Canada apologises for Residential Schools . . .now what?

A mere 9 months after refusing to sign the U.N. declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, Stephen Harper formally apologises to  Canada’s Aboriginal peoples for a system of assimilation that has had destructive effects up until today. The residential school system, funded by the federal government and run by churches, isolated Aboriginal children from their families and communities so that they could more easily be assimilated into Euro-Canadian cultures. Inside the schools, siblings were seperated and children were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their culture in any way. Living conditions for these children were abhorrent: bad ventilation, overcrowding, bad heating in the winter and rotten food led to much illness and death. Furthermore, since the schools were badly funded, children were often forced to work on school grounds on tasks such as farming, cleaning and so forth rather than get an actual education.

Of sex and scamming

I got fucked! I got screwed! I got fucked in the ass!

No, I’m not describing my first gang bang (although . . . ummmm . . . never mind). These are all phrases people would use not to describe their latest experiences as a sexual penetratee, but situations in which they were ripped off or deceived.

Pink Triangle

(Originally written April 5, 2006 on my old blog).

Maybe you already know this symbol . . . it can often be seen in connection to the LGBT (lesbien,gay, bisexual, transgender) communuty. Perhaps you already knew that the origin of this symbol can be found in Nazi concentration camps where not only Jews, Roma, mentally handicappes people and Jehova’s Witnesses were persecuted but where at least 10,000 homosexual, bisexual and transgendered men were persecuted as well. Heck, some hetero men who were perceived as gay were probably in there as well since gossip was commonly used as evidence.