Growing up in today's America.

As a parent to two small children, I do one of the many thing all parents do - I read books to my kids.

It's inevitable. If you want to encourage kids to read and learn, you have to start by reading to them. I also think it's important to also supplement that with telling them stories, in addition to reading them.

One of the great things about books by Dr. Seuss and Richard Scarry, is that by using animals instead of people, they took the racial element out of stories and lessons being taught to kids. They may not have always been consistent, and I may not have always agreed with the lesson being taught, but I largely thought it was a good idea to separate cultural elements from actual lessons.

And yet, in reading the new crop of books prevalent in today's America, I'm astounded at how much more 'whiter' the worlds these books send children to, really are. Lots of color, not just so much in the main character.

Increasingly, everything is written from the perspective of Caucasian females. Sure there are males, and yes there are non-white characters, but doing this is what I call being more liberalish - i.e. branding of characters to appear liberal to a primarily white audience.

The other even more disturbing thing is how increasingly emasculating these books also are. It's amazing how much connection there is between these books and product advirtisements, and shopping malls. Males (both boys and men) are treated as dolts, oafish, and often wrong. Conversely, females (specifically girls) are either well-behaved and 'wronged', or snobby and 'right'.

I guess I should not be so surprised - most children's books are written by white women, from a white perspective and largely for girls. Nothing wrong with that by itself, if it weren't for the following -

Must they always do so with concious and sub-concious digs at males (boys and men)?
Must they always be so white (how come not other races)?

And even when a lead character is male (Harry Potter), he's often impotent and silly. He needs female characters to help him address problems.

In these books, a strong smart boy or man is absent.

Some recent examples -

• Fancy Nancy, Super Why - the white characters are the leading ones. They have non-whites, but they are always secondary. Why? Just pointing that out is in and of itself an example of Caucasians creating a 'liberalish' environment really for themselves, not all people.

• I came across a spider book/cartoon - and it was rather sad to see the women/mommies are the dominant source of all that is right; and the male adult characters either stupid, or subservient.

• Serendepity - fictional innocent righteous sea creature is a 'girl' man-handling (literally) evil bad fishermen. And of course men are the ones destroying earth and sea in these books.

What kind of message does this send to boys, apart from 'You're whipped and deserve to be put in your place!'? Maybe that's not the message I want my son getting.

What kind of message does this send to girls? - You go grrl. You know it's alright to encourage girls to be smart, and strong, but arrogant and snobby?

Some more sad examples -

• The princess meme, for example. Little girls should be placed on a pedestal over everyone and worshipped because they are sweet and innocent and holier than thou (just a bunch of moral superiority bullshit).

• Or even worse, the 'fairy' syndrome, where girls are held up as magical, special and power, while boys are usually clueless or stupid, while any male always are secondary, wrong, or both.

Does this mean in order for my kids to get any kind of perspective of the world other than a white female version, I'd have to write my own books? Who has the time to do that?

Though  ... it occurs to me I should not be so quick to judge. Maybe I should stop and consider that my kids are people too, they can think, they can act. Perhaps I should listen more to them?

Ultimately I have to realize that a book is a book, and that - by itself -  reading it isn't as important as talking about it with my kids, and listening to what they say. This is something I need to do more often.

While the solution is to pick better books, and let my children know that 1) I don't always agree and support all the books there; and 2) explain to them why, I should never lose sight of the bigger picture - as their parent and father, it's up to me to provide the the best example of how to be in life.

Zellers - > soon to be Target

Woolco.
Woolworth.
Pascal.
Eaton's.
Dominion.
Steinberg.
Miracle Mart.
Simpson's.
Consumers Distributing.

Now ... Zellers.

I always thought of Target as a knock-off of Zellers. I don't fully know the history of Target (I wasn't aware that some form of it existed back in 1902). Guess it doesn't matter now.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2011/01/13/target-zelles-takeover.html

"The Zellers locations will continue to exist under that brand name for "a period of time," HBC said in a release. But Target will convert 100 to 150 of those Zellers locations to Target stores in 2013 and 2014 and sell the rest of the current Zellers network of store leases to other retailers."

I understand things change over time (heck the Hudson Bay Company, which is the oldest North American Company was long a source of British and Canadian pride, until four years ago, when it became just another division in an unimportant chain in some large conglomerate not many Americans can afford to shop at, or know about).

But still ... it's hard as a Canadian not to feel sad. I'm not trying to be all revisionist, but overall, I had a fair number of fond memories of buying all sort of toys and goodies at various places like Eaton's, Simpson's, and yes, Zellers.

Same thing with grocery stores like Dominion, and Steinberg - all the nice baked goods. Especially Dominion - they had this way of baking cakes - a smell and taste like no other (yeah I'm aware it may turn out to have been some poisonous ingredients that'll give me cancer some day. Fuck you - I'll live in my memories for a bit longer).

And there was something very Canadian and in my case very Quebecois about going to those places as a kid and even as a teenager. Yes they were businesses, but it's a part of the collective culture that'll never exist going forward, except in my head, and in the heads of others who may feel the same way.

On this day, 67 years ago ...

... The President of United States spoke these words as part his State Of the Union Address -

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; 
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

Sounds like an enlightened idea. I wonder why, 67 years later, we as a nation seem so much farther away from that than ever?

Say hello to the friend that's always been there for you.

Lockheed Martin that is.

Fucking stunning -

Consider all this but a Lockheed Martin précis. A full accounting of its “shadow government” would fill volumes. After all, it’s the number-one contractor not only for the Pentagon, but also for the Department of Energy. It ranks number two for the Department of State, number three for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and number four for the Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development. Even listing the government and quasi-governmental agencies the company has contracts with is a daunting task, but here’s just a partial run-down: the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Land Management, the Census Bureau, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense (including the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Technology Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the General Services Administration, the Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Transportation, the Transportation Security Agency, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Did you get all that?

Obama's appointments of JPMorgan Exec and Goldman Adviser to Top Jobs - more of the same lame game.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/9849

Here's a (bit(ter)) taste -

So the chief gate keeper for the President of the United States has been a powerful opponent of the President's agenda, and a NAFTA cheerleader. The chief economic adviser makes a killing advising Goldman, and thinks that offshoring jobs to China will strengthen the U.S. economy.

Normally I'd say what the fuck, but at given the tragic events of this past weekend, I'd say I'm either too emotionally drained, or just plain worn out.
And from the (currently) lone comment -

... there is enough crossover to insure control of the financial situation to the benefit of the few, and to maintain a permanent war and debt economy at the cost of the country and the people.

Treat the problem, not the symptom.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2011/01/05/montreal-er-overcrowding.html

"Hospital emergency rooms in the Montreal area are overcrowded and some patients have been waiting more than two days to see a doctor."

The solution isn't introducing more fees and stocking up the ER rooms to accept large capacities.

Reader Voska1 has the right idea -

I'd like to know how many people are in the ER that don't need to be but have no other option due to lack of a family doctor and not enough walk in clinics. I know where I live we have a shortage of doctors so finding a family doctor is difficult. As well walk in clinics have such short hour and huge line ups that you often can't get in unless you are there at the moment they open. So if you are sick they tell you to go to the ER as they can't get you in during that 3 hour window.


The solution seems to be more family doctors and more walk in clinic with longer hours. But the focus always seem to be on how can the ER handle more traffic. That's just treating the symptom not the problem.

.... OR CURRENT RESIDENT

It never fails to amaze me how little businesses value their customers. It's all about the bottom line.

Sending mail to them with one name, followed by the words ...

"OR CURRENT RESIDENT" along with my address.

really emphasizies how much it's all about money. Nothing makes me feel less important. Frankly as long as anyone leafs through the catalog and orders something and doles out some dough, they're happy.

Whoever came up with that idea is a fucking moron.