We're learning Lion Dancing right now.
And when I tell people about it, you'd be surprised how many people confuse it with "Line Dancing." The looks on their faces are really quite classic. It's as if they expect me to suddenly sprout giant shitkickers and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate.
But I digress.
Actually, all told, I'm quite happy with the way things have gone so far. I'm learning more than I ever thought possible in Kung Fu. I'm becoming a half-decent dancer. Quite impressive, considering that I currently buy my shoes in left pairs.
And, of course, having to stare at a young woman's butt for the duration of the dance is not exactly something that I find problematic.
All in all, I'm quite happy with the way things are turning out.
I'm really wracking my brain to see if I can remember the last time that my life was this good, and to be honest, I can't. Everything seems pretty much perfect for me right now. My career is starting to take off, my life is in some kind of order, I'm happy, I'm healthy...
April and I will be hiking the West Coast trail in August; just after we hit the two-year mark. My dad says that may make or break the relationship. Frankly, I don't think that it's something we really need to worry about. Seven days, 75 km. We've hiked trails that had roughly the same "miles per day" factor, and were much more strenuous. A friend of ours said that "if you can hike Three Isle Lake, then the West Coast Trail should be no problem." Three Isle was the first trail April and I ever hiked.
Suffice it to say that it's going to be something of an adventure; and I, for one, am really looking forward to it.
We're going to do a lot of weekender hikes this coming summer, once all the snow melts and we can get our butts out of town. I want to hit Three Isle again, just so that we can both see how much easier that trail is now than it was for us when we were just starting. I'd also like to hit Turbine Canyon. That's a little more grueling, but I think that we can manage that one pretty easily.
And April's a good hiking partner to have. I tell ya, that girl is tough with a capital "T." With all the things that went wrong on our first jaunt, I was shocked to find out that she wanted to go out and do it again, but go out we did, and we slowly escalated the level of difficulty until we were hiking Yoho at the end of the summer. Next summer's climax, methinks, is going to be the West Coast Trail.
The only problem is: what the hell are we going to do to top that!?
Monday, November 22, 2004
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Rant: What the hell is happening to my country!?
I'm was born straddling the border. My mother is an American, my father is Canadian. That makes me a man with two countries, and I'm proud of both of them.
Or more accurately, I'm proud of what they're supposed to represent. America is a country based on the principle that one's freedoms should extend to the limits of encroaching upon the freedoms of others.
Now we have a president who came into office with the appearance of a (admittedly, bible-thumping) moderate conservative; and in the last year, proposed an amendment to the constitution to ban gay marriage. Had it passed, it would have been the second amendment to the American Constitution in history designed specifically to limit the freedoms of its citizens (the first one was prohibition, which doesn't exactly set the best precedent). Over the last four years, his politics have shifted so far to the right that the country I love dearly is in serious danger of becoming a theocracy.
And now, he's just won re-election.
Think about that for a second: a man who has done more damage to the United States of America's economy, its international relations, and frankly, the way the country is viewed by the rest of the world, has just been re-elected.
And now, the American public has seen it fit to put him in a position where he can rewrite the bill of rights.
Make no mistake people, the Supreme court was on the ballot in this election. As many as three supreme court justices may step down from their positions in the next four years; in which case it falls to Bush to replace them. That's three justices out of nine; and two of the existing supreme court justices are already deep into the right end of the political spectrum: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and they're not the ones who are expected to die. Bush has stated that these two are his personal favorite justices, and so far the appointments he has made to lower courts support this assertion. To describe them as conservative is severely understating the matter. They have both, on repeated occasions, cast aside the very principles on which this country is supposed to be founded; separation of Church and State, the rights of the individual, constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and personal liberties; to make a ruling in accordance with their own ideals.
If it were up to them, the rights of minorities, homosexuals and the poor will be considerably hindered. They dissented when Texas' Anti-Gay laws were struck down in a case last year and they sided with the Police who had arrested a man for "homosexual activity" in his own home. They argued that a state courthouse was not required to act in accordance with the disabilites act and provide a wheelchair-accessible courtroom. They have argued that the separation of church and state need not apply to the individual states. They argued that the severe beating of a Louisiana inmate did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment." They have argued, repeatedly, for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.
And these, ladies and gentlemen, are Bush's favorite Supreme Court Justices.
Now imagine that instead of a mere two supreme court justices with such extreme conservative views (which, while annoying, is not of serious concern as long as we have the other seven balancing them out), we now have five. Enough to tip the majority of the supreme court towards the far right end of the political spectrum. Imagine, for a moment that the extreme views of Thomas and Scalia became the norm; that the ultraconservative views they held became the measure of law in America. Abortion would become illegal overnight. Homosexuals, or for that matter, unmarried heterosexuals could be arrested for having sex in their homes. Separation of Church and State would become a thing of the past. Prison guards could brutalize their inmates.
I was watching an interview the other day, clearly at one of the lineups to a polling station, where they asked a young woman standing in line who she was going to vote for. She said that she was going to vote for Bush. Fine, that's her perogative. Then they asked her why. Her answer, "because I believe that the Lord wants him to be president."
You believe that the Lord wants him to be president? Well, fine, let the Lord vote for him. America is a country founded on the principle that faith and government are separate entities. Religion should have no place in the running of government, and vice versa. America is a lot of things, but the one thing it is not is a theocracy, and even that may well not apply for long.
This may be seen as a somewhat paranoid rambling, but consider this: eleven states voted to ban gay marriage in this election. Eleven states managed to put it on their respective ballots in a country where the measure of law is supposed to be the separation of Church and State. Let's face it; there is no secular reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry. If you don't want your church to marry homosexuals, fine, talk to your Church, not the lawmakers, 'cause for America to be America, they shouldn't be listening.
We're now facing an America where the laws will no longer be made by the courts, or the lawmakers. We're facing an America where the laws are being made by the Church; which is exactly what America is not supposed to represent.
Or more accurately, I'm proud of what they're supposed to represent. America is a country based on the principle that one's freedoms should extend to the limits of encroaching upon the freedoms of others.
Now we have a president who came into office with the appearance of a (admittedly, bible-thumping) moderate conservative; and in the last year, proposed an amendment to the constitution to ban gay marriage. Had it passed, it would have been the second amendment to the American Constitution in history designed specifically to limit the freedoms of its citizens (the first one was prohibition, which doesn't exactly set the best precedent). Over the last four years, his politics have shifted so far to the right that the country I love dearly is in serious danger of becoming a theocracy.
And now, he's just won re-election.
Think about that for a second: a man who has done more damage to the United States of America's economy, its international relations, and frankly, the way the country is viewed by the rest of the world, has just been re-elected.
And now, the American public has seen it fit to put him in a position where he can rewrite the bill of rights.
Make no mistake people, the Supreme court was on the ballot in this election. As many as three supreme court justices may step down from their positions in the next four years; in which case it falls to Bush to replace them. That's three justices out of nine; and two of the existing supreme court justices are already deep into the right end of the political spectrum: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and they're not the ones who are expected to die. Bush has stated that these two are his personal favorite justices, and so far the appointments he has made to lower courts support this assertion. To describe them as conservative is severely understating the matter. They have both, on repeated occasions, cast aside the very principles on which this country is supposed to be founded; separation of Church and State, the rights of the individual, constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and personal liberties; to make a ruling in accordance with their own ideals.
If it were up to them, the rights of minorities, homosexuals and the poor will be considerably hindered. They dissented when Texas' Anti-Gay laws were struck down in a case last year and they sided with the Police who had arrested a man for "homosexual activity" in his own home. They argued that a state courthouse was not required to act in accordance with the disabilites act and provide a wheelchair-accessible courtroom. They have argued that the separation of church and state need not apply to the individual states. They argued that the severe beating of a Louisiana inmate did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment." They have argued, repeatedly, for the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.
And these, ladies and gentlemen, are Bush's favorite Supreme Court Justices.
Now imagine that instead of a mere two supreme court justices with such extreme conservative views (which, while annoying, is not of serious concern as long as we have the other seven balancing them out), we now have five. Enough to tip the majority of the supreme court towards the far right end of the political spectrum. Imagine, for a moment that the extreme views of Thomas and Scalia became the norm; that the ultraconservative views they held became the measure of law in America. Abortion would become illegal overnight. Homosexuals, or for that matter, unmarried heterosexuals could be arrested for having sex in their homes. Separation of Church and State would become a thing of the past. Prison guards could brutalize their inmates.
I was watching an interview the other day, clearly at one of the lineups to a polling station, where they asked a young woman standing in line who she was going to vote for. She said that she was going to vote for Bush. Fine, that's her perogative. Then they asked her why. Her answer, "because I believe that the Lord wants him to be president."
You believe that the Lord wants him to be president? Well, fine, let the Lord vote for him. America is a country founded on the principle that faith and government are separate entities. Religion should have no place in the running of government, and vice versa. America is a lot of things, but the one thing it is not is a theocracy, and even that may well not apply for long.
This may be seen as a somewhat paranoid rambling, but consider this: eleven states voted to ban gay marriage in this election. Eleven states managed to put it on their respective ballots in a country where the measure of law is supposed to be the separation of Church and State. Let's face it; there is no secular reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry. If you don't want your church to marry homosexuals, fine, talk to your Church, not the lawmakers, 'cause for America to be America, they shouldn't be listening.
We're now facing an America where the laws will no longer be made by the courts, or the lawmakers. We're facing an America where the laws are being made by the Church; which is exactly what America is not supposed to represent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
