Ten of prime-time's most fabulous females

I stumbled upon this article and decided to reserve judgment until after I had read it in its entirety. My first assumption was that it would be a male entertainment writer's condescending attempt at giving recognition to the oft-overlooked female talent on television. I read through and my instinct was right.

TheStar List Week: 10 of prime-time's most fabulous females

Within the first three paragraphs, this quotation got me: “ 'It’s not just the man’s journey,' applauds Modern Family’s Julie Bowen, 'with the woman standing there shaking her finger, waiting for him to come back from, like, his fart fest with the guys...That is a huge change from the old standard Jackie Gleason format.' "

I know she's on Modern Family, but has she watched Modern Family?



Both female leads, Julie Bowen's Claire and Sofia Vergara's Gloria, are smoking hot stay-at-home moms who are paired with arguably less appealing male counterparts--Claire's husband, Phil, is an average-looking uber-dork who drools over his step-mother-in-law Gloria within plain eyesight of his wife; and Gloria's husband, Jay, is an old curmudgeon 20 years her senior.

The show may not portray only the man's journey, as Bowen naively lauds, but it certainly portrays the women as standing there shaking their fingers--I'm pretty sure this is one of Gloria's standard moves when she chastises Jay and her son, Manny--and waiting for them to come home. The only difference is that they're not coming home from "fart fests with the guys," they're coming home from work, a place to which neither woman ever goes. Claire is college-educated but feels she is needed around the house (despite the fact that her youngest child, Luke, appears to be in middle school and her teenaged girls are old enough to take the city bus and certainly don't need someone driving them to soccer practice or baking cupcakes for their class). Gloria stays home, too, but I'm not sure why she is needed there. She is not at all domestic--she can't bake or clean--and her precocious son, Manny, seems to raise himself.



I firmly believe that if a family is financially able to, of course one partner should be inclined to stay at home in order to give their children the most nurturing and enriching environment and bond possible. But why does it always have to be the woman, even when her children have far surpassed a need for her to help micromanage the minutiae of their lives? There is something tragic about the prospect of a middle-aged woman, who is less than a decade away from experiencing the sense of loss and insecurity that comes with Epmty Nest Symdrome when her children go off to college and the workforce, who has nothing with which to replace them--no job, no discernable hobbies, and few pasttimes besides rolling her eyes at her idiot husband.

Writer Rob Salem congratulates Claire for being as "goofy and neurotic" as her husband, Phil, but neurosis is a stereotypically female quality, and Phil is painted as an effeminate character (matched only by equally neurotic gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron). Only Jay, the patriarch of the family, is portrayed as the sane voice of reason in a family of feminine--both female and male--nuts.

I actually like watching Modern Family, but I acknowledge it for what it is: certainly not a groundbreaking formula that gives women an opportunity to challenge preconceived notions of traditionally female roles and responsibilities. It's just funny.

Let's not pretend it's anything else.

Gadhafi vows Libya will defend itself...

Oh shit.

TheStar Gadhafi vows Libya will defend itself as U.S. and allies launch missiles

Don't worry....I've got it covered.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/look-on-the-bright-side-positivity-linked-to-longevity/article1927370/

I just read this article in The Globe and Mail about how one's positivity in life is linked to one's longevity. I'm doomed. Seriously. I'm the most anxious, obsessive-compulsive worrier I know. I never look on the bright side. The proverbial glass has always been half empty--not because I'm not happy. That's not it. I adore my husband, my family, my friends, my students, my job--even my neighbours and my mother-in-law. And most people hate their neighbours and their mother-in-laws. Not me.

But I am convinced that everything will turn out horribly and I always have been. I remember not being able to sleep for weeks before the school year began in elementary; I was convinced I would have the meanest teacher in the school. My mom would try to reassure me and tell me to "think positively"--but it doesn't feel possible. I also recall going on an airplane for the first time when I was 14 and scrambling to pack every morsel I could fit into my carry-on backpack because I was 100% confident that the airline would lose my luggage and that I would never see it again. Despite the heat, I think I must have worn seven layers of shirts, shorts and pants. I had resigned myself to the fact that never again would I see those pjs, socks, underwear, and few shirts that I hadn't been able to stuff into my bag or cram onto my marshmallow body. Of course, the luggage arrived in Toronto just fine and everyone told me that I'd overreacted. But I felt like I'd only prepared myself for the inevitable disappointments and inconveniences of life.

As I got older my pessimism never waned. I had convinced myself that I wouldn't be accepted to university (despite a 94% average); that I wouldn't get a summer job EVERY single summer (despite getting hired at Dofasco, Columbia International College, and Ford, all of which paid about three to five times the minimum wage my friends were making); that there was no way I was smart enough to successfully get into an MA program or Teachers' College (despite being offered a TA-ship and several scholarships); that I would never get a teaching job, what with the oversatuated educational job market (even though I didn't have to supply teach a single day in my life and had a full-time job come September 5th); and it goes on and on and on.

You'd think I'd have learned from these positive outcomes that if I'd just been optimistic in the first place, I could have spared myself the negative energy and enjoyed the ride a lot more. Quite the contrary, my friend. What if it is my cynicism that has been the precursor to the good experiences and outcomes in my life? Perhaps unequivocal certainty would have made me naive and thus unprepared or, worse, overly confident and thus arrogant.

So don't worry...about anything...I've got it covered.

I just read an article, "What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness," written by NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's former speech writer, Clark Whelton, who shares a disconcerting observation about American youth: that they suffer from a "linguistic virus that [has] infected spoken language in the late twentieth century"--inserting empty words and evasive phrases, such as "like," and "you know?", as filler in their interrogative-toned declarations, resulting in often incoherent and indefinite statements.

As a high school teacher at what I consider to be the best school in the city, possibly the surrounding area--and I confidently make this claim beacuse of the students, not necessarily the staff--I am often blown away by the level of analytical thought of which many of my students are capable. However, I have also noticed a lack of confidence in the vast majority of my students' oral communication skills--and that's what I think it comes down to. I don't think young people subconsciously want to emulate the idiocy of Snookie and The Situation; in fact, I think they are quite critical of the aforementioned idiocy and comment on it in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. No, I think it is their collective insecurity about the possibility of saying something new or profound, which in the internet age, seems overwhelmingly impossible. So they precede their classroom contributions with: "Um, I was just going to say," and "Well, like, I think that..." This isn't a sign of the "decline and fall of American English," as Whelton suggests; it is a sign that we should encourage our students to build confidence in their ideas and opinions, even if they feel that someone "out there" has "already said it" and has probably articulated it much better than them, too. That's not the case. The sheer volume of "stuff" online certainly does not indicate that there is more knowledge or more heightened intellect today than when I was a teenager. No, half of the stuff online is pure crap. But its existence is certainly intimidating, and often appealing, which is why so many smart and competent students plagiarize.

Anyway, please read an excpert from Taylor Mali's poem, "Totally like whatever, you know?" and, even better, watch the link at the bottom!

"In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?"

Watch Taylor Mali on Def Poetry Jam here:

Anti-Platforms

Yesterday the student council president, Sean, and I organized a mock Mayoral election for students. The night before, after we had photocopied and organized ballots, we realized that most students wouldn't be familiar enough with all--or any--of the fifteen mayoral candidates to legitimately and purposefully vote (as opposed to outright guess). And so we went on the local newspaper's website to see if we could find a summary of each candidate to include in the voting packages.

What we discovered there seemed satirical, and I'm still not convinced that it isn't. One candidate, Edward H.C. Graydon, has a platform that consists, almost in its entirety, of hating the local CFL team: "I cannot stand football and believe that the people who go to the games are a minority. As your candidate for mayor, I want the voter to know that I have never gone to a game and I never will, (sic) I don't like it." Oh, and he also threatens to sell our steel plants to the Chinese.

Another candidate, Andrew Haines, has a subliminal image of Abraham Lincoln flash underneath his personal photo on his website. Perhaps he's campaigning as the abolitionist mayor? Then he goes on to quote Jimi Hendrix (non-sequitor?), and to lament the loss of his web graphics company called, aptly, "420 designs," and to explain the respective failures of his small business and his marriage, and how he moved back in with his dad. Oh, also, he loves marijuana and karaoke, specifically after dropping off his partner Rhonda's kids in Niagara Falls and then "go[ing] out for dinner and follow that with a trip to the Clifton Hill Karaoke Patio between the Thriftlodge and the Pizza Pizza on the North side of Clifton Hill"--just in case you were wondering where. He has few bragging rights of his own, with no political experience, seemingly no humanitarian work, and no post-secondary education, but he does manage to brag about his his late grandfather, a lawyer; his father, a police officer; and his deceased mother, an active volunteer. Great job on having an awesome family, Smokey McBongwater, but this says nothing of your own personal merits.

Michael Baldasaro, of course, wants to grow marijuana across the city and use it for everything--food, fuel, clothing. This might appeal to some voters, if only he didn't openly advertise that he is a "Minister Plenipotentiary" of the Church of the Universe, and send Twitter messages that read "If I was in jail, I wouldn't bend over in the showers."

Oh, Hamilton; we've been together now 29 years. And oh, how I love to hate you.

Thanks a lot, Di Ianni

I was driving home from work yesterday at about 5:00pm, which is a common hour to perform such a task, and so I expected the Linc to be busy. Not only was it busy, but there was a full-on traffic jam by the Garth Street exit that forced me to slam on my breaks and the two cars behind me to swerve onto the shoulder. Now this was particularly inconveniencing because I had encountered one of those days so busy that you have time to neither eat nor relieve your bladder. And so I was anxious to get home and do both. Clearly I assumed that someone had had an accident, so of course I wasn't angry to have to stop. I always worry about who could be ahead of me, whether they're okay, and how frightened they must have been that split second before their car collided with another one. I crawled along every few seconds aside everyone else, patiently waiting in a nearly stopped car as it took a carefully timed seven minutes to drive just one kilometre. It was comforting to realize that I hadn't heard any sirens, which suggests that it was a minor fender bender.

That was until I looked up. And saw the true cause of the traffic jam.

Di Ianni.

Mayoral candidate Larry Di Ianni had asked (paid?) some of his supporters (homeless people?) to stand atop the Upper Wellington overpass holding his campaign signs and waving at the now enraged drivers. Drivers had been slowing down to see what was going on up there--was someone going to jump? Why were there children leaning dangerously close to the railing?--before realizing that it was just an arrogant local politician (crook?) who either didn't realize or didn't care that these schmucks standing up there trying to get drivers' attention would turn out to be a hazard. And the worst part about it is that Di Ianni himself didn't even seem to be up there I considered honking to show my disdain, but realized the begrudging sign holders might mistake my contempt for support. And so I sped the rest of the way, bladder full, stomach churning, forehead vein throbbing.

Feminists and White Men

If you have been following Hamilton's mayoral race, then you will notice something that may strike some as odd in such a diverse and culturally developed city as Hamilton: of the exorbitant number of candidates--fifteen--only ONE is a person belonging to a visible minority group and NOT EVEN ONE is a woman. Thus, there are fourteen white men, albeit with varied platforms, interests, and characters, competing to represent us, Hamiltonians, the majority of whom are NOT white men.

Now, you might be wondering, 'what does she have against white men'? Nothing. I happen to love white men just as much as I do anybody else--so much so that, in fact, I married one. But despite taking legal vows to him, I certainly don't want him to be the only voice representing my unique needs as a woman--nor do I think he should be the only voice representing a city whose population is comprised of more than 20% of citizens who were born outside of Canada (half of whom were born in Asia or the Middle East).

Feminism isn't about being 'against' a particular gender--namely, men--and equity isn't about coming down on any particular race--namely, whites; to think so is to egregiously misunderstand what feminism or equity is. On the contrary, I am quite happy for those candidates who are running in the mayoral race, regardless of race or gender, but I am unhappy that there isn't a more diverse collection of voices added to the repertoire. This being a democracy, however, I guess I shouldn't complain--I should run.