Slut Walk

On January 24th, 2011 a representative from Toronto police had the nerve to say, "Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."  This was said to be Toronto’s police force view of sexual assault. So basically that officer is saying to women who have been raped you shouldn’t have dressed like a slut, right because that will prevent rape, does he even know what rape is? Rape isn’t about sexual attraction it’s about control, dominance and anger towards women; for goodness sake elderly women get raped! Rape crimes are not reported often and sometimes this is because women feel it’s their fault. This officer just confirmed that fear, how are we supposed to feel safe when the officers who are supposed to protect us blame victims for someone else’s sick actions.

As a result of this a slut walk has been organized for Sunday, April 3rd at one-thirty. We will meet in Queens park south in Toronto then we will walk or strut to Toronto police headquarters. Join in, you can dress sexually or not, your choice or buy a t-shirt. Walk with us to protest against this injustice to rape victims and to all women around the world. Its time to wipe out your copy of the feminine mystic, bring out your inner feminist and stand up.

A Vacational Downpour

     The past few times I went travelling I was met with some pretty unpleasant weather. It hailed when I was last in Paris (in July), and the skiing snow melted into a blithering slush pile when I was in Halliburton (in early March.) However, I have absolutely no reason to complain when I compare my weather mishaps to the current devastation in Thailand.
An unseasonable downpour has flooded the islands of Koh Samui and Koh Tao, two very popular tourist destinations in Thailand. Fifteen people are said to have already drowned or have been buried in mudslides, and many more are in need of medical attention. The Thai navy has evacuated 1,200 tourists from the islands so far, but 13, 000 vacationers are apparently still stranded with diminishing food supplies and fuel stocks.
-Em

Eco-Note of the day- If you are in Paris in July and it happens to hail upon you, remember to NOT use the dryer! Each load that goes through a dryer uses the same amount of energy as it would take to make 250 pieces of toast!

Unfriend coal

I know a lot of teens love facebook and almost all use it. I think you would agree that teens are on it at least once a week if only for a moment, you would probably also agree that liking something is easy. So if liking something is so easy why not go onto face book and like face book unfriending coal. What is that? It is a campaign started by Greenpeace an environmental organization to get facebook to go green by earth day on April the 22nd.Why? As I'm sure all of you know coal is a form of generating electricity that is harmful to the environment, and it powers facebook. What’s the big deal you ask? Over one if four Canadians not Canadians teenagers all Canadians have facebook that’s alot. Think about how much power that is now imagine how much of a difference using clean energy would be. Alot of people in the world don't do the easy simple things to help save our planet because they don't see the bigger picture, lead by example do the little things like unfriend coal on facebook.

-D

French Toast and Radio Announcements

My saturday morning-
8:30am- Wake up with elbow in ear, and knee in ribs (a bunch of my friends and I were at a sweet sixteen sleepover)
8:32- I am schocked that I'm awake before noon
8:40- After stumbling downstairs, place an order for french toast with the resident chef (aka the birthday girl)
8:50- I eat french toast
9:00- The radio announces a new Canadian federal election

Yup! With the approval from the Govenor General (the Queen's representative) David Johnston, Stephen Harper announced the upcomming election. The federal election will take place on May 2nd, and will be Harper's fourth run for a majority government.  Currently Gilles Duceppe (leader of the Bloc Québécois) does not rule out the possibility of a coalition government with the Liberals, and specultions continue to fly...
More later,
-em

Eco- Note: with all this snow melting and freezing and becoming slippery slippery, don`t use salt ! As the salt and snow melt they go back into our gardens, forests and waterways, where salt is not a natural or positive substance! Instead, use sand which may not melt the snow, but will give oodle more traction! Even sugar can be used, and will have a more environmentally positive impact.

Earth Hour

Last night from 8:30 to 9:30 was earth hour. I hope you spent that hour with your light of in your home. I’m sad to say I looked out my window and found that many of my neighbors did not, so if your a believer in earth hour don't forget to remind your friends, family and neighbors next year, but thank you to those who did. At the beginning of earth hour me and my sister, parents and grandmother were just finishing dinner so it was perfect timing for us. We went around turning of lights and lighting candle, which I think I enjoyed doing too much and my parents were happy that they had to teach me to use a lighter. We ended up playing cars to candlelight till 10:30 and I've got to say I enjoyed it, this id coming from someone who has a lot of guilt on all the family time I've skillfully avoided. By the end of the night we decided since my grandma comes to dinner every Sunday that it would be a new tradition for us to eat and play cards in candlelight. Now if we keep with this and turn all of the lights and heating off for dinner then cards that’s about three hours, which saves a lot of energy. Its just a suggestion but maybe its something you and your family can try trust me there’s nothing like beating your older sister at cards (not that I did but I'm sure I will next Sunday). Another idea is doing something fun and energy conches for earth day all day not just for the hour. Next earth day em and me are hoping to bike to and from school and encourage our friends to do they same. Also we we're going to try not using electricity all day not even the oven and sleeping in my back yard with our friends and eating uncooked food. Anyway, those are just some ideas I hope you had a good earth day and that you will have an even better one next year.

-D

The CN and Eiffel Towers Become Invisible Tonight....

Today marks the fifth annual World Wildlife's Earth Hour!
This event is to raise awareness of our own energy consumption leading to pollution and global climate change. What we're doing is turning out ALL the lights for an hour today, from 8:30pm untill 9:30
Over 131 countries participare in this event, as well as global landmarks such as the CN Tower, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House -where the first Earth Hour took place-
Last year more than 50 million people participated. I hope you'll be included in this number today.
But more importantly I hope the message to flick off, to turn off unessecary lights, is with you for longer than this hour.
-Em

Shake + Shake = Landslides & Building Crash

A couple more earthquakes hit today, but not in Japan or Canada. It was infact in south China's Yunnan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The quake had a magnitude of 7.2 and an epicenter of 10km deep. Two hours after the 8:29 pm (local time) an after shock with a magnitude of 5.4 hit the area. It's said that ten people were killed through consequences of the earthquakes, including collapsing walls, buildings and landslides. In certain areas, such as Tachilek, citizens have been advised to leave their houses, especially apartment buildings as a precaution.
-em

Eco-Note: With all this snow comming back (I'm loving it!) grab a shovel for the driveway, and not that snowblower! Not only is this a lot more environmentally friendly, it's a lot better for you as well (as long as you don't freeze your toosies off!) shoveling for an hour can burn 288 calories!

is the government still in middle school?

You probably have seen a lot of political campaigns lately do to the fact that an election could be called and I don't know about you but I've noticed Its a lot of gossip and hating on the leaders of opposing parties. We have the conservatives saying that Micheal Ignatieff is lying about his childhood and we have parties calling Stephan Harper lazy, I’m confused I thought I was watching the news not in the girls bathroom at my high school, chill guys, seriuosley! There is a stereotype out there that there’s nothing pettier then a thirteen-year-old girl. For all you thirteen year old girls out there I'm sorry, but I was there to its a time of insecurity were our pettiness tends to come out. It appears that this state of pettiness can happen to men between the ages of 40-60 Stephan Harper, Micheal Ignatieff, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe are perfect examples. Yes these are the heads of the Canadian parties that usually have the main of seats in Canada and their getting a little petty, I’m all for a little friendly competition but there’s nothing friendly about this. I know that when it comes down to the race to be Prime Minster the heats get turned up, but who want the leader of their country to be petty, mean and just plain immature? Like I said before pettiness towards others usually comes from our own insecurities about ourselves, here’s a scary thought does that me these leaders are insecure with their ability to lead our country or their ability to win this possible election. I’m an optimist so I'm going to go with the ladder, I'd seriously hope that its nit these men don't believe in their own ability to lead, because if they don't believe in themselves how can we?

Something for Civics class...

In second period civics today we were going over our bill introductions, and procedures within government.
And although I'm not phychic I think I can already tell what tomorrow's topic will be:
The new Federal budget.
Now before you tune out (I get that the words government and budget aren't terribly exciting) think of the importance this has on Canada. I mean today Jim Flaherty -The Minister of Finance- announced the proposed new federal budget plan, meaning where tax dollars are going to go (if the plan is put into action of course.) Ideas concerning nearly all Canadians were included, such as new tax credits for volunteer firefighters, economic strategies to increase Canadian innovation with India, and even a program called "Helmets to Hardhats" to help retired military personnel to recieve jobs in the construction business.
It has been said that this new budget plan will is very unlikely to pass a vote in the House of Commons, but the Conservatives will likely include it with their campaign throughout the next election.
-em

Now, if you've somehow managed to get past the word budget and government, all the way to the bottom-
the Eco-Idea of the day is use eco-friendly websites!
You guys have all probably noted how schmancy our white writting is on our black background for this blog, but it's actually environmentally friendly too! The black background doesn't use nearly as much energy as white backgrounds do! There is even this search engine identical to Google called Blackle, which is actually the exact same thing, (the same links come up for every search,) but the back is black so it saves 2,389,822.429 watts per hours!

Success in Libya

Saturday U.S and French army launched an air attack on Tanks stationed in Benghazi, Libya. The seven tanks were controlled by Libyans dictator Gadhafi and were being used against the 700 000 citizens of Benghazi. This success is a great achievement for the war against Gadhafi and is a cause to celebrate. Even though the fight is not over this victory has shown Libya that other countries won't sit back and let this vicious dictator harm any more people. The rebels fighting against Gadhafi were very happy and one even said he thinks that Gadhafi will be defeated in the next two days. I think we all have a debt to the U.S after it took them twenty-four missiles to destroy Gadhafis tanks each missile costing the U.S one million dollars that’s right a grand total of twenty-four million.
-d

Quinoa ?

I admit, I am a picky eater. I could write you a list of what I don't eat, but my fingers would cramp up, and would possibly fall off.  Most people think I'm insane in my eating habits (because its not natural to NOT like cheese with a Z ?) and I'm offten asked "well what do you eat?" the answer lately has been quinoa, one of my favourite foods.
We tend to find quinoa in the grain aisle at the grocers. However, quinoa is not a grain, but rather a chenopod and is related to beets and spinach. I think it's delicious, it has a light nutty taste and is a perfect substitute for rice or noodles. It's a delicious addition to any meal, especially since it's extremely high in iron (20% of daily value per 30g) magnesium (25% dv per 30g) phosphore (10% dv per 30g) fibre (8% dv per 30g) and fat, cholesterol, sugar and sodium are nearly nonexistant.
This "miracle food" has been consumed by Bolivians for hundreds and hundreds of years. A few decades ago it was found by NASA and became popular for all long-term space missions. Now the chenopod is extremely popular within North America, which you'd think would be great, right?
Nuh-uh.
Due to the increase in demand (it's trippled in the last five years) quinoa prices have risen greatly. This does mean that Bolivian farmers have been earning more, but at the same time Bolivians are not able to afford it anymore (a decrease of 34% in Bolivian consumption over the past five years has occured.) So now Bolivians are relying on cheaper processed foods, which is increasing malnutrition within a country that already greatly struggles with it.
Bolivian government officials are aware of the nutrition struggle within the country and have been working towards increasing domestic quinoa consumption for lesser prices, as well as making the chenopod available in meals for the armed forces and in school breakfeasts.
Until then, however, I think that quinoa will have to move off of my favourites list and into my uneatables.
-Em

Eco-Note for the day: EAT LOCALLY! Try to support a 100 mile diet! Support your local farmers and food procucers (to support the local economy), minimize food's travel (to minimize green house gases) !

to walk the talk -without a carbon footprint-

I was so impressed with the water exhibit I saw at the ROM yesterday. Many of the displays were interactive and relayed the information of water necessity and conservation in so many interesting ways. Although it was not a nattering message, I clearly understood the importance of taking care of our world from the display.
And I was terribly impressed with a bunch of the ideas they gave to support an environmentally friendly life style, and specifically water conservation. Such as:
-use the dishwasher! washing everything by hand is actually a lot less environmentally friendly than a full dishwasher!
-turn off the tap! (the tap running for five minutes is equivalent to a lightbulb running for fourteen hours!)
-if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down (flush less!)
-water the lawn in the morning or evening, not mid-day
-go through a car wash, don't wash by hand!
-turn off the lights, computer, radio -any electronics- when you're not using them!
-turn the thermostat down
-walk, or talke transit!
-REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE! D'OY!

At the end of the exhibit however, there were no stairs. Only elevators.
Excuse me? Millions of dollars were put into this section of the museum to inform us, to teach us, about how much we are destroying our world, our ecosystems, our animals, and ultimately our selves. The entire concept was to be green, and we finished it off with no other option than an un-environmentally friendly form of transportation? The elevator only moves us a floor, but that's beside the point. Isn't this a bit hypocritical?

I hope that if you guys choose to take on the comittment of becomming greener, you will be able to talk the talk AND walk the walk. Spread the word of our global pollution, and help inform others of what they can do. But lead by example guys. For more ideas to reduce your carbon footprint be sure to catch the footers of each of my following posts -including this one-, as I'll  be adding an environmentally friendly or friendlier thing we can each do.
-Em

NO PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES!!!!
ARG! Plastic water bottles annoy me more than socks with sandals.
Do you realize how much work has gone into the bottle it's self? To produce initial materials, to ship them, to produce more materials, to ship them, to finalize production, to put everything together, to ship them, to ship them, to sell them so we can go to the store to buy them to bring them home... ACK! More than 2000 times more energy is put into the production of each bottle than it is to produce tap water! And all the energy used to recycle them, if they even get that far... Still, 33 billion gallons of bottled water were purchased in the U.S last year (70% more than 2002) this is more than milk or beer!
And tap water? Not only is it environmentally friendlier, and cheaper, it's also healthier! Toronto water is infact tested 300,000 times every year! 
-em

Another Rumble and Radiation...

A minor earthquake occured today in the area surronding (and between) Ottawa and Montreal at 1:36 pm.
The quake with a magnitude of 4.3 caused the ground to shake for about ten seconds, but according to many it just felt like a truck passing by. No significant damage has been reported what so ever.
In other news a pump seal failed at a nuclear power plant in Pickering. Due to this seal failure about 73,000 litres (which is enough to fill 3/4 of an average swimming pool) of water containing traces tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) were released into lake Ontario today at 1:30 in the morning. Ontario Power Generation says that "from a regulatory perspective, this is a very low level event. There is no impact to quality of drinking water"
These two events are unrealated to eachother, despite previous similar global events.
-em

Emergency in Japan³

Well, it's the first day of March break!
Shops and stores are open, and I'm looking forward to a brunch! Here in central Ontario the sky is blue and sunny, the air is even warm(ish)
However around the world in Japan the chance of brunch is pretty much nil. Shops and stores? Nope, not open. Most aren't even standing. And the atmosphere? Well how do you feel about radiation?
After the earthquake on March 11th the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant was having electrical difuculties which caused issues in cooling certain pumps. 180, 000 citizens were evacuated from the area (aprox 10km) barely before an explosion on the 12th where 160 people are said to have come in contact with the radiation, but 1500 have been scaned. A few plant wokers were killed in the exposion adding to the toll of 15,000 from the previous two disasters.
Yesterday a second unit was found to have a failure in it's cooling system, and this lead to another explosion that literally blew the roof off. Seventeen U.S military personnel were on their way in a helicopter to assist, when another reactor exploded. All of them were exposed to the radiation, but are said to have been de-contaminated and are doing fine
However another earthquake with a magnitude of seven, is expected to strike the region within the next few days
-em

Trembler!

Yesterday was a big day of news, eh? I mean yes the entire Charlie Sheen thing, and Bieber selling that purple shoe... But is was especially a large day for natural disasters.
On March 11th , Japan experienced it's largest earthquake yet, with a magnitude (a way to measure intensity of earthquakes, higher = shakier) of 8.9, the seventh largest in recorded history globally ever. To put this in perspective consider that the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti had a magnitude of 7.0, and that Japan's earthquake had a depth of 15.2 miles whereas Haiti's was 8.1 miles.
It has even been said that the quake moved Japan's land mass by 2.5 cm, and furthermore has altered the earth's axis by 8cm
Following the quake, a tsumani rose on the East Coast of Japan and carried for 10k inland. Thousands of people are unaccounted for currently. An estimated 900 have died, 60 landslides have occured, and 12250 homes have been destroyed.
And as if this wasn't enought, in the northeast of Japan right now a nuclear power plant is in a large state of emergencey as the quake caused a large problem in the plant's cooling system. This has already lead to some radiation escaping the reactor.
Meanwhile despite the Tsunami warnings, Hawaii and the coast of B.C seem to be doing fine. Many march break tourists were moved to higher levels in their hotels and even onto hill sides in Hawaii, and certain areas were cleared in B.C (apparenlty the cast of Twilight had to tranfer locations.) It had been said however, that no extreme conditions or complications have occured
-Em

money, money, money...

We've all heard that money doesn't grow on trees. Hopefully you know that money does not come from trees, as it it made of wool. But starting this year it will no longer.
This RCMP says that within the past year 2894 counterfit five dollar bills were seized, as well as 8342 phony ten dollar bills, 24762 fake twenty dollar bills,  5653 fifties, 25030 hundreds and 5 thousand dollar bills (yes, there is such thing!) Although this overall counterfit amount is much lower than prior years, especially in comparison with the pre-2004 bills it is still quite a large issue.
The Bank of Canada will begin producing polymer bills instead of cotton. Polymer is like a thin sheet of plastic, and is already used for bills internationally such as in Australia. The newly redesigned bills will feature many more and new security aspects in hopes of reducing counterfit cash. Furthermore, like the cotton bills these new bills will be durable when wet, but also will be more durable overall. They are said to be able to last up to 2.5 longer than current bills (which typically last from 5-10 years but do go to 20) which would mean a lesser amount would need to be produced which would be more economical and environmental. The fifty dollar bills are said to appear this November and the other bills arriving within the following year or so.
-Em

Youtube Channel

Soon me and Emma will be starting a YouTube channel as an addition to this blog.We will try and make it as fun as possible and post as many videos as we can a week but, I doubt it will be more than three a week tops.Like our blog posts these videos will be about current issues but they will also be about what we as teens can do and what people have already done to improve our world.All of these videos will be catered to teens of course and we will try to do fun stuff too.Soon I will put the link up and also a link to a formspring account.There is a chance I may not post next week because of March break I'm going on a family vacation and may not have Internet. Our first topic is going to be green apps for iPhone,ipod touch,mac laptops and ipad. If your interested the video channel should be up and running by Wednesday the twenty-third of March.Hope you like it!!!

-D

Gingers Do Have Souls

A friend of mine posted a YouTube video on his Facebook page a few days ago, of a red-headed teenage boy stating that in fact "gingers do have souls"  We could easily tell the guy was agitated and frusterated within this video, he was screaming -or atleast raising his voice- pacing, and raising his eyebrows up to his hairline. There may have been humour within his actions, I'll give you that, but not within what he was talking about.
The guy was venting about being bullied and teased -past the point of amusement- for the colour of his hair. He was sick of being told that he had no soul and insisted that he did have a soul -numerous times- And he has feelings. He talked about his contemplated suicide and overall anger with the situation and his bullies. Still funny here guys?
I understand telling your friends that they're whack jobs and nincompoops, I mean I think I tell certain people that they smell twelve times a day! But where is the line drawn? We need to be more mindful about not only what we say to whom, but the way we say it. And we need to learn to listen always always always, in case someone is asking for help -such as in this video, regardless of the guy's occasionally quirky facial expression-
This video is a perfect example of a "joke" going too far, nearly ending in suicide.
And the worst part?
This video got 87,243 likes on YouTube and a lmao with twelve Os on my friend's page.
-em

Are teens today apathetic

I was surprised when a couple of weeks ago I had to choose a persuasive essay topic for my English class from a list in a book that has been used for grade ten English for years, and my chosen topic had never been done .  When I told my teacher I had chosen the topic clear-cutting old growth forests I was surprised to find she was surprised, she told me no one had ever chosen that topic in her time at my high school. I told my friend that it had never been chosen and she explained it in two words "its boring", I was shocked here I thought young people were becoming more environmentally conscious and a wear. I would think that a topic like clear-cutting which is cutting down all trees in an area then burning the leftover twigs and destroying habitats of all animals in that area would have been chosen a least a couple times.Are teenagers today that unaware of the plaguing environmental issues? I wrote an essay prior to this one with a thesis of teenagers of today are no worse than any other generation, have I been proven wrong? We had a teenage generation full of hippies who promoted love ,were against war and were striving for a better world, why aren't we? Is it because then being a hippy was cool and now being in with all the new gadgets and social networking is the trend.Could it be that I am overestimating the hippy generation and they really were no better than us or could it be I am wrong an our generation is worse.The truth is I don't know but I do know is that it doesn't matter what the previous generation did its what our generation does today.

From my Fridge to the Blog

Our fridge has oodles and oodles of everything covering it. We have crafts and photos, marked homework and tests, emergency phone numbers, a list birthdays for family and friends.... Beside our menu planning wipe board is this purple and white post card from my cousin. The card reads:

"Because woman's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like if more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctors too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're agressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope of don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and... for lots and lots of other reasons we are a part of the women's liberation movement."
-National Student Group London. "Women's Liberation Because..." Northern Sun Mer. 1995. Print.

This Tuesday March 8th is the 100th anniversary of the International Women's Day.  A current holiday in the United States of America, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Belarus, Cambodia, Nepal, Uganda, Zambia and Turkmenistan, this was not an event untill 1911, following the decision and plan of action from the 1910 International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, through the United Nations.
Make sure you take the time this Tuesday -as we should be doing every day- to campaign for women's rights and equality, even if it is as simple as sending someone a liberating post card, or passing on the link to this blog post.
-em

T.V addiction

Hi my name is  Dana and I am a television addict.  The sad thing is there is a high possibility you are to, the average teen watches 1500 hours of t.v a per year and only 900 spent in school. I know countless teens who have a similar addiction and it has its negative affects.I even heard one classmate say "yes, Pretty Little Liars is back on I have a reason to live again"! Now I know almost all teenagers who are reading this are thinking Dana the girl was kidding, but I'm starting to have my doubts.

Are you one of those teenagers who would get better marks,be more fit and spend more time with family if you watched less t.v, I’m admitting I am. I know many of us have had our parents tell us countless times to stop watching t.v , saying its not good for us . Half the time we roll our eyes thinking I'm fine I have a handle on it but isn't that what all junkies say?I think its time to step back and take what they are saying seriously enough is enough we need to put a serious limit on our t.v watching. Now I'm not saying that we all our getting lower marks,not getting enough exercise,not spending enough time with family and all together watching to much  t.v, but for those who are I think we need help! 

 I’m a firm believer in do it yourself, so join teens views month of March challenge, were we agree not to watch t.v this month and see how it affects our lives.
-D

a fourth of an aisle...

I was in the Bay today with my sister, who was trying to find the perfect gift for her friend's birthday party. Amongst all the toys there were -of course- Bieber trivia games, floofy stuffed animals and monster trucks, the one thing I did not see much of however was Barbies.
 They demoted Barbies to a FOURTH of an aisle guys. A fourth! (My mom's walking by me and my computer right now and is sighing and saying "em are you still going on about that?!") but I'm actually quite devistated! (she's snickering now.... ANYHOW-) We have an entire chest of drawers in our family room dedicated to all my Barbies, I used to spend hours and hours playing house and games with all my Kellys and Kens! But there is a measley four options of Barbies at the Bay, -and a few hundred options of killing video games!
Some people argue that Barbies are negative influences on young girls. I need to point out though that the dolls are firstly multi-cultural, inclusve and universal. The first African Barbie (Christine) was introduced in the 1980s, shortly followed by a Spanish and Asian Barbie. Barbie is furthermore extremely independant I mean she's a teacher, a dentist, a baby-sitter, a scientist, an astronaut, a doctor, a dog sitter, a horse and dolphin trainer, a snowboarder and surfer, she has her own VW beatle (my Barbies share the silver one) and her own "barbie house of dreams" She accomplishes all of this while maintaining a healthy body and fashionable -and relatively unreavealing clothing style, (have you seen those other dolls with the giant heads and feet?) Seriously, is there anything that Barbie can't do?
It seems that today games targeted towards children revolve around electronic games -preferably of the killing variety- Children need a better role model, and more imaginative games, children need more than a fourth of an aisle.
-em

Once Upon Last December...

Lately I've had a few people ask me about current anti-government protests around the world, and specifically how the entire chain reaction started. I hope we've all realized by now that -in simple terms- citizens are not happy with their government and the way that their country is being run, so they're protesting. Not many people know of (one of) the large incidents that lead to the initial protest in Tunisia, so I've got a story for you:
Once upon last december, there was this young man in his twenties living in Tunisia with his mother and his several siblings. His father isn't in the picture, whether he died or abandoned them is not known, regardless of the case this eldest son became the primary care giver and only income of nine people. So, this man grows vegetables and fruit, and each week he puts them all in a wheel barrow and brings them to the market to sell, he doesn't make very much at all, not nearly enough for himself and his family, but they are surviving. Barely.  Anyhow, he's going to the market this one day in December and a police officer stops him and asks to see his permit which he claims is necessary to sell produce. The man is not aware of this and appologizes, so the officer spits on him and takes his only source of income -his wheel barrow of food- The man goes home, scrambles up as much money as he possibly can -most likely his household's entire savings- and goes down to the police station to buy a permit and to reclaim his produce. But at the station they refuse to give him back his fruit or vegetables, nor will they sell him a permit (although they do take the money) The police officers taunt him, push him, and tease him.
This was when all of his seemingly useless hard work and all the conditions he endured became desparation.
The man then went to a field.
And lit himself on fire.
  
It is estimated that 2000 people have died in Algerian protests. Including four other people who made camp-fires out of themselves. Conditions do not seem to be improving this far, but the Canadain government has just recently donated $5 million for humanitarian aid -for Algeria specifically-
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Budget Cuts

It was announced that for the first time in Canadian history our government will not be spending more than the previous year. What programs is money being taken away from?Environmental,cultural and social programs. I understand that with the problems with the economy budget cuts may be needed, but is it really necessary in these programs? This year in my Canadian history class we learned what makes our Canadian identity. Cultural diversity and acceptance. Social care.preserved nature. The government couldn't have sent a clearer image of were its priorities lie.For a country that prides itself on encouraging and nurturing different cultures why are we taking needed money from these programs that do just that? Our social care programs like financial aid,child care,Canadian pension plan,disability pension, maternity benefits and many other programs are so important and make us who we are, Canadians. We are looking at a twenty percent cut to environment Canada, thirty-one to substance and waste management and fifty-nine percent cut to climate change and clean air programs.With all the effects of Global warming becoming such a scary reality why are we spending less when we should be spending more?
It seems to me that with saving money we are on the road to loosing ourselves as Canadians.