green

Actually violent gun crimes are much lower per capita in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and other countries who have similar restrictive gun laws. Law abiding citizens really do not have any need for guns. We are able to buy our meat at a supermarket. We don't need to hunt it down and kill it. Our criminals do have illegal weapons and lots of 'em but criminals are most likely to shoot each other during rival drug territory battles or shoot at cops. If you are middle class you can move freely about in my city and your chances of being shot are about zero. And there are many fewer Canadian children being accidentally killed by guns. I cannot see of any reason why you would have a gun other than the pleasure in owning one. Canadian healthcare is pretty damn good. I have been on the receiving end of thousands of dollars worth of care and I have no complaints. You have heard of system screw-ups, some of which are likely fabrications and some of which undoubtedly are true. You might be interested to hear that when a Canadian citizen must go stateside for a specific treatment which is either not available or not available in a timely manner our healthcare system makes a practice of reimbursing the individual for his or her costs. As for your feelings of comfort with the death penalty, frankly I am surprised. Not only do you risk putting innocent people to death but you also rob sinners of the chance to find Jesus and repent. What gives? In the long run none of this matters, Canada is another country and is animated by a different social and political philosophy. Both countries are democracies and share 'western' values.

One of the things that was pissing me off about gaining weight was developing big boobs. I don't feel as elegant in my clothes any more with these bluddy great udders as I used to when I was a tidy B-cup. The mate likes 'em but I don't. I was raised on European standards: the actress who starred in Breakfast at Tiffany's was gorgeous and Barbie, the doll, was a freak. As a result, I never did get jug-o-mania!

Jodie, I hate to sound like yo mama but how are is your intellectual life progressing these days?

Oh Bitter, lemme see.... According to your post you have given this individual $700 and then a further $1600 out of which she has paid you back $300. This means that she is on the hook to you for 2Gs and, moreover, she owes a mutual friend 3Gs. She undoubtedly has other outstanding debts out there to other people, to 'friends' whom you don't know. This is the way of the addict. Once one is caught up in an addiction one is unable to maintain real friendships, only the similacra. Other people are useful as ABMs and that is pretty much it. Unfortunately, the cash contributions of yourself and her other friends cannot help her at all but can hurt your own finances rather a lot. Don't get caught up in this! It will only cost you money. You have already lost your friend to her habit long ago.

Wow! What a beautiful story, Wheetsin, and thanks for sharing this with us. It strikes Green that you will be a fine mother. You know what it is to love someone deeply; your account of your relationship with your grandfather is proof of that. You also know how annoying other people's kiddies can be and so you will be acutely aware of this when preparing your own child for public consumption. And vis-a-vis babies and tiny children, my mother told me she never really liked them; she only liked her own.:confused: You also have on your side the fact that you are an intelligent, thoughtful, and well-educated woman, and one who has a stable relationship with a mate who is on the same page. Green says mazel tov and congratulations, grrl!

KillR Cherry Little Orange (the name of my cat) Sour Cherries Mean Green KillR Kat KillR Kitty

I was born without a maternal drive. I didn't play with dolls when I was a kid. And I have always needed a lot of private time.

Normal Crockwell musta said it....:faint: and the answer is NO! Everyone who is on Canadian soil as a landed immigrant, citizen, or on a work permit has rights to our health system as do, I believe, individuals who are currently in the process of applying for refugee status. There was a case recently in the news of a 67 year old woman, an illegal, who came up from the Caribbean who needed expensive - $150,000 - heart surgery. Most of our illegals seem to come from the Caribbean countries, by the way. There was a great debate as to whether the taxpayer should pay for this or whether she should simply be deported to her own country of origin. Many people felt that by giving her the operation a precedent would be set and we would be flooded by ailing illegals in need of expensive medical care. Her case was discovered when she went to a clinic which has been set up to serve our illegal population. Nobody has ever been penalized for the number of children they have in this country with respect to the healthcare system or in any other way. In fact, the reason our immigration rates are so high is because the Canadian birthrate is way down. We share this problem with the industrialised European countries. Americans are doing much better at having children.:clap2: From the occasional comments which I have read on the boards about our healthcare system I suspect that there is some misinformation which might sometimes be deliberately floated out there south of the border. Remember you have big business involved in your healthcare system and it is in their best interests that the American people remain satisfied with the current set-up. And, too, our healthcare system needs adjustments from time to time. Our population is ageing, you know.:phanvan And, by the way, thank you all for your generous comments about Canada.

Well, we abolished the death penalty many decades ago. We have very strict gun laws and few citizens except those who live in rural areas legally own guns. I have personally never held a gun; that is how rare they are up here. This means almost all of our gun deaths involve the criminal element and they are most likely to be killing each other! We have universal health care. This means that no family will ever be financially destroyed through a terrible illness. In large cities our school taxes are paid to the city who then allots them to the schools; all schools get an equal helping of the pie and this ensures that those kids who live in the poorer areas will get a better chance of getting somewhere else. I suspect that Jesus would have no problem with any of the above. There is an overlap between secular humanist values and those taught by religion, you see. Where a Christian government might run into trouble with the will of the Canadian people would be on such questions as a woman's right to choose, civil same sex marriages, and the civil and religious/a-religious rights of the plurality of people who live inside our borders. We wouldn't want to step on the toes of any of our citizens. I know that the Canadian people did not want to participate in the fatwah that Bush was pushing for against Iraq. The Prime Minister who was in power at the time, a Catholic, told Bush that Canada would not participate and became unpopular in Washington because of this. Canada is, by the way, active in Afghanistan. Canada has its own problems and its own shame. We have a situation with our Aboriginal peoples who live in the remote north which certainly rivals the squalor of the post-Katrina New Orleans. Your Christian president screwed that one up and we are screwing up, too. As for you not considering secular humanistic values very benign when examined from your view point, well, for many of us the opposite is true. We are made nervous when we consider the excesses said/ performed by some Christians in the name of their God. Canadians are, as I have said before, a low key people. We try to be rational and kindly as a people. And many of us are Christians, too

I said that the overall face of Canadian values is that of secular humanism and that we are most comfortable when our elected leaders reflect this benign, moral, yet non-partisan public face. What relationship the dude may choose to cobble together between himself and his God is expected to be dealt with during his private time. In actual fact the past few Prime Ministers have been Roman Catholic. The present one is rumoured to be pretty devout and is some form of Protestant, maybe Methodist or Baptist or something along that line. As for me accepting a devout Christian as my elected leader? Nope, I would not, not if he started introducing his beliefs into our politics. I am a Canadian and I was formed by our set of values and am most comfortable inside our framework. I feel we have a pretty good country, one that tries to be welcoming and inclusive and grant all people the same freedoms and rights. We are very low key up here.

I suspect that mainstream Canadian values and lifestyles are primarily secular, that of secular humanism, and that we want our elected leaders to reflect these values when making choices in policies which affect the rest of us. This is why such contentious policies as the right for women to choose and the right for same sex couples to have a civil marriage are likely to remain enshrined in law even though there are some groups who are terribly unhappy with these rights, and even though Stephen Harper's personal religious views would likely place him firmly in that list. In Canada there is very much a city/rural divide on this business of social policies with the cities tending very much more towards a liberal view. Until 15 or so years ago the socially conservative right did not have a voice in politics at all. Our options were the economic right or the economic middle of the road or the economic left. Our social policies reflected majority attitudes which started from slightly to the left of your Democrats. This rise of the moral conservatives has been a recent business and the movement is centered in the Province of Alberta. Many, many Canadians are uncomfortable with the introduction of social morality into their government. We figure that our morals are our own damn business.

Devana, up here in Canada cleekish is the correct pronounciation of clicquish, and cleek is more commonly used than click. This is due to our French heritage, I believe. Clique is a word which we have lifted - spelling and all - from the French. Its meaning is the same in French, by the way.

Hah! You both fall into Green's camp. I have never found children to be sufficiently interesting that I wanted to spend more than a couple of hours around them and I actively dislike babies. I do like adults and old people. I was always like this, even when I was a kid myself. And I knew all my life that I never wanted children of my own or even a husband. I did, however, want boyfriends, a house, my own money, and the opportunity to travel. I liked the idea of having a lot of variety in my life. I was able to have all these things; I was lucky. I am lucky, too, in that I have landed up with a good man and live in a kind and stable relationship. I am 57 now and I have never, ever regretted my choice not to have children.

Gadget, I agree with you. I do think that it is best for kids to be raised in a stable environment with an on-site caregiver and that this individual should ideally be the kids' parent. And I think that women often prove to be better psychologically equipped for the job than men. I am kind of a conservative grrl on this issue. I do believe that kids have a better chance in a two parent home and I think they do much better when they are not farmed out to a nanny or daycare. But, I was an atypical kid growing up in the 1950s. I wasn't cut out - I still am not - for family life. And I have met many wonderful heterosexual men who are very, very maternal. (For that matter I have met many gay women who were more maternal than I am!) I personally owe those feminists a lot! A healthy society is one which permits people to live to the best of their personal capabilities. You sound like a fortunate woman. It is obvious from your posts that you have never found yourself in a position where you were cornered by the lowered expectations of your parents, your mate, or your church. You are intellectually gifted, financially fortunate, and you are having a great time raising your kids. This is good stuff but you are who you are and you live where you live. Other women who live in other parts of the country may well still be getting different messages from their churches, their families, and their men. And it was certainly no fun growing up grrl during the 1950s.:phanvan

As a fellow Canuck, I would say that I am personally inclined to agree with much of TommyO's assessment. Religious beliefs are not expected to play a direct part in our politics. Such religious/political pundits (i.e. Pat Robertson) as you have south of the border do not exist up here. We simply do not have the Canadian equivalent. Indeed, our current Prime Minister is an acknowledged Christian and this may have lost him a lot of urban votes in the recent election. He has a minority government. I believe that most Canadians take the approach that one's religious beliefs are a personal thing and should be left that way. We don't like to interfere with each other without being invited; we find it terribly impolite. Though most Canadians probably are believers, I would be inclined to say that our national character is one informed by secular humanism. The issue of God and belief is never, ever introduced into the business of politics and governance. In fact, should a Canadian leader try to introduce such chat, he would be shredded, he would be torn apart by our media! In this respect Canada is much closer to Europe than to her southern neighbour.

I grew up during the 1950s and 1960s. When I was very, very young I was an angry kid and terribly jealous of my brother. I was a tomboyish kid and did not, you see, want to grow up to be a wife and mother. I wanted to have my father's life; it looked much more interesting and glamorous. He seemed to have much more freedom, and much more control over his life, and respect, of course. My father had a lot of respect. He was a real estate broker and so he seemingly came and went as he wished. My mother cooked only those dishes which he liked and bought only those clothes of which he approved. It was he who controlled the money and it was he who understood the arcana of the world of business. Why, he actually read the financial section of the newspaper! On the other hand, my mother's life was made up of many small items. That she was a stunningly competant woman took me many, many decades to recognise. Around the time that I was entering university militant feminism was entering hitting its own stride. I, for one, sure did profit from it in my own life and I am certain that this movement has assisted both men and women to better acknowledge that inside each one of us resides some characteristics and interests which have been traditionally assigned to the opposite gender. This movement has freed women up to engage in careers, activities, and lifestyles that once were considered to be unavailable to them. It has also freed up men to involve themselves in more nurturing roles. Neverthess, the movement did become too, too doctrinaire. Women who did want to stay at home and look after their families found themselves being dissed for opting to follow a 'traditional' path. We have moved far beyond the feminist movement of the 1960s-70s and much of what the feminists were on about in those days seems both shrill and mind-numbingly doctrinaire now. I don't think that there are many young women who style themselves as feminists these days. They don't have to, do they?

One Grrl Army

Okay, I'm gonna add it back in, grrl. :biggrin1: Ovaries with Attitude! I'm glad that you liked it.:rose: I don't know why I deleted it. It's too bad that DrewsLou isn't Canadian; I would have suggested Lucki Canucki.

I will only sleep in a very baggy very fine cotton nightgown or nightshirt. These are getting to be quite hard to find. Everyone buys pajamas these days. And there are a lot of synthetics out there.:rose: I can't wear anything on my lower half; it quickly crawls up and into my arse and then I have to haul it out again. And I have sensitive skin and am usually too hot! Even in winter, I always have a fan on. I used to sleep nekkid when I was younger and much, much thinner but now I am embarassed. :omg: I also have high thread count bed sheets now that I am an old fart. It's the least that I can do for myself, eh.:rose:

Whether Danielle has Asberger's or not is one issue. An entirely separate one is this: what do you get out of seeing this girl? It doesn't sound like much. She sounds altogether irritating. Maybe it is time to move on.

I've read about Temple Grandin and found her to be fascinating. She developed a method by which cattle can be slaughtered more humanely and she has Asperger's. The article I read about her was written by Oliver Sachs and was published in The New Yorker some years ago. It is worth mentioning here that Oliver Sachs has written quite a lot about Asperger's and other neurological differences found in people. His method is to spend time with individuals who are different and then profile them. He is a neurologist himself as well as a wonderful writer. I also find your post fascinating, kyethra, for your situation is so unlike my own and, for that matter, most of our species. I can certainly understand why you must feel like a cultural anthropologist most of the time. I also found your story about the correct time to discuss cannibalism interesting; I, too, was kinda interested in the subject and the neurological disease which afflicted that particular tribe. And now I really want to read the book which Temple Grandin co-authored.

Please don't wear any of these garments. They are very old-fashioned as well as being kinda fattening. I remember very big women wearing these in the early 1970s. It is best for us to Celebrate our weight losses, I think. Why don't you get a couple of loose tops run up for yourself in denim? You can get a few pockets sewn in at the same time.

Gaming Grrl Rolling Mama Slickest Chick Roller Chick RollR Grrl

Yah, that mother gave me the creeps!

Eventually we all end up dead. Then we are beyond worrying about it. We are beyond everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak. I find the thought of death frightening at times, comforting at others.