Life Is Not Purgatory

I Am Lazarus’ Boiling Rage

There was an incident at Boston Pizza’s last night between Dave, Co-Co and myself. Apparently according to Dave, I went “a tad too far”. I don’t agree, go figure.

If I am in the middle of an discussion dealing with one of my hot-button topics (in this case pontificating on our legal system and child pornography and rape in specific) someone outside the discussion, interrupting me in mid-point to ask a question completely unrelated to the discussion is both rude and disruptive to the conversation. The least that could be done is to wait for the current point to be made and then excuse yourself and then interject with the question:
- Pardon me, but (Name)…
- Excuse me, but (Name)…
- (Name), excuse me but…
Not:
"Do you know if (Other Person – [who I don’t really know that well]) is coming here tonight, he’s supposed to?"That’s rude.

When I’m on the phone for work then start to talk at me and I indicate to wait a minute, parroting my gesture back at me - when you are going to be asking me to do a favour for you is also rude.

When I place a call to the only person I know, that I believe would be with (Other Person), and you dismiss it as ‘giving up’ when it kicks directly into voicemail is also rude.

When after all of this, you persist and ask to borrow my cell phone to call people, then proceed to pour over my phone list with heavy amounts of sarcasm and dumbass giggling without actually USING the phone… that too is rude.

When all this is done without a single please or thank you – I have a right to be mad, and I still am. I'll demand my cell phone that you are 'playing with' back, and let you know how entirely displeased I am withthe entire debacle. If that's going to far, too damned bad.

Exercise
I out ran someone today… or rather I caught someone I was chasing. I had a report of someone breaking into cars in the lot next door, so I had my GSR’s call the police while I went to check into it. The two young girls looked guilty as hell, which was mad even worse when her screwdriver fell out of her bag two feet from me. So I told them to stay put for the police to arrive, and they bolted… and I caught one. After a bout 2 minutes of struggling and having dropped everything she stole she squirmed out of her jacket and bolted again… but I still caught her the first time!

Next time I’ll just haul her to the ground and sit on her… no way she’ll escape from that.

Of Creeps and Men
Anna brought up John Sharpe child pornography case in her comments on my last post. When the original uproar first hit about judicial leniency in this case, I must admit a certain degree of anger over the decision. However, instead of boisterously denouncing Justice Shaw as many did I actually downloaded and read the judgement and the applicable section of the criminal code.

While good intentioned, the law as it stood (and as it currently still stands (although curtailed by the standing judgement of the Supreme Court), it far too broad. The definition of child pornography makes baby pictures taken in a bath illegal, as well a great deal of anime and other recreational reading. It is in these cases that the power of the Judiciary is most important and should not be undermined in any way. At least one of our branches of government is working properly.

John Robin Sharpe was retried under a more strict interpretation of the law handed down by the Supreme Court, convicted on two counts but found not guilty on the balance.

I've made my position on child molesters and rapists perfectly clear (Tuesday, June 17, 2003), and yet I still support the decision of Justice Shaw.

Progressive?
I would venture a guess that I am likely to be the one of the most politically ‘conservative’ individuals within my circle of friends. I voted Canadian Alliance in the last federal election, and Reform before that. My fiscally conservative views are fairly well-defined. I consider a great deal of our national resources to be spent without the required accountability, that taxes are too high and labour movements tend to cause more harm than good in an industrialized nation. I beleive in the social safety net, but feel it is far to easy to abuse. I believe in public health care, but find a 9-month wait for an MRI to be unacceptable. I beleive in capital punishment, but in the nessesity of reform in our justice system before we could ever hope to implement it. I am a moderate conservative.

There is a raging debate in our country about the topic of judicial activism; most of this hype is fear mongering from conservative think tanks, and special interest groups, which have issues with socially progressive changes to the fabric of our society. Politics is inherently regressive and it is my submission that the vast majority of progressive changes to our society are not accomplished and enshrined in our legal framework by the legistlature, or the executive, but by the decisions of the judiciary or are started there.

In Canada, five women had to petition the courts to redefine the term ‘person’ used in the BNA Act (1867). Under the Canadian Constitution women were not persons under the law. It took years of legal wrangling but eventually after a decision by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England – women were accorded all the rights and privileges under the law.

Brown v. Board of Education (US)
- Effectively ending segregation and boosting the civil rights movement.

Lawrence v. Texas (US)
- Decriminalization of same-gender sodomy as a violation of the 14th Amendment equal-protection provisions.

Hendricks et al. v. Attorney General of Canada et al. (Quebec)
Halpern et al. v. Attorney General of Canada et al. (Ontario)
Barbeau v. British Columbia
- Legalization of same-sex marriage.

It is the courts that consistently reform our society, for if it was left to politicians who must worry about re-election, only popular progress would ever be made. Consider now that the Canadian Senate is being filibustered to stop the passage of an amendment to the Hate Crime law to cover sexual orientation… on the grounds that such a change in defination may cause certain passages of the bible to be considered hate literature:
Conservative Religious Spin

Get real already… the same judicial activism that grants my friends their right to be gay, will protect your rights to be bigoted and intolerant… welcome to Canada and read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Extremists piss the hell out of me.

Lap(top) Dancing
I have been fighting with this freaking laptop all-day. I had to toss out my old desktop computer because it was archaic, and rather than shell out cash for a new desktop unit, we just decided to turn my laptop into a desktop. Oy! It's much harder than it sounds... and while this thing is 100x faster than the old piece of #@&%, it's a little short on RAM so we are going to have to buy new DIMM's.

Apparently people have been telling Dave that I am stressing out over Purgatory... which isn't true... how can I be stressed about Purgatory... when Dave's been doing all the website loading (mostly 'cuz I don't have admin access to the site yet).

Other than that things are pretty darned swell... Purgatory in two weeks, a new boss I like, I hire my assistant tommorow and sooner or later people will figure out what I'm not allowed to talk about... or else.

Blog-Humbug
A weblog is a venue for self-expression, while a diary is a personal method of introspection. While you are generally free to put whatever you want in your weblog, you must do so with the knowledge that anything you choose to place on your blog has entered the public domain.

The utility of a blog should not be underestimated. I know people who because their own emotional baggage, maintain a blog under a pseudonym both as a manner of introspection and self-expression. Many of my friends have major personal ghosts in their past that continue to haunt them to this day; they find it very difficult to discuss matters face to face coherently without being overcome by the weight of such emotional baggage. In this medium even the most socially inept person can place their feelings down for their friends to read and gain support from them, without having the immediate self-conscious doubts stopping them mid-conversation in person.

People may have privacy concerns, and that is completely understandable, and for the most part I am careful naming individuals in my blog I if I am unsure of possible concerns of that nature from them. Heck, for a long while I kept trying to use a male pronoun when referring to Raven (a personal quirk of hers). If you don’t like being named let the author know and they will ‘scrub it’ clean (likely) or not (possible), but… it’s their blog… and you don’t have to read it, or any other for that matter.

This (barely-justified) rant courtesy of Co-Co, Binky and Dave, as well as my disclaimer clearly denoted on the left side of this page.

Follow Through
There are times I like to believe that I have a good singing voice, and yet there are times I wonder if my friends a simply humouring me… I’ve wanted to go carolling the past two Christmas seasons, not for any special religious reasons, simply because it’s the only time of year you can do that and get given hot chocolate by strangers for singing outside their house… other times of the year you are far more likely to get pelted with flower pots or rotten vegetables. Regardless, every year I say “Let’s go carolling”, I get support but yet they always fall through… hmm.

I make lots of plans that simply sit in idle:
- Lord of the Rings (7th Sea adaptation).
- Star Wars (tabletop chronicle).
- Christmas carolling.
- Tai Chi enrolment.
- Summer canoe trip.

Canoeing… I want to go canoeing this summer… but if I leave it to myself to plan it’s likely doomed to fall through. Help?

Rylock
Dave says I'm almost as catty as him, I would have to disagree... Yes, I am a nastier than Dave… but he is a far better diva than I. :)

Purgatory II characters are almost all done!!!