centre of the universe

Category: Human rights

  • Pride

    June is Pride month, a time when we recognise some of the glorious human diversity in the world. We celebrate being able to be openly who we are, and specifically, Pride is about remembering the riots in Stonewall in 1969, when LGBTQ+ folks fought police brutality against our community. There are great resources out there […]

  • Keep ’em separated

    Keep ’em separated

    Recently the Government of Canada included on its summer student funding program a check box that asks whether the business (non-profit/agency/charity/etc.) applying for federal tax funding complies with Canadian law. Normally, that’s not a problem. Normally, if you apply for federal funding, you’re all, hells yes we comply with federal laws. It’s exceedingly rare for […]

  • Conscientious Objection shouldn’t mean dereliction of duty

    Conscientious Objection shouldn’t mean dereliction of duty

    Canada passed a law in June 2016 to make legal and to offer protection to the providers of medically assisted dying. Let’s just pretend for a moment that “Medically Assisted Dying” isn’t one of the lamest, most watered-down name for the practice of euthanasia. Predictably, there were a number of objectors to this bill, many […]

  • Alouette

    Way back in the nineteen somethings, Canada was going through the sort of identity crisis we all go through when we’re about fifteen. Québec was all stomping around the place, slamming doors and cupboards and shouting “JE PARS” everytime someone looked at it. “Hey, Québec,” we’d say, “I like your cheese. You have lovely cheese.” […]

  • Danger Zone

    Please go read this article (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-kelly/the-thing-all-women-do-you-dont-know-about_b_8630416.html). I’ll wait. If you’re already on Twitter, you’ve seen this already. I spent about a decade trying to look not-female (which was tough, given my body shape) and being very angry that I couldn’t go out to the club or the bar without having to be “on guard”. I was […]

  • Acting Your Age

    Acting Your Age

    Here’s the thing. We live in a society that values youth over experience, wisdom, ability and knowledge. I’m not sure why we do that, but children are more valuable to us than non-children, which also translates into vilifying people who opt not to breed. There’s a whole bunch going on in this statement, and I […]

  • The Inadvertent Feminist

    I have the most bizarre memory. I mean, I can remember things that happened when I was 2. I remember locker combinations from high school. I remember school seating plans from elementary school. Yet I can’t remember my kids’ names on a regular basis, or whether I’ve seen a particular movie. This is nothing new. […]

  • Fuck Libraries

    The Saskatchewan government, in its 2017/18 budget, has slashed library budgets around the province. It’s done all kinds of other things too like force civil servants to take a 3.5% cut in pay, shut down the only highway bus transportation service in the province, increase the provincial sales tax, and basically pissed off pretty much […]

  • Freedom’s Just Another Word

    Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve been either lauding or vilifying this guy who plays sportsball in the US because he opted to sit out the national anthem in protest of racism, race-based violence, and inequity. You got *really mad* at him, and said he shouldn’t be allowed to play anymore. You said he […]

  • Bikini, Burkini – Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

    – initially entered as a series of ranty comments on an effbook post – I don’t care WHAT your religion is, or isn’t – no government has the right to tell anybody how to dress. So the government of France doesn’t have any more right to tell people what they can wear at the beach […]