Questions

Busy doing nothing but different from the day before…  yes, some “classic” Prince.  Today isn’t much different from yesterday, although I had a funny moment this morning.  My lay minister had messaged earlier this week to set up an appointment, and I accepted.  This morning, he called from the entry to say that he was here, and I said, “But it’s Saturday, you’d said Sunday!” When I went back to check the email, I read “Saturday” which was a little embarrassing.  But thankfully everything went well, and I received my communion, which I really miss when he’s not available.  Jerry, of course, objected to being thrown out of bed to have someone let in, and has been guarding me for part of the day.  Don is feeling a little better, although he’s still having problems walking and has started using his cane in the house.  

The streets downtown were again closed off today because of another protest of drivers.  They decided to clog the highways and major arteries, and there were people downtown shrieking and making noise.  My willingness to support people’s right to protest has been in decline as they impact my “peaceful enjoyment of my residence” with some extremely selfish noise making activities.  I mean, honestly, protesting Parliament on a Saturday?  How stupid  can you be?  As for the other idiots who support this, clogging the sidewalks so that people can’t walk easily is just even more brainlessness in action.  

Speaking of dumbassery, there are some really dreadful comments floating around that suggest that there are fatuous “wars” on Christianity, heterosexuality and men’s rights.  These relate to people acknowledging that there’s diversity in the world.  I have a certain level of privilege, as I’m a heterosexual cis-gendered woman who was raised in the dominant religion and with a name that fits a Eurocentric view of the world.  Being a “person of colour” means that I’ve faced my own share of racial discrimination and had to go through dealing with ignorance.  I can’t fully understand the rationale for bias and hatred.  I mean, if someone has a different approach to life from you, as long as they aren’t hurting you, why would you want to attack them?  Why would you think that you’re right in all things and they’re wrong just because they’re different?  Logically, why would someone’s choice of who they love have any impact on the lives of anyone else?  I mean, if 2 women (or 2 men) choose to marry, it has ZERO impact on heterosexual marriages, as these people aren’t interested in that kind of relationship.  And if we forced gay men to marry women, that would be even more of a sham marriage than one where one partner cheats on the other. How does recognizing more than one celebration become an “attack” on one of them?  Why should we limit ourselves to just one way of doing things?  I mean, wishing someone “Happy Holidays” doesn’t prevent you from celebrating Christmas if that’s what you do; it just acknowledges that there are other holidays happening at the same time.   More than that, when people set up a system where the only people who can get selected for a job are members of a particular group, it means that people who are less than fully qualified will get selected because the pool is so small.  So broadening the candidature theoretically means that there will be more fully qualified options, and many of them will be outside the original group.  It doesn’t mean that it’s unfair to the initial group, it means that there will be stronger competition.  This is only a bad thing if you want to stack the deck in favour of one particular group and exclude everyone else.  

In my opinion, it’s a really bad thing to work to privilege one group to the detriment of others.  I also think that it’s silly to set up artificial barriers.  Like saying, “no blacks allowed” (something that thankfully is mostly eliminated) or setting up “men’s work” and “women’s work” — unless it involves the genitals, there’s very little that can’t be done by either men or women.  I think that we need to reassess our society and how we manage things.  I’d like it if we could reduce income inequality, improve food and water availability and provide more meaningful employment across the globe.  I remain a dreamer, because I know that I’m asking for something that’s close to impossible… I’d settle for “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, there shall be no more war,” as a start.  Please don’t burst my bubbles, I think that it’s an attainable goal for us.

OK, I’m off to dream of a better world, and I hope that you’ll all have a lovely night.  Good night!