Downtown Guelph

I came across an article that really shocked me about Guelph. There are a few things you should understand about Guelph… It’s a “city” of about 115 000 people. It is extremely environmental, is home to a very liberal university, has a population that protested against the building of a Walmart because of all the negative connotations that follow it… etc. It’s a liberal place. The people are fantastically nice and it’s got a very open minded thing going on. The university is one of the most out and proud universities I have ever heard of - I find myself often playing the “man or woman” game because everyone is free to be who they need to be - and usually who they need to be is extremely dyke-ish. …ANYWAY… My point of all this - is that I live in a liberal city.

So…

you can imagine my surprise when I came across this article.

If a pregnant woman in Guelph wants to have an abortion in the city, she’ll be hard-pressed to find a doctor who’ll perform such a service.

According to one obstetrician who works out of Guelph General Hospital, there aren’t any city doctors who will currently abort a fetus. Dr. Nabil Namis, who’s been practising in the Royal City for 19 years, said he was one of three or four doctors performing this procedure a few years ago.

Thats right. In this fair, liberal, environmental and loving city you can’t get an abortion.

The researcher, Jessica Shaw, who called all 718 facilities across the country posing as a pregnant woman, found it difficult to access abortion services.

She was hung up on, laughed at, given misleading information or greeted by a long silence on the other end of the line, Shaw said in June at a University of Guelph sexuality conference.

My own university! Maybe this is why they support gays so much. If you’re fucking a girl you’re not going to need an abortion. What I think is the absolute worst about all of this is their reasoning…..

“It’s just a sensitive issue,” he said. “We feel the most responsible thing is to be silent about it.”

When asked where someone could go for assistance, if they want an abortion, Ernst said, “We prefer not to talk about it.”

Oh… wait. Please! We prefer not to talk about? Well, I prefer not to think about the fact that hundreds of innocent people die everyday because of selfishness but that doesn’t make me a more noble person, and most definitely doesn’t make the killing stop. The city is a university city, and it’s growing. How much longer can an entire city ignore the fact that women need access to choice, and the services that come along with these choices?

Sure - Toronto and Kitchener are close and accessible, but it’s inconvenient to go to both locations. It’s difficult to find rides, or people that will travel with you. It’s difficult to put all the time aside. It would just be better if there was a place in Guelph to do it. After the procedure a woman doesn’t want to have to travel and hour back to her house to get some rest and curl up into a ball for either physical or mental pain.

Seriously, I was super baffled by this article, and plan on bringing it up with the women’s center on campus. Hopefully there can be a little bit of noise made around it. If the hospitals are worried about protesters getting pissed about them giving abortions, then I want them to be worried about protesters getting pissed about them NOT giving abortions.

They come in pink!!

I was getting a ride to work from a co-worker and pointed out Smart Car exclaiming how much I wanted one, he responded with a rant about how the Smart Car is worse for the environment than a Hummer. His basic reasoning was that a brand new factory had to be built in order to make the Smart Car.

To be completely honest I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but it seems fairly logical that a new factory would be off set rather quickly by people driving the cars, and taking their other cars off the road (which would have been replaced eventually anyway). I’ve looked all over for some numbers so I could do a full 25 year break down of it, but I can’t find them. The car only costs $12 000, not being expensive is more incentive to get one and it gets up to 68 mpg. It is most definitely helping the atmospheric environment.

You could argue that the factory is hypocritical because one had to be built for the Smart Car however, they are the most energy efficient factories ever built (by the standards of the EPA). The fact is that an international standard called the ISO 14001 aims to ensure that everything has a little impact on the environment as possible. The company was awarded the Environmental Certificate ISO 14001 for all of the measures they implemented with the factory. It was built on 30 hectares of industrial waste land. The land now contains the factory, accompanied by nature reserves with some of the most rare species of plant and animals. All of the materials used were checked against a list of potentially harmful materials and thus none contain formaldehyde or CFCs.

All of the facades are made out of a material that comes from a specific European tree that recovers quickly. The building is designed to catch rain water that can be used in the factory, any that isn’t caught by the actual building is drained into oil separation plants, treated and used. The water is treated to the point that it is up to European Drinking standards and is used for the gardens and coolant.

To save energy there are heat recovery systems located all over the building. The heat generated by the actual machines is recycled and “recovered” all through the building. All of the machines burn natural gas rather than the conventional fuels, the heat recovery system also helps to make the machines more energy efficent.

The car its self is painted using powder coating which is completely solvent free. The coat is actually thinner than the conventional ways of painting a car but it is also a higher quality of finish. The lack of solvent eliminates the fear of hazardous waste.

So yeah, they had to make a new factory. But they made one hell of a factory that produces cars that have such a low impact on the environment. The Hummer factories don’t take these environmental precautions, and the Hummer spews out disgusting amounts of emissions, and there is more material used to make them. The environmental degradation that happened because of the construction of an incredibly environmentally friendly factory isn’t even close to the degradation that would be caused by us a) never having fuel efficient cars and b) all driving Hummers. Therefore - I want a Smart Car.

And for those of you who say “it’s so small you wouldn’t be able to do anything, or fit anything in it…. watch this.

I promised my mother some new music that she could listen to. She is extremely worried that she is losing her “hip factor” because she hasn’t been able to keep up with all the cool new beats hitting the streets since I haven’t been updating. For now, my dearest mom, I must direct you to Squashed’s list over at appletree, he’s got some good tunes up over there this week. That will just have to do for now until I am able to get more time to upload my very own playlist. I have some fantastic playlists brewing in my head, but no time to formulate them.

However, at work the music is just… horrible. For example… picture this one minute… bananarama, the next… 1994 rap. It’s horrible. Seriously. It’s like all the 26 year olds are having a “flash back to high school” week at work. And it’s totally not flying with me.

Anyway, I will be getting some music up, and a few posts about atheist groups, and possibly one about the environment. My friend Bang is convinced that a Smart Car is actually worse for the environment than a hummer, so we’re going to take a look into the logistics behind that.

OH! bang makes music, so i’ll post some of his stuff too (after I ask him if that’s okay…) so that will be new fun music to listen to too for all y’all.

NO! I am alive! I’m not dead NO I am alive! You can feel me all over you…where do you feel me?!?!

…if you’ve ever gone to a Christian camp, that line won’t seem as weird or as creepy as it first seems. Seriously, I haven’t had a day off in AGES…. I was all excited because I was supposed to have tomorrow off, but then my boss called me up and was all like “Kaaatie, what are you doing tomorrow??” So I have to go in from 8 - 5. When I get home I’m usually too pooped to really do anything, or I have promises to fulfill to other people. But here’s the good news - I have Wednesday and Thursday off, so I promise with every ounce of my soul that I’ll be posting good stuff. Fun stuff. Lovely stuff! Woo!

Also - I quit smoking, again. BUT this time my friends Bang, Ged and Luke all promised to give me $100 at the end of a year if I don’t smoke once. Incentive! I can totally not smoke for $300. That’s wicked. I’m all over that.

In other good news, my phone broke. This may not seem like good news at first - but do you know what this means??? No? Oh, well it means that I’m getting a blackberry. The 8830 to be exact. I was going to wait and get the curve, but I’ve decided that the 8830 is for me. Here is a picture:

Mine won’t be sprint, it’ll be telus.  But you get the point. I’m really excited. The shitty part is that because my phone broke I’ve lost all my contacts. So I’m going to spend soooo much time trying to gather phone numbers again. Gah, that’s the worst thing about getting a new phone from one that didn’t have a sim card. Whatever. All is good.

I’ve been trying to work on my documentary lately too - but honestly… it’s not truckin’ along so well. I’m hoping that I’ll have more time eventually. But I just registered for 4 courses at school, so I don’t think a nice long break is anywhere in the near future.

More good news??? I’m getting an apartment soon. Me and Luke are going to look at places tomorrow. We’re both super excited. I’ll take lots of pictures of the new place when I actually get it. He’s getting a dog, and I’m getting a kitten. Its going to be cute.

Anyway, I promise, this dead blog will soon be revived and we can have fun again. I hope everyone is having a fantastic summer, or at least getting more of a break than I am. I can’t wait for a day off. Excited!

Picture of Tara Smith who blogs at Aetiology.

Picture by the wonderful photographer Lindsay at Majikthise

It’s pretty hard to avoid the topic of Yearly Kos while cruising around the blog-o-sphere this weekend. I myself didn’t go. I originally had a ticket, but ended up getting a job that required me to be around and I didn’t feel like spending the money on the bus for 16 hours to get there. I haven’t actually been reading all that much but I’ve come up with a couple of thoughts surrounding Yearly Kos.

There are things in this world that bother me. I’m not usually a complainer, nor do I find it productive to criticize people who are trying to make a difference. But Kos bothers me. The “organization” as a whole bothers me. Mostly for two reasons, it’s ability to deliver false hope and it’s inability to be fair to women.

The people at Kos generally have one big thing in common besides all being liberal commies - they blog. Many of them, in fact, think that one day they’re going to be huge big bloggers like Kos and are going there to network and get solid advice on how to make it big. But really, all their getting are panels of ill informed people who basically got lucky. On top of this, they think coming together is going to make a big different. But really, who is going to start paying these big salaries? It seems as though people are a little too involved with the idea of the proletariat, either that or they’re going to start sucking the money out of Google ads in a week.

There are a few problems here - people spend too much time blogging and end up with little result. I blogged non-stop for a year and developed a pretty good readership, but they sure as hell weren’t going to start sending me money. This new method of blogging, linking, is just so ineffective. People think that if they create a post that just links to someone else, and they add one or two thoughts of their own that they’ve created a really great post. But really they’re just conforming to the masses of what everyone else writes about. When I think of the “big blogs” I see some common traits. They all have a solid subject that they stick to. They all have fantastics writers. They all write posts that come out of their own heads, not just links from other people (feministing the exception, but women only go there so that someone else can think for them… ) And finally, they all have a hint of personality. (Oh, and many of them have books - which helps)

Now when I read the smaller blogs I see links, topics all over the board, unoriginal writing and nazi control of the comments. But very few of the little blogs are going to change. The problem with picking a subject and ceasing the linkage is that all of the sudden - you become *gasp* an individual. But bloggers are so painfully striving for any ounce of main blog-o-sphere acceptance. They’re willing to blog just like the big leagues and agree with them on all their points and bow down and kiss their feet just for a link. And this weakens the entire liberal blogosphere as a whole. You want a strong blogosphere? Have your own voice and be willing to fight with people on your own side.

So why does this link to Kos? People are there because they see the success of Daily Kos, so if you go to their conference you’re going to be up to par with the “intellectual masses” of their “movement” instead of staying at home coming up with real ways to create a unique voice that will actually be heard. Kossaks are all the same.

The reason I wanted to go to Kos was to see Chris Mooney - btw - not to become a big time blogger. My time with him will come.

Next - women. Have you heard of the BlogHer conference? Believe it or not, it is the biggest conference from women on the blogosphere. The BlogHer conference invited all presidential candidates to either appear or… send surrogates. Edwards and Clinton both sent surrogates. Edwards sent his wife. And then you look, apparently, a week makes a monumental difference in making presidential candidates available because at the Yearly Kos convention, a gathering of bloggers whose main attendees appear to be white and male, all of the candidates showed up… in person… together even!

Alright, alright, that’s not really the fault of Kos - but Markos being a sexist pig is. Gordo has blogged about it before. Gordo isn’t the only one to have written about it, and it’s not even just in the past year… it’s been going on for yeeears. Read the following for more:

Godless Liberal Homo
Skakes’ Sister
Echidne
Shades of Grey

“Yeah, but Katie… Yearly Kos isn’t held by Daily Kos” … Seriously, THEY HAVE THE SAME NAME AND MARKOS IS LIKE IDOLIZED! After the earlier sexist out break at the beginning of the year I was convinced that the feminists of the blogosphere wouldn’t even step three miles close to the Kos convention - but turns out the majority of them were there for a panel. Using the exact same defence of “It’s run by different people” …

Sure, the thing may not be planned by Daily Kos, but they’re affiliated - closely. When you think Yearly Kos - you think Daily Kos. Yearly Kos is the child of Daily Kos and while Markos may not be the one running the show - he’s running the name. It’s too bad all the women had to jump at that chance for stardom while completely leaving their ethics behind them. And the really sad part is that they’re not going to a) convince anyone of anything or b) get any new followers because they people that are they already agree with them, already want to be their friend and already follow their every move for hours upon hours on the net.

Anyway, that’s my rant on Kos.

cross-posted at appletree