Occupying Niagara

Image via Wikipedia

The Occupy Wall Street movement has come to Niagara.

I wasn't at the meeting but evidently about 70 people showed up at the CAw Hall in St. Catharines and according to the St. Catharines Standard the group hopes to occupy Montebello Park in the city's downtown later this month, (see photo).

If 70 people cared enough to go to the meeting, I'm betting there are at least ten times that many supporters in the area.

I'm not of an age or in a position to occupy anything, but I will be there when I can.

The critics of this world wide, peaceful comment on poverty and corporate greed seem to think that because the  number of occupiers has dwindled and because they do sometimes go home to shower and eat that it is coming to an end.

I don't think so.

I suspect things will simmer for a few months and we'll see a greater push for change in the spring.

Because,

economically speaking,

it promises


to be a long, dark and very grim winter.

Hate Crimes at Wal-mart

When I was in Teacher's College my parents kept free range chickens for awhile.

It was, in general, an all round unpleasant experience.


Who knew that fresh eggs are so poopy?


And collecting the eggs was a major ordeal.

The roosters used to attack me with talons, beaks, wings and if they'd had them I'm sure they would have used tiny little assault rifles.



The worst thing about keeping chickens, however, was seeing the weakest bird being pecked - sometimes to death.



When it comes to attacking the vulnerable it seems that we aren't far removed from those chickens.



I'm not talking about gangs of teenagers swarming unpopular kids or old people. I'm talking about something more insidious.



Someone is deliberately targeting a certain class of people while they shop at Wal-mart.


(Get it? Tacky store = worthless people.)



Someone is going out of his or her way to take pictures of the poor, the sick, the uneducated and the mentally or physically disabled when they are at their worst and posting the photos online.



Pictures of people who soil their pants in public...

Pictures of morbidly obese people who have to wear clothes that don't fit.

Etc. etc.



It is supposed to be funny.



This kind of thing marginalizes and degrades people who cannot defend themselves.

People who have as much right to dignity and privacy as the photographer.



If you come across these photos, speak out.



Because they are a labour of hate.