Moral-Flexibility.Net

Ya know every time I drive along the 401 I pass under the Changeable Message Signs. While some consider these an innovation, I’ve typically found these signs to be next to useless and the information either inaccurate or obvious. The irony of sitting at a dead stop directly under a sign flashing a warning that traffic is about to slow down ahead of me has not been lost on me time and time again.

Today I made the all familiar trek up the Allen Road to the 401, then West to Kitchener-Waterloo to drop Jillian off with her Grandparents. I brought the digital camera along as I had a sneaking suspicion that even at 0720hrs I’d be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic (I’m rarely on the road at this time), and wanted a picture of exactly this.

Now I recognize that these signs can serve a useful purpose, I just don’t see them doing it in this case.

You may have noticed a slight change in the appearance of the blog….

My old blog lacked any fixed width values, and the formatting problems were irritating me to no end. I had cludged together a solution using HTML tables (not so elegant I admit), but coinciding with this effort I upgraded to WordPress Ver 1.5.

The upgrade (as is to be expected) solved a few problems I’d been having, and introduced a few new ones. In the end I gave up trying to modify the old format, removed the table hack, canibalized an existing theme and hoped for the best.

I’m hoping this format suffices for a while, as it’s been more work than I was prepared to commit.

In unrelated news Mike is back up and running after a series of technical failures on the part of the hosting service (yep, same host as me) a few months back, glad to see he finally found the time to muck around with his site again.

Welcome back Mike!

Fanatics frighten me.

A recent rally at the University of New Hampshire was dedicated to “smashing the patriarchy”. The rally was organized by the “Feminist Action League” and, according to the article, was intended to give women a chance to empower themselves, and share experiences of their oppression at the hands of men in a safe enviroment.

Sounds fairly harmless so far, no? Here are some highlights from the article (quoted in its entirety at the end of this post).

..”Hello, my name is Mary Man-Hating-Is-Fun,” one participant said. “I am 23 years old, and I am what a feminist looks like. Ever since I learned to embrace my feminist nature, I found great joy in threatening men’s lives, flicking off frat brothers and plotting the patriarchy’s death. I hate men because they are men, because I see them for what they are: misogynistic, sexist, oppressive and absurdly pathetic beings who only serve to pollute and contaminate this world with war, abuse, oppression and rape.”..

It’s nice to see she’s maintained an open mind, and hasn’t fallen victim to the same sort of prejudice and stereotyping that brought her to the rally, isn’t it?

“Women who use porn are being complicit in the oppression of women,” one woman said. “They are legitimizing an industry that enslaves women and they are traitors to their gender.”

“Gender Traitors” – Catchy phrase, why does it invoke images of cattle cars and jackboots…..

» Read more..

My last entry was about our little household returning to an illness free state, and I was proven almost immediately wrong. Poor Jillian still seems to be suffering some stomach trouble, and I’ve suffered a minor relapse myself. Serves me right for assuming the long weekend would be hassle free.

None the less, I spent my (biweekly) shift guarding the hospital toiling away trying to improve on the format of the zombie reviews, and it looks like I’ll be rewriting a number of them to try and bring them up to speed.

A new batch of films is expected in over the next few weeks (Yay!) and I’ve still got a couple from the last batch sitting here on my desk patiently waiting for reviews and images to be thrown online. The moment I get some energy mustered I’ll get cracking.

Hang in there folks… it ain’t terribly exciting over here.

Please accept my apologies for my absence of late, the cold and flu season descended on our household and stalked Lisa, Jillian and I like victims in an Agatha Christie novel. Jillian was the first to fall, then me and finally Lisa.

It’s made for late nights, short tempers, and deficit spending in the sleep department that can only be rivalled by the seasoned veterans of our nations government (the spending part, not the absence of sleep mind you).

We’ve weathered the worst of it at this point. Jillian has recovered, I retain a nasty cough, and Lisa is still fighting the good fight.