I was really excited, I got off work almost an hour early today because there is a blizzard outside and the store was pretty dead. I packed up my things and bolted across the road to catch the earliest bus possible. I settled into my usual seat (2nd from the back), put my ipod on and started staring at people. (People watching is one of my all time favorite things to do.)

After the group of 4 immature idiots that were stoned out of their mind hopped off the bus I had a clear view of a mother and her daughter that had gotten on the stop prior. The little girl was really cute and was holding a giant pink bunny that was wrapped up in a clear garbage bag, I assumed to protect it from the wet blizzary snow. When the bus stopped downtown most of the people got off, including the mother - but not her daughter.

Confused by this, I watched a little longer. …The daughter waved furiously out the window to her mom and then slumped back down into her seat. …As the bus started moving again I was anxious about the situation. I moved up a couple seats so that I was directly behind the girl. I asked her why her mom had left her alone.

“She does everyday” the little girl answered. …So I asked her how old she was … “four”. We got talking a little bit more, I learned that her bunny’s name is Thomas, and that she was indeed protecting him from the snow. I also learned that everyday the little girls mom leaves her to take the bus from downtown to her stop (only 3 stops before mine) where she then gets off and walks about 10 minutes all alone to get to her house. “Did you want to walk with me today?” …Relieved that I didn’t have to look like a weirdo adult asking her if I could walk her home I said “absolutely”.

So we got off and tracked through the snow (I had to pick her up at least 3 times to get her over snowbanks) to her house. I expected her to just walk right in because her father was home, but instead she picked up a rock and this little four year old girl picked up her spare key and unlocked the front door. The house stank of cat piss and dirty laundry - the walls were littered with pictures of Harley Davidson paraphernalia, crosses and pictures of Jesus. (Just for fun I asked her “that” was and pointed to Jesus, she laughed at me and said “My Lord, silly”. …I mumbled under my breath “oh, so that’s who watches you after school I guess then, eh?”)

I didn’t walk past the front mat, and kept the front door open, I asked her a little bit more about her situation. She told me her dad lived far away, and that her sister often stayed overnight at her “boyfriends” (did I mention the sister is 10 years old?…I don’t think I did.) She said that her mom usually comes home around 8 pm, but sometimes it’s a lot later if she “goes out”.

Sad and heartbroken I called child services who gave me permission to go into the home until one of their representatives got there (which, surprisingly, was only 20 minutes later).  After spending 20 minutes in the house I saw a lot of evidence of drug use (alcohol, pot and coke at least), a lot of dirty dishes, three cats that looked nearly dead and a dog who was too scared of me to even come a foot close (I think it was abused). Me and the little girl played Barbies and she showed me her favorite shoes.

When I went to leave she ran to me and asked if she would see me again. I told her I didn’t know, but I’d be happy if I did. She made me give Thomas a hug goodbye and called me her best friend. It was by far the saddest 3 hours of my life. I walked home and cried a little (not a lot because I’m tough like that *grrowl*) and thought about how many other children are living like that.

*sigh*

if you had to think about that question, you make me sad.

I’ve written a lot about religion in the past - mostly condemning stupid Christian behavior or declaring my atheism for whatever reason or another. In the past little while I’ve started to question my tone toward religion, christianity and my own beliefs. Although this statement has nothing to do with the following post - I just want it known that I am not “against” religion or christianity like I once was, and in no way do I know what to label myself. … Having said that, I think one think I never wrote about was how much I hated people who won’t let their children have medication.

I’ve just read a book called God Grew Tired of Us, and in the last chapter they look at the abuse that religion puts on children - mentally. The one thing it doesn’t really touch on is how religion can hurt children physically, and that is through Christan Science.

First of all - … why do they get their own science??? Okay, okay. Besides the point. But really - Why do they get their own science?!!!!?!?!?!? … Sorry.

Christian Science in a flash:

• Crazy lady, Mary Barker Eddy, writes a book called Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures in 1875
• Other crazy people think the book is pretty neat.
• Essentially - everything on earth is spiritual, not material… (’kay, thanks Buddha.) what you see, feel, hear, touch, smell, breath… etc is actually all an illusion, or an “error”
• Praying enhances spiritualization and heals emotionally, physically and mentally
• In 1866 crazy lady is healed from an injury after reading a passage in the bible and thus concludes that reading the bible and praisin’ the looord jesus! (amen!) heals.
• … No more medicine, yo.
• Oh, and you can heal homos too.

Mary’s “Scientific” Statement of Being:

There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.
All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.
Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.
Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.
Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual. (S&H 468)

So why do I care? I’M  not a christian scientist, and neither is my mom… or anyone in my family. In point of fact I’ve never even MET a christian scientist. So why the heck should I care?

Wikipedia knows everything!

There are now statutes in 44 states which contain a provision stating that a child is not to be deemed abused or neglected merely because he or she is receiving treatment by spiritual means, through prayer according to the tenets of a recognized religion. Although these exemptions take different forms and interpretations in different state jurisdictions, the overall effect has been to limit the ability of the state to prosecute parents for suspected or alleged abuse or medical neglect of children when such occurrences may be the result of religious practice.

Uh huh. Your kid is sick. You try to pray! it out of him. He dies… Whaaa? Did you pray SO HARD that his spirituality just became to BIG for this error of a materialistic world that we live in?? How far do we let freedom of religion go?

I am completely and totally supportive of letting people be religious. I am support being able to go to whatever sort of religious gathering you want, praying in public places… I even think it’s fantastic that high schools accommodate for those that need to leave classes to pray. I don’t think religion should be in government, on money or in anything that involves all people. … I REALLY don’t think we should be allowing parents to deny their children health care because they are praying the cancer out of them…

Have children actually died because of this? Yes. A lot of them. There are a few more recent cases found here. In fact:

A landmark study published in the journal Pediatrics uncovered more than 150 reported fatalities over a 10-year period – a tally that one of the study’s authors later said represented only “the tip of the iceberg” of a surprisingly pervasive problem.

Which means:

Assessing whether forms of religion-related child abuse pose a greater risk to children than more widely publicized threats, such as ritual satanic abuse, a wide-ranging study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded that “there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan.”

… The problem is that fighting this will bring screams like “But the first amendment says!!!” … vs. … “Children need rights, to protect them from stupid people.” That’s just not a political battle that many people are willing to fight.

Despite parents have control over their children’s life - just like we would take the children away if the parents punched them in the face, so should we if they refuse to let an i.v into their arm. Children shouldn’t suffer because of religion.

oooof assholes.

Im off to bed…I have to get up early early to go to Toronto to help Andy Pandy move from his mouse filled basement apartment to his new 12 story non-mice filled apartment. yay! but first… check this:

An explosive device was found in the parking lot of a woman’s center.

According to the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Violence Survey, 18.4 percent of clinics across the country are targets of severe violence, including arsons, bombings, chemical attacks, gunfire, and invasion. The most recent incident comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal abortion procedure ban. “The extremists in the anti-abortion movement have been emboldened by the latest Supreme Court decision,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “These domestic terrorists will continue to attack women’s health clinics across the country until their financial and support networks are closed down.”

Yeah you know what the exact rational response is to an act that you don’t like because it kills an unborn child? Killing people! WOO! Seriously though, this sort of thing makes me want to throw up it makes me so ill. It’s just so sad. I think tomorrow I’ll go to an abortion clinic and hug everyone that is there..

Ontario is pretty much the center of the universe. Well, my universe. Well, Canada’s universe. That means that it is also the center of stupidity and outrage - generally speaking.

First of all - most people aren’t aware but us atheists on the west coast stay in contact with the atheists on the east coast. For that reason the president of the Freethought Association of Canada out in Toronto had contact me a couple of times to start bridging gaps between atheists and opening doors more often for people to easily get information. Well on Tuesday night Justin was attacked while putting up posters for an atheist event.

[link]An atheist group leader says he is the victim of a religious hate crime.

Freethought Association of Canada president Justin Trottier said he was assaulted at Ryerson University earlier this week while he and a colleague were hanging posters for a coming lecture.

“Their motives were clearly premised on the fact that we were atheists [publicizing] an atheist event and that was seen as unacceptable to them,” Mr. Trottier said in an interview yesterday.

“They mocked the nature of the event.”

I can’t even begin to describe how upset this makes me - not even just because of my personal relationship with Justin - but because of what Hemant points out in his post - Imagine if Justin were a muslim putting up posters for a muslim event and the exact same thing happened. There would be no question that it was a hate crime. But because atheists are already the haters …

Also in Ontario - I remember last summer hearing about Omar Wellington being beaten and stabbed, but all of the kids involved were being loyal to their gang and not saying a word. Well, luckily they broke through it.

His naked, bloodied body was found in a nearby ravine the next day, July 15, 2006, with multiple stab wounds to his neck.

Friday, Toronto police broke through a wall of silence to make the first arrests in the case, charging six youths, ranging in age from 14 to 17, with first-degree murder in what they said was a killing with “gang overtones.” All of the teens, who are in custody, live in Flemingdon Park, where the beating took place.

And finally in the Ontario news musings …People aren’t happy with Georgie-poos new set up.

What began as disappointment with the new schedule conflicting with my own, continued as disillusionment with the new format of the program. The few times I was able to watch The Hour, I found the addition of the audience to be distracting, both to the television viewer and quite obviously to George, as he focussed on their presence rather than on the cameras or, more importantly, on the issues. I don’t know if my disillusionment coloured my perception of the quality of the program, but I felt it had become fractured, that it was no longer playing to its strengths as an informative and in-your-face news program. It felt like a rather limpid talk show. Eventually I lost interest.

I will admit - I don’t like the audience. But as for the content - if you go to the hour blog it completely makes up for what is lacking on the show, and I’m starting to think that was the intent of the blog… What I do miss is George’s nose ring.

It sure will be a change to move back to Toronto where the news consists of stabbings and atheist bashing sessions from Victoria where the news is high speed chase laws and museums.

Montreal 9 March 2007

Police Assault Women at International Women’s Day March

Yesterday, as Montrealers, along with many around the world celebrated International Women’s Day - the event was marred by police brutality in which three young women were assaulted, injured and traumatized. Among the issues that were brought up during the speeches at Montreal’s women’s day march was that in Iran women were prevented from
celebrating international women’s day. And women in Pakistan were also attacked yesterday in a women’s day event.

Yesterday’s events ensure Montreal shares this distinction! Marchers celebrating International Women’s Day had walked from Place Emilie Gamelin (Berri Square) to Phillips Square, along Ste-Catherine Street. After speeches they made their way back to Berri Square. The police made an announcement asking people to walk on the sidewalk.

Jaggi Singh, who had been one of many male supporters among the 200 strong celebrating international women’s day moved onto the sidewalk. The others continued marching in the street. Police officers began to rush towards Singh, still walking on the sidewalk. They grabbed him and threw him against a nearby police car.

Other marchers gathered around the car out of concern for the violent way in which police were intervening. Police began hitting and pushing people indiscriminately. Several people were knocked to the ground with batons and night sticks. Emma Strople, a 17 year old marcher, was hit in the chest with the end of a night stick and thrown to the ground, by an officer later identified as Doyon. Her ribs were bruised, she was winded, trembling from shock and her knee was cut open enough that the blood seeped through her jeans.

Two other women were also injured - one woman’s lips and mouth were swollen and bleeding, from being punched in the face by a police officer; another left with cuts on her knee and stomach. The police showed a total disregard for the injuries mounting around them. They placed Jaggi Singh in the police car and began to leave. The marchers that remained left by Berri Metro.

The 8th March Committee of Women of Diverse Origins, one of the key groups involved in the march, strongly denounces last night’s police brutality yesterday and the arrest of Singh. Are we to go back to the time when women in Canada were not considered ‘persons’? When women were to be seen and not heard? In Quebec today on the eve of an election we
have seen how violence against women is still something that is trivialized, including by those that seek to represent us in the democratic system. Yesterday’s police attack on women and their allies proves that even those who are supposed to be the guardians of the law and ensure gender equality, see women as people to be controlled with the threat and the use of violence. Women, as we struggle for equality are facing a backlash. How can we feel safe when the police themselves exhibit the violence that is endemic to patriarchy?

More than ever the police brutality of yesterday demonstrates that we have a long way to go; that women’s struggles for equality that have always linked to improving the lives of our families and communities, ensuring democratic processes of equality and participation of ALL in the political process are constantly blockaded by the state and its representatives. How can women seek assistance against the violence in their lives when those entrusted with their safekeeping are perpetrators of brutality and violence?

For more info e-mail: dolchew [at] hotmail [dot] com