Strutting and Fretting on the BC Law Society's Stage ("compelled pronoun usage")

(See  https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/ian-mulgrew-b-c-lawyers-wont-debate-courts-new-pronouns-policy-as-hateful-resolution-fails )

Two resolutions have been presented at the Law Society of BC: one to force use of "gender inclusive" language in court, and another which alleges that this would endanger free speech and silence politically incorrect views. That's an attack on the equality of non-binary people, was the hyperbolic retort to that allegation. All this turns the courts of B.C. into "politically correct theatre", charge the supporters of Resolution number 2. 

No! Really? Law courts theatrical? They certainly provide comedy at times.

Courts of law have of course always been theatrical, filled with costumed actors playing strict roles, delivering grand soliloquy or clown-speak, strutting and fretting their hour on the stage and trying on different masks, like the defendant cited in the BC Law Society's showdown who has "already changed gender once during their case and they’re still at the bail segment". (see Vancouver Sun, above)

Of course this drama wasn't created by the Law Society, it was imported from the wider culture, where many folks remain bemused about whatever "misgendering non-binary people" through pronouns might mean. 

Many of us are just pro-noun. Here's a good noun: "farce". It means a type of drama designed "to excite laughter," and also means "an absurdly futile proceeding". No doubt we've only seen Act One of the Law Society Misgendering Comedy, and many characters still wait in the wings, still intending to demand their pound of flesh.

For more on "compelled pronoun usage", see https://quillette.com/2021/10/08/weekly-roundup-and-the-harassment-of-dorian-abbott-and-kathleen-stock/

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City Life -- What do we want in a next door neighbour?

The Ideal Neighbour

-- never whistles

-- has a dog who doesn't bark

-- has a cute kid or two who wave over the fence but never shriek 

-- grows foliage in his garden 

-- has no surveillance cameras 

-- doesn't put an officious Neighbourhood Watch sign in the window 

-- keeps to himself which lives he thinks matter

-- doesn't put election signs on the lawn

-- waters the lawn

-- hates loud music

-- thinks "hip-hop" is what robins do on the lawn after he waters it

-- possesses no leaf blower, chainsaw or drill

-- has a good high hedge

-- doesn't keep saying we should get together

-- doesn't move away

-- continues never to whistle 

First Year University, and the Snowflakes are Experiencing Meltdowns

The university grounds are covered in slush -- left over from melt-downs of all the snowflakes in First Year. First Year students, so the journalists tell us, mark the beginning of the fall term by having a "difficult transition" from high school. They are "encountering obstacles" and must "manage stress not previously experienced". They must "make personal decisions not part of the high school landscape" and "do a lot of reading" with "unfamiliar words and complicated sentence and paragraph structure". (Yes. Really.) They will need help from an Academic Adviser, say the media advice-merchants, if not also therapy and medication. 

Baby-boomers were so lucky. For us, transition to University was liberation. We wouldn't have gone near an Academic Adviser. Our parents never set foot on campus until the day we graduated and got a degree.* Nobody told us we were going to have "obstacles and difficult transitions" and "stress not previously experienced" … so we didn't. What we experienced was adulthood. (And maybe a bit of S,D & R&R -- but that's a different topic ...)

And we already knew how to read. It started with "phonics" back then, and left most of us quite used to "complicated sentence and paragraph structure". That was what grade school used to teach -- not inclusion, diversity and victimhood lessons. 

Here's the paradox: it seems kids who have grown up in daycare since birth, spending little time at home or with parents, often not knowing grandparents who got lost in the step-family roundabout, have ended up without independence. They're without the emotional hardiness of past generations like their ancestors who made it through World Wars I and II, surviving bombing, poverty, immigration, and learning trades (or becoming scholars) to become financially independent. (Did today's kids got lost in a virtual digital video wilderness?)

Of course, every generation says how great the earlier fore-mothers and -fathers were ... but we do have to wonder what's going on when the media make "starting university" sound like transportation to an Australian outback prison camp in the 18th century. 

* SEE ALSO: https://satiricalscene.blogspot.com/2020/09/first-day-never-do-anything-by.html

Colonies and Canadian Indigenous Groups

Recent Social Studies Essay Topic in BC Schools - Impacts of the
Colonial Era on Indigenous Canadians

Proposition: No positive impacts resulted from the colonial period of Canadian history*, so discontinuation of institutions and services originating in colonial times, and eviction of descendants of European settlers, is advisable. DISCUSS.  

Describe your vision of Canadian life after the following colonialist institutions are banned:

Legislative assemblies, Parliament, elected representation

Courts of Law, trial by jury, equal rights legislation, Legal Aid

Land Title Offices and property acquisition (except through raids and warfare)

Income Assistance/welfare 

ferry service (e.g. BC Ferries)

trains

cars (and everything else involving wheels)

electricity

building maintenance

road maintenance

banks

farms (food henceforth to be gathered, dug, or killed by spear)

wineries, breweries, pubs, orchestras

dentistry, surgery, medical imaging, pharmacies, painkilling pharmaceuticals

schools, universities, professional degrees, science labs

books, publishing, literacy and computers

Supplementary Question: Should governments dictate the Correct Study of History, and the content of school curricula?

* "Mother Fuming" -- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/prince-george-school-assignment-colonies-indigenous-1.6176059

Muses File Complaint Against BC Museum

Royal BC Museum apologizes "we are not the museum we should be", after racism and discrimination complaint was filed (Times Colonist, June 29, 2021). In November, 2021 it vows to "decant" its galleries and "install" exhibitions of anti-colonial history around Victoria. May 13, 2022 it announces closure for cultural-sanitation for the next eight years.

*

Responding to the filing of museum employees' human rights complaint, the nine classical Muses have accused the Museum of racist discrimination against THEIR heritage and culture: “As our home (“Seat of the Muses”), a Museum should be sheltering and protecting us, not throwing us to ethnic and identitarian wolves”, says Calliope, Chief of the Muses.

In a document crafted by Melpomene (Muse of Tragedy), Thalia (Comedy) and Polyhymnia (Rhetoric), the group charges that they are victims of hate speech and ethnic cleansing.

“Clio, Muse of History, is the particular target of hate speech." Many people have already claimed that “History Is Dead”, and now they wish also to eradicate History's mother, Mnemosyne (Memory).

Although Clio's enemies try to “disappear” her she keeps recurring. “History is what it was,” she assures supporters. She leaves a trail of documents, letters, songs, memoirs, statues, gravestones, globes and charts so that scholarly detectives can still trace her to places where her enemies have imprisoned her. These scholars often work under cover, secret-agent style.

The Muses, filing their complaint with the Rights Agency, have documented civil rights abuses by chapter and verse, confirms Euterpe, Muse of Verse.

“We will not let the judge dance around the issues,” vows Terpsichore, Muse of Dance.

“We'll sing our own praises,” add Erato and Melpomene (Song and Speech).

Their children (Orpheus and the Sirens) will with their world-music band of that name mark the launch of the Muses' Rights Complaint with a celebratory concert at Mount Olympus Park. The human race is invited to attend.

Change of Vocabulary, Post-COVID

We hope we've inoculated COVID away,

and want certain phrases also not to stay

Let's hear no more of “vaccination”,

“plexiglass” and hand sanitation

Don't say “lockdown” or mention a mask,

and who's been vaccinated let's not ask

Don't say “challenged”, don't say “bubble”,

all reference to “distance” reminds us of trouble

Let's stop saying “tunnel”, with light at the end of,

or planks or curves we flattened the bend of

Don't say “essential” of services or workers,

or visitors, travel, or "virtual-shirkers"

Don't say “needle” or even “arm”,

which reminds us of horrors and causes alarm

Hospitals: stop saying “herd immunity”

and “respirator” with impunity

To skip all reference is wiser,

to Astrazeneca, Moderna and Pfizer

The very mention of a vax passport

often causes nothing but a very loud snort

When we hear “pivot”, “variant” and “surge”

to cover our ears is an overwhelming urge

If COVID really ends these words will melt away,

we'll choose other language, having other things to say

Maybe something eloquent without a silly rhyme?

Let's save that habit for another place and ... day. 

We otter do better with birth control

 

“Weaker Penis Bones in River Otters Linked to Oil Sands Contaminants" – CBC News, Nov., 2020

Does the oil industry hold the secret to human over-population control?

In case you weren't aware: the male river otter's penis bone is long, curvy and slender. Daintily referred to as a “baculum”, it has become even daintier in Canadian otters thanks to contaminants produced by Canada's oil sands industry. Noting that otters living close to sites of fossil fuel extraction have the most brittle penis bones, resulting in smaller otter families, scientists see a clue to solving human over-population – almost eight billion – which is a greater threat to the planet than are fossil fuels.

Some biologists are concerned about otters' (family Lutrinae) reproductive success, while others are interested in human contraceptive success. Entrepreneurs are looking at ways to market the softening oily by-products to humans who prefer chemical to surgical birth control (vasectomy).

“Snake oil,” respond researchers, when asked about this marketing initiative.

“Greasy anti-life opportunists,” accuses the Catholic church, stiffening its opposition.

“Fossil Age thinking by the pope,” respond pro-choicers.

Oil sands extraction will continue to fuel controversy. As for the human overpopulation crisis, most conservationists agree “we otter do better”.