My aunt and her daughter and husband came which was nice.
I made my famous cauliflower macaroni cheese bake.
This was the best photo taken of me the entire time. Sigh.
There was some snow...
Friday, January 8, 2010
Mom's Christmas
Christmas at my mom's, who as everyone knows, doesn't exist for the purpose of this blog.
I made my famous cauliflower macaroni cheese bake.
This was the best photo taken of me the entire time. Sigh.
There was some snow...
I made my famous cauliflower macaroni cheese bake.
This was the best photo taken of me the entire time. Sigh.
There was some snow...
Dunn Family Christmas
I've been behind on my blogging!
Here's Christmas with my dad's side of the family:
Here's Christmas with my dad's side of the family:
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Verbal homophobic assault by postal worker
To Canada Post at https://ssl.postescanada-canadapost.ca/corporate/about/contact_us/customerservice-e.asp?formsubject=gcsi&sblid=gcsi
cc: letters@xtra.ca
Walking home this afternoon, Dec 31-09, I saw a postal worker fighting with a man. I removed my earphones and heard the postal worker say:
"You fucking fruit! You fucking queen!"
To which the man responded: "You fucking drunk!"
The postal worker then spit on the man, which is considered an assault in Ontario. The postal worker then said "You fucking fudge packer!" and got into his mail truck.
The man said "I'll have your job for this!"
The postal worker was wearing his postal uniform and driving a Canada Post truck, license plate number 548 1NH. This happened at 1:22 pm today just west of the corner of Church and Alexander Streets in the heart of Toronto's gay village.
This was overheard by me and several small children walking by. Please contact me if you require any more details.
cc: letters@xtra.ca
Walking home this afternoon, Dec 31-09, I saw a postal worker fighting with a man. I removed my earphones and heard the postal worker say:
"You fucking fruit! You fucking queen!"
To which the man responded: "You fucking drunk!"
The postal worker then spit on the man, which is considered an assault in Ontario. The postal worker then said "You fucking fudge packer!" and got into his mail truck.
The man said "I'll have your job for this!"
The postal worker was wearing his postal uniform and driving a Canada Post truck, license plate number 548 1NH. This happened at 1:22 pm today just west of the corner of Church and Alexander Streets in the heart of Toronto's gay village.
This was overheard by me and several small children walking by. Please contact me if you require any more details.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thank you again, Canada Customs
Walking into the magazine store today, first thing I see is GQ with a topless photo of Rhiana:
This is an entertainment magazine so it is placed front row at eye level.
Here's a view from the back:
Notice the "printed in Canada" stamp on the back of the bag. So someone at the border with Canada Customs thought the GQ cover was fine, should be seen everywhere by small children, and rushed it through. Meanwhile the Playgirl cover was so scandalous a special Canadian-only mylar bag had to be added.
And the back:
So the front cover with it's two censor lines obscuring everything but the title was covering men's... faces. Faces.
I'd like to thank Canada Customs for re-inforcing the sterotype and confirming that in Canada, a man's face is more obscene than a women's breasts.
Happy holidays to everyone who isn't a censor.
This is an entertainment magazine so it is placed front row at eye level.
Also on the top row, above eye level with the cover obscured by a partitian is the new Playgirl magazine.
Here's a view from the back:
Notice the "printed in Canada" stamp on the back of the bag. So someone at the border with Canada Customs thought the GQ cover was fine, should be seen everywhere by small children, and rushed it through. Meanwhile the Playgirl cover was so scandalous a special Canadian-only mylar bag had to be added.
Let's see what was so obscene:
And the back:
So the front cover with it's two censor lines obscuring everything but the title was covering men's... faces. Faces.
I'd like to thank Canada Customs for re-inforcing the sterotype and confirming that in Canada, a man's face is more obscene than a women's breasts.
Happy holidays to everyone who isn't a censor.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Little Sister's vs. Big Brother
I saw one of the best movies I've ever seen tonight, Little Sister's vs. Big Brother. It's available from the Toronto Public Library.
The film documents 20 years of struggles the Vancouver bookstore Little Sister's has had with Canada Customs.
When the store first opened, many books were held or banned outright. The issue is that these books had violated no law, no court in the country had ruled them obscene. A group of individuals, mostly heterosexual men with no training in the arts or literature, had ruled them obscene.
In the early 1980's the film mentions there were no widespread national news magazines for gay people and one magazine that featured photos of nude men was confiscated at the border. And by confiscated, I mean burned. This magazine was one of the first to talk about what would become HIV and AIDS and the film details this man calling his friend in the United States and asking him to read to him over the phone the article "The 10 safe ways to have sex". This article had been banned by customs for having obscene sexual content.
One wonders how many men were denied education on safe sex and subsequently died because of the will of a group of individuals to protect our moral fibre. I read this and wonder how people weren't marching down the streets yelling "Shame!" And yet, even today, try to organize a rally to show why banned pornographic magazines are important to Canadian society and you can imagine what these people were up against in 1983.
In the film a bookstore in Vancouver orders the same books as Little Sister's from the same seller, shipped by the same method. Both shipments are stopped for review at the border. The heterosexual bookstore gets it's books a few days later, the shipment destined for Little Sister's is banned and destroyed.
Little Sister's originally tried to take Customs to court for violating their rights under the Charter of Rights and freedoms. Years would pass as the court date approached, and Little Sister's would ready their witnesses, including Jane Rule and Pierre Burton. A week before the trial, the government would say that a mistake had been made. That upon further review, the item mentioned in the law suit was now acceptable to be imported into Canada, that they were sorry for the misunderstanding. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees Little Sister's had spent to that point were gone, they were now starting from scratch, and now had permission to import a magazine that had been printed 5 or 6 years before. Their own shipment of the magazine had long ago been burned.
So they reversed tracts and sued Customs for discrimination. In what is described as a partial victory, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Customs had discriminated against Little Sisters and awarded them money. The next decision was that the system which led to this discrimination was still a valid one and would continue.
After Little Sister's, the small independent gay bookstore had spent more than $250,000 on their legal defense, one ray of hope came out of the case. As of 2001, it is now the responsibility of customs to prove the book is obscene, not the bookseller to prove it is not.
This still does not stop customs from their usual practice of opening boxes of books with boxcutters, damaging the covers. Throwing these books into a pile, then a plastic bag, and calling the bookseller to say they have to pick up their material at the border itself, in its now unsellable condition.
In May of 1993 Canada Customs opens domestic mail addressed to Little Sister's, mailed from Penguin Canada in Newmarket, Ont.
Two democratic countries in the world banned Salmon Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses" in 1989. One was Iran, the other was Canada.
A history of censorship in Canada here.
The film documents 20 years of struggles the Vancouver bookstore Little Sister's has had with Canada Customs.
When the store first opened, many books were held or banned outright. The issue is that these books had violated no law, no court in the country had ruled them obscene. A group of individuals, mostly heterosexual men with no training in the arts or literature, had ruled them obscene.
In the early 1980's the film mentions there were no widespread national news magazines for gay people and one magazine that featured photos of nude men was confiscated at the border. And by confiscated, I mean burned. This magazine was one of the first to talk about what would become HIV and AIDS and the film details this man calling his friend in the United States and asking him to read to him over the phone the article "The 10 safe ways to have sex". This article had been banned by customs for having obscene sexual content.
One wonders how many men were denied education on safe sex and subsequently died because of the will of a group of individuals to protect our moral fibre. I read this and wonder how people weren't marching down the streets yelling "Shame!" And yet, even today, try to organize a rally to show why banned pornographic magazines are important to Canadian society and you can imagine what these people were up against in 1983.
In the film a bookstore in Vancouver orders the same books as Little Sister's from the same seller, shipped by the same method. Both shipments are stopped for review at the border. The heterosexual bookstore gets it's books a few days later, the shipment destined for Little Sister's is banned and destroyed.
Little Sister's originally tried to take Customs to court for violating their rights under the Charter of Rights and freedoms. Years would pass as the court date approached, and Little Sister's would ready their witnesses, including Jane Rule and Pierre Burton. A week before the trial, the government would say that a mistake had been made. That upon further review, the item mentioned in the law suit was now acceptable to be imported into Canada, that they were sorry for the misunderstanding. The hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees Little Sister's had spent to that point were gone, they were now starting from scratch, and now had permission to import a magazine that had been printed 5 or 6 years before. Their own shipment of the magazine had long ago been burned.
So they reversed tracts and sued Customs for discrimination. In what is described as a partial victory, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Customs had discriminated against Little Sisters and awarded them money. The next decision was that the system which led to this discrimination was still a valid one and would continue.
After Little Sister's, the small independent gay bookstore had spent more than $250,000 on their legal defense, one ray of hope came out of the case. As of 2001, it is now the responsibility of customs to prove the book is obscene, not the bookseller to prove it is not.
This still does not stop customs from their usual practice of opening boxes of books with boxcutters, damaging the covers. Throwing these books into a pile, then a plastic bag, and calling the bookseller to say they have to pick up their material at the border itself, in its now unsellable condition.
In May of 1993 Canada Customs opens domestic mail addressed to Little Sister's, mailed from Penguin Canada in Newmarket, Ont.
Two democratic countries in the world banned Salmon Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses" in 1989. One was Iran, the other was Canada.
A history of censorship in Canada here.
Sketchy Santas
From the great website http://www.sketchysantas.com/
Check the hand on Santa below:
From the site:
Check the hand on Santa below:
From the site:
"Will the parents of that child please turn the photo over to the local D.A. before JingleBalls strikes again."
Why are his pants down? What is he wearing? Why is he holding a saxaphone?
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