Girls only schools.
Do you agree with the concept of single sex education?
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Vancouver Media + Modesty
So Shelley Fralic, Peter Birnie, and Jo Ledingham all have articles out about Grease, this week, which is touring Vancouver right now. Fralic and Birnie, in separate articles in the Vancouver Sun slam it for being raunched up and sleazy, and Jo Ledingham in the Vancouver Courier thinks it is immodest, encourages casual sex, and sends the wrong message about social acceptance.
What do you think? Please discuss it all below, if you like :)
What do you think? Please discuss it all below, if you like :)
This article appeared this morning in Modern Mom, by Brooke Burke, about "sexy" Halloween costumes.
My Mistakes...
Obviously her get-up was not purchased by me- mistake #2! Last week, she showed me her “Alice In Wonderland” Halloween costume. The first thing I did was look at the packaging. To no surprise, I noticed it was an adult small, not a children’s large. That was the first red flag! Buy your children’s costumes in the kid's section, not the adult section. To make a long story short, we talked about looking 10-years-old not 20-years-old, even on Halloween. We jazzed up Alice to look much younger and cuter. You can imagine the look on my daughter’s face when I assured her that Alice’s dress was knee length with white knee socks and buckle shoes, NOT a frilly, short, blue mini-skirt with thigh-highs.
More Fairytale, Less Hottie-Tottie
So, I went picking through my own collection of tights and had her wear white tights, (NO FISH NETS) under her sexy socks. I added some young, rosy make-up to make her look more fairytale and less hottie-tottie. In the end, she got it. She was as happy and as appropriate as a 10 year old wanabee Alice could be
Oh Hannah...
At this morning's school costume parade, I saw many homemade creative costumes: funny ones, rented ones, and of course a few tramped out innocent kids. What happened to ghosts, two-headed monsters and pumpkins? The funniest costume was a Hannah Montana who looked more like a blonde street-walker than a pop star. I must confess that yesterday's article featuring slutty Miss Candy Corn had nothing on the THREE pre-tween candy corns I saw at school this morning- one of whom was my own eight-year-old! But, she’s pulled it off in a very sweet way. Sexy never came to mind. It really depends on how your kids wears the costume and what they look like in it.
"Ummm, MOM!"
The funniest thing happened last night when I was trying on my hot pleather Cat Woman suit. My daughter said, “MOM, you’re not going to wear that to my school parade are you? Don’t you think it’s a little hot for school?” I guess she told me, because I showed up with no costume, a t-shirt and a pair of baggy khakis. It was a great day! I volunteered in class and had so much fun making origami pumpkins and spiders.
My Mistakes...
Obviously her get-up was not purchased by me- mistake #2! Last week, she showed me her “Alice In Wonderland” Halloween costume. The first thing I did was look at the packaging. To no surprise, I noticed it was an adult small, not a children’s large. That was the first red flag! Buy your children’s costumes in the kid's section, not the adult section. To make a long story short, we talked about looking 10-years-old not 20-years-old, even on Halloween. We jazzed up Alice to look much younger and cuter. You can imagine the look on my daughter’s face when I assured her that Alice’s dress was knee length with white knee socks and buckle shoes, NOT a frilly, short, blue mini-skirt with thigh-highs.
More Fairytale, Less Hottie-Tottie
So, I went picking through my own collection of tights and had her wear white tights, (NO FISH NETS) under her sexy socks. I added some young, rosy make-up to make her look more fairytale and less hottie-tottie. In the end, she got it. She was as happy and as appropriate as a 10 year old wanabee Alice could be
Oh Hannah...
At this morning's school costume parade, I saw many homemade creative costumes: funny ones, rented ones, and of course a few tramped out innocent kids. What happened to ghosts, two-headed monsters and pumpkins? The funniest costume was a Hannah Montana who looked more like a blonde street-walker than a pop star. I must confess that yesterday's article featuring slutty Miss Candy Corn had nothing on the THREE pre-tween candy corns I saw at school this morning- one of whom was my own eight-year-old! But, she’s pulled it off in a very sweet way. Sexy never came to mind. It really depends on how your kids wears the costume and what they look like in it.
"Ummm, MOM!"
The funniest thing happened last night when I was trying on my hot pleather Cat Woman suit. My daughter said, “MOM, you’re not going to wear that to my school parade are you? Don’t you think it’s a little hot for school?” I guess she told me, because I showed up with no costume, a t-shirt and a pair of baggy khakis. It was a great day! I volunteered in class and had so much fun making origami pumpkins and spiders.
Let it be said at the outset: I like boys. I'm used to boys-I spent almost every summer vacation with six boy cousins, almost like brothers, two of them close to my own age, and my constant playmates. While growing up, I gravitated towards boys. My parents had very few friends with kids, and the ones that did, had boys. He Man and GI Joe were my staples, burping on command was something I aspired to, and in pissing contests, I tried very hard to win. Later, as I entered adolescence, I was introduced to the concept of a girl friend, when boys became creatures of Mystery and Wonder, and we giggled about them and tossed our hair yearningly in their direction.
Even now, when my social circle contains more female friends than men, I find myself different around the opposite sex, a little more comfortable, perhaps, and usually, one of the lads. It's not unusual to find me in a group of all men, with me in the middle, all of us holding forth on subjects that most of us don't know very much about. And, to bring us to the point of this: I've lived with men. One as a flatmate and friend, the other as a lover.
Now, while it's all very well to like boys, living with them is another matter entirely. The first boy I cohabited with was a friend with whom I shared a flat in Bandra. We moved in, blissfully unaware of the consequences. As someone who had only lived with other women before, the idea of "modesty" didn't even strike me. I strode around in short-shorts and tank tops, only pausing half way to the television set to realise there was a man in the room. As someone who had never had to explain her relationships, here was I, claiming to be married for the sake of my landlord, all the while trying to figure out the best excuse for why we were sleeping in different bedrooms. As someone not overly domestic, I found the gender roles we were trying to automatically slide into, the most difficult. I cannot cook. I am a sloppy housewife. My flatmate on the other hand was a man who liked a clean house, homecooked meals and dusted bookshelves and who was prepared to go the distance to make sure that happened. Previously, the girls and I stuck to our own bedrooms. Now, with a shared living space, it was clear I would have to suck it up and handle half of the household responsibilities. We were friends, are friends, and in the end, our friendship stood the test of my shoddy household abilities, but I wouldn't be so lucky in the future.
Cue: the boyfriend. Not Indian, and someone who had lived on his own enough to be able to cook and clean and all that jazz. And who, once again, wanted me to help. This is not unreasonable, but as a neo feminist, the child of neo feminists, I hadn't really been raised with any domestic skills (which, yes, I suppose is mostly my fault.) The most I could do was sew, thanks to school, and that's not very useful these days. This created a rather large bone of contention. You see, I discovered, that while girls are a little more live-and-let-live about things like that, most men have this highly developed sense of fairness. "If I'm doing it," they say, "Then you should do it. It's only fair." What can be brushed under the carpet with a male flatmate leads to loud arguments with your boyfriend.
There were other things too: living together, much like a marriage, is a lot less glamorous than it looks and a lot more about compromise. That big 'c' word. You have what movie you're going to watch, what dinner you're going to order and worse: whose friends you're going to see. When everything is such a huge deal, your relationship itself is kind of fragile. The great thing about marriage is the legalities of it all —visas, leases, bank accounts — the world loves you if you're married. There is no such thing as a 'live in partner' visa. I know, because I looked. Also, if you break up (like I did), all you have to do is pack a suitcase and leave. There's nothing holding you there except for the echoes of what once used to be.
So I say: yes. Give the live-in relationship the stamp of legitimacy. Give it legal protection. A broken home is a broken home, whether it's your real husband moving out or your fake one.
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of You Are Here and Confessions Of A Listmaniac.
Even now, when my social circle contains more female friends than men, I find myself different around the opposite sex, a little more comfortable, perhaps, and usually, one of the lads. It's not unusual to find me in a group of all men, with me in the middle, all of us holding forth on subjects that most of us don't know very much about. And, to bring us to the point of this: I've lived with men. One as a flatmate and friend, the other as a lover.
Now, while it's all very well to like boys, living with them is another matter entirely. The first boy I cohabited with was a friend with whom I shared a flat in Bandra. We moved in, blissfully unaware of the consequences. As someone who had only lived with other women before, the idea of "modesty" didn't even strike me. I strode around in short-shorts and tank tops, only pausing half way to the television set to realise there was a man in the room. As someone who had never had to explain her relationships, here was I, claiming to be married for the sake of my landlord, all the while trying to figure out the best excuse for why we were sleeping in different bedrooms. As someone not overly domestic, I found the gender roles we were trying to automatically slide into, the most difficult. I cannot cook. I am a sloppy housewife. My flatmate on the other hand was a man who liked a clean house, homecooked meals and dusted bookshelves and who was prepared to go the distance to make sure that happened. Previously, the girls and I stuck to our own bedrooms. Now, with a shared living space, it was clear I would have to suck it up and handle half of the household responsibilities. We were friends, are friends, and in the end, our friendship stood the test of my shoddy household abilities, but I wouldn't be so lucky in the future.
Cue: the boyfriend. Not Indian, and someone who had lived on his own enough to be able to cook and clean and all that jazz. And who, once again, wanted me to help. This is not unreasonable, but as a neo feminist, the child of neo feminists, I hadn't really been raised with any domestic skills (which, yes, I suppose is mostly my fault.) The most I could do was sew, thanks to school, and that's not very useful these days. This created a rather large bone of contention. You see, I discovered, that while girls are a little more live-and-let-live about things like that, most men have this highly developed sense of fairness. "If I'm doing it," they say, "Then you should do it. It's only fair." What can be brushed under the carpet with a male flatmate leads to loud arguments with your boyfriend.
There were other things too: living together, much like a marriage, is a lot less glamorous than it looks and a lot more about compromise. That big 'c' word. You have what movie you're going to watch, what dinner you're going to order and worse: whose friends you're going to see. When everything is such a huge deal, your relationship itself is kind of fragile. The great thing about marriage is the legalities of it all —visas, leases, bank accounts — the world loves you if you're married. There is no such thing as a 'live in partner' visa. I know, because I looked. Also, if you break up (like I did), all you have to do is pack a suitcase and leave. There's nothing holding you there except for the echoes of what once used to be.
So I say: yes. Give the live-in relationship the stamp of legitimacy. Give it legal protection. A broken home is a broken home, whether it's your real husband moving out or your fake one.
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of You Are Here and Confessions Of A Listmaniac.
Friday, October 29, 2010
First Person: Margaret Evison
As told to Cole Moreton
Published: October 15 2010 23:49 | Last updated: October 15 2010 23:49
Margaret Evison
Margaret Evison’s son was fatally wounded when his patrol was ambushed in 2009
When my son Mark was killed I wanted to know whether his death had achieved anything, and to see for myself the country in which he had died while serving with the Army. So I went to Afghanistan.
Some people were very worried but my daughter said, “Mum, you should do it.” I thought that was brave of her, having just lost her brother. It is a dangerous place – at the time we were there, seven aid workers were murdered. I took leave from the hospital where I work as a psychologist and went in a group of seven led by Sandy Gall, the former war correspondent.
As we were flying into Kabul we came down tight and low over the mountains. Aircraft do sometimes crash there but there are so many mines it’s difficult to rescue survivors. We stayed in a lodge where you have to go past guards and through three big metal doors to get in. All cars are checked for bombs.
Mark was a lieutenant in the Welsh Guards and he loved it. One of my most precious possessions is a journal he kept while he was out there, absolutely beautifully written in longhand pencil, with no crossing out. At one point he writes, “Things are just great at the moment.” I spoke to Mark two days before he died – we had maybe 10 minutes that day and it felt good.
In May 2009 Mark’s patrol was ambushed and he was shot in the shoulder: the bullet severed a major artery. Two soldiers risked their lives to carry him on their backs, under fire, to the base.
They called for help at about 8.45am, but there was a 39-minute delay before the helicopter was authorised to go to them. If Mark had been picked up while he was still conscious he might have stood more of a chance. The Ministry of Defence won’t give a reason for the delay, and the inquest was unsatisfactory. Mark had written about the lack of supplies and support in his journal, just before he died.
I remember it was a particularly beautiful Saturday morning in May when I was told. An officer came to my house to tell me that Mark was being airlifted to a hospital in Birmingham, where a consultant broke the news that he was most likely brain-dead. Mark was lying there very peacefully, as if he was asleep. We were advised to switch off the machines – he was 26 years old.
Mark believed that young people need to take on challenges, to do things that are difficult and strengthening for them. We try to make that happen by giving out grants from a memorial fund, set up in his name. The first award was to fund two 16-year-olds climbing the four highest peaks in the UK. Another paid for some boys to have a day in a recording studio.
Going to Afghanistan was a challenge for me. Only the MoD can provide specific answers now, but it did help me to understand what had happened to my son, in the widest context. I found a very tribal country without a satisfactory legal system. Tribal people have had to use fighting and revenge as their tools to survive. When I was there, I met a young man in a market, who wanted to get on in life. He said that if he found someone from the Taliban he would get a gun and shoot him.
Mark wrote in his journal: “I seem to be the only one here who thinks that war might not be the answer.” I do agree with that. One would like to think that Mark died bringing some sort of relief from the brutality of the Taliban, for the locals and for women, for the sake of some sort of civilisation – but whether that is the case I am just not sure. Did Mark die for a just cause? Even after going there, it’s hard to know.
www.markevisonfoundation.org
The first Anglo-Afghan war was fought in 1839-42 between Britain and Russia in central Asia. There are currently 9,500 British troops deployed in Afghanistan, and more than 300 British military personnel have died since the first military offensive on October 7 2001. British prime minister David Cameron said in July that the withdrawal of British troops could potentially begin next year, with a longer-term aim of no troops in a combat role in Afghanistan by 2015.
As told to Cole Moreton
Published: October 15 2010 23:49 | Last updated: October 15 2010 23:49
Margaret Evison
Margaret Evison’s son was fatally wounded when his patrol was ambushed in 2009
When my son Mark was killed I wanted to know whether his death had achieved anything, and to see for myself the country in which he had died while serving with the Army. So I went to Afghanistan.
Some people were very worried but my daughter said, “Mum, you should do it.” I thought that was brave of her, having just lost her brother. It is a dangerous place – at the time we were there, seven aid workers were murdered. I took leave from the hospital where I work as a psychologist and went in a group of seven led by Sandy Gall, the former war correspondent.
As we were flying into Kabul we came down tight and low over the mountains. Aircraft do sometimes crash there but there are so many mines it’s difficult to rescue survivors. We stayed in a lodge where you have to go past guards and through three big metal doors to get in. All cars are checked for bombs.
Mark was a lieutenant in the Welsh Guards and he loved it. One of my most precious possessions is a journal he kept while he was out there, absolutely beautifully written in longhand pencil, with no crossing out. At one point he writes, “Things are just great at the moment.” I spoke to Mark two days before he died – we had maybe 10 minutes that day and it felt good.
In May 2009 Mark’s patrol was ambushed and he was shot in the shoulder: the bullet severed a major artery. Two soldiers risked their lives to carry him on their backs, under fire, to the base.
They called for help at about 8.45am, but there was a 39-minute delay before the helicopter was authorised to go to them. If Mark had been picked up while he was still conscious he might have stood more of a chance. The Ministry of Defence won’t give a reason for the delay, and the inquest was unsatisfactory. Mark had written about the lack of supplies and support in his journal, just before he died.
I remember it was a particularly beautiful Saturday morning in May when I was told. An officer came to my house to tell me that Mark was being airlifted to a hospital in Birmingham, where a consultant broke the news that he was most likely brain-dead. Mark was lying there very peacefully, as if he was asleep. We were advised to switch off the machines – he was 26 years old.
Mark believed that young people need to take on challenges, to do things that are difficult and strengthening for them. We try to make that happen by giving out grants from a memorial fund, set up in his name. The first award was to fund two 16-year-olds climbing the four highest peaks in the UK. Another paid for some boys to have a day in a recording studio.
Going to Afghanistan was a challenge for me. Only the MoD can provide specific answers now, but it did help me to understand what had happened to my son, in the widest context. I found a very tribal country without a satisfactory legal system. Tribal people have had to use fighting and revenge as their tools to survive. When I was there, I met a young man in a market, who wanted to get on in life. He said that if he found someone from the Taliban he would get a gun and shoot him.
Mark wrote in his journal: “I seem to be the only one here who thinks that war might not be the answer.” I do agree with that. One would like to think that Mark died bringing some sort of relief from the brutality of the Taliban, for the locals and for women, for the sake of some sort of civilisation – but whether that is the case I am just not sure. Did Mark die for a just cause? Even after going there, it’s hard to know.
www.markevisonfoundation.org
The first Anglo-Afghan war was fought in 1839-42 between Britain and Russia in central Asia. There are currently 9,500 British troops deployed in Afghanistan, and more than 300 British military personnel have died since the first military offensive on October 7 2001. British prime minister David Cameron said in July that the withdrawal of British troops could potentially begin next year, with a longer-term aim of no troops in a combat role in Afghanistan by 2015.
Burka
October 4, 2010
I am the foreign soldier whose guns you hear
There is no need to shake in fear
Uncover your head my Burka dear
Mr. Taliban is dead
His bandits exploded hamburger red
Burka you may unveil your head
Eternal virgins’ pleasure these rats will never paw
After the flash of our artillery – ha ha – ah
My dear Burka
Quick is the crow to feast on delicate fresh eye of awe
Manners unforgotten he invites the family with a calming caw
So peaceful to hear is it not Burka
Your father and uncle are truncated and wholly bled
There is nothing here for you to dread
Burka you may unhood your head
See here lies old decapitated Mullah
Ending his cruel merciless fatwa
Against you and yours my dear Burka
The village Burka you once knew
Is shot and shrapnel through and through
Our howitzer’s aim is precise and true
Burka your brother tied feet and hand
Lies deep inside a rumbling torture van
In long transport to another land
His shoulders sag
A still docile doe not a bucking stag
Blind and half suffocated Burka by a tight head bag
Uncover your head my Burka dear
There is no need to shake in fear
I am the foreign soldier whose guns you hear
By Dave
October 4, 2010
I am the foreign soldier whose guns you hear
There is no need to shake in fear
Uncover your head my Burka dear
Mr. Taliban is dead
His bandits exploded hamburger red
Burka you may unveil your head
Eternal virgins’ pleasure these rats will never paw
After the flash of our artillery – ha ha – ah
My dear Burka
Quick is the crow to feast on delicate fresh eye of awe
Manners unforgotten he invites the family with a calming caw
So peaceful to hear is it not Burka
Your father and uncle are truncated and wholly bled
There is nothing here for you to dread
Burka you may unhood your head
See here lies old decapitated Mullah
Ending his cruel merciless fatwa
Against you and yours my dear Burka
The village Burka you once knew
Is shot and shrapnel through and through
Our howitzer’s aim is precise and true
Burka your brother tied feet and hand
Lies deep inside a rumbling torture van
In long transport to another land
His shoulders sag
A still docile doe not a bucking stag
Blind and half suffocated Burka by a tight head bag
Uncover your head my Burka dear
There is no need to shake in fear
I am the foreign soldier whose guns you hear
By Dave
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