(Minor) Inquiry Update 3

RCMP could have done more in Pickton probe

Yeah. No shit.

However, it's not like the VPD did any better on their side of the investigation. At least the fact that both the RCMP and VPD were wasting their time squabbling with each other, rather than arresting a serial rapist and murderer has come to light. Although, no one really seems to be paying attention to that. So, I'm just going to save everyone a lot of trouble and lay out what happened right here:

Both police forces knew Pickton was guilty. Both police forces couldn't give two shits about the victims. Both police forces had separate but equal information that could've led to a timelier arrest of Robert Pickton. However, I believe each police force wanted the other force to do all the work, without the sharing of each of their respective information and each force wanted credit for the collar, even if they weren't the ones who actually caught the bad guy. So, the endless fighting between municipal and federal police let Pickton rape and murder forty-nine women before he was caught. And the police still don't care about the victims. They just want to come out of this looking as good as they possibly can. And they most likely will. The longer this inquiry goes on for, the less media attention it will receive and eventually the populace at large will forget about this case altogether, until the conclusion of the inquiry, whereupon one or two people will get a slap on the wrist and the VPD and RCMP can go back to ignoring crime against women as usual.

Fuck all of you officers who were too busy worrying about your egos and reputations, and not giving the slightest shit about the growing number of dead and missing prostituted women in your midst.

This Can Only End Well

A while back I wrote about one Brad Trost, a Conservative MP who thought that the Conservatives weren't being Conservative enough when it came to the issue of abortion. As you may recall, Trost was one of the leading characters in the defunding of Planned Parenthood's Canadian arm. Which is what I thought about when I read this.

It's happening here, too. All of those things that everyone wants to believe are only happening in the backwards, hick-ass, bible-belt southern United States are starting to happen up here in Canada. Abortion clinics are being closed all over the place. Wait times are unbelievable. Sometimes, a woman might have to travel to another city to have an abortion. And now, Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth would like to redefine when a fetus is considered to be a full-fledged human being, complete with rights that supersede the rights of the woman carrying said fetus. And, in a textbook case of 'no fucking shit they did', the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada was all 'Fuckin'-A right on, Stephan!'. So, yet another Conservative MP challenging Harpers' as-of-yet unbroken promise to not reopen the abortion debate. Only this gets worse, because as we've seen down in the States, when fetuses get rights, abortion becomes murder, not only in the eyes of evangelical types, but in the eyes of the law, as well. Women who abort their pregnancies, or even miscarry can be charged with a crime, fined or jailed. Don't think for a minute it won't happen here, too.

As stated, Woodworth has beef with the current definition of when a fetus becomes human, and is leading the charge to have the law redefined. He says the current law defining a human being dates back to centuries-old English common law and Parliament has a responsibility to lead a debate on whether it's time to rewrite it. Quote Woodworth:

"Our definition of human being says that a child does not become a human being until the moment of complete birth,"

Ever notice how these dudes seem to hate centuries-old laws when they give women and children any sort of autonomy (which is rare enough), but they got no problem following the centuries-old laws in their magic-bible-storytimebooks? Ah religious types, you infuriate me to no fucking end. Seriously, a caterpillar ain't a butterfly until it busts outta that fucking cocoon, and a baby isn't a baby until it's born. It can't order a pizza in the womb, it can't vote and it can't actually exercise any other rights these evangelical dipshits want to give it. And nobody's being fooled. Joyce Arthur, spokeswoman for the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada knows exactly what's up. Quoth her:

"When the anti-abortion movement says they want to reopen the debate, it means they want to recriminalize abortion. That's really what it's about," 

"When you're talking about giving rights to fetuses, essentially, which is what they're talking about here, obviously that is going to impact abortion rights."

So, yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking, too. Shit is getting bad, folks. I saw this coming. There's a butt-ton of Conservative MP's out there who want abortion to be a criminal offense again. And I believe that even if Harper doesn't reopen the debate, he thinks that if should be a criminal offense as well. These backbenchers will just keep coming out of the woodwork, probably on the Prime Ministers' orders and whipping the evangelicals into more of a frenzy than they're usually in. Evangelicals and pro-lifers are loud. And that's a problem. Because if they stay loud for long enough, well Harper might just decide that (much to his fake chagrin) he has to reopen the debate, if only to calm the masses. We have to get the Conservatives out of power in the next election. Speak for womens' rights with your votes. Support womens' safety with your votes. I know the next election is a long way off, but get organized now. Talk to people, get them on board. If you're not a voter, or not registered, do it. Religious people, racists and sexists are already mad good at voting. That's why so much of this shit happens. So, if anyone like-minded is reading this, and you're NOT at the very least voting against the bad guys, then please, I implore you to get active to at least this level. You'll be happy you did. And you've got time to do it. Now is the time, before things can get any worse.

Potential Of Womens' Only Cabs In NB Gets Dudes MAD!!!!

Not the most graceful post title to be sure, but I'm supposed to be on vacation here, anyways. So, let's get right to it. As usual, here's the link to the CBC story. I'll give you the skinny. This dude in Saint John, David Barnes, realizes that for some women, getting into a cab with a dudely driver can be a scary thing. You're in an enclosed environment with a dude you don't know for an undefined period of time. Alone. No duh that gives lots of women the willies. Especially when you consider how common sexual assault by cab drivers is. So, this dude isn't a feminist. He isn't trying to make a statement. He just noticed how female-only cabs seem to have caught on over in Europe, and probably wants to make a buck or two doing it over here. Because there's nothing like a dude cashing in on the fact that women are afraid of men to really make you aware of the "feminized society" that we live in.

And then there's the comments. And they are BAD. Apparently, just the thought, the mere mention of possibly, maybe, sometime, somewhere starting a female-only cab service in this country is equatable with passing a law that it's now legal to shoot dudes' dicks off after five on Thursdays. Dudes are up in fucking arms about how "misandric" this new service would be. "It'd put male cab drivers out of business!" "How's a dude supposed to get home if the cabs are only picking up chicks?" "You know, one time, Karla Homolka killed a dude, so that proves that dudes aren't the only violent ones!" You know the kind of bullshit that gets spouted by the MRA fucks that mostly populate the CBC comment threads.

But, there was one comment I read that really made my skin crawl and made me realize just what kind of heartless, depraved FUCKWADS are shitting on womens' issues on the CBC. It was a reply to a comment made by someone called FatherJones. (As an aside FatherJones, like Mother Jones? If so, I think that's kinda neat.) Anyways, Jones says:

A dear friend of mine was badly beaten and sexually assaulted by a cab driver. It's sadly not that uncommon. The police didn't really do anything and acted like she deserved it because she had been drinking. It's not just the drivers make women feel unsafe, it's knowing there will be no justice if something does happen that compiles it.

To which one FrancoPwned (lame, dude, just fucking lame) replies:

I say links to the news story or I didn't happen.

And, of course, all the other little misogynists on the CBC just back this dude up wholeheartedly. And all I can think is "... wow, just fucking wow. So THIS is what it's come to." And what if a link was provided? I'm sure this dude would've found some other reason to call Jones a liar. But, he doesn't get what he's really doing here. Because that's the power of dudely dudes. If they want to make something that happened go away, then they just collectively don't believe it. And, poof! It's gone. That's how the legal system works, isn't it? Because no one ever gets convicted! The rapists always get away with it! Jones tells an anecdotal story to illustrate just why women's-only cabs are a good idea, something terrible that happened to his dear friend (or perhaps more, maybe his spouse, maybe his daughter, who knows if he's protecting the victim's identity) and FrancoFuk'd there shits all over it. Because in his mind, that story can't be true. If it were, well that would ruin all his logical dudely arguments, so false it must be! And, true to form, other dudes come out of the woodwork to back him up. And what does that mean? That means that FatherJones, and potentially his dear friend that was assaulted, have to relive all the pain of that incident as well as the pain of probably not being believed the first time around. And Franco just thinks he's fighting the good fight.

Well, I say fuck that. I say that dudes ARE fucking scary, and I don't blame any woman that doesn't want to get into a cab with one, or sit next to one on a bus, or get into an empty elevator with one, or whatever else. I mean, I am a fucking dude, and I'm still scared of them a good ninety-nine percent of the time. So, me, I'm all for women's-only cabs. And women's-only gyms. And whatever else. And I don't think it's "misandric", I think it's just fucking smart. Dudes are shitty. Ladies, stay away from them whenever you can, however you can until you're damn sure that they're safe. And even then, keep your keys handy. Let the hate mail begin. See you all in 2012.

Crappy Holidays, One And All!!!

I hate this time of year. So, so very much. I don't know where to begin. Let's see, the rampant celebration of consumerism and the masses spiraling themselves into debt, the fake goodwill to all, the extra doses of religioness shoved down my throat... it goes on and on. So, I'm ducking and covering, folks. Don't expect much outta me until after New Years. Until then, one and all. Stay safe and stay angry.

Heroic Dude A Hero! Status Of Victim and Attacker Unimportant...

If you read Canadian news by major metropolitan area (i.e. Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto etc.) rather than just reading a country-wide overview, you can find some pretty surprising stories, more often than not, more in line with what the general populace would and should need to know about. I mean, there's also a lot of local fluff pieces, but a lot of the time, the country-wide headlines don't tell you about what you really need to know. I like using the nation's capital as an example, because in terms of sucking, it really sucks. On many, many levels. One of those levels is Ottawas' public transit system, O.C. Transpo. O.C. Transpo is in the Ottawa news just about every day. They run the most expensive public transit system in the country (twelfth in the world, I believe) and deliver some of the worst service in the entire country as well. Apparently, their union has a stranglehold on the mayor's office and subsequently, on Ottawas' transit-riding populace. Most Ottawa citizens that have ever taken a city bus are worse off for it, and the drivers threaten the city with strikes on a yearly basis, while fare rates are increased twice to thrice per year.

I'm not anti-union. But, there ARE corrupt unions out there. It seems to me, that over in Ottawa, O.C. Transpo's one of them.

But, this post isn't about how shitty Ottawa's public transit is. No, this is about how an Ottawa bus driver is being touted as a hero for really, from what it sounds like, doing the bare minimum to help a woman in trouble. The story can be found here, but I'll run it down for you anyways.

On October 4th, bus driver Michel Laurin was gearing up to start his route. While heading to his bus or whatever, he came across a young woman who had just been beaten, raped and robbed and was lying on the ground, just outside the car in which her assailant was still sitting. Being a heroic dude of dudely action, Laurin yelled at the woman to "come to me, to get out of the way." From a safe distance, of course. The attacker, realizing he'd been spotted, fled the scene. Laurin caught the license plate number and called the cops. Let me digress for one second here.

Laurin's an older dude, judging by his picture. I guess I shouldn't expect that he'd rush the car, rip the door off its' hinges and beat the shit out of the rapist. And, sticking around to help, getting the license plate number and calling the cops is more than a lot of people would've done. A lot of people would've just walked on by, ignored the situation, not gotten involved. That's not my beef with this story. Laurin did the right thing. Does that make him a hero? Or, did he just do something human? I don't know if it's for me to decide. I'm not tooting this dudes' horn, I'm just trying to report the facts as I understand them.

Anyways, so the cops showed up, took the info and presumably got the woman to a hospital, but I don't know, because that's where the story stops giving a shit about her. And her assailant, who apparently hasn't been caught yet, even though the cops have his plate number. No, the status of the attacker and victim both are unknown, but what I do know is that apparently Michel Laurin is a honest to goodness hero for calling the cops. He got an award. And the transit union of Ottawa is using this story to get positive publicity for their otherwise hated bus drivers. Isn't that nice? That woman could've died from her injuries and we have no fucking idea. Because what this story is saying is: that's not the real story here. The REAL story is one of dudely heroics and quick-man-thinking! The writer should be fucking ashamed! Who the fuck uses a brutal rape and beating as a goddamn backdrop to an "extraordinary citizen" piece?!?!

Only one or two of the comments pick up on this line of thinking. Most people are too busy metaphorically patting this dude on the back to wonder what happened to the victim, or why the police haven't caught the rapist, or why it took two and a half MONTHS for anyone to hear about this assault in the first place. It's depressing. The news media is oftentimes guilty of the objectification of women, but to turn a human's tragedy into a pedestal upon which to shine the spotlight on a 'hero' who's only act of heroism should be considered basic human decency and to not even follow up on her (the victims') condition in the aftermath of all of this is just reprehensible. But, it happens all the time in the news. If something happens, and both men and women are involved, the bulk of the coverage will be spent on the men, while the women will be reduced to mere sidebar mentions. Unless, of course, they're just shown as whatever photos some pervert decided to take from their Facebook pages.

The long and short of it is, the news, like most every other form of media in today's world, still views men as more important than women, still views women as mere objects for the servitude and gratification of men and will shirk proper coverage of stories to either glorify the men they deem 'heroic' or dehumanize women who would otherwise be human beings.

Yet Another Example Of Why Most Everybody Sucks

I've stated before that I usually don't write about U.S. politics, due to my lack of knowledge about differences between Canadian/U.S. legal and electoral systems. However, here's something I think I have a grasp well enough on to make some snide remarks. Here goes:

Hey, has anyone here heard of Herman Cain?

Yup, I'm talking about THAT Herman Cain. Republican presidential candidate and full-time rapist Herman Cain. Misogynist extraordinaire Herman Cain. First ever "Second Black President" Herman Cain. You know the dude. He's been in the news a bit lately. Seems over the years ol' Herman raped a woman or twelve. Oh, excuse me, sexually assaulted. That's what they're calling it, right? No, oh sorry, sexually harassed. 'Cuz... he didn't... or the rules are... or something. Anyways, there's a big thirteen year extramarital affair hanging over his head now, too. Hoo-wee! Herman, he sure loves the ladeez, amirite? However, one would think hope that due to all these fairly blatant crimes he's committed against women, his approval rating would be falling faster than R.I.M. shares (zing!). But, you'd be wrong. Because Herman Cain is claiming a "groundswell" of support in the face of these many, many accusations against his character. Yes, a groundswell. Whatever the fuck that is. This guy gropes women left, right and center and has been cheating on his wife with a steady mistress for thirteen years and people still fucking love him! What the fucking fuck?

It's so damn depressing sometimes, because if Herman Cain had been a female candidate (especially a democrat, you better believe it) people would be hanging him (her?) out to dry. To be fair, I suppose his approval rating has actually dropped some since all these stories started breaking, but not nearly enough. And he continues his campaign! He believes that he's done nothing wrong! He still thinks he can be president! What the hell? I heard he even tried to head off this affair business by saying something along the lines of "I won't say who, but someone is going to come forward and say something nasty about me. So don't believe it." What are we here, five? "Mom, Dad, you might hear some things about me and your broken lamp in the next little while. Now, I'm not gonna say who from, but I'm here to tell you, whatever you hear, don't believe it." Uh-huh. Nothing inspires trust like asking for blind faith in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. Well, it works for Jesus, I guess.

The thing that really sucks, though, is that people still support Herman Cain. People (mostly dudes, duh) are so quick to accuse the victims of Cains' attacks (and that's what they were, attacks, make no mistake) of grubbing for the camera, looking for their fifteen minutes, trying to get rich quick, all while ignoring the fact that no woman has ever gotten rich or famous (infamous, maybe, to dudely dudes) in this way. Herman Cain is a misogynist, therefore he has the support of all other misogynists. There's a code, a bro code amongst woman-haters. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some dudes started to like Cain because of all the accusations. And that's just so fucking scary I can barely deal with it. The more you hate women, the more dudes like you. What the fuck kind of society is this? How can anyone look you in the eye and tell you that it's not an oppressive, misogynist fucking patriarchal empire while looking at the smug-ass grin on Herman Cains' oh-so-guilty-but-getting-away-with-it face? Cain says these allegations are just a smear campaign cooked up by his competitors to attack his character, reputation and name, but he doesn't "believe that America is going to let that happen."

Unfortunately, I think I agree with him on that.

The Male Definition of 'Honor' Seems Lacking...

Honor killings. You've probably heard of them. If not, to summarize, honor killing is a practice in which men defend their "personal honor" and the honor of their family name by killing their female relations if and when they step outta line. Although the numbers fluctuate depending on your source, anywhere between 5,000 to 20,000 women and girls are killed (honorably) every year. To drive the point home, here's the currently accepted definition of honor killing, from the group Human Rights Watch:

Honor killings are acts of vengeance, usually death, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that "dishonors" her family is sufficient to trigger an attack on her life.

 This is a practice that is alive and thriving today, all over the world. It happens "there", in the uncivilized nations that lack our "compassion, understanding and humanity" and it happens here, in our own neighborhoods. While men technically can be the victim of an honor killing, I'd like to point out that:

1) While it is agreed that minimum 5,000 women and girls are killed in the name of honor per year, the number of males killed for honor is nowhere near that, hovering somewhere around 200-250 per year.

2) There is virtually no evidence to show that a heterosexual male has ever been killed in the name of honor, even though they could be killed by members of the family of a woman with whom they are perceived to have an inappropriate relationship.

So, as you can see, honor killings happen to women and girls, and sometimes homosexual men, but mostly women and girls. Which brings us to this. Four females are dead. An honor killing is suspected. There is a virtual fucking mountain of evidence, forensic and otherwise, to implicate the father, Mohammad Shafia and his other child, his male child, Hamid Mohammad Shafia in their deaths. His (Mohammad senior's) current wife, Tooba Mohammad Yehya is also implicated in the crimes, but if the beatings and threats that Shafias' first wife and daughters faced paint any picture, it would seem that Yehya would have had little choice whether to be involved or not.

The girls were routinely beaten and threatened. They lived in constant fear of their father and brother. Youth protection had been called on more than one occasion. The eldest daughter, Zainab Shafia, had run away and both of the other two girls had repeatedly told authorities they were afraid and wanted to leave the family home. And then, they all wind up dead, with their mother in the car, just days after someone had used the family computer to Google things like "where to commit a murder" and "bodies of water".

The trial is already underway. The plaintiffs have all plead "not guilty". Mohammad Shafia wants to know if this happened because his daughters were "drugged or choked" even though the autopsies performed twelve hours after the drownings have detected no drugs or signs of choking. I believe he thinks he can get away with this. I believe he does not care that his daughters and first wife are dead. I believe that he did not think that they were human enough to live and now thinks that he should not be punished, but oh, these pesky backwards Canadian laws! His crocodile tears and false act of postmortem concern don't fucking fool me for a second. I smell a rat. And I'd smell one even without the skyscraper's worth of evidence pointing the finger straight at daddy dearest.

The scariest thing is, honor killings seem to be on the rise in Canada. This seems to be common knowledge but, and here's the real kicker, no one really seems to be doing anything about it. Just like the neighborhood that just knows that Mr. Johnson down the street simply couldn't be a pedophile (!), everyone seems to think that they'd know if there were honor killings going on in their neighborhood, and since there obviously aren't, well it's not their problem, is it? Ask most white Canadians and they'll tell you "well, that's, like, an Arab thing, right? So, like, I don't really, like, think about it or whatever." But, no. Because even if it is an "Arab thing" or an "East Indian thing" or a "Whatever other group thing", if dudes keep getting away with it, other men will start to notice. And when they do, what's to stop it from becoming a "Mormon thing" or a "Jewish thing" or even a "Catholic thing"? And if that happens, well, then it just becomes a "normal thing" and women and girls are even more fucked in the Western World than they already are now.

There should be no leniency on those found guilty of committing honor killings. If your precious fucking "honor" is really more important than a real human life to you, then you should be locked up forever, having no contact with the outside world, especially those you consider yourself superior to. The concept of dudely honor is fucked anyways, in that dudes have honor, and the women in their lives reinforce that honor by being pure. But, according to the tenets of dudely honor, ladies have no honor, they're just things with which you prove your honor to other dudes. And if another dude gets your lady-honor-marker-thing dirty, well you get rid of that dirty lady-thing, right? I mean, forget about the dude that brutalized your female relative, she's damaged goods, man! How's that going to make you look to the brothers down at the lodge? Oh, and P.S.: fuck you, dude.

The bottom line is, that if only men can have honor, ladies can never be safe. And since dudes are never going to let women be honored or honorable in the same way as men are, the whole concept of familial honor has to go. Now. Today, preferably. Because if not, this won't be the last time women and girls are dredged up out of the Kingston river in the name of "honor".