Friday, October 14, 2005

Ralph Klein; Tyson's Bum Boy



"Screw You, Lakeside Workers"
Cowboy Ralphy, gunslinger for Tyson's

You know you are in trouble when not one but two influential Sun columnists expose the fact that King Ralph and his cronies are on the side of the devil, in this case American Meat Packing Monopoly Tysons, and the workers are on the side of the Angels.

It's not often in a labour dispute anywhere, let alone right wing Alberta, that UFCW has the support of the right wing Sun newspaper chain. Let alone its outspoken columnists like the normally trenchant neo-conservative Neil Waugh or Rick Bell. And they tell it like it is. Let alone two columnists in two major cities that usually never see eye to eye on anything, amazing. Waugh and Bell take on Ralph and sound like Mother Jones, like the workers, they are Mad As Hell.

Looks like Ralph and the boys blew this one big time...especially with the Human Resources Minister claiming to take a hands off approach to this strike, except of course to sic his Labour Relations Board puppies on the workers, while leaving Tysons free to make a bad situation worse with their scabbing.

Which as of today they have temporarily stopped, having shut down the Brooks plant operation for the weekend. And if the strike succeeds Tyson said it may have to divert cattle to U.S. plants in Washington state and Idaho if it cannot run the Alberta plant. It's called whipsawing, threatening to leave to pressure the government. And these guys would do it to with all that cool Alberta Government cash in their pockets.

And I am not the only one who has called on the union to ignore the Labour Relations Board ruling. Something Rotten at the Alberta Labor Relations Board

This isn't just a strike forced on the largely immigrant workforce at Lakeside Packers by Tyson's but by Ralph's gang in the Legislature, with the quiet support of their Federal Counterparts the Harper Conservatives.

Since this is Conservative MP Monte Solbergs riding, and he was off in Las Vegas as all hell broke loose at Lakeside Packers this week. When he finally blogged today it was about using whale oil as an alternative fuel...yep he praised whale hunting while ignoring the mess Tyson's has made in his riding. Talk about being out of touch. Well he is in good company.


Ralph ducks By RICK BELL, CALGARY SUN, Thursday, October 13
Doug O'Halloran, the union president, makes a last effort to persuade the man of the people. Doug asks Ralph to "require the parties to submit their differences to the process of binding arbitration. Leadership demands a balancing of everyone's interests." Of course, Doug knows the bitter truth. Tyson doesn't want a deal because Tyson doesn't want a union. And Tyson runs Ralph -- not the other way around.

Ouch, and it just gets better.....



From hero to zero
Ralph goes from prosperity popularity to part of Tory-concocted strike at Brooks
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN, Thursday, Oct. 13
An aloof and disconnected provincial Tory government, a made-for-TV labour dispute which pits downtrodden workers against a big, bad meat packer. And a premier surrounded by B-team cabinet ministers who freeze up like a Lada at 40 below. Add an even more ironic twist - unlike the politically naive Don Getty who spent most of his dismal time in the premier's office hiding out from Albertans - Ralph Klein has finally rediscovered his populism (through his $400 rebate cheques) after three years of political drifting. Even though the suits blasted him. Finance Minister Shirley McClellan announced details of Ralphbucks on Tuesday, and the premier was a genuine Alberta hero. Less than 24 hours later, Ralph went from hero to zero as the Tory-concocted strike at Lakeside Packers began. A skirmish broke out at the plant gate when Arkansas-based Tyson Foods tried to bust the picket line with two buses loaded with "Green Hats" - the name the boys and girls on the line have given plant management. Windows were broken. The buses turned back. Film at six. And a repeat of the images of the 1986 Battle of 66 Street when United Food and Commercial Workers fought with Edmonton police in front of Peter Pocklington's Gainers plant. The PCs already picked winners and losers with Shirley McClellan's deeply-flawed BSE bailout which saw the province's two multinational packers and the big feedlot corporations take most of the millions that was supposed to trickle down to cow/calf operators. Provincial Auditor General Fred (Get 'er) Dunn revealed that packer profits soared 281% after the border was closed to Alberta beef and the mad cow money kicked in. When the border swung open in July, UFCW Local 401 was poised to strike - disrupting the beef trade again. But the Tories struck first, appointing a disputes inquiry board. Union members overwhelmingly accepted the findings. Tyson rejected it almost out of hand. Thus the strike. This week, Local 401 boss Doug O'Halloran tried to appeal to the province's newly resurrected No. 1 People Person. In a letter to the preem he talked about the other side of Klein's Alberta Advantage where "an employer often requires them to work without pay and stand in their own urine." He talked of a "workforce of good and decent, hard-working people. Many are immigrants or transplants from other parts of Canada pursuing the Alberta dream," Doug informed Ralph. In 1989, Edmontonians were so turned off by Getty's handling of the Gainers strike that they drove the Tories from the capital. Don lost his seat.

And better........

Unequal fight-This is a case in which Goliath is backed up by government
By RICK BELL, CALGARY SUN, Friday October 14
This is a strike where the provincial government still sits on its butt watching all hell begin to break loose. This day Tyson acts as they do every day, knowing they hold all the cards worth holding. They have all the economic edge, some it gained piling up profits during our mad cow mess while pocketing $32.9 million from the Alberta taxpayer in mad cow aid. They hold all the legal advantages. Alberta, unlike most other provinces, doesn't have a system in place for imposing a settlement when a union bargains for its first contract and the workers cannot get an agreement. The province's Labour Relations Board is ... how shall I say this tactfully ... company-friendly. Tyson wants the provincial board to tell the workers to step aside and let buses run into the plant while limiting the number of pickets. Bingo. Meanwhile, Ralph and the boys in Edmonton do what Tyson wants. Tyson wants this strike called off in the summer. The province calls it off. Tyson rejects a deal worked out by the province's own appointee, an agreement overwhelmingly accepted by the union. No problem. Tyson doesn't want the province to get involved as they did in July. Done. Mr. Tyson, what else would you like us to fetch?

And then Neil Waugh exposes the real reason for Tysons forcing the strike....The yankees are robbing the bank of Alberta with profits from government subsidies to support their operations south of the border and oh yes Don Tysons lavish lifestyle, which he failed to report to share holder or the SEC.....

Strange bedfellows By Neil Waugh, Edmonton Sun, Fri, October 14, 2005
Tyson was a major winner in former agriculture minister Shirley McClellan's BSE bingo when the U.S. border was closed to Alberta beef.The workers on the line now believe that the 60-day strike delay forced by the Tories was intended to allow Tyson to get its ducks in a row to break the union. The company summarily rejected the compromise offer that the government's mediator negotiated. But even more disturbing is the loan document filed with the SEC on Sept. 28 while the Alberta Tories were going through their mediation charade. It revealed an unsecured three-year loan agreement for Lakeside Farm Industries (the holding company for Tyson's Brooks plant and adjacent feedlot) for $352.9 million. It's guaranteed by Tyson and would appear to require a serious chunk of cash flow to service. Maybe that's why Ralph's new American friends are so reluctant to give an inch on a union contract when Lakeside not only appears to be a cash cow, but a valuable asset to raise money.Then there's the April 28 "settled enforcement" with the SEC where former chairman and current director Don Tyson and the company agreed to pay $2.2 million US for "misleading disclosures" over Don's benefits and perks. The SEC probe found Tyson and his two unidentified cronies ran up $689,016 US in oriental rugs, antiques and London vacations. There was also the boat and mansion at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And the house in the English countryside. Plus a whole list of other personal frills including lawn care, maintenance on nine autos and housekeeping at five houses that Tyson shareholders paid for without being properly told about in proxy notices. With friends like these, who needs enemies?


This is a strike by mainly immigrant workers. Both the Alberta and Federal Government agree that we need more immigrant workers.... Migrants needed to bolster workforce: Pettigrew....as it is now it will be to be exploited as cheap labour as the Fraser Institute recomends and Tysons Lakeside Packers is proving in practice.

Alberta needs workers

Alberta will increase immigration and bolster apprentice training to deal with a projected shortfall of more than 100,000 workers over the next decade.

With $107-billion in capital projects on the drawing board, political and industry leaders said Tuesday they want to ensure that the province's red-hot economy continues to roar.

The government plan includes a policy to seek immigrants and help them make the transition to live and work in the province, Economic Development Minister Clint Dunford said.

“Expanding our provincial nominee program will help Alberta employers attract and recruit skilled foreign workers to fill positions that could not be filled across Canada after extensive searching,” Dunford said.

While the labour shortage is most acute in Alberta because of its booming energy sector, including oilsands projects in the Fort McMurray area, other provinces are feeling the pinch for skilled and unskilled workers.

Business groups such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have been calling on the federal government to devise a national plan to deal with the problem.

Federal Immigration Minister Joe Volpe has suggested Ottawa may raise Canada's immigration levels by up to 40 per cent over the next five years.

Earlier this year trade unions opposed a government program that brought in temporary foreign workers to help in Alberta's oil sands.

Labour leaders were still a little skeptical Tuesday.

“Is this really about immigrants or helping business get better access to cheap labour?” questioned Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

“We are not convinced the provincial government has done enough to help groups of workers here in Alberta who could be trained to fill some of these trades jobs.”

Immigrants finding jobs in Canada, just not the ones they want

The Tysons battle is the same old battle that all Immigrants to Canada have faced, low wage exploitation, which is why we have unions and why immigrants have been the backbone of Canada's labour movement.

Like the Gainers strike this is a battle of David versus Goliath, and David for once is getting support from Goliath's media buddies.


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Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Right Wing Environmentalists


Ontario faces major decisions as future of power grid outlined

Currently, Ontario has a maximum capacity of about 30,000 megawatts, of which about 49 per cent is nuclear, 25 per cent is hydro, 17 per cent is coal, seven per cent is gas, and two per cent comes from other emerging energy technologies, such as wind power. Now, the province must decide what to build for a stable, self-reliant future. Hydro power is clean and economical but its dependence on weather can be a negative. Experts also say the province has maxed out most of its potential and can only make moderate gains in the future through small projects. Coal is linked to environmental and health problems -- McGuinty has promised to scrap Ontario's four coal-powered plants by 2009 -- and gas, though reliable, can be an exceedingly expensive option, given its constantly changing price. That leaves nuclear and green power -- not to mention a heated debate about which is the better option.

Duncan won't listen to 'Neanderthals'
Ontario has no plans to listen to "Neanderthals" who want the province to keep its coal-burning power plants operating, even if that's what a report being prepared for the government recommends, says Energy Minister Dwight Duncan. Duncan's resistance to coal is a mistake, argues Energy Probe executive director Tom Adams.Adams wants the province to keep at least two units at its Lambton station, south of Sarnia in southern Ontario, which rank fourth and ninth out of 403 in the report's list of the cleanest plants on the continent.

Toronto Star Editorial: New reactors vital for hydro system
Unless ways can be found to burn coal cleanly, like it or not, nuclear power will inevitably remain an essential part of the mix. It is clean, emissions free, and despite the breakdowns and recurring problems at the Pickering, Darlington and Bruce facilities, it has proven to be an affordable and, by and large, a reliable energy source. Even with their problems, nuclear plants generate about 50 per cent of all the province's electricity.

So yes Virginia you can be a right wing pro-capitalist environmentalist as Energy Probe and its associates prove *(see links ).


In Ontario Energy Probe is a right wing pro coal, pro P3, anti-union, environmental think tank. It is associated with other right wing think tanks like Probe International, the influential right wing Donner Foundation
and the Fraser Institute.

Energy Probe deliberately modeled itself on the public policy advocacy group Pollution Probe, which is a real public interest foundation of business, unions, non-government agencies, scientists and research councils, the public and government.

Energy Probe is a consumer and environmental research team, active in the fight against nuclear power, and dedicated to resource conservation, economic efficiency, and effective utility regulation.

They proclaim themselves anti-nuke, they are also critical of natural gas fired electrical plants. Leaving them to be promoters of King Coal.

Toronto: The debate over coal-fired power stations is sure to heat up after a report saying they aren't as big a polluter as originally thought.

In fact, a report by Energy Probe says two of the units are among the cleanest in North America.

Units three and four at the Lambton generating station near Sarnia rank in the top 10 cleanest among 403 coal generation units in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Energy Probes position on coal fired power plants, not surprizingly is the same as that of the Fraser Institute.

Ontario Government in the Dark on Coal Plant Closings: Shutting Down Coal-fired Power Plants will do more Harm than Good

Their criticism of CANDU reactors, the safest nuclear power system in the world, is of course a criticism of government funded and sponsored nuclear power. They aren't opposed to private nuclear power, just government funded and operated nuclear power like CANDU.

They view Alternative energy sources as important but ONLY if it is created by the private sector.

National Post October 8/2004

Wind at our backs by Lawrence Solomon

The windmill entrepreneurs, unable to compete against the government-mandated subsidies, were snuffed out, ending their innovations and replacing their renewable-energy technology with power from remote power utilities that typically relied on burning coal. Wind technology remained extinguished for decades, until the environmental movement resurrected it in the late 1970s. Now wind technology is roaring back, logging the fastest growth of any energy technology in the world.

And they can sound very reasonable in press releases until we uncover their real agenda, the privatization of utilities and public services.

Then they join the rest of the right wing lobbyists, the NCC, Fraser Institute, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the C.D. Howe institute, etc. etc. ad naseum, as another voice for the privatization of everything. Making any research, public policy advocacy they do political.

In 2002 one of Energy Probes directors published a book promoting the privatization of water utilites in Canada. The book was a runner up for the Donner Book Prize on Public Policy.

LIQUID ASSETS:
Privatizing and Regulating Canada's Water Utilities
by Elizabeth Brubaker (University of Toronto Centre for Public Management)
Elizabeth Brubaker is the Executive Director of Environment Probe, a Toronto-based environmental think-tank. She is the author of Property Rights in the Defence of Nature.
MORE THAN TWO YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE contaminated water killed seven people and made 2,300 ill in Walkerton, Ontario. "People widely referred to Walkerton as a wake-up call, but many utilities and regulators are still sleeping," says Brubaker. Liquid Assets is a first-class book on an important subject. Intriguing, well-written and meticulously documented, the author provides an authoritative and readable study of privatization of water and waste-water facilities around the world.

Energy Probe-The 10 principles that guide us

The following principles have evolved from our 20-year-long analysis of the root causes of environmental destruction and of the elements of a sustainable society:

  1. We work for environmental sustainability by promoting property rights (private or communal), markets, the rule of law, the right to know, accountability through liability, cost and risk internalization, economic efficiency, competition, consumer choice, and an informed public.

  2. We strive to eliminate tragedies of the commons1 by advocating property rights where resources can be exclusive, divisible, and alienable. In these situations, EPRF believes resources are most sustainably managed by the users of the resources themselves. EPRF advocates property rights:
    • to establish and preserve rights and responsibilities;
    • to account fully for social and environmental costs based on the values assigned by the rights holders; and
    • to internalize risks and costs (and to eliminate moral hazards2) in decision making.

  3. We favour court actions based on the common law of nuisance, trespass, and riparian rights to empower individuals to protect themselves from environmental harm. We do not believe that governments should have the discretion to negotiate with polluters, or with other parties, to override traditional common law protections.


  4. We generally oppose expropriation, which often results in environmental harm. We believe that voluntary agreements more fully internalize costs, protect the environment, and ensure economic efficiency.


  5. We argue for the break up of unnatural monopolies, created by political or regulatory decree. Where natural monopolies exist, we advocate regulation that is mandated to protect the interests of consumers.


  6. Where property rights cannot easily or affordably be assigned or enforced, we strive to eliminate tragic commons through statutory law and regulation. Although rigorous regulation is often required, regulatory authority must seek to avoid creating barriers to entry, stifling innovation, interrupting the flow of information, and forcing regulated parties to act against their best judgement.


  7. We work to ensure the integrity of regulatory systems and the strict enforcement of laws that penalize unauthorized pollution. To eliminate biases and conflicts of interest, and to ensure that public and private sector polluters are treated equally, we advocate independent regulators, who are subject to due process and judicial review, and regulatory processes that require full disclosure of information.


  8. We work to establish decentralized decision-making processes and to devolve decision making to the lowest practicable level – that which is closest to the individual.


  9. We oppose subsidies to resource use. Where society favours subsidies to ensure social equity, we favour subsidizing resource users with direct payments, untied to the level of consumption, rather than subsidies that lower the apparent cost of the resource.


  10. We oppose the socialization of private sector costs and risks through government subsidies and indemnities to the corporate sector. For example, while we approve of private insurance as a way to internalize risks and costs, we oppose government indemnities to resource or financial sectors, particularly if those indemnities protect risk takers and polluters from the risks and costs of their activities.

Energy Probe also runs a so called Consumer Policy Institute. Like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, generic terms like Taxpayer and Consumer are used by the right wing business lobbies to appear as if they are speaking for the public rather than the special interests they really are lobbying for...private sector contol of public services.

Consumer Policy Institute is a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation. Incorporated in 1980, Energy Probe is a federally recognized charitable organization, financially independent of governments and corporations.

EPRF has always promoted development that furthered our social, economic and environmental wellbeing. Some parts of our foundation focus on protecting the environment while respecting our social and economic needs; CPI focuses on our social and economic needs while respecting environmental needs. In today's society, with the communications revolution and trade liberalization eroding the power of regional, national, and international authorities, the influence of individuals and their local communities grows. A concern for our more immediate "social environments" or "human ecology" now accompanies our work to protect the natural environment.

Because the empowerment of individuals and of small communities is so vital to the well-being and stability of this new human ecology, empowerment is a central theme in CPI's work. Equally important to CPI's mission is an understanding that individuals' empowerment can become mere anarchy or oppression if it is not rooted in by a sense of responsibility to each other and to the natural world.

Our recent accomplishments and current projects reflect this conviction.

Health Reform

To protect and promote Canadian Medicare we have proposed a model of publicly funded health allowances or Medical Savings Accounts that finds true efficiencies while maintaining the Canada Health Act's five principles. The thrust of our work is to restore the integrity of the relationship between physicians and their doctors by empowering patients.

Airports

A sale for full market value of Canada's federally-owned airports would yield billions of dollars in immediate revenue for the cash-strapped government, as well as hundreds of millions a year in ongoing tax revenue. But instead of turning airports over to efficient, customer-oriented operators who will lower costs and increase service, the federal government has begun leasing them to local non-profit authorities set up by municipal councils. Consumer Policy Institute's study, Benefitting Consumers and the Economy Through Airport Privatization informs Canadians of the benefits of selling federal airports to the public.

Economic Policy
Transportation

Canada's public transit monopolies, already woefully inadequate and overly expensive, could soon be at the end of their road. By introducing competition to Canada's public transit systems, service would improve and costs would come down. Consumer Policy Institute is working to break up the public transit monopolies and give Canadians access to expanded, affordable service.

Our existing system of taxi regulation increases costs and decreases service, discriminating particularly against the poor and women, who use taxis most, while denying opportunities to immigrants and other new entrants into the labour force. Consumer Policy Institute reforms would reverse these inequities.

Canada's public transit monopolies, already woefully inadequate and overly expensive, could soon be at the end of their road. By introducing competition to Canada's public transit systems, service would improve and costs would come down. Consumer Policy Institute is working to break up the public transit monopolies and give Canadians access to expanded, affordable service.
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Saturday, October 08, 2005

HOWL


OCTOBER 8 1955
HOWL
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war

 Howl of beat's heart

A poem, read aloud 50 years ago, set off a cultural bomb, writes Los Angeles correspondent Robert Lusetich
October 08, 2005 FIFTY years ago today in San Francisco, disaffected young bohemians, with their goatees, berets, angst, wine and marijuana, gathered at the Six Gallery to listen to poetry. It was a cool, hip thing to do and rock'n'roll had not yet been invented.

 If they had arrived as individuals in search of confirmation that society sucked, by the time Allen Ginsberg had finished reading his seminal work, Howl, an eloquent, passionate rage against conformity, the 200 or so there left united into new movement: the beats.

"That was the day the bomb went off," says Anthony Bliss, curator of rare books and literary manuscripts at Berkeley's Bancroft Library, home to one of the foremost collections of beat literature.
The Howl Obscenity Trial and free speech

"Beat Generation" is a term referring to a heterogeneous mix of young people, artists and intellectuals of the 1950s (and later) whose unconventional work and lifestyle reflected profound disaffection with contemporary society. They expressed objection and criticism against American materialism in a bitter, harsh and often abusive language. They mocked its conformity, denounced its immorality and set out "on the road" to discover America's true spirit. They experienced with drugs and sex, explored Eastern religions and Western avant-gardes, from dada to jazz "burning for the ancient heavenly connection." (Ginsberg) The Beats rediscovered poetry as a form of public entertainment, returned to its sources in the body, breath, the spoken word and music. The Beat ethos reverberated through the anti-war movement and movements from psychedelia to punk and enjoys a current resurgence.
Members of the Beat Generation, responded to the conformist materialism of the period by adopting lifestyles derived from Henry David Thoreau's social disobedience and Walt Whitman's poetry of the open road. The movement had no shared artistic credo beyond breaking the current literary orthodoxy. Most representative and influential were Kerouac' s novel On the Road (1957) and Ginsberg's poem Howl (1956), and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. (1959) Other prominent Beat related literary figures were poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet Gregory Corso, and novelist John Clellon Holmes. In a first section of this course we will concentrate on the works of these "core Beats". We will then move on to study the convergence of the Beat Movement with the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.


Howl was one of those books, and it is a book not just a 'poem', that had a profound impact on me when I was a teenager. The others were the Communist Manifesto, the writings of Bakunin, Freud's Analysis of Dreams, Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange Land, Aleister Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice, the novels of H.P. Lovecraft, Raymond Chandler, William Burroughs, Samuel Delany and the poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I liked my poets dark, stoned and gothic.

Don't call me a baby boomer, I never did. I am a child of the Atomic Age, the Space Age, the Age of Television, the new Age of Comics, Rock n Roll in the New Jazz Age. In growing up I embraced the Beat/Hippie/Yippie/Freak kulture.... I was baptized in the Anti-War and Liberation Movements of the seventies; youth libertation, womens liberation, gay liberation. Underground comix, Alternative Press and Media was juice for my creativity. The revival of Surrealism, Wobbly labour activism and Paganism was the carnival of resistance I ran away to join.

I was cheered by Hendrix, the poetics of the Doors, the siren call of Leary and the other Experiences of the Doors of Perception that opened for my in-between generation, 1954-64, not really the sixties and not yet generation X.

There now you know a bit more about me......and at 50 I still Howl.


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Penquin Empiricism

There is a current frenzy on the right over the movie March of the Penquins.
Plot
Every year, Emperor Penguins march, in single file, to their mating ground deep in Antarctica. They mate monogamously, and the females hang around long enough only to lay a single egg. While the male looks after it, the female goes to fend off approaching stavation. Then the roles are reversed, so that Dad can find food for the hatchling.

They are having a warm fuzzy feeling about the apparent monogamous relations that the film shows Emperor Penquins having. As Bill Moyers points out In the New York Times recently, Jonathan Miller reported that conservatives are invoking "March of the Penguins" as an inspiration for their various causes. Some praise the penguins for their monogamy. Opponents of abortion say it verifies "the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it." A Christian magazine claims it makes "a strong case for intelligent design." On the website "lionsofgod.com" you can find instructions to take a notebook, flashlight and pen to the movie "to write down what God speaks to you" as you watch the film.

Opps don't let George II into the theatre we know what happens when God talks to him.

As for intelligent design, as The Panda's Thumb points out:

That any one of these eggs survives is a remarkable feat—and, some might suppose, a strong case for intelligent design.

Sadly, that’s the sum total of his argument. It would be interesting to know why having a high mortality rate makes a good argument for ID, but I guess that’ll have to remain a mystery. Maybe it’s because these penguins live in such harsh conditions that he can’t imagine how they could have adapted to the cold so suddenly. But given the fact that penguins live at the equator, it wouldn’t have been sudden.


Well unfortunately Empire Penquins are not monogamous they only pair up until the chicks hatch and then the males are off again looking for a new mate. Which is the biological function of males, to impregnate and leave....which leaves rearing and caring to the female of the species, which is why females determine if they can support their young, if not then they abort or commit infanticide, as a social neccesity, regardless of the moral values of the conservative right. Once again empiricism and science contradicts the faith of the religious right.

Adam Leipzig, president of National Geographic Feature Films, 'pointed out that this species of penguin, the emperor, is usually monogamous for a year, but not for life: the following year, it takes a different partner. He added: 'People read it into what they want. There are universal truths about parenting and bonding with offspring, but it's not a film with a political and social agenda. When we put the English-language version together, we never once had a discussion about social, religious or cultural points of view. We wanted to get the audience involved to follow the penguins' lives.'

Yeah right except that this version is different than the original.Had the American Christian Right Wingnutz seen the original French version it would have made them even happier.

Remaking the March of the Penguins
The original film (en français) features voiceovers for each of the main family characters (dad, mom, baby boy) and some French pop songs. The effect is quite cheesy at times, particularly during the singing of the love songs.

And a couple of folks have noted that they still have to explain the homosexual tendencies of Emperor Penguins.

 Marriage advocate and conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher praised the recent surprise hit documentary March of the Penguins for extolling the values of love and devotion. But instances of homosexuality in the penguin world might add an unwanted twist to her analogy

Gay Penguins!

It seems that the world is suddenly overflowing with gay penguins. At Central Park Zoo in New York, there are two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who appear to be in a gay relationship. They nuzzle each other and behave just like other sets of mates. They have sex with each other. When the zoo put female penguins in to entice them to mate with them, they had no interest at all. But they apparently make great parents:

And even some Christians have trouble with the anthropomorphizing of Penguins, cause it leads to difficult questions about God's creation, but whew then again he only made MAN in his image, not the rest of the universe he inhabits, created, destroyed, recreated.....

Morality not from animals

Indeed, Christians must be careful about using examples from the animal world to support human morality. Some animals (in this fallen world) exhibit homosexual behavior! Remember, man was made in the image of God. Even though our body has features which enable it to be classified in the same grouping as mammals, for instance, people were created differently than the animals. God commanded, and the animals came into existence. But for man He said, “Let us make man in our image.” (Genesis 1:26). There is an insurmountable gap between people and animals. God gave us His Word (and our consciences) to inform us of right and wrong—we don’t get our morality from animals. The movie showed what happened when a young chick didn’t make the tricky transfer from Dad to Mom. When a failed transfer resulted in a frozen newborn chick, a grieving mother (of course this is interpreted by man as “grieving”—but is it “grieving” as we understand it, or an instinctive behavioral reaction programmed into the animal?) tried to steal another penguin’s chick (we trust people who are comparing the penguins’ behavior with humans won’t use this to justify stealing someone’s baby!). The tribe wouldn’t allow her to take it and the mother had no choice but to head back to sea. This was yet another reminder of living in a fallen world which includes death and suffering.




Of course some folks could ask Are Penguins Communist?

Since they act collectively in order to survive their harsh geography, no rabid individualism here, survival of the fittest is through mutual aid, cooperation and collective solidarity of the species. Something that the American Right denies is 'natural', opps, empiricism trumps ideology again.
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Boys will be Girls

The Metrosexual Age

We have dreamt of every woman there is, and dreamt too of the miracle that would bring us the pleasure of being a woman, for women have all the qualities - courage, passion, the capacity to love, cunning - whereas all our imagination can do is naively pile up the illusion of courage.
Jean Baudrillard

During the American Presidential primaries Howard Dean called himself a 'Metrosexual', so how much chest hair has he lost? Perhaps that's the reason for his infamous scream that went across the air waves.


Mascara men outdo girls at garba
TIMES OF INDIA NEWS NETWORK
[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2005 10:43:56 PM ]

 AHMEDABAD/SURAT/VADODARA: Last year, they were thronging accessory stores, buying bracelets, anklets, piercing their ears. Navratri 2005, they are queuing up outside beauty salons to streak their hair, doing a facial, pedicure, manicure and they are even waxing their chests and backs!

The metrosexual male has arrived. And he is flaunting his 'assets' acquired from frenzied work-outs at the neighbourhood gym.

Like 22-year-old garba-freak, Amit Thakkar, who went through all that pain only to woo girls. "It's all about fun. Girls like men without chest hair. We don't mind bearing a little pain to look good and feel good," says Thakkar, who waxed his chest specially for Navratri.

Urvish Shah, an MCom student who also waxed his chest, bares it all — "It's trendy and looks good under kurtis without buttons." To complete the picture, he coloured his hair and did a facial. Beauticians are beaming. "Business is brisk due to Navratri.

The profit in the men's section alone has soared 40 per cent" claims Sonal Shah of a popular beauty clinic. The demand for highlighting and colouring hair has also soared during the season, say beauticians. And, men are also wearing earrings and sporting the bicep-accessory, the 'kadu'.

Girls can't help but gush. "It looks attractive, especially if you have a physique to go with the clean chest," says 19-year-old Pragya Khatri, a garba enthusiast from Navrangpura. Jal Shah of Vadodara is spending Rs 250 every night to set his hair for all the nine nights.

Hairdressers say they are getting equal number of men, as girls this Navratri. Says centre head of Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves (VLCC), Vadodara, Sujata Gohil, "We have seen more males walk in for hairstyles, streaking and German re-bonding to straighten their hair and they are ready to spend up to Rs 2,500."

Limbachia brothers of Capital beauty parlour, Vadodara, confess that males are waxing their chests. "Some boys want tattoos of bulls and anchors on their chests," says Abhishek Limbachia. "Boys, in fact. highlight their hair according to the colour of their dresses."


Navratri (Navaratri) an Indian Festival :-

Come October and there's just one feeling allover. A feeling of joy & happiness. A time for dance, music and devotion. Yes, we are talking about the most awaited festival by people from all walks of life -Navratri. A festival when the young-hearts throb with excitement and energy and the older generation is full of devotion.

What is 'Navaratri' all about?
Navratri is a festival of worship, dance and music celebrated over a period of nine nights (Nav-nine and Ratri-nights). It is celebrated from the first to ninth date of Ashwin Shukla Paksha of the Hindu Calendar for the worship of the Goddess Durga. Goddess Durga is believed to exist in many forms like Goddess Bhavani, Jagdamba, Mahakali etc. The first nine days of the Ashwin are devoted for worshipping the Divine Mother -'MAA'. These nine days are divided and devoted to the Trinity of God worshipped in a female form - three days for Durga (Goddess of valor) three days for Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth) and three days for Sarswati (Goddess of Knowledge and Art). On the fifth day (Lalita Panchami), it is traditional, to gather all books, light a lamp and invoke Sarswati . The eighth and ninth day, it is traditional to perform Yagna (sacrifice offered to the fire) to honor Divine Mother and bid her farewell.

In Edmonton a new Mens Spa has opened, aptly titled the Boardroom. The only one in Canada, specifically for men. And it opened in Edmonton not Montreal or Toronto, or even Calgary (they like their men hairy and butch, like Stephen Harper). The Edmonton Journal recently ran a feature on the new trend in Men's grooming, taking advantage of manicures, pedicures, waxing, once the domain of women. Meet the Metrosexual. The age of consumer bi-sexual gender f**k is upon us.

LOLA The Kinks (1970)

I met her in a club down in old soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola [lp version:
Coca-cola]
C-o-l-a cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said lola
L-o-l-a lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola

Well I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola

Well we drank champagne and danced all night
Under electric candlelight
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
And said dear boy won’t you come home with me
Well I’m not the world’s most passionate guy
But when I looked in her eyes well I almost fell for my lola
Lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola

I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me

Well that’s the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my lola
Lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for lola
Lo-lo-lo-lo lola

Well I left home just a week before
And I’d never ever kissed a woman before
But lola smiled and took me by the hand
And said dear boy I’m gonna make you a man

Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is lola
Lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola

Ray Davis and his great rock band the Kinks were always ahead of their time. This metrosexual anthem set the stage for a coming out of the bi-sexual gender f**k in Rock and Roll. Two years later Lou Reed released his famous (drag) Queen anthem, Walk on the Wild Side.

 Lou Reed was first known as the songwriter and singer for the hugely influential and acclaimed Velvet Underground. He released his self titled debut solo album in 1972. It consisting of songs originally written during the Velvet years. David Bowie produced Transformer later that year and included a surprise hit, "Walk On The Wild Side." The song reached the UK Top 10 and US Top 20, his only track to enter the pop charts in either the US or UK.

1972 The era of androgynous bi-sexuality,Glam Rock was upon us in the 1970's with Reed, David Bowie, and the New York Dolls, etc.

The New York Dolls were a rock music group formed in New York City in 1971. They found little success during their lifetime, but the New York Dolls prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era and even later; the Dolls' over-the-top crossdressing influenced the look of many hair metal groups.

1972 was certainly the year that Bowie began to get a glimpse of the power of the pop. Previewed in London that Spring, his rock and roll creation Ziggy Stardust, put on one of the most spectacular and innovative live shows to date, and the craze that followed was the beginnings of his superstar myth. The summer of 1972 was also a busy one for him in the studio, as he produced albums for Lou Reed ('Transformer') and Mott The Hoople ('All The Young Dudes', for which he wrote the hit title track). The US Ziggy tour began in September playing sold out shows full of theatrically inspired Japanese costumes, snarling guitars courtesy of Mick Ronson, and a bold, daring approach to performance that propelled the audience into a rock and roll fervor. He abruptly put his own creation to rest on June 3, 1973 with, the pronouncement, "of all the shows on the tour this one will stay with us for the longest because not only is this the last show of the tour, but it is the last show we will ever do." This surprised everyone in the house - not least the members of his band.

Rockers were wearing make up, which has always been a bi-sexual gender f**k, and by the end of the era of Glam Theatrical Rock the logical outcome was the Kabuki Drag of Kiss. So that even the toughest long haired head banger macho guy was allowed to like guys in Drag, and even wear drag. Cause bad guy Gene Simmons said so.

And of course I would be remiss if I did not at least reference the Queen of rock and roll, Freddy Mercury. He and Queen have remained enormously popular over the past thirty years. And even more so after his passing in 1991.

Rock and Roll culture was given permission to challenge sexual/gender stereotyping by the emergence of the gay liberation and feministmovements in the seventies. It was gay/feminist movement that transformed the popular cultural definition of masculine. And Rock and Roll was its medium, especially rock n roll coming out of New York city. The ultimate Metropolis, and home to all the above bands sans Queen. And by the eighties the gender f**k bisexuality of rock n roll came out of the closet with a new age Queen, Boy George. Who while not making music is still making the news.

And it is still reflected in the musical culture around us. Ever on the cutting edge of Gangsta Culture and hip capitalism even P Diddy is going Metrosexual. P Diddy Combs To Launch Mens Beauty Line

Today the boys, can care about looking good and being pampered, just like the girls.

Meet the metrosexual
He's well dressed, narcissistic and bun-obsessed. But don't call him gay.

For some time now, old-fashioned (re)productive, repressed, unmoisturized heterosexuality has been given the pink slip by consumer capitalism. The stoic, self-denying, modest straight male didn't shop enough (his role was to earn money for his wife to spend), and so he had to be replaced by a new kind of man, one less certain of his identity and much more interested in his image -- that's to say, one who was much more interested in being looked at (because that's the only way you can be certain you actually exist). A man, in other words, who is an advertiser's walking wet dream. Beckham is the biggest metrosexual in Britain because he loves being looked at and because so many men and women love to look at him: He's the future, but also a way of adapting other, less advanced specimens to that future.

Gender f**k and cultural bi-sexuality have come of age after thirty five years, and we now call it Metrosexual. It is the culture of the subject in the urban metropolis and its objectification. What men had objectified in women has in capitalist urban culture become the mirror of subjectivity, men are now beautifying themselves.

 The appreciation of the mirror as object, to push the metaphor, reminds us that however deployed as a metaphor for likeness or sameness, mirrors are actually not at all about similarity, since there is ontological difference (at the very least, ontological, but also epistemological, representational, and political differences) between the subject of the mirror's reflection (image) and the subject reflected before the mirror. Indeed, this difference is crucial for Lacan; his digression on the need of a particular species of bird to perceive another of its species in order to mature emphasizes that it is not the function of the mirror so much as the function of specularity, the seeing someone irreducibly other and yet recognizably similar.To Mirror Tomorrow Reflections on Feminism and the Future by E. L. McCALLUM

Once again capitalism through consumer culture challenges the very 'traditions' and stereotypes of gender that those on the right cling too. Capitalisms revolutionary destruction of all the old moral and conservative traditions, as Dr. Marx pointed out, continues. "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."Those who cling to capitalism as some sort of conservative life saver are sadly mistaken about the revolutionary nature of a system that remakes and resells itself on a continous basis.

Metrosexual is a term coined in 1994 (along with the noun, metrosexuality) by British journalist Mark Simpson, who used it to refer to an urban male of any sexual orientation who has a strong aesthetic sense and spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle. He is the fashion-conscious target audience of men's magazines:

The promotion of metrosexuality was left to the men's style press, magazines such as The Face, GQ, Esquire, Arena and FHM, the new media which took off in the 1980s and is still growing (GQ gains 10,000 new readers every month). They filled their magazines with images of narcissistic young men sporting fashionable clothes and accessories. And they persuaded other young men to study them with a mixture of envy and desire.

Some people said unkind things. American GQ, for example, was popularly dubbed "Gay Quarterly". Little wonder that all these magazines - with the possible exception of The Face - address their metrosexual readership as if none of them was homosexual or even bisexual.

The origin of the term traces to a 1200 word article titled "Here come the mirror men" dissecting the new urbane man by Mark Simpson, published on November 15, 1994 in The Independent, a major British daily. Barely any usage of the term in print publications can be found in the same decade. Beginning around June 2003, the term frequently appeared in the British press. A June 22, 2003 New York Times article titled "Metrosexuals Come Out" inaugarated fashionable usage of the word in the American media. The rising popularity of use followed the increasing integration of gay men into mainstream society and a correspondingly decreased taboo towards homosexuality (and, by extension, the appearance of homosexuality or effeminacy). Over a short span, Canada introduced same-sex marriage legislation, the US Supreme Court struck down anti-sodomy statutes as unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas, and gay characters and themes, long present on TV shows like Will & Grace, made further inroads. In particular, the Bravo network introduced Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a show in which stereotypically style- and culture-conscious gay men gave advice to their heterosexual counterparts.

Macho man has bitten the dust: he's been replaced by something just as tough inside, but softer at the edges. Peter Gotting reports on a new target market.

Lenin once said that 'come the revolution it will be the capitalist who sells us the rope to hang the last aristorcrat'.

Today it is capitalism that sells men mascara to challenge masculine stereotyping and homophobia.

This reification of gay liberation and feminism has upset some on the left, which see it as reducing the revolutionary potential of these movements. However the fact is that it is the result of capitalisms ability to absorb cultural identity movements through making them consumers and consumer sub cultures. Gay culture was and is middle class male culture from the begining, feminism was absorbed into capitalisms cultural hegemony once it focused on its academic and corporate success at getting 'women into power'.

Metrosexuality the Middle Class Way
Exploring Race, Class, and Gender
in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy

The portrayals on the show contain numerous contradictions, some of which contribute to gay visibility. However, ultimately, the show contains gayness by reducing it to a commodity that services heteronormativity. Given the recent decision by the US Supreme Court overturning the Hardwick vs. Bowers case (Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas), and the growing international debate over same-sex marriage, these portrayals serve to depoliticize queerness. Much work in feminist visual culture has explored the gendered power relations in the gaze that is constructed by filmic representation, while critical race theorists have analyzed the colonizing nature of that gaze and queer critics have discussed the commodification of the “gay” hip look. This article brings together these bodies of work in order to suggest that the cultural function of Queer Eye does more than perpetuate problematic stereotypes. Specifically, this article analyzes the interrelated links between the commodification of gayness, the reinscription of the heterosexual imperative, and the problematic racial and class-based constructs of masculinity perpetuated by the show in order to argue that Queer Eye ultimately serves to dramatically limit radical queer resistance.
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George Bush Admits to Being Insane


Bush: God Told Me to Invade Iraq

How do you know you're God?" "When I pray I find I'm talking to myself.
Peter O'Toole in the Ruling Class, 1972

Gee really and God told Pat Robertson to call for the Assassination of Hugo Chavez and he told the Son of Sam to kill too. God sure does talk to alot of people lately , must have a party line.

Well regardless of ones religious convictions George W has proven he is definetly psychopathic, and we usually lock those folks up. You know the ones who engage in random acts of murder and mayhem only to say when they are arrested; ' God Told Me To'. Yep it's time for the rubber room for the self appointed President of the Free World.

BBC Press Releases

Category: News

Date: 06.10.2005

God told me to invade Iraq, Bush tells Palestinian ministers

President George W Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals. In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.


Ok this is now really scary cause this story posted on the news wires today was originally posted waaay back in 2003 inthe Washington Post where it was reported:

Road Map in the Back Seat?

By Al Kamen

Friday, June 27, 2003; Page A27

Imagine our surprise Wednesday to read in the Israeli paper Haaretz (online), that Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen, meeting recently with militants to enlist their support for a truce with Israel, said that, when they met in Aqaba, President Bush had told him this: " God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [ Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.
Published on Monday, June 30, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Did Bush Say God Told Him To Go To War?

And it's only making news headlines now?! Cause the BBC is reporting it. Uh Oh.
You mean Americans re-elected a mad man, what a cover up. This could have been the Democrats ace in the hole. This is the new October surprize.

Over the Edge
The Madness of King George
By KURT NIMMO
CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
June 5 / 6, 2004

It's described as "erratic behavior" by Capitol Hill Blue.

Bush has "wide mood swings," he rants and raves against "enemies" both domestic and foreign, and quotes the Bible like a deranged Southern preacher.

It's like the Nixon days is how a worried GOP political consultant describes it.

Only Bush, unlike Nixon, will not resign and fly off into the sunset. Nixon knew to get out while the getting was good.

"In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be 'God's will' and then tells aides to 'fuck over' anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration," including Kerry and the Democrats, writes Doug Thompson of Capitol Hil Blue.


But wait it gets better waaay back in 2002 folks already knew the President was nuts.

Is the President Nuts?

Psychopathology of the President

COUNTERPUNCH 2oct02

"Is The 'President' Nuts?" asks Carol Wolman, M.D. "Many people, inside and especially outside this country, believe that the American president is nuts, and is taking the world on a suicidal path." A board-certified psychiatrist in practice for 30 years, Dr. Wolman feels compelled to understand the "psychopathology" of man "under tremendous pressure from both his family/junta, and from the world at large." Dr. Wolman wonders if GW is suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder, as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fourth Edition:

"There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others: 1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest; 2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure; 5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others; 7) lack of remorse by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others."

And some of us knew this way back when Bush got first elected. Guess it was just impolitic to say the obvious.

You know there is something about elected rulers of the world with the name of George who end up mad...like King George III who ruled when America declared independence....hmmmmm there may be hope for a real revolution in Iraq yet.

George III had a particularly severe form of porphyria. His first attack occurred in 1765, four years after his marriage to Queen Charlotte. Further signs of the disease showed up in 1788-1789. From 1811 to the time of his death in 1820 the royal patient became progressively insane and blind. He was nursed in isolation, and kept in straight jackets and behind bars in his private apartments at Windsor Castle.

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