Chapeaux Off to the Parti Quebecois

English: Women's accessories for sale! ++Cafiyas and other scarves, in JLM's old city within Damascus Gate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Separatist Parti Quebecois, which is leading in the polls right now as Quebec heads into a provincial election,

wants to ban any kind of religious clothing or jewelry in  government institutions.

That means

no hijabs, (head scarf); niqabs, (head scarf and veil); or burkas, (full body covering); 

in court rooms or government offices.

Although I do not believe the government has the right to legislate what a woman can or cannot wear in her daily life, I understand the importance of the separation of church and state.

There is no place for Sharia Law in Canada.

I like this idea and hope that it becomes the law of the land,

not just of one province.

Related articles

• Separation of Church and State
• Quebec election: Crucifix stays, but hijabs go under Parti Quebecois government, party leader says
• Jonathan Kay: The 'ethnic vote' still has no home in PQ ranks

Jailed Russian Pussies

. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Occasionally I check to see where in the world people are reading my blog.

It's always a nice surprise to see a small but steady number from Russia.

Usually I assume it is an ESL class somewhere in Moscow.  Sometimes I hope it is a Russian teacher I corresponded with during the Cold War.

Our classes exchanged letters one year and I would love to know that she is well.

But whoever it is,  they need to know that we know about Pussy Riot. 

They've been in the news quite a bit recently.

For those who haven't heard about them, Pussy Riot is an all girl punk band that is opposed to the regime of the thuggish Vladimir Putin and his supporters in the Russian Orthodox church.

According to Wayne Kinsella's column, St. Catharines Standard, Monday, August 13, the young women spent 40 seconds inside an Orthodox Church sending a 'punk prayer',

(I don't know what it is either, but I'm guessing it involved a lot of noise and bad language),

to the Virgin Mary asking Her to get rid of Putin.

There was no church service going on but they have been in prison since March charged with blasphemy.

They have been starved, deprived of sleep, are not allowed to see their children and have been subjected to a unjust trial.

The verdict will be read August 17th and evidently the prosecution is seeking years of incarceration.

It seems like a bit of an overreaction on Stalin's part.

Oops, did I say Stalin?

Putin. 

His name is Vladimir Putin.

And, Mr. Vladimir Putin, the world is watching.

.

  

Related articles

• Free Pussy Riot, free them now!
• Pussy Riot's closing statement
• Pussy Riot: Russia needs more superheroes to stand up to Putin
• Russian Punk Rockers Pussy Riot Face Trial After Vladimir Putin Comes Down Hard On Their "punk Prayer"

Perils of Condo Life in the City

I received a bill for $6,000 this week from my Condo Corporation

to be paid in three yearly $2,000 installments starting just before Christmas.

But I'm not alone.

Everyone in the complex got the same bill, plus or minus a few dollars depending on the size of their unit.

This is not a high end development.  It is at least 40 years old and as far as I can see most of the people who live here are retired, or lower wage earners, or new Canadians or families trying to save for a down payment for a larger home.

Good people.

My mother would have classified them as 'the salt of the Earth'.

Forty years ago unscrupulous builders, long gone by the way, built some of the units on unstable ground.

Now one of the units is condemned and 3 others need massive restoration.

Hence the bill we all received.

To say that people are upset would be an understatement.

The penalties for not paying are frightening,

especially for people who are just getting by

and may not understand what is going on because of language difficulties,

age,

difficulties understanding the lawyer speak of the condo agreements,

or just the panic of not having an extra $6000 to kick around.

What happens when desperate people have not one penny to spare?

But people are trying. 

We are meeting and talking. 

Listening to each other.

A few leaders  have started to emerge.

I'm luckier, if you can classify it as being lucky, in that I may qualify for insurance coverage of the $6,000 but there is no guarantee and of course whatever we decide to do,

the problem remains that the complex is aging.

I'll keep you posted.

Tar Dancing Thru Cyber Space

Okay, so there I was yesterday trying to figure out how to use Google+.

For the 900 bizzillionth time, I might add.


Anyway, this time I decided to read  a few instructions.

(Teachers don't believe they need to read instructions.)


Jeesh.  It worked!

I actually found a place that looked like a cross between face book and twitter AND there was a place for me to make a comment.

Figuring I was sending my words into a black cyber hole, I  wrote that I had just finished an oil pastel that I was calling 'Tar Dancing'.

Then I clicked on every name I saw that belonged to someone I knew.

Then I forgot about it.




I was totally shocked when I noticed half an hour later that 2 people had answered.

I was really glad I hadn't said something nasty like,  "Bev Oda wears army boots".


Anyway, it was two of the bloggers that I follow!!!


Jane from Jane's Jewels and Magaly from Pagan Culture.

Check out my side bar for these most excellent blogs!



It was nice  to have something like a face book wall upon which I could interact with my fellow bloggers.

If you think you would be interested in joining my (our) 'circle'  of bloggers the link is in the drop down bar on the Blogger dashboard right under 'COMMENTS.



Oh and about my oil pastel 'Tar Dancing'.


I lied.


It isn't really totally finished.


But it's close, so here it is:

Tar Dancing
India Ink and Oil Pastels
approx. 15.5" x 20 "

The Appeal of Dorothy Gale

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Chapter 8  The Valley of Voices,  Chapter 9  They Fight the Invisible Bears  Chapter 10  The Bearded Man of Pyramid Mountain,  Chapter 11  They Meet the Wooden Gargoyles,  Chapter 12  A Wonderful Escape  Chapter 13  The Den of the Dragonettes

Dorothy, the Wizard, Zeb and the animals  find themselves in the beautiful Valley of Voe which is populated by invisible people and dangerous invisible bears.

An invisible bear attacks them and the Wizard kills it with his sword.

They meet the braided man who directs them to the land of the Gargoyles which may lead them back to the surface of the Earth. 

The Gargoyles are mute, wooden creatures with magical detachable wings. Zeb steals a few of their wings and they attach them to their carriage.  They escape to a cavern in a mountain. 

As they try to make their way to the top of the cavern they meet a den of baby dragons.

After they escape from the dragons, they find themselves trapped. 

They can see the surface of the Earth through a hole in the rock but have no way of reaching it.

They can't go back and they can't go forward.

They resign themselves to death by starvation.

***

Of course the story doesn't end there.

But that is the climax so that is where I will stop.

When I saw the "Celebrate Oz Day" at Oma Linda's blog,

lindaomasoldebaggsnstuftshirts.blogspot.com/

I was immediately intrigued.

I read and reread the Oz books when I was a kid. 

When I was in university I bought the series. 

It is still one of my most treasured possessions. 

I think the books were important to me because I grew up at a time when little girls, generally, were less valued than little boys and were given fewer opportunities to speak or act freely. 

The intrepid Dorothy was a role model.

"But  I am one of the greatest humbug wizards that ever lived and you will realize it when we have all starved together and our bones are scattered over the floor of this lonely cave."

"I don't believe we'll realize anything, when it comes to that," remarked Dorothy who had been deep in thought. "But I'm not going to scatter my bones just yet because I need them and you'll prob'ly need yours, too."

She taught us things about being a girl that our parents and teachers either
didn't know or were reluctant to impart.   

Thanks to Oma Linda for giving me the idea of looking back and thanks to L. Frank Baum for telling the stories and John R. Neil for drawing the pictures.


What a ride!

The Tears of Old Mary

I was looking at pictures of religious statues last week and came across a Kitchen Madonna.

They are charming statues of the Virgin Mary holding a broom or doing some other form of house work.

They are meant to be kept in a woman's kitchen, hence the name.
.

Of course it is the Goddess, but I won't tell the Pope if you won't.


Anyway, at this point in my life, my concern isn't with my kitchen,

although maybe it should be.


My concern is with aging and mortality.


I began to wonder if the face of the Virgin ever got old.

Was she also the Crone?


Surely She would understand the pain of aging and death.

I haven't done any art since my elderly father died last September

but the muse is back.

I decided to draw Mary as an old woman.

What I saw when I finished wasn't  a Lady of Sorrows.

Jeesh,

Mary has an attitude!

And I have a feeling if you catch the tears of Old Mary

you'll be blessed with courage and creativity for all your days! 

***

Dark Days for Dorothy





Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Chapter 4  The Vegetable Kingdom,  Chapter 5  Dorothy Picks the Princess,
Chapter 6  The Mangaboos Prove Dangerous  Chapter 7 Into the Black Pit and Out Again

Dorothy and the Wizard discover that the Mangaboos are non-human vegetable people that grow on large plants.

They are taken to a garden by the Mangaboo Prince to observe the planting of the dead sorcerer.

While observing this practice they happen to notice that the next royal ruler is ripe and ready to be picked.

Not realizing what his captives have seen, the old Prince tells them to prepare themselves as they will soon be put to death.

Dorothy and the Wizard escape and pick the ripe Princess from the plant upon which she is growing, in hopes that she will spare them.

But after she takes over and sends the old Prince off to be killed and planted, the new Princess decides to sentence Dorothy, the Wizard, Zeb and the animals  to death by forcing them into the dreaded black pit.

The Mangaboo vegetable people are all adults. 

The children grow as the fruit of a rather sturdy plant and do not come to life until they are picked when they are adults. 

"On some of the bushes might be seen a bud, a blossom, a baby, a half-grown person and a ripe one; but even those ready to pluck were motionless and silent, as if devoid of life."

Dorothy, a child who is seen and heard, doesn't fit into this world.

Consequently she, the Wizard, Zeb and the animals are pushed into the  black pit.

(In our world, the place where complete freedom dies and where a child learns to conform, i.e., school.)

 They find themselves on a dark and frightening path but it buys them some time.

"It isn't a bad road," observed the Wizard.

"... it is dark; but we have our lanterns to light the way, so I propose we start out and discover where this tunnel in the mountain leads to."

And the reader breathes a sigh of relief knowing that time is the only vehicle through childhood.

As the chapter ends, much to their surprise, they emerge out of the darkness into a beautiful countryside.

Bringing on the Wizard

 Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Chapter 2  The Glass City & Chapter 3  The Arrival of the Wizard

Dorothy, Zeb and the animals continue to fall towards the centre of the Earth. When they land the inhabitants accuse them of causing the rain of stones that damaged their glass city. They are taken to the House of the Sorcerer.

The Wizard of Oz arrives in his hot air ball balloon and the Sorcerer threatens to kill them all.  The Wizard takes out a sword and kills him.

Anyone who has read the Oz series knows that L. Frank Baum takes the Dorothy character as far as he can and then gets rid of her - not by refusing her entry to the fairyland of Oz because she has grown up, as is so common in many stories of this type, but by having her move to Oz permanently.

The problem for the reader is that once in Oz she'll never grow older and reach menarche.

And Dorothy is only interesting as long as she has real problems to which real girls can relate.*

Luckily this story occurs before she is invited to live in Oz.

Here she deals with one of the biggest problems facing 11 year old girls  - an 'unreasonable' adult. 

Note that she takes the grownup to task - and gets away with it.

"Why did you wickedly and viciously send the rain of stone to crack and break our houses?" he continued.

"We didn't," declared the girl.

"Prove it!" cried the Sorcerer.

"We don't have to prove it," answered Dorothy indignantly. "If you had any sense at all you'd know it was an earthquake."

Dorothy 'rocks', as my students used to say.

The Wizard of Oz also 'rocks' in this book.

He admits he isn't much of a wizard, (father figure):

"No," answered the little man, you are quite right. In the strict sense of the word, I am not a wizard, but only a humbug."

But he understands that 11 year old girls, even as they take their first steps towards becoming women, still need protection.   

So the wizard lost no more time, but leaping forward he raised his sharp sword, whirled it once or twice around his head, and then gave a mighty stroke that cut the body of the Sorcerer exactly in two.

He is the archetypal 'good father', guiding, advising, encouraging, protecting - but not controlling Dorothy.

He's come a long way from his days as 'Oz the Great and Terrible' in the first book.

These chapters end with the burial of the dead sorcerer who appears to more vegetable on the inside than human.

*Dorothy appears in later books but usually in a secondary role. L. Frank Baum introduced other much loved characters like Betsy Bobbin and Trot to take Dorothy's place.

A Young Girl's Journey to Oz

The original 1908 cover to Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum. Designed by artist John R. Neill, reproduced for a modern facsimile edition. Now out of copyright. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Chapter 1

The Earthquake

The story opens as Dorothy is on her way to meet Uncle Henry at Hugson's ranch just outside of San Francisco. Her second cousin, a boy named Zeb, has come to pick her up.  Dorothy and Uncle Henry plan to return to Kansas the next day, but during a massive earthquake, the ground opens and Dorothy and Zeb fall deep into the earth.

Judging by the illustrations Dorothy appears to be a young girl who hasn't had her first period.

The surprise to modern eyes and the magic to young female readers is that she is unaccompanied by an adult and that the train has dropped her off at 5 o'clock in the morning in the dark and misty countryside.

"The train from 'Frisco was late. It should have stopped at Hugson's siding at midnight, but it was already five o'clock and the dawn was breaking in the east ..."

L. Frank Baum published this story, the 4th in the Oz series, in 1908, two years after the great earthquake in San Francisco.

The fact that the earthquake prone California setting reflects the way the earth seems to be always shifting under the feet of a pubescent girl speaks to the author's keen understanding of human nature.

If you have been, taught or lived with an 11 year old girl you'll know what I mean.

"... all night long there were times when the solid earth shook and trembled ..."

The author has a wonderful grasp of the the intelligence and courage of young girls as they journey towards womanhood, (the tragedy of the series is that Dorothy was never allowed to grow up and get that first period), but on occasion he seems to remember the norms of society and throws in a little something to placate his conscience.

"The horrible sensation of falling, the darkness and the terrifying noises, proved more than Dorothy could endure and for a few moments the girl lost consciousness.  Zeb, being a boy, did not faint ..."

And so chapter 1 ends, Dorothy is unconscious and she, Zeb, the carriage, Zeb's old horse, Jim, and Dorothy's cat Eureka are falling deep inside the earth.

Arresting Americans

The Integrated Cross Border Law Enforcement Operations Act now makes it possible for American officers to cross the border into Canada where, as the act states, they have "the same power to enforce an act of Parliament as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

This means they'll be armed and have the powers to arrest suspects in Canadian territory.

CBC

Hmmm. Let me see if I have this right.

During the first year of our celebrating a time 200 years ago

when our ancestors fought armed Americans

back to their side of the border

because we prefer to be independent

the Conservative Party of Canada

has invited them back.

This is not a good thing.

It's a creepy thing.

The only armed police on our streets should be Canadian.

***

Related articles

• US Law Enforcement can now enter Canada with same powers as RCMP

  ---

• Is Canadian sovereignty at risk with cross-border policing?

  ---

• U.S. Officers to Make Arrests in Canada: A Clear Threat to Sovereignty

  ---

Project Family History

My family seems to have been very good at taking pictures,

not so good at getting them into albums.

'

Or writing the who, where, why, what and when on the back of each photo.

When I left the farm I brought everything with me.

I had to use this wall organizer for the hundreds of loose photos.

Each pocket has a title like  Mom, Dad, Dad War, 1950s, 1960s, Farm, etc.

My mother's albums were fairly easy to put together.

I am familiar with the people and places.

I really enjoyed this.

Here she is as a young woman in her backyard

in downtown St. Catharines, probably in the 1930s.

Her father's family came to this area from the US

because of the American Revolution.

I'm very proud of my U.E. status.

This is the contents of the Dad, War pocket which I'm working on now.

Unfortunately he didn't write much of the back of his pictures.

And none of the places and people are familiar to me.

His sister did save all of the post cards he sent home.

Most just tell his family that he is well.

Some items are easy to identify but I have no idea of the story behind this.

Maybe that's a good thing.

Some people are easy to identify.

He was stationed in the Caribbean before being sent to England

 in preparation for D Day so perhaps

 the Duke and Duchess of Windsor visited the troops.

The few albums that my parents had are so old the paper is crumbling.

I'm taking them apart and putting the pages in archival plastic

before I put them together again.

The old covers are astonishingly strong though.

Much like the family history found within.

Making Ontario Teachers Healthy Again

When the government cuts the number of sick days allotted

to Ontario teachers the only possible response is

for teachers to cut some of the things

that are making them sick.

Start with those insane report cards.

This is my grade 6 report, marks page first. 

I was an okay student but obviously by February the glow had worn off.

And it was the year I noticed boys - which didn't help.

Anyway,

I managed to earn 57 in composition and grammar and 53 in spelling.

Now read the teacher's comment:

Frances needs to give extra time and effort to English subjects.

It put the responsibility on me. 

I had to smarten up, not my teacher and not my parents.

Now notice the side titled 'Citizenship', i.e. work habits, social habits.

Only if there was a problem was the teacher required to mark an X.

And that was it.

My whole report card.

Nothing more needed to be said.

***

Dump the reports and come up with something more realistic.

Do it now while you have some leverage.

They aren't paying you enough.

(And they sure as hell ain't gonna be giving you the days to recover

if you get sick!)