Did you know that the fact that Georgie Porgie is a good public speaker means that he could not possibly be a bad person or be responsible for anything bad ever? OMG it’s true. I mean, it’s not like there has ever been a historical figure that managed to be eloquent and evil at the same time. *cough* Hitler *cough* And no, I am not calling George Bush Hitler. If you think that, then you really need to put down the Bush koolaid.

What is up with these people that think protesting is a waste of time? Protesting is the best thing that you can do to protect democracy. We all have the right to free speech. Attention Internet Trolls and People that have nothing better to do than post hateful spam on Facebook groups devoted to organizing peaceful anti-Bush rallies: Do you not understand the irony of telling protesters that they are wasting their time? Quit spamming the internet with your bullshit and go cure cancer. We know you can do it, if only you would quit wasting your time.

If you are fond of reading nonsense from George Bush fans go ahead and read this nauseating crap ALA Les MacPherson. No wonder Bush’s speech was given to a full house, when we have two influential media people that completely give Bush a pass. Education president my ass. Did you know Bush brought in No Child Left Behind, the worst thing to happen to education ever? Thanks to Bush every child must go through standardized testing and all the funding of the education system is related to the scores that kids get on these tests. Terrible. Even if the 9/11 attacks had never happened George Bush was still a nightmare for the educational system.

There are more reasons why Bush is terrible but I gotta go fix my baseboards.

You have to understand that Saskatoon is swarming with Mormons lately. Every year, a new batch comes up from Salt Lake City, eager to impart their Christian values on a gullible populace. I have had many conversations with them over the years and I have to give them credit for persistence. I am stubborn, loud-mouthed and opinionated and they have successfully worn me down many times. If you say “How do you explain the dinosaurs?” they come back with some scripture quotations about testing your faith or something. It’s far too confusing for my puny brain to sort out. They sure do know how to talk in circles without saying anything. It never fails to amaze me.

The two young fellows were sizing me up and giving me compliments for getting my kid to work. Praising your kids is the oldest trick in the book. They probably think I am a single mom. Mormons always go for the single moms because they are all poor, single and desperate for a man and therefore vulnerable to brainwashing. Since I left my home unattended by a man I must be single. They also petted my dog and told me he is cute. I was talking to them and being polite while I was waiting for Katy to get finished dropping off her papers. I was hoping they would go away after she came back and I started walking away but they just kept talking and talking. Oh jeez, they were determined to talk to me, no matter how uninterested I tried to be. They kept up with the fake politeness until they successfully introduced themselves and shook hands with me. Great. Now I have no choice but to engage on religion and I got nothing witty or funny to say. This sucks. Anyway, he pulls his business card out of his pocket and hands it to me. I explain to him that it is no use because I don’t believe in any of it. I know there is no God. There is absolutely no proof of his existence anywhere. He seemed incredulous that I would say such a thing and asked me if I was sure of that. I told him “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life. Take care!” And we walked away. They finally took the hint.

This is what I should have said:

“I feel sorry for you because you have been successfully brain-washed into propagating a dangerous cult. The only reason you are here right now trying to convince me that you have all the answers was a coincidence of birth. If you had been born in a different part of the world with different parents and a different upbringing, you would be a different kind of Christian or you might be a Buddhist, Muslim or a Jew. There is no God, accept it and move on with your life!”

The thought occurs to me that Mormons use the same tactics as salespeople to win your trust. Compliments and praise, being nice to your kid and your dog. There must be a handbook that these people use.

I know! I have never been wrong before and I sure hope to never be wrong again.

It goes like this. I am one of those uptight do-gooders that is often upset about things that I find mean and insulting. Especially things that can be interpreted as racist and sexist. The latest atrocity that the world has inflicted me with is this:

This picture is the logo for Bedford Road Collegiate Institute the high school that my eldest child currently attends. When you walk around the school, you see this logo absolutely everywhere. The school team name is “Bedford Redmen”. The “men” part of the name excludes half the population, you may or may not notice. I suppose I thought it possible that there could be a more fitting, more positive logo could be chosen. I felt that it is yet another example of white culture stealing a First Nations image.

But then I got some schooling! Apparently I am not the only person in the neighborhood that disliked this logo and wanted to go with something more positive. When the gym was built in the school, there was a big debate about whether the Redmen logo should go on the gym floor. I was informed by someone who knows better that all sides were heard during this debate and people voted on whether to use this image. There were even some native people that thought this image was just fine and it is tradition after all. The issue of the logo was put to a vote and the majority prevailed. Democracy in action and democracy is awesome.

My fear that the more things change the more things stay the same has to be crazy, right? It’s not possible for a majority of people to willingly choose a racist and sexist image to represent their school could they? Racism and sexism are both things of the past. I must have been crazy to think that such a thing is possible.

TRADITION TRADITION TRADITION THAT MAKES IT OK!

I am so glad that I am surrounded by so many smart people that can tell it the way that it is. So excuse me for ever having had a problem with this logo.

Just think! Twelve year olds babysitting younger kids! Would you like to know what I was doing when I was twelve years old, besides baby-sitting? On occasion my mother would leave in charge of a small town restaurant for a few hours. I had to serve customers food and run a till all by myself. Do I feel like I endured child abuse? Of course not. Being given responsibility as a child is a sure way to know that your parents trust you. After all, that is what self-esteem is based upon, being able to be trusted with responsibility.

What really kills me about this story is the response of the so-called progressive bloggers that wrote about this story. I saw it on Pandagon, a blog I am usually very fond of. Unfortunately, Jesse fell for the same kind of parental shaming that is so abundant in our STRANGE NEW WORLD! He calls her an asshole and proceeds to go on and on about how bad what she did was. But I am still wondering if he thinks that mall cop over-reacted or not. Is this mother really someone that needs to be charged and waste a lot of the courts’ time? I think not. The mall cop could have satisfied himself with a pompous lecture about what a bad parent she is (people love to disparage your parenting talents, especially if they are non-parents) and went on his merry way. That would have been the reasonable thing to do, rather than put this poor woman through the legal ringer.

I have always given my children plenty of leash and plenty of responsibility to go along with it. When my oldest child was about seven or eight years old, I allowed her to walk herself home from school and let herself into the house and wait for me to come home. She would be home alone for almost a whole hour sometimes! Amazing, I know. This took place after she begged me for months and her baby-sitter told me I should let her stay home alone. I finally relented and worried (for nothing). The child was fine and I would be greeted with a hearty “Why are you home so early?”. Apparently, being home without parental supervision is kind of exciting when you are eight years old. Who would have thunk it, eh?

At least Pandagon isn’t the only perspective on this mess. I just love what the Free Range Kid blog had to say about this outrageous story. Thank you so much for existing, Free Range Kid blog! Here is another take on our collective epidemic of over-parenting.

Of course, I come from rural Saskatchewan. I have family members that live an hour away from Saskatoon on the farm that would never dream of locking their doors. I remember when some cousins from the city would visit and the “Why are you locking the door?” debates would begin. We country kids would be annoyed by the city kids locking the doors because none of us have house keys. There is no need for them when you live out of town. People feel safe. But the city kids just could not comprehend leaving the house without locking it. That idea would blow their little minds. Unfortunately, I am a city kid now and I could never sleep without a locked door again, despite the fact that a locked door is a pretty false sense of security. I guess there are some advantages to rural Saskatchewan after all.

Why am I so scared?

You might well be wondering what put such a terrified grimace on my face. Was I jumping a dirtbike over a swimming pool full of ravenously hungry sharks? Was I forced to babysit twelve toddlers who missed their nappy-time? Was I negotiating a handgun out of a raving maniacs angry grasp? No! Much worse and much more terrifying. When the picture was taken I was perilously perched on top of this horse.

I know it may appear that the mare was standing there, waiting patiently while the humans equip her with various metal and leather implements. Some people may tell you that she was dozing off, twitching her ears and occasionally nibbling on grass. But I can assure you that she is vicious and doesn’t take kindly to humans balancing on her back. Trust me, it took every fiber of my being to maintain control of this beast. But control and conquer her, I did. In fact, I managed to conquer the horse and take pictures all at the same time. I know, you are impressed with my mad skillz. Please refrain from sending me hordes of email telling me how great I am and what an accomplished rider I am. My ego is massive enough.

OK maybe Bonnie is about as frightening as a teddy bear and so what if she would be unfazed by a nuclear bomb. Riding a horse is hard work. By the time I got off Bonnie, I could hardly walk. My legs were all woozy and it took a minute before I could stand let alone walk. And my butt was killing me. Since my butt is the only muscle I exercise when I am at work, you can only imagine the difficulties I suffered today.

You can clearly see Bonnie’s devil horns in this picture.

Of course, then I read the rants from people living in really difficult situations and I feel so bad for them. Like the girl who lives in Libya and wants to leave the house and can’t do it. That would be terrible. I can’t imagine a worse fate than a total loss of my personal autonomy.

Look at the beautiful new baby foal and her momma Jackie! Isn’t she the cutest thing you have ever seen? I love her so much.

This cute moment brought to you courtesy of Sargent’s holiday farm and my blackberry. Too bad the camera function is so terrible.

Here is a nice fuzzy deer pic. I see so many of these hopping meat patties in my jaunts to rural Saskatchewan, it always gives me the warm fuzzies when I can get a real live pic, even if it kind of sucks.

The Biggest Loser appears to pit contestants against one another in some sort of judgmental fat-shaming boot camp. They have to report for humiliating weigh-ins and get kicked out if they fail to lose enough weight. A lot of the people on the show appear to have some psychological issues which led to their weight problems in the first place. It is hard for me to believe that people will learn long-term healthy eating and living habits as a result of this program.

It feels like stating the obvious to say it, but reality television is simply terrible, like staring at a train wreck. I just keep wondering, does anybody believe this is real? Or do they treat it like the WWF now known as the WWE. I have no idea what the acronyms stand for. All I know is that I used to watch the WWF when I was an impressionable youth, back when teevee had three channels and one was in French. You had to be pretty bored to watch French translations of English movies. So bored was I in small-town Saskatchewan that I watched lumpy, sweaty men with bad mullets and spandex tights pretend to beat each other up in the squared circle. I should have just read a book or something. If I was a teenager nowadays, I would be attached to my laptop. I’m not so sure that’s an improvement. But at least I knew it was fake. I remember having animated arguments with people over whether wrestling was real or not or some misguided adult would see me watching wrestling and explain to me that it wasn’t real. Some people think wrestling is real and some people think reality television is real. That is so sad!

As you can see, the weather was really terrible, wherever he was when he took those pictures.

I don’t post a lot of youtube videos because that is the laziest blogging that there is. Then again, I haven’t been the slightest bit interested in standing on my internet soap box lately at all. Real life is much more interesting than this lit-up screen. Even though Saskatoon is a really brown, drab and ugly place, I have been reveling in the warm weather and spending all my free time outside.  The streets and sidewalks are coated in a layer of thick, dried up mud that was left behind after all the snow melted.  There are enormous potholes everywhere.  There is a crater on just about every street in my neighborhood. There isn’t a stitch of greenery anywhere.  The grass is covered in old leaves, twigs, take-out food wrappers, broken toys, and plastic bags. I haven’t had a whole lot of free time either. Two kids, a full-time job, real-life activism, a horse, a house, piles of dirty laundry, unvacuumed floors, a yard that is beckoning to be raked and planted, and a trucker boyfriend that I miss. Jeez Louise! Nobody would have any business telling me to get a life. I get tired just reading that list.

Driving my little purple car throughout the city of Saskatoon is exactly like navigating an obstacle course. I live in fear of the tiny little tires falling into the bottom of one of those potholes of death, never to be seen again. In case you didn’t already know, I drive a puny little purple Geo Metro. It’s a beautiful, divine way of getting around. She is not a very thirsty little car, only drinking 1 gallon of gas for every 50 miles that she goes as opposed to my boyfriends’ far less efficient 1 gallon for every four point five miles. YIKES!  Buggy pwns Fat Freddie’s Kat.