Step 1: Teenage girl sends naked picture of herself to a boy she likes. Or she sends it to a boy she doesn’t like so he will stop harassing her.

Step 2: Bullies forward the picture to all of their friends. Bullies call the girl names like slut, whore and porn queen. They may dump food on her in the cafeteria. They generally humiliate the girl and make her life a living hell.

Step 3: The school administration gets involved. Dun dun dun (as the young people would say.)

Step 4: The girl is punished for sending a naked picture of herself. Punishments include groundings, revocation of responsibilities or school suspensions.

Step 5: Parents discuss ways to prevent teenage girls from sending naked pictures of themselves. Ineptitude follows.

In the case of Hope Witsell, she killed herself.

Do you see what is wrong with this picture? No? Then let me break it down for you. Teenage girls are not human garbage that deserve to be bullied, mocked and humiliated by their peers. Teenage boys should not be rewarded for being bullies. Why were the perpetrators not punished? I can tell you right now that if I was the parent of a teenage boy that used a cell phone to harass a classmate, I would run it over with a car while he watched. What the hell is wrong with our society when we perpetually let these bullies off the hook like that? I can’t remember a news story that pissed me off so much.

The worst part is how everybody acts like a naked picture from a teenage girl will lead to the downfall of society. Oh Puh-leeze. It’s a pair of boobs. Grow up. That picture was not intended to be seen by everybody at school. The act of using that picture to harm that girl was a despicable act and should be dealt with. I would raise hell if that were my kid I tell you what.

If you ever question the existence of patriarchy or rank misogyny, just re-read that article and it should come through loud and clear.

Then she gave Jenny McCarthy a show. Ay-yi-yi! But enough out of my big yap. Just go ahead and read Newsweek. Then turn off the television, with all its’ Oprah Winfreys, Bill O’Reilly’s, Maury Povich’s and Fox news. You don’t need it!

It drives me crazy that there are a tonne of spelling mistakes on this blog. I also am guilty of comma abuse. I, like, use, commas, way, too, much. When I finally write my own personal book, that All-Canadian Novel, the editors will bash their heads against their desks thanks to my terrible grammar and comma abuse. I suppose I could learn how to use commas properly but I am not going to. *pout* SO THERE.

I should put a disclaimer on my blog. People should be prepared for the blatant breakage of grammar rules. It isn’t very nice to subject peoples’ fragile minds to all this bad grammar.

WARNING: This blog is guilty of excessive comma use.

Why are people so rude with their body odors? Do people not realize that allergy sufferers exist? Axe body spray is an allergen that never fails to induce sneezing, coughing and extreme itchiness in my nose. Apparently, those of you that choose to drown yourselves in this over-priced garbage have never bothered to consider how it feels to be sensitive to these odors.

Allergy sufferers are real and they don’t need to smell you. Quit being brainwashed by stupid advertising campaigns launched by the greedy butt-munches that want to sell you over-priced cologne that you don’t need. The ladies are not going to fight over you and fling their panties in your direction because you choose to drown yourselves in Axe body spray instead of showering. That shit smells terrible.

Keep Big Brother off of my electronic media. Pirated software and copied movies and music is not a national security issue. I shake my fist at the over-bearing intrusive government.

I was giving him the pleasure of being a passenger in my fine new purple Geo-Metro. (I can never remember the year.) Did I tell you that she only has 123 000 klicks under her belt? That she doesn’t burn any oil between oil changes? That the parts to fix my car are super dirt cheap? That my brother is a Geo Metro aficionado that fixes my car for nothing? No? Well, there you go. My purple Geo Metro is the sweetest ride ever. It also came with a free Nickelback CD and a working CD player. Yes, it’s true that I miss my AM/FM radio and tape deck, but CDs are OK too. But the best thing about my car is the fact that I can drive to the farm four times on a full tank of gas.

As we were driving he pointed out all my flaws as a driver. The fact that I was being tail-gated by an angry swearing dude on a cell phone because I was going really slow. Well, so what, I like driving slow. Of course, I always used to lose my temper at people that drive twenty klicks under the speed limit. Hmmmm. Maybe I am being one of those stupid drivers I am always complaining about.

I wasn’t going to drive like a complete and utter tool! No more of this nonsense. Life is too short to drive twenty klicks under the speed limit and obsess about the number of deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. It just isn’t worth it. When I took the kids skating in Radisson last night, I drove like a maniac, in the dark, on the highway, over the speed limit, and I didn’t even freak out when I saw a deer crossing sign. I didn’t even fret upon the fact that nearly everybody I know that lives in rural Saskatchewan has totalled their car by running over an innocent deer. I have almost forgotten about that deer I almost murdered because I just didn’t see it. Lots of people die that way. And I didn’t even worry about it. Really. It was really nice.

Am I normal?

Let me start by saying that as any reader of this blog or friend of mine knows, I hate most movies. There are a few exceptions, but in general, I just can’t be bothered to watch them. However, I have always been a bit of a Star Trek nerd and I have many fond memories of spending Saturday morning watching Capt. Kirk and his crews’ adventures in re-runs. I fumed at their terrible treatment of Uhura, the space secretary in hottie gear. Why don’t they put her in a real uniform? I would fume, as Kirk romanced yet another green alien, that he would leave behind as he jetted off to the stars.

How can you possibly do a prequel to this show? Star Trek was a classic, ground-breaking show, a historical TV series. It perfectly encapsulates the way that people thought at the time. Remember how they portrayed women as bumbling, shiny-eyed, penis-worshipers with big hair and the men as infallible? Remember the cheesy stage make-up, remember what special effects were like before CGI and all that other computerized crap? Remember the inclusion of the token Russian commie and the way he pronounced the word “wessels”? Remember the bad technology, the clocks with the mechanically flipped numbers? My gramma had one of those old school alarm clocks on the side of her bed. Remember the styrofoam rocks and the mood music? “Da-da-da-da-da dadadada-DAH” during the intense fight scenes and some sappy mood music when Kirk is romancing some naive alien girls. All females are naive and need educating about love, don’t-you-know?

Why, just think how much science fiction has changed! Strong female characters pervade the science fiction genre. Except for Star-Gate, with their token female character, brainiac Major Carter, who is conventionally attractive and totters around in high heels and skirts and makes cutesy comments like “Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside of my body instead of the outside…” Ha ha ha that crazy Carter, doesn’t she know that we live in a post-feminist society? Oh wait. I almost forgot about Seven of Nine, who they had to sexify in order to make her less scary. Even Captain Janeway had to be beautiful. Can you imagine what would have happened if Roseanne had played that role? Voyager would have been laughed out of the pilot stage.

But I digress. You see, the fact that sci-fi has just as much ridiculous sexist nonsense as it has ever had is one of the reasons why the Star Trek prequel is going to be terrible.

They have Kirk and Uhura hooking up. How could those bastards do that? It’s a crime against humanity. What the hell were they thinking? Whatever you do, don’t go see this prequel. It’s phail with a capital P. No amount of light and magic is going to overcome the inherent wrongness of such a plot line.

Anyway, if you want to waste a couple of minutes of your life viewing the trailer, here is a nice link for you to follow. In the meantime, I have more useful things to do, like pick lint out of my belly button.

I would like to think that I despise all over-commercialized holidays equally, but sadly that is not the case. Even though I hate the way my wallet gets picked every Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Valentine’s Day, I have to admit there are some parts of these holidays that are harmless fun. Christmas is great, if you decide on a few rules to limit the commercial orgy. For example, adults don’t buy each other presents is the rule at our house. Halloween is tonnes of fun too. What could be wrong with constructing a costume to go over your snow suit and taking the kidlets door to door to beg for candy from strangers? Well, let me tell you, the costume buying part of this expedition always gets my goat. I am the mother of two girls and the most important thing I can do for them is try to help them navigate all the patriarchal pitfalls that get thrown at them, just because they were born female. Halloween is unfortunately a very patriarchy-friendly holiday. Allow me to demonstrate. The following pictures were taken with my new Crackberry while I was shopping at Value Village and Superstore.

Notice anything incredibly gross and creepy about these costumes? Oh yes, they all sexualize little girls and worst of all, enforce the gender binary. Girls and boys are so different and we must emphasize those differences as much as possible. Anyway, to finish off this post with the bad Crackberry pics, allow me to continue with the boys costumes.

See, boys get to do cool stuff like beat people up and save the day. Girls are supporting characters at best and sex objects at worst.

Happy Halloween.

2006-2008

My 1996 Pontiac Firefly was only with us for two years but she will be sadly missed. She was fuel efficient and had a tape deck. She was highly maneuverable through rush hour traffic. (Is maneuverable a word?) Rest in Peace. No cheap car could ever take her place.

But on the bright side, I was genuinely amazed at the number of people that stopped to make sure I was all right.  Physically I was just fine but my brains got all scrambled.  I was shaking like a leaf and imagining my battered body splattered across the pavement.  A bunch of onlookers came to see me and give me their contact information so I wouldn’t have trouble getting insurance from SGI.  A nice stranger let me sit in her house while I was waiting for the police and the tow truck to get there.  A nice man sat beside me on the curb as I was trying to compose myself and failing miserably.  He was a nurse and calmed me right now.  I told him I was feeling fine but my head was messed up.  Michelle and her wonderful boyfriend made me coffee, phoned the police and talked to me while waiting for them to come.  The police took what seemed like a long time.  But finally they came and took statements from me and other witnesses.

I’m going to make sure that if I ever have the chance to help someone out in their time of need that I will always step up to the plate.  I’m a mom and I work with kids so I give a lot of myself all the time and some days I just feel completely worn out.  But having people look after me made me realize how important that really is.  Although I miss my beautiful little car, it could have been a whole lot worse.

In other bad news, I dropped my blackberry in a cup of tea yesterday and destroyed it.  Today I went and sold my soul to Sasktel and went into huge amounts of debt just so I can get another one.  I have it baaaaad!

I know what you are thinking.  Nobody with my salary and my responsibilities should indulge in such a worthless, over-priced electronic toy.  But I can play brickbuster, I can keep in touch with my facebook friends, I can send text messages, read email, take pictures and listen to mp3’s.  Pretty soon I will set it up so I can blog from a blackberry.  Now that would be pretty crazy.  I know I could live without a blackberry, but why would I want to?