globe And Mail). I owe a lot of my politics to that show. Thank you, Larry. God bless* and rest in piece.

2.) They're lynching gays in Iraq (Guardian). I. Despise. Religious. Bigots.

3.) Scotch and cigars seem to be doing wonders for my cold. I'm sure sleeping half the day away also helped.

*I mean this in the atheist way of course.

Eight Years Later...

... and there is still nothing on the World Trade Center site.

Michael Jackson Death: It Was Murrrderrrr!

The Associated Press says Michael Jackson's coroner has ruled the pop star's death a homcide. Will charges be laid against Michael's injection-happy doctor? Stay tuned for the next dramatic installment of As The Jacko Turns.

Les Paul R.I.P.

I never thought my first post to this blog would be a link to an obituary, but that's the way it goes... Les Paul, the visionary guitar god, has passed away at the tender age of 94. May he rest. (Huffington Post)

That's it, I'm Moving.

Can't. Write. Too. Angry.

Word's in that the Plains is to be demolished for condo/hotel complex. (LP)

Come on. The Plains? Like there aren't acres and acres of surface parking that they could have chosen from? Really?

Really?

Photo filched from Guy D/Regina in Pictures

R.I.P John Hughes

The man behind Ferris Bueller's Day Off has died of a heart attack (Telegraph). He was 59.

Like a lot of you I'm sure, John Hughes touched my life through his films. He made gentle, well-crafted and entertaining movies about families and growing up (and sex!) and all that stuff. He wrote and directed The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck and the aforementioned mega-classic Ferris Bueller--and a ton of other treasures (which depending on your taste may or may not include Home Alone). You can see a full resume here on the Internet Movie Database.

My top John Hughes' movie moment is the Chicago Art Institute montage in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In the scene, the three friends--Ferris (Matthew Broderick), Sloan (Mia Sara) and Cameron (Alan Ruck)--wander the museum while skipping school and dramatically/ridiculously ponder famous paintings.

Then, Ferris and Sloan sneak off to cuddle before a beautiful Marc Chagall work. And the repressed, lonely, and crazily virginal and frustrated Cameron plants himself in front of the epic Georges-Pierre Seurat pointillist painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte-1884".

Lost, helpless and probably half out of his mind with jealously for Ferris' relationship with his girlfriend Sloan, Cameron stares and stares and stares at Seurat's great work, looking closer and closer until he can't see anything but the dotted dabs of paint that make up a child's face.





Such are the hazards of looking at things too closely--you miss the bigger picture. Cameron is real subject of the film, the character who truly has changed by movie's end.

I'm pretty sure this scene was the reason I went to Chicago for the first time in 1992--to stare at famous dots and divine the secrets of life.

I probably learned about as much from the experience as Cameron did.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hughes.

It's All In The Headline

An amazing headline, written yesterday but only discovered by me this morning: "Michael Jackson To Be Buried Without His Brain".

From the Guardian's article:

"The King of Pop will be saluted in grand fashion at the Staples Centre memorial ceremony, and reportedly laid to rest at Los Angeles's Forest Lawn cemetery. However, the LA coroner's office has still not completed its tests on Jackson's brain, and the singer's family have been advised that unless they wish to wait, he must be buried without it."

Really, L.A. coroners? "Tests"? Is that the real reason you separated Jacko's brain from his body? Or is there something more to this? Something related to public safety, perhaps?

A Michael Jackson Video Of Note

Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Jeff Koons, 1988, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art permanent collection


The service for MJ is underway in L.A., and all's okay. Crowds are smaller than expected and celeberties are plentiful. But is all this fuss something Jackson would've wanted? Don't care actually but it's an excuse to post a link to the video for "Leave Me Alone" (Wikipedia), which one of my all-time favourites. (Actually the director of this video, Jim Blashfield, has at least three other videos that I love: Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer", and the freaking awesome Talking Heads song "Road To Nowhere". [CORRECTION: This post has been edited to remove my ignorant lies. Those other videos were directed by Stephen R. Johnson. Ignore the text in grey. Lies!]

Anyway, I couldn't find a quality version with a swipable embed so you'll have to actually click through the link. Which is here.

Sarah Palin Steps Down

Ooooh Noo000! After much prayer and consideration, Sarah Palin has stepped down as governor of Alaska. Yootoob of her speech here -- worth a look-see: basket-ball, lame ducks, efficiencies,  Triggs, Kosovo, General McArthur, climate change.... It's a doozy! And she just won a prize! (UPI)

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Michael Jackson is dead but he will forever live on as cheaply animated kid in this Saturday morning cartoon that aired on ABC between 1971-1973. Michael got into many wacky and musical adventures along with a couple of mice named Ray and Charles, a snake called Rosie and of course his brothers.

The Jackson's were all too busy to actually voice their own characters but strangely enough Diana Ross managed to voice herself in the deput episode.

Friday Afternoon Kitty!

A vintage TV commercial for the Mercury Cougar, featuring a real, live cougar and a certain much-loved actor and model who passed away yesterday. Rest in peace, Farrah.

Michael Jackson Is A Goner*

TMZ reports that Michael Jackson has died of a heart attack, at the age of a (young) 50. He leaves a confusing legacy, to say the least. His death also steals the thunder of Farrah Fawcett, who also died earlier today (NY Times).

* Their deaths have also sparked a debate here at Dog Blog over the definition of the word 'goner': dead or just doomed? Send us your answers before another celebrity craps out today. Whatever the case, 'goner' works with Jackson, since bits of him were just as dead -- and just as doomed -- as they were yesterday, when he was still mostly alive.

Farrah Fawcett, R.I.P.

Farrah Fawcett, actor, pin up, and owner of the mother of all hairstyles has died of cancer (NYT).