serendipityoucity

Hey! Hope to see you Ottawa Folks at the Octopus Books 40th anniversary party Oct. 30. I don’t know about you! But I think 40 is sexy, Octopus Books has the most intellectually challenging material in the city, and who can resist that kind of subversiveness!

See you there!

Cake. Books. Music. Great people. 40 years of Octopus history. What else could you wish for?

It’s hard to figure out how to mark the 40th birthday of a bookstore that has seen hundreds of people behind the scenes, keeping it alive and thousands of customers who have stuck with us through it all. BUT! We think we have done it - a little something for everyone who has helped make it what it was, what it is and what it will be.

If you have ever volunteered, worked, shopped or visited the store please join us for a great celebration of all that is good in the world!

Friday October 30, 2009

The Carleton Tavern 223 Armstrong Avenue (at Parkdale and Armstrong)

Doors open at 6:30

7:00 Jean-Claude Parrot (of CUPW fame) - his theme “the past 40 years - where have we been,where are we going?”

8:00 Jennifer Whiteford (local author and one time Octopus staff member ) will read some of her newest work

9:00 Archival Footage - a fabulous local band will kick off the musical portion of the evening (p.s. three former Octopus staff members in this band!)

10:00 The Brothers Creeggan

11:00 The Bidiniband

It promises to be a night of fun, friends and fabulous entertainment.. Please join us for all or some of it!

It seems that the vatican and middle east religious zealouts have much in common when it comes to the treatment of women. Today, Maureen Dowd in the NYTimes Op-Ed discusses the treatment of nuns, and discusses among other things, turning a blind eye on paedophilia and philandering priests who father out of wedlock and in-frock children while chastising nuns for compassionately aiding those with aids, supporting pour women who need abortions, trying to reconcile the church’s stance on homosexuals and controlling the length of their skirts. Then in:

2004, the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners, resisting any adversarial roles with men and cultivating “feminine values” like “listening, welcoming, humility, faithfulness, praise and waiting.”

If we changed the word woman for the work black, there would be protests in the streets. Sexism and double standards for women are so ubiquitous in our societies that we just accept this way of thinking and doing as the norm. How much longer do we have to wait?

I really like this photo! Thanks mike.

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Oh lala! i am procrastinating big time! I woke up late after some weird dreams and have not quite yet adjusted to waking. I just loaded some recent photos: sailing with Alex and Hugo, birthday scenes; Bank street infrastructure rehab shots, EBA artists I liked, and my new hand sewn kitchen curtains made of fabrik I purchased on the day Masa was born. My doctor said, after my waters only lightly broke and there was no action, this of course following a late night of juice induced dancing at Zaphods, that I should go out and walk. So Beijing York and I did the sensible thing and went shopping and ate Greek! Kerry will tell you of the waters really breaking later that day if you ask her and also about what was subsequently kept in her freezer!

This is the first time I see in a newspaper article the comparison of the corporatization of western and middle eastern women’s bodies. The article by Alaa Al-Aswany: When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists also explains the ideologies of the religious fanatics in Somalia, Egypt, the Sudan and Saudi Arabia which manifest in the control women’s bodies - religious extremism is essentially political despotism by another name. Also the fanatics who advocate these religious views, will ask women to wear gloves, niqab or in the case of Somalia ban the wearing of bras as a form of false advertising are mute when it comes to despotism, corruption, fraudulence or torture. Women are easy targets of control and how they are controlled is an indicator of a country’s political system.

I did! And she taught me many things about the strike at the Museum of civilization!

Mir this is a great animation! Hmm! I wonder if it because there is a cute sleeping guy in a white suit w/a leopard skin pillow cutout riding a pegasus!

I have been really busy lately. Since September I have had a big birthday, had many parties, travelled to Montreal to sail with Hugo and Alex and to Toronto twice, once to present the Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness I helped create at Queens Park. During that trip I also went to Burlington and had a conducted a great interview with a friend and colleague at the Rude Native, also conducted and interview with the oldest living data librarian in Canada and had a great bday dinner with really old friends. The second trip was to spend Thanksgiving with Su and Mark. I have also submitted a major collaborative research proposal and am in the process of submitting a second one that if successful, will support research on homelessness for 5 years for an awesome team of researchers. I also survived a bicycle accident, got my bike fixed up and now wear a helmet all the time. In the meantime I am trying to read for my Phd and can’t wait to start following up on the great interviews I conducted as part of the research. I have also helped a couple of Judo Olympic team members get a foothold in the region and will assist their dad in building a judo club at the university. Finally, I am getting prepared for my judo black belt exam coming up in the spring of 2010 and trying to find ways to keep fit for the winter. My hair is getting long and shaggy, friends tell me it makes me look softer, I think I look like I did when I did in the 70s when I was 12, I feel a little tired but I am quite inspired to do something creative. I would like to begin to sew again, and today in between waiting for responses to the research proposal documents, I am sewing some curtains. The biggest project however, is to learn to be patient with my teenager. I am turning into a monster and wonder why it is we can leave our boyfriends when we do not like them any-more, but we are forced to live with our kids when they are mean and still somehow I have to roster up the love and will to provide for the selfish critter. Perhaps, this is the reason I am very happy to escape into work! I am also looking forward to walking to walk and to share some time with close friends, one in Montreal that I miss dearly, a few close by and cashing in my ‘tea for two’ birthday present.

Finally, someone in the Canadian Government willing to stand up and tell the truth, and do what is right. He is being stonewalled by federal lawyers, he is

defying Department of Justice lawyers’ efforts to stop him from testifying,

he has had to be cautious and was

forced to be circumspect about what he said for fear of running afoul of Canada’s anti-terrorism law, which can jail Canadians for breaching national secrets.

. He has been diligent in filing official reports of the torture of Afghan detainees being handed over to Afghan prisons. His persistent submission of reports on the issue since 2006 to the right officials have left and undeniable paper trail. He has also filed an affidavit to the Military Police Complaints Commission. Meanwhile,

Ottawa has never accepted allegations that prisoners transferred to the Afghans were tortured but has twice halted transfers after being confronted with evidence that detainees were mistreated.

I called the Washington DC embassy today to leave him a message of support and have send the following note to Minster Lawrence Cannon:

Minister Cannon; I am sending this brief note to indicate that as a Canadian Citizen I am very pleased to know that people with integrity, people like Richard Colvin serve our country. I am not happy to read in the newspapers today, that Federal Lawyers are slowing the process, that he has to be circumspect in his affidavits to ensure he does not violate Canada’s anti-terrorism law and that his reports since 2006 seem to have fallen on deaf ears. It is important that we have people stand up for what is right, be diligent in their duties serving the country, and to face adversity for a human rights issue, one that is critically important to Canadians, even if the current government in power does not agree with him nor like what he is doing. Sincerely Tracey