Something to Remember

This. This Right Here.

I feel I’ve lost the magic.  I know it’s all around me, if I open my eyes.. so it’s time to open my eyes.

Lost

I seem to have lost my way, my path is blurry.

I’m attempting to get back to it…. so much is going on in my life, but I do know that the Goddess wants positive for me and I need to remember that.

Serenity.

LGBTT2QQI Free BBQ

Hello Friends and Neighbours:

South Riverdale Community Health Centre’s staff, volunteers, and Queer Action Committee (QUAC), in partnership with WoodGreen Community Services’ staff and volunteers are pleased to invite you to attend the 3^rd annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, 2-spirited, Queer, Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTT2QQI) PRIDE BBQ CELEBRATION!

THIS IS A QUEER POSITIVE & FREE EVENT FOR THE WHOLE COMMUNITY, INCLUDING LGBTT2QQI, FRIENDS, AND NEIGHBOURS.

We can promise all who join us a great party mix of MUSIC, ART, GAMES, FOOD and FUN, along with a RAFFLE featuring great prizes from a variety of local (and not so local) sponsors!

When: Thursday June 24^th (Rain or Shine)

Time: 12 noon to 3pm

Where: South Riverdale Community Health Centre, West Yard

955 Queen Street East (just East of Carlaw Ave.)

Our celebration marks the 30^th year that LGBTT2QQI PRIDE is being celebrated in Toronto. It has been 41 years since the Stonewall rebellion of June 28^th – July 2nd, 1969, when a group of butch lesbians, transsexuals, and drag queens who were patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, fought back in a courageous and defiant show of resistance against New York City cops who had raided the bar.

The Stonewall Riots have come to represent the first real show of resistance against systemic intolerance, persecution, and violence directed at queer and gender variant individuals, as well as the start of what was to become a world wide gay civil rights movement

Spread the word, and come join us in celebration of LGBTT2QQI Pride!

Magick?

Was there ever a time… did you ever?

As a young girl I believed in magick.  I mean – rainbows and unicorns and magick. Forces beyond what we are taught to trust.

Not like the kind I believe in now.  Now, it’s tempered with knowledge of the world.  It’s interrupted with information from outside.  It’s diluted and corrupted.  I am Wiccan and strongly believe in karma.  I know that what I put out into the world I get back, threefold.  I understand that we are all connected, all one.  I get that energy is neither created nor destroyed… so I believe in reincarnation.  It’s a real mishmash of thoughts and beliefs. lol  But they’re mine.

Now… as a child I had a wonder in my heart.  It was a wonder that told me there was real magick afoot.  I trusted in it.  I believe we could fly.  I recall finding a wooded area once. I was very unhappy where I lived (physically and mentally) and wandered off one day – I found myself in a place.  I spent the afternoon there.  I recall thinking that I was in some special safe place.  I never found it again afterward.  I used to dream in rainbows and unicorns.  They say that your spiritual animal can come to you in dreams and I read that unicorns exist in the *in-between* place…between dream and awakening.  I knew it was true.  I knew that the unicorn was my animal.  This feeling in me that all this existed is like being home sick.  I know it’s there… and I know I’ve lost it.

I recall finding the oddest thing once.  In my house.  No one else was home and under a piece of carpet there was a lump.  I investigated.  I found a wee bag with these teeny weeny little triangle pieces in it.  Metal.  I thought it was something.  I remember trying to put them together in a way that made sense.  I knew it had to be something, like a puzzle.  But I guess my parents found it and removed it.  I never found them again where I had put them.

I remember walking in the woods and feeling… voices and spiritual.  Being one with the world.  I had a pretty hard childhood and found solace in odd things.  Building forts and running through the woods.  Knowing by heart where every footstep had to fall so that I wouldn’t.  I was so proud of that.  Being able to run through our forest without a trip.  Knowing all the bits and parts that made up the forest behind where we *lived*.  I was part of that world.

The only other time I ever felt that way was after going through some therapy stuff at 25.  I felt I came out of a coma and suddenly life was there.  There was music and children laughing and the smell of fresh cut grass and life was all new.  I started to see with the fresh eyes of a child.  It was magick, I had wonderment in my heart once again…but not the same as when I was a child as it was tainted, tarnished and muted by new knowledge of what the world really held in store.  Of what people could really do to you.

I wonder if we weren’t taught what to say, how to think, what to label everything… as children… if we would feel this magick around us?

If I was never told *that is a table*, or * that is orange* – would I have kept my magick names for these items and been free to see them with my young eyes that weren’t told what to see for what they really were?

I’ve seen spirits.  They scared me, but as a child I didn’t understand and then there was tv, telling me that spirits were to be a thing of fear.

Would I have reacted differently?  Would I have welcomed them rather than run screaming from them?  Being ignorant, taught to fear them?

Maybe this is why I hang on to rainbows and unicorns.  I have tattoos of both.  People think they know what these mean, but they’d be wrong.  🙂  I give them the easy answer.  They accept it as they accept the answer to *how are you*…. fine.

Communication

I thought communication was hard with emailing when it first started.   I still think so. lol

That’s why we invented smiles and winks… to convey what we are really trying to say.  You can write something and it can be taken in many different ways.  Now we have email, texting, blogging, facebooking….. not human interaction.  The art of communication is being degraded every day.  Spelling, short cuts and short forms, context.  People would rather text, and add that smiley than actually speak to another individual.  And you shorten the words so that you can fit more, faster.  Fast food society.  You say something you wouldn’t say to their face, and add a smiley so that it softens your words and implies you are kidding around.

It’s so easy to misinterpret any given message.   In fact, if you type the word misinterpretation into Google – it gives you leads on emails, texts, messages.  Even Google agrees!

There is nothing like an evening with friends, or a really good, long, deep chat with a friend.  You can see their emotions, feel their words, share ideas.  You know they are laughing… they don’t have to say lol.  And now, even in daily life, in the oral use of language I hear people say OMG instead of Oh MY God.  And lmao.  Why do you have to say that?  If you are in front of me I can see you are NOT laughing your butt off!  It’s so easy to quickly whip off a word or two when you are busy – but on the other end of the line there is a person getting your message and thinking – why are they mad at me?  Ha ha ha.  Or you post a question mark instead of writing out what you really want to know and the wrong impression is given, the wrong answer provided.  Then you have to start over.  Are we really saving time?  Even snail mail is better than this electronic, cold method of *talking*.

Since the beginning of time the English language has transitioned many times.  We have slang in our dictionaries now, as if they were proper words.  Take, for instance, the word ‘ain’t’.  Ain’t ain’t a word…but it’s in the new dictionaries.  How are they going to keep up with all the text talk that’s coming up?  Are we going to see lol and lmao and wtf and omg in the dictionary one day?  A service provided for people who don’t use the net and don’t text, so they can figure out what’s going on?   Ha ha.  It’s so much faster to type nm, than to thumb and finger your phone keys and type never mind.  Unless the receiver does not know “text talk”.  Then you have to begin again, and type it all out.  Is it good for us?  I think not.  It’s almost disrespectful to the art of words.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve always been a reader that I notice and care.  I see typos all the time… even in paid for books.  And do you know why?  Because it’s easier to use spell check than to really look at what you’re (not your)  editing!  And spell check doesn’t notice that the word you have used is wrong, because it is a word… and in the right context, it’s a correct word.  But if you say I’m going over their…. it won’t catch that.  So many times I see your this or that..when what they mean is you’re.  And then, instead of than.  It’s easy for me to catch these because English is my first language and I do read a lot.  I do crosswords.  I know that not everyone does.  So common mistakes, I understand, but destroying the whole (not hole) art of language is distressing to me.

They’ve Gone Crazy! lol

Latest G20 security preparation plans revealed

Richard Southern, Jackie Rosen and 680News staff May 20, 2010 09:14:20 AM

TORONTO, Ont. – Unscalable fences, plywood for the windows and emergency food supplies –these are among the latest security measures being suggested in advance of the G20 summit in Toronto end of June.

The RCMP is also recommending that the downtown Bay Street crowd wears civvies during the summit, so as not to stand out from the corporate-hating protesters.

In addition to the wardrobe, downtown office towers plan on stockpiling enough supplies for several days, in case they ever get locked down.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the CN Tower has confirmed that Toronto’s tallest building will remain closed to the public during the summit.

Due to security concerns, the tower will keep its doors shut from Friday, June 25 to Sunday, June 27, and will re-open on Monday, June 28.

The CN Tower, which is visited by thousands of people every weekend, is the latest building to announce it will be closed during the G20 meetings, which will be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Just last week, the Toronto Blue Jays said they plan to move their weekend series versus the Philadelphia Phillies, to Philadelphia. The games were highly anticipated due to the return of former Jays ace Roy Halladay.

The CN Tower’s announcement follows Tuesday’s firebombing of an RBC branch in Ottawa. The group which claimed responsibility for the attack has stated that they plan to take their protest to Toronto’s G20 meetings next month.

As a result, all banks are on high alert, and officers said they are prepared to deal with any problems leading up to and during the meetings.

To see the original post, click HERE.

Demonstrators Against G20 Won’t Be Muzzled, OCAP President Says

680News staff May 20, 2010 15:45:32 PM

An umbrella group of social activists has said it plans to protest next month’s G20 summit because the leaders don’t represent the interests of ordinary people.

John Clark with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty said demonstrators won’t be muzzled.

“If you are going to impose this poverty and misery on people throughout this planet, don’t think that you’re going to be able to ask them to confine themselves to sedate, nice polite methods of struggle,” Clark said. “People, by God, are going to resist and they have a a damn right to.”

Demonstrators said they will be protesting for self-determination for indigenous people, climate justice, income equity, community control over resources and migrant justice.

To read the original post click HERE.

Community Planning Session for United Anti-Poverty Work

Join us for a planning and organizing discussion of anti-poverty activists from across the city on Saturday, June 12th.  Send a representative or two from your organization.  Encourage any youth or resident groups, or agencies working to end poverty to join us at the forum.
A COMMUNITY PLANNING FORUM FOR ANTI-POVERTY GROUPS IN TORONTO
Some steps forward, but many more to go:
How can we push ahead and get real change?
Join with other community groups across the city fighting to
end poverty; share what’s happening in your community; hear
what others are doing; connect with new ideas; explore new
opportunities to open the way for change.

The meeting will be at the North York Memorial Hall at the North York Centre from 10 AM-3 PM (5110 Yonge St., near the library–North York Centre subway station).

We will be looking at where people are being actively engaged around issues related to poverty, different strategies for fighting poverty, ways in which we can help each other achieve our local goals and broader successes, and how we might communicate better with new and existing allies.

***Please let me know how many will be attending, so we can plan for refreshments / child care.
For RSVP and more information, please contact:
Mary Micallef – 416-351-0095 ext. 251 or mmicallef@socialplanningtoronto.org
http://socialplanningtoronto.org/
• Child minding assistance available on request
• This venue is wheelchair accessible
• Refreshments provided

Preconcieved Notions and Misconceptions.

People who are on the *system*…welfare, ODSP… they get a bad wrap.  Just because they are there, doesn’t mean they want to be there.

Some folks end up there through no fault of their own.  You lose your job because you fall ill.  Your rent is 800.00 –  you can no longer afford it.  Or your landlord of 11 years sells his building and informs all that live there that they have two months to move.  But now you are on the system.  You’re used to working and making good money – but that’s not the case now.  Now you must survive an entire month on 591.00 – that’s rent, food, clothes, medical needs, transportation.  Your rent *allotment* is considered to be 345.00.  lol  In a city where it costs approximately (at the lowest) 425.00 JUST to rent a single room where you must share bathroom facillities – what does that leave you to live on?   166.00.  So you think you’ll get a roommate and lower the costs?  Don’t think you can get just *any* roommate – if it’s the opposite sex they will call you a couple and decide your fate on what that other person earns!!  And what happens if you CAN’T find a new place to live?  Now you’re homeless…A buspass is 130.00.  If you want to search for work or go to a food bank or another resource to get food – churches, community centres.  What do you spend on food a month?  For a single person?  And I mean on food you like… food that’s good for you.  If you go to a food bank what do you get?  You get starch and carbohydrates.  You get rice, pasta, tin foods.  And it’s not just one race of people going there.  Each person has different requirements.  In some places the people cannot eat specific foods for religious reasons.  People with diabetes can’t eat any of the above.  And don’t expect meat or salad.  If you were to have a choice to eat what and how much you need, what would you require to spend on food?  To live a healthy and dignified life?  What about a phone?  You need a phone to call for jobs and get call backs, right?  So add that in.

Without proper nutrition you get sick.  Your health care costs rise.  Your confidence and self esteem drop.  Try looking for an apartment and telling your new landlord that you are on the system… Try explaining to a new boss in an interview what you’ve been *doing* with yourself for the last few months.  Attempt to get a job where no one is hiring.  Then you start to make choices.  Do I buy the food I need or get a buspass?  Do I pay rent or bills?  If I get an interview, how will I get there and what will I wear?  If I get a haircut do I cut out some food?

Now – knowing that people are starving – let’s take a look at the special food diet.  This was implemented to supply people with foods they need depending on their illnesses.  At first it wasn’t well known, but as time went on folks discovered it and took advantage of the fact that they could actually get money for FOOD.   So the numbers went up…. well, why not.  People need to eat.  So now the gov has decided that it’s *unsustainable* to feed people?…they are phasing out this diet.  Now you must reapply to the ministry of health, as apposed to social assistance.   They will have a list of illnesses they deem appropriate to cover and it will be less money than recipients were originally receiving, perhaps even coupon type mentality.  And not all recipients are being grandfathered into the new plan.  Another cut, another slash to the poor.  Way to go – so proud of our government.

People – all people – have a right to food.  There is certainly enough of it on this planet and our government knows this.  But here’s the catch.  If they raise the rates of social assistance – they have to raise the minimum wages in companies.  Minimum wage is still below the poverty line.  But if social assistance is near that rate – then they believe people will have no desire to take those low paying jobs.  And if they don’t provide social assistance and they just let people die in the streets – they believe there will be a massive uproar in the people…  Well, that’s what they need.  Massive uproar.  Because they ARE starving people.

Food banks were introduced as an emergency measure – they weren’t meant to be part of your monthly income.  They weren’t meant to be sustainable.

Health, and healthy food choices should be a normal part of life.  Life with dignity.  Shame on our government for starving it’s people.  No one can be expected to get ahead when they are hungry and this has been proven just by the fact that we have lunch programs or breakfast programs in schools for our children.  What are we doing?  Feeding them young and then starving them when they grow up?

And so what if you DO get a job, a part time job to start?  They take half of your pay OR MORE… each month.  So you work this month – they take it off your next cheque…but what if you don’t work next month?  They don’t help you get ahead.  They hold you down.

Some folks have life long illnesses.  They are on the system.  Did they ask to get Cancer, or AIDs or Diabetes, or Myofibrillar myopathies?

Truly – stop misconceiving the world around you…know your facts.  Help raise awareness – when we raise the lowest of us, we all raise to new heights.

Single folks aside – what about people with children!  (Thanks Kayla B for pointing this out.)  People have to go day to day worrying about how to feed their children.  Have you ever had a small child?  In school?  Try paying for all the trips.  Try telling your child that 6.50 is too much and they have to stay home when all the other children are going on a trip.  Try sending your child to school with a lunch comprised of food bank goods.  Try spending money on gym suits, day planners, locks for lockers…etc.  The list never ends, as anyone with kids knows.  And this doesn’t even cover clothing them… in what they feel comfortable in – because kids make fun of each other.  And what about how they are treated when they are asked what their parents do for a living?  Bring your parents to school?  Really?  How about having your friend over at lunch time?  What are you going to feed them?

Then there’s a whole other section – folks that were brought up on assistance – and then the grown up children go on it.  It’s all they know.  Maybe they had a parent that had a life long illness, that couldn’t work.  All that child knows is the system.  We all learn coping mechanisms and tools of survival from our caretakers, our providers – and this is what they learn.  No one knows anything but what they are taught when they are younger.  As you get older you learn for yourself.  But it’s ok – because if they get a job – assistance will just take some of that money to keep them there.

All in all.  Poor people are not criminals, or lazy or wanting to be on the system.  They are aware that working provides better money.  They are aware that it’s no fun to be stressed out because every minute of the day is spent searching for ways to get food – for themselves and maybe for their loved ones as well.  If the system covered at least the basics – a place to live and food in their bellies… they would have a life with some dignity and they would be a stronger people.

Shame on You – Proud FM

Fired Proud FM hosts weigh in as they pursue a wrongful dismissal suit.

Scott Dagostino / Toronto / Tuesday, May 18, 2010

“I understand the general public’s whiplash feeling,” says Shaun Proulx of being abruptly fired — along with fellow hosts Deb Pearce, Mark Wigmore and Patrick Marano — from Proud FM on May 5. Proulx says he doesn’t know why they were fired, but that the pink slips were issued after the group asked for a meeting with station management.

Despite rumours, Wigmore says the meeting wasn’t about money.

“We weren’t stupid enough to think we could go in as a group and scream ‘Unionize’ or ask for raises,” he says.

With the three-year-old station struggling to become profitable, Marano says everyone was “toeing the company line.” But, Pearce says, “Certain things kept creeping up and we wanted more clarity.”

Proulx points to April 12, the day the station became Glee FM. In a marketing tie-in with Global TV, Proud FM devoted its entire programming schedule and website content that day to the show.

“The station loves to use the word ‘transparency,’ but this deal wasn’t very transparent,” says Proulx. “Hosts were being asked to do some advertorial stuff that we’d never been asked to do before,” including using talk time to plug products. “I have a bit of an issue with just being handed something and told to shut up and read it. I have a lot of credibility behind my name. So does Deb, so does Mark, and so does Patrick. Proud FM hired us for our brands, brands that we built.”

Wigmore says each host was getting contradictory answers from Proud FM operations manager Bruce Campbell, so the foursome decided a group meeting would clear everything up. But after three requests, Pearce says, they were fired via email.

“It all happened over a grand total of 48 hours,” says Wigmore.

Campbell says there were “significant differences between management and the affected individuals as to how the business and administration of the station — both on-air and commercially — should be conducted.”

This, says Pearce, is not the case.

“They’ll never know what we wanted to meet about because no one ever took the time, respectfully, to meet with us,” she says.

Respect, Pearce continues, is at the heart of this story. She says she felt betrayed when station management ignored a two-week deadline to endorse her nomination for honoured dyke at this year’s Pride festival.

The station, “that in theory said, ‘I support you,’ now would not endorse it or do anything publicly,” she says.

To read more, click HERE.

Banksy!!! Now in Toronto!

When we revealed that there were seven Banksy pieces in Toronto, one thing we didn’t reveal were those pieces’ locations. We were initially sworn to secrecy—or at least vagueness—from one of our sources; there were concerns that disclosing the precise locations could lead to pieces being stolen or damaged.

Now, a few days and a good amount of damage later, we think it’s time to point the Banksy-hunting masses in the right direction.

We’re doing this for a few reasons. For one, the pieces are public, and meant for the public, for better or worse. Their accessibility is part of their form—and Banksy often makes it part of his (hers? their?) work’s content. The internet is the internet; we want you to see what’s left of the work yourselves, on the street. The pieces, as well, are disappearing fast—there are now just three fully intact ones left, and one of those is newly behind a protective layer of plastic. What’s more, those who’re committed to ruining the pieces weren’t waiting for an itinerary to do so. And, finally, we spoke to our secrecy-sworn source, and—with some reservations—they agree.

To read more, click HERE!!!

They’re Growing!

My stalker and it’s babies!!!  They are all so fluffy and cute – and not to be messed with. lol  I got as close as I dared to get pix….

(They still scare me!!!) lol  But isn’t it sad… see the fence behind them?  And in front of them a large expanse of cement.  A parking lot.  So unnatural…  Poor animals don’t stand a chance with us humans living near them. 😦

Babies!

Babies 2!

Babies 3!

Banishment. lol

Well, I learned my lesson!  And how. lol

lol  I WAS a member of M*dblogz…. (Not allowed to have that here.)  lol

First off.   I was originally asked to remove the link to it by wordpress because of all the spam one gets while using MB.  So I did…. and then after about a week I noticed it was true!  Every comment I ever got on there was spam…. Second?  They have a wee warning… if you delete your blog you CANNOT EVER COME BACK….(Insert scary movie music here – dun dun dun dunnnnn)   Third?  I go there today and there’s an announcement that THEY are going to go through blogs and remove anything THEY deem unimportant / irrelevant?   Really?  lol   Needless to say, I deleted it on the spot – without a second thought.  I don’t care for controlling attitudes.  If it’s my blog, then leave me AND my content be…. it’s like when someone gets on fb and says *I’m going through my contact list, and if you don’t participate, I’ll delete you* – get on with it and PLEASE let me be first!!!  lol    In fact, if I find it first – I’ll do it for you!  How’s that grab you?  lol  Manipulation at it’s finest.  F. O. people – if that’s the only way you can get attention maybe you should just get off the net. lol   So – back from my tangent.  I deleted my account at MB (shudder to think of the consequences.) and they sent me an email – hopefully they’ll see me back in the future?????  Are you kidding me?  lol   Piss off…..quietly, I don’t want to be disturbed any further by you… lol

Rant over.  lol  I’m starting to like this bloggy business. lol

QUAC

RainbowVectorsOnXparant By Kelly Krogman!

QUEER ACTION
COMMITTEE
PRESENTS
A FREE FILM SCREENING!!
In the film ‘SAD TO BE GAY’,
David doesn’t want to be gay
anymore and enters treatment
to become straight.
Is sexuality something that can be
unlearned? Come watch a 45 minute film about
David’s journey.

Tuesday May 25th 12-1:30pm
Main floor
Pizza and discussion to follow film
Everyone welcome!

955 Queen Street East
Toronto, ON M4M 1K7
(416) 461-1925