It turns out that the abstinence education study took the religion out and promoted educated discussion and empowerment – not just “don’t do it”. Sorry to have been so alarmist!

Yet another example of newspapers selectively reporting according to whomever’s bias: The Washington Post writes that abstinence-only programs may actually deter teens from having sex. If you don’t talk about it, it won’t happen! Also, 0.1% of climate scientists think global climate change could be a coincidence, so buy a new Hummer!

Only about a third of sixth- and seventh-graders who completed an abstinence-focused program started having sex within the next two years, researchers found.

THIS IS A JOKE. I wasn’t having sex in eighth or ninth grade either, for the record. I think that if an abstinence-focused program is to be instituted, it absolutely must be combined with safety education, such as condom use. Are those two things mutually exclusive?

This has got to be a joke. This National Post article decries Women’s Studies programs in post-secondary institutions as having “done untold damage to families, our court systems, labour laws, constitutional freedoms and even the ordinary relations between men and women.” This article is so radically right-wing and reactionary that it seems, to me, to smell suspiciously of tongue-in-cheek humour, but it’s not April first, and this is the National Post we’re talking about.

Ideas like these – which are more widespread than I would like to believe, and which, sometimes, enveloped in my liberal bubble, I forget exist at all except on the raving crazy edges of society – are the reason that, while feminists have won loads of territory in past decades, we are still watching things creep backwards. Like a rising tide, every advance comes with a matching recession. There are still leagues of rabid anti-feminists out there who can feel their privilege being contested and don’t like it.

But seriously, this does sound like a joke. I find it hard to believe that anyone could write this with any sincerity:

Their professors have argued, with some success, that rights should be granted not to individuals alone, but to whole classes of people, too. This has led to employment equity — hiring quotas based on one’s gender or race rather than on an objective assessment of individual talents.

Thanks to kt & Daniel Koyata for the update – Scott Roeder is sentenced to 25, possibly 50, years in prison for the cold-blooded first-degree premeditated murder of Dr George Tiller. The jury deliberated less than fourty minutes.

The New York Times reports on the trial of Scott Roeder, the man who, in cold blood, shot Dr George R Tiller – and felt “a sense of relief” once the job was done. Dr Tiller, of course, performed abortions – and so Roeder acted as if it was his duty to save the babies. Roeder stated in-trial that he “did what [he] thought was needed to be done to protect the children.” According to the Times, this trial has turned into exactly what the acting Judge didn’t want it to be – a trial over the issue of abortion. Now, a difficult issue is faced by the judge and jury; this is a precedent-setting case. If Roeder receives a conviction for anything less than first degree murder – if his strong beliefs about the morality of abortion and foetal rights have him given a lesser sentence – it could, feasibly, start a chain of similar crimes.

Mr. Roeder has pleaded not guilty to murder, but defense lawyers had argued that his beliefs about abortion might warrant a voluntary manslaughter conviction if jurors concluded that Mr. Roeder possessed, as Kansas law defines it, “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.”

When I saw Avatar – in 3D, pretty quickly after it landed in big-box theatres – I remember sitting in the theatre, watching this incredible dynamic, colourful, lush, computer-animated landscape move in front of and around me, wondering if I’d become too socially conscious to ever enjoy a Hollywood film again. Sigh. I tweeted about it, and received a snide comment or two in reply telling me that I need to learn to “turn off” my critical response mechanism and just enjoy a feat of technology.

Okay. Fair. But I knew I wasn’t alone. As the movie unfolded in front of me, I found myself growing more and more irritated – by the sudden weakness of the female main as soon as she was pair-bonded with the male main, and with the obvious white-American-colonial role of the humans in the film, and with the anthropologically unrealistic customs of the Na’vi. That’s why I was so glad to find this article – thank you, I’m not alone in being critical of this film! I mean, hell, it wasn’t as bad as Twilight: New Moon (during which I actually laughed out loud at several points, and immediately went into a verbal tirade upon the start of the credits)… but my reaction – my indignance – has similar motivations.

I believe that it is ethically obligatory for big box films – acts of media that reach as many people as both Avatar and Twilight – to be conscious of their reinforcement of racist, sexist, and otherwise ignorant ass-backwards ideas. These are the indoctrinatory systems we, as a culture, use to teach our children about the world. These are very powerful messages. Of course, I’m not about to suggest censorship, either. Maybe I should aim to be an ethical/social justice consultant for big media. Sounds like a great career option.

In the vein of yesterday’s post, Rabble’s Samantha Power reviews Satya Das’ Green Oil – a book that asks Alberta, Canada’s biggest (and most stubborn) contributor to the greenhouse gas/climate change problem, to take some responsibility and help Canada reverse (or buy off) some of the damage it’s done.

Unfortunately, Power writes, Alberta doesn’t really have a track record that lends a lot of hope to the situation. I know; I grew up there and escaped at the first opportunity. Albertans have a holier-than-thou attitude about their economic role within the nation and some delusion that that gives them the power to do whatever they like at the expense of not only the rest of the country but the entire fucking planet.

If I’m ashamed to call myself Canadian, I’m doubly ashamed to be Albertan, and I’m glad I escaped – but the “green flight” out of Alberta is likely part of the problem. If things are to be changed, Das’ book suggests, Albertans need to make those changes – and if all the activists in the province flee to the bike- and vegetarian-friendly coast, who’s going to do the work? It is vital now that Albertan activists team up and work together to change the prevalent view in the province. And they are. They have an incredible bond, those Albertan idealists.

I feel guilty for having taken the selfish way out and come somewhere that’s already a bit more enlightened. Someone’s got to do the dirty work.

If you’ haven’t read George Monbiot’s article (The Urgent Threat to World Peace is…) yet, you really should – it’s vital reading for Canadians and non-Canadians alike. Our Conservative government, and our Bush-pandering Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have turned us into the laughingstock of the world. When it comes to tackling the very real problem of global climate change, Canada is the least proactive nation in the world (second only to Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s oil capitals). And we are potentially one of the worst contributors to imminent ecological global catastrophe.

The Athabasca Tar Sands project is the dirtiest oil excavation project in the world, and it’s in Northern Alberta. It’s not even economically feasible – the gunk that is pulled out of the earth is ” a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals” (Monbiot) that’s devastating the delicate Northern Alberta ecosystem. Treehugger posted an excellent before and after photo of the Athabasca Tar Sands area. There are people working at the Sands whose job is to scrape dead birds off of the surface of the drainage ponds.

This shit is fucked up. Harper even promised the U.S.A. to increase output at Athabasca, despite the fact that it’s destroying the Canadian ecosystem, single-handedly reversing our Kyoto promises, and is (arguably) the biggest current contributor to global climate change.

Being Canadian, as Monbiot writes, used to be something we could be proud of – at least we’re not American! But I don’t really feel that way anymore. It makes me sick to be part of this machine, to know that my tax dollars are supporting things that, in my gut and in my head, I know are so wrong.

In semi-related news, I am still glad I’m not American… did you know that more Americans believe angels are watching over them, and that UFOs make stops on Earth, than that humans have a role in climate change? Seriously.

The world’s in Copenhagen, Denmark right now to talk about combating climate change – and the Danish hosts are hopeful for an agreement that will allow 190 world nations to join together like Power Rangers to fight the worst imaginable threat to our species.

“The biggest climate talks in history opened on Monday with a stark U.N. warning of the risk of desertification and rising seas and an assurance by hosts Denmark that a deal to combat climate change was ‘within reach’.”
-Alister Doyle & David Fogarty, Reuters

The summit, held at the end of the conference – which goes until December 18th – will be attended by even the most negligent of world leaders, including my very own Prime Minister, Stephen “I’m a Robot” Harper. The man – and my nation’s record of jerk moves on climate change – makes me ashamed to be Canadian.

Watch it live streaming right now or don’t. Equal marriage has been a hot topic of late, obviously. You’d have to be living under a rock to have avoided hearing about it. The United States is, unfortunately, a model for civil liberties worldwide, and I think it’s sick and sad that equal marriage is still such an issue of contention.

Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire are currently the only states that allow same-sex marriages in the USA. In New York (as well as in Washington, D.C.), same-sex marriage certificates from elsewhere are recognized, but aren’t currently performed.