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happy anna howard shaw day!

2011-02-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

just say NO to the super-commercialized hallmark made-up "holiday" that threw up everywhere today. unless you spent it eating chocolate and cookies and making out.

where's gwen?

2011-02-11T23:43:00.000-08:00

where did she go?? siiigh

i love her voice in this song, it's like it hasn't been tamed yet. i miss no doubt

on america being "great"

2011-02-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

This is the smartest thing ive ever read, I found it on the adbusters website, in a comment to a video about the protest in egypt. i just had to copy and paste, too bad the person didn't leave their name!

on revolution and america being "great":

"If something is great, then you need not say that it is great over and over. Greatness is a lie and rationalization for us to not look at ourselves and question why we refuse to become one with the rest of humanity and live for little else than material acquisition. We are not great- we are miserable, spiritually deprived and depraved. All the misery we create, we do so in the name of creating material goods which are all we have to vindicate our worth as human beings. We leave in our wake overseas sweat shops, wars and environmental destruction and we create it only so we can have things which say we are worthwhile. We are the bastard child of puritanism, which is based in Calvinist theological doctrine. The Calvinists believes God's chosen people would be identified by their success and luck in this life. We are just one step away from pure selfish materialism in that we don't bury ourselves with our BMW's, in the style of ancient Egypt.

The lesson is that the greatest weakness of humankind is fear of death, fear of what awaits at the end of this life journey. Our pathalogical materialism has its roots in the human fear of death, as we create mythology to dispell our fear of our imminent death and our weakness as flesh and blood creatures. This is why we feel the need to persecute the poor and nearly torture the unfortunate because we project the reality of our humanity onto them. The poor are like modern human sacrifices. We crush them to claim ourselves immune to misfortune.

No matter where you live, aggression and hate of the poor happens. Even in our most supposedly enlightened cities, even the poor during the recession are thought to be all drug addicts or crazy. There is much self aggrandizing amongst the affluent. The problem is these people have utterly lost their moral compass- hell even their rational compass. Driving an SUV and willfully destroying the only precious habital planet it is possible to reach with our best technology-- this shows, it proves that we are completely insane. We are dripping in fear and insecurity, awash with self-justification and somehow oblivious to reality.

Notice how all SUV's right now have tinted glass in the windows. Notice how now most all of them are manufactured to look like a giant fat ass from the rear. Really, someone should break out the paint and paint a big rear end on one of them. The way they shove in front of you with no regard, it seems like some socially permissible way to be fat and greedy. Except the overweight, whom many are that way due to issues like hypothyroidism and poor food choice being rammed up people's lives, get mistreated. Yet, you can guzzle up the entire oil reserves of Venezuela and not somehow be a "hog" but have stature.

We are simply so miserable a people because we won't attempt to stand out and be ethical- we hide behind our possessions to avoid being pillaried for not "making it." When will we learn self worth has nothing to do with things and is our innate birthright? We become good people when we see our innate worth- seeing it in others comes naturally. To me it feels like the rich, ownership class manipulates us into servitude and slavery to satiate its insane power fantasies.

People revolt elsewhere because they haven't had their self worth and souls murdered in the name of mindless, self-perpetuating materialism. Worse we are paranoid in this country that disregard for being wage slaves means the world will collapse in self-indulgent hedonism. We do seem to have this thing going where we say it is okay to abuse people (the poor) because if we didn't everyone would not do a damned thing. We have no faith in human nature and our innate capacity and need to create and love. Abuse isn't the only motivator for human behavior. Really, I think the problem is that people fear facing that people are good underneath and we don't need the whip to function and that their entire lives are based on a lie that says the opposite of this.

In Germany, workers get time off just to drink beer at work. All Europeans work less and have more time to think and enjoy. Americans are manic workaholics, who live to abuse each other into running off the cliff along with them. All we do is overwork ourselves for nothing and the socially acceptable way to dump the feelings of meaninglessness, betrayal and abuse is on those who have less than them. We are just like the pyramid on our dollar bill, where we make those underneath us bear our weight, while we bear the weight of our superiors. Then there is the capstone at the top where the spoiled billionaires dwell.

And what for?? To build a structure close enough to the heavens for those scared corporate monarchs to reach some sort of fucking immortality? It's probably close to something that *logical* and *rational.* We may as well be toiling in the desert for our Madison Avenue pharohs. We are just as "primitive" as our ancestors when you come down to it.

In reality, I'd respect our culture more if we did bury ourselves with our Gap clothes, Mc Mansions and American Apparel wear. We don't even understand our own true religion, our own social imperatives and for what its worth, the Ancient Egyptians did."

stupid quote of the day

2010-12-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

random internet commenter:

"[about indigenous populations]

How is it that when the Spaniards, the French, the Portuguese, and the British went to colonise different islands around the world? How would the people have gotten there if there were no airplanes? The distances would have been too far for that many people to take a boat, so how did they get there? Did the land masses just "magically" move, such as your flawed theory of plate techtonics says? Did humans once have wings and then lose them through "natural selection"?

If you can't answer this, then there is no other logical explaination than God did it and that Jesus Christ is the Lord."

from this website, full of gems!!!

one more (about evolution):

"bats are birds because they fly and look like birds. that's how we define things: by looking at them.

[later]

ostriches are birds because they look like birds. flight is not necessary, if they are enough similar to a bird.

i wouldn't call penguins birds because they look kinda weird. a little birdish, but not entirely birds. they are waterbirds.

i think it's foolish to say that an animal is a different kind of animal just because it is warmblooded or coldblooded, or if it lays eggs instead of children, because a normal person can't even notice if a creature has warm blood or not, only scientists can do that, so scientists can have their definitions and we normal people have our own"

asdkjksd

2010-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

unicorn rainbow land

2010-12-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

ha!

so pretty

2010-12-02T22:21:00.000-08:00

"The different colors of the rose depict different emotions with the yellow rose being the symbol of joy, white is for reverence and pink is considered the rose of sympathy and admiration. The white rose was considered the rose of purity in medieval times and was such given to ladies who had not yet lost their virginity. The red rose is the rose of love and covers all aspects of love from romantic gestures to sacred love of family and faith."

Thanksgiving makes me uncomfortable

2010-12-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

This was on Raine's blog first, and I know that Thanksgiving was a long time ago, but this is important

I like Angelina Jolie a teeny bit more now for not celebrating the systematic genocide of First Nations people!

i need to make a freaking blog post for my best friend raine

2010-11-16T22:38:00.000-08:00

10 reasons why i want to live in vancouver:

1) raine willow, if she doesn't live in America by the time i move there since that's what she wants to be when she grows up. an American

2) hopefully bff/gf V will be there too and we will have 3-7 cats

3) it is the most livable city in the world

4) hopefully less dudebros and whoo girls

5) sometimes you can find brand new 52" flat screen TVs with the required cords, just by going for a walk

6) also pretty new dressers

7) better transit

8) orcas <3

9) better music/culture/cooler things to do all the time

10) better sushi probably (too bad it makes V frown...she hates seaweed!!)

ps 2 blog posts lately about vancouver...i am such a dork

my halloween costume

2010-10-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

vancouver

2010-10-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

i want to liiiive here so freaking bad. this is where my heart belongs, i know that. how beautiful is this city.

kimmy will you take me to all the neat places??

remember this?

2010-10-13T02:27:00.000-07:00

slowing down at barely yellow lights so we could hold hands for a little bit longer. taking the long way to my house. so obviously in love but so in denial about it.

i am reminiscing so much these days, i guess because the dust has finally settled so i can actually see clearly everything in our past. it was too cloudy and chaotic before, i didn't dare look behind me. now i can see...and i love looking back at everything we've gone through. it seems like our love will never go away.

love all ways

2010-10-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

today a boy on the train read us a poem he wrote for the girl he loves...not that he admitted to loving her. but seriously, you don't write poems for people you don't love. he asked us, "if you could sum up love in one word, what would it be?" you said "infinite". i like that. love is a sacrifice, he said. i don't believe in it. it means giving something up. this is true, but it also means letting the other person give something up equally for you. it means being vulnerable and exposed and embracing the terrifying unstable exhilarating feeling. exposing souls and intertwining them, a deliciously painful feeling. negative personal space. he asked us if we know anyone who is actually in love and having fun. we both said "well we're doing alright, that's for sure". he said "you're both in love?" just as we were pulling into the station where we had to get off. you asked me if you should tell him, you wanted to tell him. i didn't know...you said "come on, we'll never see him again". he repeated - "you'll never see me again!".

"i'm in love with her!" you said as we wheeled our bikes off the train, giggling, watching his mouth gape open in disbelief. we felt so proud to say it. so proud to say "she's mine". maybe we convinced him that love is real, it exists!

"love has nothing to do with what you're expecting to get - only what you're expecting to give - which is everything"

i love this quote

2010-09-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

"Walsh says she doesn't feel like labels are important. 'They can connect to a pecking order of the 'gold star lesbian' being more legit or more truly evolved than someone who has a more diverse sexual history,' she said. 'I also think that if we cling too hard to a particular self-identification, it can blind us to the full spectrum of what feeds our souls — and can make us more prone to judgment, and too rigid about others' situations. Instead of parsing and arguing and classifying, we could be spending that time making out, or meditating, or having some really groundbreaking new conversations.'"

from this article, about the fluidity of sexuality.

in which i rant and foam at the mouth

2010-09-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Canadian Center for Bioethical Reform's anti-choice Genocide Awareness Project display is back on campus tomorrow for 2 days, which of course will send me into a ranty bitchy mood for at least a week. They attempt to draw a comparison between the Holocaust, lynching of blacks in the United States, and the Rwandan genocide with abortion. They also perpetuate common anti-choice propaganda such as the claim that abortions cause breast cancer and that abortions are dangerous.

Despite the fact that most people at university are annoyed and disturbed by this triggering, racist, nauseating display of ignorance and stupidity, they are still somehow allowed to be here. By all means, have a reasonable discourse on abortion. But do not exploit dead people of colour who you would not normally give 2 shits about to further your agenda. Do not pretend you care about horrific racist events in our history to further your agenda. Do not shove your misinformed opinions down my throat. Do not compare women and health care providers to Nazis. And do not blatantly lie to women about how abortion affects their health.

"Pro-life" is a funny term for these people to call themselves. They certainly don't seem to be very "pro-life" and so I refuse to call them that. If they were pro-life they would take into account the lives that already exist in this world. They obviously cannot see that far past themselves.

If the "pro-life" movement really cared about reducing abortions, they would:

1) make birth control cheaper and more accessible
2) improve the quality of sex education, and stop abstinence-only
3) support single mothers and fathers
4) support pregnant women in making sure they get the best healthcare possible
5) support low income families
6) help make the adoption process easier and more efficient
7) care about women's health at all, ever

as it stands, the anti-choice movement does not do any of these things. They badger and pester women to keep their babies in the most difficult of situations, calling them murderers if they do choose abortion, then on the occasion a woman keeps her baby, leaving her in the cold as soon as it's born.

In no other instance is one person required to give up their body or parts of their body for another. A parent is not required by law to give their child a kidney or bone marrow. But somehow women are required to give up their bodies for a baby that they may not be able to love or care for properly.

Let's be real. The motive of the anti-choice movement is to make sure that women are never in ownership of their own bodies.

On a related note, here is a funny poster making fun of GAP's tactics:

excuse me while i'm the coolest ever

2010-09-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

idol

can i please have 0.00007% of your confidence!!!

this ones for you, groceries!!!

2010-08-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

ha haha hahaha

what a lame stupid video. but i know you love this song!!!

ayyoooo

how do you like my new look

2010-08-31T22:24:00.001-07:00

this photo takes my breath away!!! looking at it is exhilarating because heights scare the shit out of me.

and so does this song (takes my breath away, not scare the shit out of me): the organ - let the bells ring

might be the most underrated band of all time. they only have a handful of songs and it should be considered a crime. whoa and i just rhymed!

sounds eery and dark and depressing but light at the same time.

"i live under a bell-shaped curve for being average"

thank you V

2010-08-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

could not think of anything cuter!!! you are theee beessstttt

eat pray love

2010-08-31T22:15:00.000-07:00

reminiscing about Victoria with Kimmy, watching eat pray love which was more like eat cry cry for us. with an incredibly noisy but good-for-the-environment chip bag.

This will be me in a few months!!!! on a journey of self-reflection and discovery

Also missing beautiful Victoria, my future home city

the ocean is toooo beautiful.

fatima fatima

2010-08-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

she spoke arabic and swahili, she'd say upendo anta habibi

mind = blown

2010-08-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

past present future which do you live in??

i might be a present oriented hedonist. certainly NOT future oriented!

werd.

2010-08-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

said way more intelligently than i could ever say it!! stick that in your pipe and smoke it

my horoscope...

2010-08-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

has been right on target lately

Let friendship be your focus today. If you have noticed recently that you seem to have the same problems or challenges with making relationships work, this is the perfect time to study and perfect your communication skills. If a particular relationship is troubled right now, you should really address your concerns so that you don't allow this person to fall through the cracks. If you don't nurture and maintain your friendships, they cannot continue to grow and thrive. Someone important in your life needs your attention.

and yesterday:

Don't let fatigue get the best of you. If you're falling-down tired then it is only logical to remedy the situation. Whether you've been hard at work burning the candle at both ends, or indulging in a bit too much social activity, you really need to adjust your habits. You may feel as though you're fitting in as much work or fun as possible because you want to seize the day, but over time it could be getting to you, and it could begin to affect your work and your relationships. Take better care of yourself.

revealing biases

2010-08-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

here is an interesting Harvard study, and the related implicit association tests that anyone can do.

These tests try to reveal biases people have towards race, gender, sexuality, skin tone, age, weight, even countries (US vs. Canada). It is not hard to believe that when the results from this study were compiled, it was found that most people automatically prefer white over black, thin over fat, and straight over gay, as well as holding some pretty stereotypical views on which gender is better at science or humanities.

I've only done the weight test myself, and surprise! The results are in and I slightly prefer thin over fat. These tests prove that racism, sexism, fatphobia and homophobia, among others, are structural problems and are not a matter of individual opinion or choice. Everyone has ingrained biases that are extremely difficult to get rid of because of the constant messages we are fed by society.