Obfuscated Thoughtlessness Inversed

"One was an ardent defender of segregation, the other a passionate advocate of civil rights. But for Strom Thurmond and the Rev Al Sharpton, it seems the battle began long before they were born." - from The Independent Online

Today is the last day of Black History month. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of slavery in the British Empire. It also happens to be as good a day as any to blog about our collective racist past. This incredible story of how Strom Thurmond's family once enslaved Al Sharpton's is a poignant reminder of that past.

"Thurmond still holds the record for the longest Senate filibuster, a 24-hour-18-minute effort on 29-30 August 1957, against a civil rights measure of the Eisenhower administration." - from The Independent Online

The story gets even more interesting when you read about Thurmond's 81-year old secret daughter.

History doesn't always come directly from the history books. Sometimes stories must be given an intriguing angle or even a touch of fiction to bring them alive. A friend of my father's has recently had a piece of historical fiction published about the most intriguing of civil war heroes, Harriet Tubman.

I found [Home, Miss Moses: A Novel in the Time of Harriet Tubman] inspiring and enriching. It's a novel, but I learned a lot from it. It's a suspense story in some ways and a history lesson too. An intriguing, complex book, it follows a vast sweep of American history that this one woman's life covered in reality. Harriet Tubman was no ordinary woman. And you get an up-close and personal glimpse of her spirit and stunning courage and fortitude in these pages. The horrific injustice of slavery as she lived it and saw it leaps off the page. You get a window onto both the remarkable cunning and the deep heart of this visionary American patriot who sacrificed everything to end this shameful episode of our history. Although it's a bit of a struggle to get used to the "patois" of her voice (a slave dialect) and there are also a lot of people and places to keep track of as you read, keeping you on your toes, it's well worth it." - from A fine work, honoring this extraordinary African American

Labels: alternatives, human rights abuse, in memory of, leftist content creation, link

The Conservative Government and its backers in the Liberal Party should be ashamed of themselves. Canada's last government brought in an abandonment of basic civil liberties with the so called anti-terror act. Thankfully, after five long years two parts of the act are being allowed to sunset.

In the end, 12 Liberal MPs didn't show up for the vote, with some excused by the party whip for other parliamentary duties.

But at least four no-shows were known to oppose killing the powers: Keith Martin (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca), Don Bell (North Vancouver), Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River) and Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North).

Only one Liberal – Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest) – outright defied Dion, voting with the Conservative government to renew the powers.

Wappel was a member of the Commons subcommittee that last fall supported their extension.

Another Liberal – MP Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister – showed up, but abstained from voting because he supports renewal of the powers, but only if they are accompanied by a comprehensive review and reform of the act by Parliament.

Cotler (Mount Royal) said he expected no discipline for doing so, and Dion didn't indicate what if any consequences Wappel or the no-shows would face. - from The Star

With friends like Keith Martin and Irwin Cotler who needs enemies? If Dion hopes to be Prime Minister he had better show he can discipline his caucus now. Speaking of which why is Ignatieff sitting down during the standing ovation for Dion?

"The two measures, introduced by a previous Liberal government in 2001, have never been used." - from CBC

"Prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists" - via Rational Reasons

Dion should get his caucus together and vote to repeal the rest of the ridiculous Anti-Terrorism Act. In the end though - both the Liberals and the Conservatives are right about one thing - each other:

Leading up to Tuesday's vote, Conservatives ... accused [Liberals] of flip-flopping on a law they'd written themselves.

Liberals have responded that governments cannot be trusted with too free a hand over people's rights, especially the current Conservative government. - from CBC

At least we still live in a multi-party democracy even if the only two parties that have ever held the federal government don't act like it.

Labels: alternatives, anti-war, cons, day, democracy, leftist content creation, ndp, opinion, spy-watch, whale rights abuse, yay immigration

OTI hit 1000 unique visitors for the month of February last night. But, ultimately despite all my efforts to make this blog the better one, it is LeftyTube that gets all the hits. Maybe that's because I don't fill LeftyTube with prattle like this post. Ok, I know why it is, it's because of crooks and liars referring all that traffic.

Anyway, I have had half a dozen posts on the back-burner that haven't materialized in to full posts. Here are few in short form.

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"Any truly effective senior manager and executives of a sizeable organization know they must delegate to, and trust, those managers who report to them in order to run an organization effectively. A general manager cannot double-check every activity and transaction a senior manager like Sharma undertakes." - Doug Ausman in an op-ed response in the Martlet in 2004.

I left the UVic student union before Vivek Sharma's reign of thievery. The links above tell a bit of the story about the financial disaster that the Student Union would become in the time after the three years of surplus that signified my involvement.

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As the blogosphere argues our way against climate change and increased emissions I find myself extremely intrigued by the means of rhetoric employed.

I'm too lazy to do the kind of full rhetorical analysis I intended (as a post to both review basic rhetorical style and provide links for those arguing against climate change). Maybe it will happen sometime in the future.

I did note with incredible pleasure that the L'Alliance's Lights Out campaign was extremely successful in France. The campaign managed to reduce consumption of electricity by 1% during 5 minutes on February 1, 2007.

For other daily climate saving tips I recommend: CoolMove.org

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The continuing unacceptable inequality between men and women will be the topic of a rant not yet written. This article in the Toronto Star highlights this on-going ridiculousness in Canadian Universities.

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I have added a script to the blog margin that let's you read items I've read and intentionally shared. I'll try and keep them interesting.

Labels: alternatives, human rights abuse, internal, leftist content creation, youtube

I posted back in November a few links in my job search. Amazingly, I'm still not employed.

I've spent the day, in the Spectrum Job Search Centre in downtown Victoria and I have found some new resources:

• Spectrum Job Search Centre
• Charity Village
• Canada.com Classifieds
• WorkInNonProfits.ca
• Monster.ca
  

I will repeat the previously posted links:

• BC Ferries - Victoria Opportunities
• City of Victoria Jobs
• Innovation and Development Corporation - UVic
• UVic Postings
• Shaw Cable
• NDP Jobs
• Google Canada
• Government of BC - Victoria area jobs

Feel free, to let me know about other great job sites in the comments.

Labels: annotation, link