Thursday, September 2, 2010
From what I hear, Al Gore causes most people to experience the opposite of "awakening".
But I guess we've got all kinds.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Q: What are you doing at home?
A: What many women only wish they were doing.
Having never been to a cocktail party in my life, I can't say I've witnessed the scenario which Kathryn Jean Lopez describes in the opening paragraphs of this article. However, I have been asked why I'm home with my kids when I seem to be so intelligent! I have heard women apologize for publicly expressing the wish to stay at home and raise their children. I have been asked, by a slightly confused bank employee from whom I was buying an RRSP, whether I was a homemaker in my own home, or in someone else's - as though he could not fathom the former. (I couldn't quite fathom the latter - I always thought they were called "housekeepers", but I wasn't about to further crease his brow by asking for an explanation.) The message I'm hearing loud and clear is that you can be anything you want, girls, except a Dumb Old Housewife/Mother - that alone is not a valid choice. (Hence our satirically named blog. You did realize it was satirical, right?)
I feel really lucky to be home with my children. So many people fret about not having enough time to spend with family, but it's my job to spend time with mine. I wish that every woman who wanted to do the same could have the luxury of making that choice. Of course, to say that one has that "luxury" isn't to say that every family living on one income can only do so because that income is of a size that allows them to live in luxury. For most of us it is a choice that requires certain sacrifices. Every day we are harangued about what we should give up in order to "save the earth": incandescent bulbs, bottled water, air conditioning, that third -or second, or first! - child. But to suggest that we might give up that yearly vacation, that second car, that flat-screen TV, so that one parent can stay home to raise their children - well, it's not something you hear much about from our secular society. Human beings aren't worth that kind of sacrifice.
h/t PWPL
Having never been to a cocktail party in my life, I can't say I've witnessed the scenario which Kathryn Jean Lopez describes in the opening paragraphs of this article. However, I have been asked why I'm home with my kids when I seem to be so intelligent! I have heard women apologize for publicly expressing the wish to stay at home and raise their children. I have been asked, by a slightly confused bank employee from whom I was buying an RRSP, whether I was a homemaker in my own home, or in someone else's - as though he could not fathom the former. (I couldn't quite fathom the latter - I always thought they were called "housekeepers", but I wasn't about to further crease his brow by asking for an explanation.) The message I'm hearing loud and clear is that you can be anything you want, girls, except a Dumb Old Housewife/Mother - that alone is not a valid choice. (Hence our satirically named blog. You did realize it was satirical, right?)
I feel really lucky to be home with my children. So many people fret about not having enough time to spend with family, but it's my job to spend time with mine. I wish that every woman who wanted to do the same could have the luxury of making that choice. Of course, to say that one has that "luxury" isn't to say that every family living on one income can only do so because that income is of a size that allows them to live in luxury. For most of us it is a choice that requires certain sacrifices. Every day we are harangued about what we should give up in order to "save the earth": incandescent bulbs, bottled water, air conditioning, that third -or second, or first! - child. But to suggest that we might give up that yearly vacation, that second car, that flat-screen TV, so that one parent can stay home to raise their children - well, it's not something you hear much about from our secular society. Human beings aren't worth that kind of sacrifice.
h/t PWPL
Not everything about summer ending is bad.
Mark's back.
It was recently reported that in one children’s soccer league in Ottawa any team that racked up a five-goal lead would be deemed to have lost, and the losing team declared the winners, to spare their feelings.
I always feel special when Ottawa makes headlines like this. Fortunately this idiotic policy has now been reversed, reportedly due to many complaints.
It was recently reported that in one children’s soccer league in Ottawa any team that racked up a five-goal lead would be deemed to have lost, and the losing team declared the winners, to spare their feelings.
I always feel special when Ottawa makes headlines like this. Fortunately this idiotic policy has now been reversed, reportedly due to many complaints.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Pink, swallow your coffee and put the cup down before you watch this.
Update: It only took me about seven hours to clue in to "Stanford Nutting" being a play on "Stand for nothing". D'OH!
h/t Mark Shea
Mark Shea quoted me! Whooo-hoooo!
I am jolly proud to say that the highlighted portion was the comment I left at his blog after the first of his "Jolly Pride" articles:
The Church needs to get with the times: the New York Times, to be precise. We're out and we're stout! Deal with it! Or, as one of our LGBT sisters says: Keep your rosaries off our XXXL hosiery! Down with Weighcism!
Do partake of this latest serving.
A link from Steyn and a quote by Shea, all in the same year! DOH is on a roll!!
The Church needs to get with the times: the New York Times, to be precise. We're out and we're stout! Deal with it! Or, as one of our LGBT sisters says: Keep your rosaries off our XXXL hosiery! Down with Weighcism!
Do partake of this latest serving.
A link from Steyn and a quote by Shea, all in the same year! DOH is on a roll!!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Speaking of CBC themes, this one actually gave me nightmares.
That anyone at the CBC thought this counted as "music" speaks volumes about our national broadcaster. I wonder if it has lyrics?
Sing it with me!
"Now your mind belongs to us,
-leftward lurch, leftward lurch-
Don't think, don't speak, don't make a fuss,
-leftward lurch, leftward lurch-"
Sing it with me!
"Now your mind belongs to us,
-leftward lurch, leftward lurch-
Don't think, don't speak, don't make a fuss,
-leftward lurch, leftward lurch-"
What to do with "OUR CBC"
Kate at SDA alerts her readers to a neon "Kick Me" sign which Friends of Canadian Broadcasting have unwittingly Scotch-taped to the CBC's back. Complaints from the SDA comments section mention the CBC's left-wing bias, the use of tax money to fund the corporation, and its general irrelevance in a society where information is readily available from many other (non-state-funded) sources. All very good points.
When I was growing up in Saskatchewan, we had two channels: CBC from Medicine Hat, and CBC from Swift Current. For part of the year they were broadcasting from different time zones, so whatever you missed on channel 2 you could watch an hour later on channel 4. Looking at it now from my Ontario vantage point, I think this provides an excellent example of what the CBC is all about: geographically or ideologically, you get a view from the left at 6 p.m. and a view from the farther left at 7 p.m., and it all amounts to the same thing. CBC dominated the radio at our house, too - A.M. 540 was the station that came in the most clearly, so that was where my Dad's set was tuned all the time. I don't think CBC radio was as intolerable as CBC TV - I don't know how he could have stood it otherwise. (The "As It Happens" theme song never fails to make me think of suppertime at home, so that's one of a few non-soul-destroying effects the CBC has had on my life, along with the joy derived from Hockey Night in Canada and Wayne and Shuster.) Gee, maybe I'll go to the CBC website and link to the beloved and familiar HNIC theme song...oh, wait....
If my childhood memories serve me correctly, the only other shows that the CBC ever aired were Hymn Sing and Front Page Challenge, and each episode lasted approximately one thousand hours, especially if you had been hoping Disney was on. The upside to two CBC channels was that we had the chance to catch The Wonderful World of Disney twice every Sunday. It was just like today's TV on demand...except for that a state broadcaster chose what you were going to watch and you always had to be ready to start watching it exactly one hour after it was first broadcast. Still, two hours of Sport Goofy was pretty entertaining. Of course, that was back in the bad old days when the CBC wasn't as fully engaged in telling us what it meant to be authentically Canadian, as they have done recently by broadcasting Dr. Who and as they continue to do by scheduling three hour blocks of Coronation Street. Funny how almost everything I ever wanted to watch on the CBC wasn't made by the CBC.
In grade school I entered several creative writing contests held by CBC radio, and I took away my share of loot, including a tiny portable Sony radio. Obviously I won the prize because I was able to keep my conservative views out of my poem about the sun coming up. I now consider these items a 0.00000000000000000000001% return on the taxes I pay to keep the CBC churning out its dreck. I know that doesn't make the rest of you feel any better, but you can borrow my radio (and my CBC toque) when you come to visit. I promise that by then I will have embroidered "PRIVATIZE THE" in big red letters in front of the CBC logo.
My little radio still works 24 years later, but I don't use its radio function much anymore. I mostly plug my iPod into it and use it for a speaker... so that I never have to listen to or watch what I'm paying for the CBC to produce. These days it's easy for most people to plug into something more useful than a biased, state-funded dinosaur for their information, and as for isolated places where it isn't easy - well, is spending a billion dollars a year to funnel crap to them really worth it? I'd be surprised if many Canadians feel like the CBC is telling their story, as it has claimed. Corner Gas comes a heck of a lot closer to telling my story, at least all the funny parts of it where I imagine I'm friends with Brent Butt. I think we're done with "our" CBC. Can we have OUR money back now?
When I was growing up in Saskatchewan, we had two channels: CBC from Medicine Hat, and CBC from Swift Current. For part of the year they were broadcasting from different time zones, so whatever you missed on channel 2 you could watch an hour later on channel 4. Looking at it now from my Ontario vantage point, I think this provides an excellent example of what the CBC is all about: geographically or ideologically, you get a view from the left at 6 p.m. and a view from the farther left at 7 p.m., and it all amounts to the same thing. CBC dominated the radio at our house, too - A.M. 540 was the station that came in the most clearly, so that was where my Dad's set was tuned all the time. I don't think CBC radio was as intolerable as CBC TV - I don't know how he could have stood it otherwise. (The "As It Happens" theme song never fails to make me think of suppertime at home, so that's one of a few non-soul-destroying effects the CBC has had on my life, along with the joy derived from Hockey Night in Canada and Wayne and Shuster.) Gee, maybe I'll go to the CBC website and link to the beloved and familiar HNIC theme song...oh, wait....
If my childhood memories serve me correctly, the only other shows that the CBC ever aired were Hymn Sing and Front Page Challenge, and each episode lasted approximately one thousand hours, especially if you had been hoping Disney was on. The upside to two CBC channels was that we had the chance to catch The Wonderful World of Disney twice every Sunday. It was just like today's TV on demand...except for that a state broadcaster chose what you were going to watch and you always had to be ready to start watching it exactly one hour after it was first broadcast. Still, two hours of Sport Goofy was pretty entertaining. Of course, that was back in the bad old days when the CBC wasn't as fully engaged in telling us what it meant to be authentically Canadian, as they have done recently by broadcasting Dr. Who and as they continue to do by scheduling three hour blocks of Coronation Street. Funny how almost everything I ever wanted to watch on the CBC wasn't made by the CBC.
In grade school I entered several creative writing contests held by CBC radio, and I took away my share of loot, including a tiny portable Sony radio. Obviously I won the prize because I was able to keep my conservative views out of my poem about the sun coming up. I now consider these items a 0.00000000000000000000001% return on the taxes I pay to keep the CBC churning out its dreck. I know that doesn't make the rest of you feel any better, but you can borrow my radio (and my CBC toque) when you come to visit. I promise that by then I will have embroidered "PRIVATIZE THE" in big red letters in front of the CBC logo.
My little radio still works 24 years later, but I don't use its radio function much anymore. I mostly plug my iPod into it and use it for a speaker... so that I never have to listen to or watch what I'm paying for the CBC to produce. These days it's easy for most people to plug into something more useful than a biased, state-funded dinosaur for their information, and as for isolated places where it isn't easy - well, is spending a billion dollars a year to funnel crap to them really worth it? I'd be surprised if many Canadians feel like the CBC is telling their story, as it has claimed. Corner Gas comes a heck of a lot closer to telling my story, at least all the funny parts of it where I imagine I'm friends with Brent Butt. I think we're done with "our" CBC. Can we have OUR money back now?
Saturday, August 28, 2010
EXTRA - Super Lib Saves Our Country From Shane Doan!
What worries me is, who will police hockey players' speech when the Liberals finally return to power and are too busy wrecking Canada to tend to these kinds of important matters?
I'm shocked - shocked, I tell you - to learn that rude and sometimes even hurtful speech is bandied about on this nation's ice hockey surfaces. Hockey sounds almost as non-warm and fuzzy as politics. They should get a third guy - er, person - in the broadcasting booth to provide "off-color commentary" so that this kind of deplorable thing can be denounced even as it is happening!
I'm shocked - shocked, I tell you - to learn that rude and sometimes even hurtful speech is bandied about on this nation's ice hockey surfaces. Hockey sounds almost as non-warm and fuzzy as politics. They should get a third guy - er, person - in the broadcasting booth to provide "off-color commentary" so that this kind of deplorable thing can be denounced even as it is happening!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Written With a Keyboard Upon a Luminous Screen, 2010
O ephem'ral Summer,
green and fleet,
do not look back-
Unless thou canst endure
Fall's misplaced cleat,
bone-crushing sack.
green and fleet,
do not look back-
Unless thou canst endure
Fall's misplaced cleat,
bone-crushing sack.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Ruffled Fur
The more hysterical critics of this stupid and cruel prank are threatening the perpetrator with death and saying she should be "dismembered". She might well wonder what the big deal is, since humans the world over regularly dispose of their "unwanted" offspring by dumping them in the trash, and many people don't seem to mind at all.
This morning Google news boasts over 1200 articles related to the story. I can't decide if people are really this deranged or if, as Kate McMillan would say, "The world still has too many reporters."
This morning Google news boasts over 1200 articles related to the story. I can't decide if people are really this deranged or if, as Kate McMillan would say, "The world still has too many reporters."
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
The blog you plug may be your own.
Bad Catholic. Sounds like it's right up my alley. I thought I'd give them some publicity 'cause, you know, we have so many readers here.
Anyway, a friend of Flannery is a friend of mine.
(h/t Mark Shea)
Anyway, a friend of Flannery is a friend of mine.
(h/t Mark Shea)
Sweet!
Best birthday greeting of 2010 (next to the flowers--thanks, Mo; the case of Mike's--thanks Jo; Amazon gift certificate--thanks, Mr. P and assorted kinder; and fully awesome chocolate cheesecake, that is.)
Cyber cards from Puckety:
Mrs. Jones made this for me:
Cyber cards from Puckety:
Mrs. Jones made this for me:
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Calling all cars
Andrea at PWPL is embarking on an interesting project. This is the comment I left there:
Here’s my Feminine Myth Pique, which not only tells the world everything it thinks it needs to know about pro-lifers who happen to be Catholic, but is also a great showcase for culture-of-death logic at its finest:
Catholics are anti-choice because the Church “sees women as baby machines”. (Direct quote from my grade 11 English teacher.) (That’s why it also holds that renting someone else’s womb, for instance, is contrary to human dignity and the natural law.) Also, Catholics are touchy about issues surrounding abortion because they hate and fear sex so much… which is obvious from the large families they are routinely ridiculed for having.
Here’s my Feminine Myth Pique, which not only tells the world everything it thinks it needs to know about pro-lifers who happen to be Catholic, but is also a great showcase for culture-of-death logic at its finest:
Catholics are anti-choice because the Church “sees women as baby machines”. (Direct quote from my grade 11 English teacher.) (That’s why it also holds that renting someone else’s womb, for instance, is contrary to human dignity and the natural law.) Also, Catholics are touchy about issues surrounding abortion because they hate and fear sex so much… which is obvious from the large families they are routinely ridiculed for having.
The World According to Dr. Seuss
I'm shocked - shocked, I tell you!
I took a trip to my local Chapters today and saw a wall display which was entitled, "The World Needs More Canada". There were some books about Trudeau, and some about canoeing, and some about Trudeau canoeing, but not a single volume by Mark Steyn.
I know! I can't believe it either.
UPDATE: Welcome Steyn readers! And thanks for the link, Mr. Steyn.
I know! I can't believe it either.
UPDATE: Welcome Steyn readers! And thanks for the link, Mr. Steyn.
That's the ticket.
Someone around here is very lucky.
I had to chuckle at this:
At a five-per-cent rate of return on interest and investments, when you factor in tax, the winner could make $625,000 a year off $25 million in winnings, she said. That’s a lot of money, but not enough to live a truly lavish lifestyle forever.
I had to chuckle at this:
At a five-per-cent rate of return on interest and investments, when you factor in tax, the winner could make $625,000 a year off $25 million in winnings, she said. That’s a lot of money, but not enough to live a truly lavish lifestyle forever.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Albums We Never Listen To
For the estimated 33-67% of DOH's readers who are Blue Rodeo fans, I have made a brief survey of their latest album, The Things We Left Behind. Aside from "Sheba" and "One Light Left in Heaven", first results are not encouraging.
Come on, guys! I've been sticking with you for a good 20 years. Are you really offering me another album composed mostly of Greg Keelor singing in successively tighter pairs of underpants while a cello plays soulfully in the background? Thank goodness for Jim Cuddy.
I hope this album can grow on me. Meanwhile, give this a try.
Come on, guys! I've been sticking with you for a good 20 years. Are you really offering me another album composed mostly of Greg Keelor singing in successively tighter pairs of underpants while a cello plays soulfully in the background? Thank goodness for Jim Cuddy.
I hope this album can grow on me. Meanwhile, give this a try.
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