Hi! Hi! I can't believe I haven't posted in so long! And when that happens I keep feeling that my return needs to be significant which then means I never get around to posting. So vicious cycle. heh. I'm doing well, just really busy with the new part-time Library School studies along with my full-time job.

BUT! I'm so appalled and scared by the way politics are heading these days, especially in Canada, that I have to post. I know I don't usually post about politics but I feel this is something everyone should see. Stephen Harper (Conservative leader and PM of Canada) plagiarizing from the Australian leader John Howard (back in 2003 when Harper was the Opposition leader):




At my university, UofT, plagiarism is taken very seriously, as it should be. We can get expelled for it. I hope all voters take this instance of blatant plagiarism as seriously.

Also, I feel everyone should read this article:

Stephen Harper and the Rising Clout of Canada's Religious Right.

It's a really interesting examination into Stephen Harper's affiliation with the extreme right evangelical Christians. It's quite long but worth reading for anyone concerned about how dangerous the right wing Christians are to all of us (especially for the LGBT community).

And now that I've posted, hopefully I'll post more often! With fun things too! :D

Happy Wednesday everyone!! I’m excited because tonight there’s new episodes of Veronica Mars, Lost, Bones AND the Amazing Race!!! That’s a lot of tv, but it’s all good tv so I’m happy.

Yesterday the weather was insane. There were snow flurries for a few seconds, then they stopped. Half an hour later, there was hail!! Fortunately it didn’t last too long. And then there were snow flurries again. Nothing has stayed and I’m holding out hope this is the last snow for the year. But it’s like the weather has PMS.

Lots of tv has been watched by me the last couple of days:

( 24 ‘10pm-11pm’ 5:16, Who’s evil now? )

( Grey’s Anatomy ‘The Name of the Game’ 2:18 )

( Gilmore Girls ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ 6:17, Actually no-one’s okay except for Lane and Paris )

( Scrubs ‘My Chopped Liver’ 5:16, Why JD and Turk are the best friends ever! )

I was going to write about House (with Michelle Trachenberg!) but I was just alerted that the Conservatives are re-opening the same-sex marriage issue and holding a free vote about it. I am very mad and upset by this. WTF?!! No government should be taking away human rights. I recall having an argument with someone before the election in which he refused to believe me that the Tories would do this. This is one instance in which I hate being right. There is hope that this will fail because the Conservatives are a Minority Government and the other parties (Bloc Quebecois, NDP and most Liberals), who make up the majority, will vote in support of same-sex marriage. But still…. It’s hard to feel reasonable when we could potentially lose human rights.

To try and end on a happy note I wanted to rec some really good fic I’ve been reading recently:

globalfruitbat’s Heroes which is a beautiful and addictive post-Not Fade Away ensemble story.

octoberxsong’s Placebo which is an amazing Spike/Angel story that could also be a manifesto for the pairing.

Also, if you love Xander, check out the masterlist for The Replacement Celebration -- A Two Xanders Are Better Than One Brouhaha. It’s double your Xander goodness!

I had a dream the other night that the apocalypse had happened and I was barricaded in a high-rise with friends in a eerily desolate city. I hope this doesn't signal what life will be like with the new Canadian government. Let's all hope that I don't have prophetic dreams like Buffy.

Despite the incessant polls announcing the election results weeks before the actual election, I'm still in shock that Stephen Harper is our new Prime Minister. Chocolate cake was consumed for comfort. People have the shortest memories in the world. Hello? Remember when his party used to be that crazy fringe right-wing party until they basically changed their name? Bueller? Bueller?

My attempt at positive:
- Here's hoping that a Conservative minority government will not be able to do much (ie. they better not be able to take away same-sex marriage).
- Yay for the NDP gaining seats! In particular, it's awesome that the fabulous Olivia Chow finally got elected in my old riding of Trinity-Spadina.

I'm using my new icon by earth_vexer (a fun reaction to the homophobia on whedonesque) because I think Stephen Harper and the Conservatives would be appalled.

I'm starting to think that barricading myself in a building with my friends isn't a bad plan. As long as there's a stockpile of Buffy, VM, Joan of Arcadia, Battlestar Galactica and Angel dvds, and lots of chocolate it could be okay, maybe even fun. It should - hopefully - only be a matter of months before we go to the polls again and get rid of the scary right-wing government. Right?

American pop culture is so dominant in Canada, that I’m always surprised when a television show isn’t aired here, or in last night’s case, that I can’t watch an alternate ending for my favourite show.

When I went to AOL last night to watch the much-hyped alternate ending to the Veronica Mars episode “My Mother, the Fiend” here’s the message I got:

“We’re sorry, but the content requested is only available for viewing from within the United States.”

Fortunately some nice folks on the televisionwithoutpity message boards described what happened. ( Spoiler: VM's alternate ending ) Fortunately, I don’t feel that I missed much because it’s a stunt to increase viewership and the scene isn’t part of the show’s canon.

The most frustrating part of that experience is to be randomly blocked from viewing something just because I’m not in the U.S. Okay, I know that I live in Canada (and am happy and proud to be Canadian) but it can be hard to remember that I’m not part of the U.S. I can’t imagine why I have this problem when I shop at stores like The Gap, The Body Shop, and of course, American Eagle. I get all the American networks in my digital cable package and watch almost exclusively American television (the only Canadian show I watch regularly is CTV’s very funny Corner Gas). I just watched so many American Thanksgiving themed shows last week that I’m starting to believe that I also just celebrated that holiday.

This kind of reflection leads me down the super highway to American Imperialism. Living in such an overall affluent country as Canada can make it hard to remember that, like most other nations, we’re actually under the arm of the United States. It’s a lot easier to forget that type of thing when you’re reaping the benefits of American dominance.

The last time I studies politics in any depth was a political science class many years ago, so I’m not going to attempt a likely simplistic and surface critique of American Imperialism. Besides, to be quite honest, I clearly like a lot of the American capitalist trappings. I’m at my happiest when I’m sipping a totally yummy Peppermint Hot Chocolate from Starbucks while reading Entertainment Weekly, and anticipating the next Veronica Mars episode or new Harry Potter movie.

Also, I suspect that my sudden righteousness about the dominance of the U.S. in Canada is just because I couldn’t see the alternative ending. I’m now feeling happier because I watched the live online interview with VM’s creator, Rob Thomas – yea to UPN for letting me watch stuff on its site!!!

It feels silly to get upset about American pop culture being an overwhelming presence in Canadian society when I actually love it. A long time ago, I realized that I’m a big fan of American pop culture. Although my love for it is complicated, it’s the source of some of my biggest pleasures in life and helps me cope with all the horrible and upsetting things I see daily on the news. I guess it’s only appropriate that I’m embracing American presence in Canadian society as I gear up to spend spend spend in preparation for Christmas.

I’ll just comfort myself that I’m resisting full American dominance by continuing to spell words the Canadian way … wait a minute, am I actually clinging to remnants of the older Imperialist power, England? Dude, this is making my head hurt. I think I’ll go re-watch last night’s awesome Veronica Mars.

When I chose to go to U of T instead of Queen's University (my hometown university), everyone kept asking my mother and I why I didn't go to Queen's, and now I have the perfect answer:

Queen's Univ. reviewing homecoming after 'drunken street brawl'; 35 arrests. "Queen's University officials and police said Monday they will examine the future of the school's annual homecoming festivities after a weekend street party degenerated into an alcohol-fuelled riot that saw drunken revelers pelting police officers with beer bottles and overturning and burning a car."

I'm not that surprised about this news story - it seems like the logical conclusion to the increasingly bad behaviour of Queen's University students. For years we've been appalled by the loud drunken parties, and the complete lack of care many students have for their housing and their belongings (often paid for by rich mommies and daddies). At the age of 10, my brother declared he would never go to Queen's (and he didn't) because of the ridiculous behaviour of the students.

I was glad to see that the university's academic vice-president said that: "Every aspect of our culture and traditions is going to be looked at critically to assess the role that it may play in the fostering of this kind of behaviour." From my experience growing up in Kigston, going to high school right down in Queen's and working at a Queen's cafeteria, I could easily answer that question and say that the culture and traditions of Queen's do foster this kind of stupid and inappropriate behaviour. It seems like the administration is only acting now that things have gotten to a point that they can't ignore, whereas previously the drunken reveling was just indulgently tolerated as "school spirit."

I'm particularly appalled by racism displayed by the rioters: "A black police officer at the scene on Aberdeen Street, just north of the campus, became the target of racial slurs shouted by some among the crowd of 5,000 to 7,000 people, many of whom were intoxicated." That is absolutely horrible and I hope that this actually wakes up Queen's and Kingston to the prevalance of racism in the school and the city. I almost laughed - if I wasn't so angry - at the reaction of one of the Queen's administrators to the racism: "This coming from probably one of the most liberal campuses in Canada." Of course, they're conveniently forgetting the date rape scandal in the later '80s, early '90s when the male students hung signs from their dorm windows with phrases like "No means Yes" and "No means harder." Liberal indeed. Also, one of the other reasons I didn't go to Queen's is that it was the least diverse university campus that I visited.

U of T may be big business oriented, large, bureaucratic and impersonal but this just reaffirms that I ultimately made the right decision to attend U of T instead of Queen's.

So I just read this article about Sean Penn and other Hollywood celebrities helping out victims of Katrina and it made cry. It makes me so happy (yes, so happy that I cry) when celebrities actually use their position to affect positive change. If I had as much money as Sean Penn, I'd get a boat and go down there to help too. Of course the article had to be all snarky about Sean Penn's views about Iraq because we wouldn't want people to ever have different opinions than their President!!

The article talks about how many of the celebrities are affiliated with Oprah's "Team Angel" effort. I love this quote from Maureen Ryan (in her Chicago Tribune column): "Can someone tell President Bush to call Oprah?" Maybe Oprah should run for President, if I was American I'd vote for her. She's certainly more a leader than most of the politicians right now.

Now for something completely different!!! I finally got a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), it's like a Tivo because I can record 2 programmes at the same time, as well as pause, rewind, fast forward live television. As a few of my friends commented to me "You're definitely someone who actually needs a PVR, instead of just wanting one." Very very true - it'll be awesome to not have to worry about having enough tape space, and I'll be able to deal with those 4-shows-in-one-time-slot situation! It's very very exciting, particularly now that everything's set up correctly (with the help from a very nice Rogers tech support woman). Rogers has excellent phone customer service, everytime I call they're really nice, professional and very helpful.

It's bizarre, in a really short span of time I've gotten a laptop and the internet, and a PVR. I now feel very on top of the latest technologies, especially since none of my friends have PVRs yet (some do have digital cable). I used to feel more like Dru in this exchange on Angel:

Dru: "I saw you coming, my lovely. The moon showed me. It told me to come into the Twentieth Century."
Angel: "It's the Twenty-First Century, Dru."
Dru: "Hmm, I'm still lagging."

I enjoy this quote because I spent so much of my university career studying pre-1900 English Literature, that when I read Twentieth Century literature it always felt very modern (not to be confused to Modernist lit which it frequently was) and current - so this resulted in me forgetting that we've been in the Twenty-First Century for a few years now. Let's just say I've had exchanges like the Dru-Angel exchange, except without me being a crazy vampire.

Now I'm off to catch some films at TIFF!!

I had a fabulous vacation in New York City. However the day we arrived was the day that Katrina hit so whenever we were in the hotel, we'd be glued to the increasingly disturbing coverage of the aftermath.

It's hard to describe my reaction to the incredibly upsetting situation, so I'll quote one of my friend's comments:

"i'm feeling enraged and outraged and disgusted and frustrated and powerless and so very, very angry."

It was very bizarre to be in one of the wealthiest American cities (where people pay thousands in rent) and seeing another part of American that looks like a developing nation. As I watched the coverage numerous questions swirled around my head. In the Toronto Star, Vinay Menon articulates these questions:

"Where was the military? Why were rescuers taking so long to reach those in need of rescue? Who was in charge? Was there a plan?"

One of the quotes in the Star from a survivor in New Orleans continues to resonate:

"Is this America? Are we animals?"

David Brook in the New York Times notes:

"Take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come."

It's been encouraging to see black leaders critiquing the response and echoing the response of survivors (also quoted from the Toronto Star):

"I tell you, America has let us down."