A Late Tuesday....

It's Tuesday.  It's almost 7pm and I'm just getting ready to meet a friend for a drink and a bite to eat before heading home.  These are long days.

I spent time a couple of days ago "nesting" a bit.  The place where I'm living is furnished but I moved furniture around so it's more open and useful for me.  I also found the few Christmas decorations that I have, including a very nice stocking that my sister made for me a few years ago.  I hung it on the mantle above the fireplace, although I don't expect that Santa will find it.  :)

I'm playing a bit with my little "Flip" camera and the software that comes with it.  I uploaded a short little video from my office yesterday.




I'll admit that the quality looks fine to me (although the green tint of the florescent lights can be a bit tiresome).  The main problem I've got with it is the audio.  I'm investigating options....

Some who have followed my website for a while may remember me mentioning my sister's youngest child, Kyrie.  She was born with a number of significant birth "challenges" and even now - at 11 years old - she's got a G-Tube in her stomach and a trachea tube in her throat.  She's one of the most amazing people - wonderful energy, positive spirit, uplifting courage.....she's truly a hero.  Anyway, I've got a new photo of her that so much looks like her, with the attitude to match!  Kyrie rocks!!

There's an Op-Ed piece in the Toronto newspaper - The Globe and Mail - titled "Why Canada Should Protect Gender Identity".

While Canada has made great strides in opening marriage and adoption to same-sex partners, there is still a case to be made for ensuring vital social and legal protections to members of transsexual and transgendered communities. Adopting Bill C-389 would not end discrimination. But it would go a long way in protecting those who still face physical violence, economic disadvantage and social ostracism for being perceived as different.

There are multiple reasons why society struggles to understand the regular challenges many transsexual and transgendered persons face. Society takes for granted that there are two distinct sexes, with two corresponding ways of expressing gender identity. And we have concocted a range of stereotypes to reinforce the supposed chasms of difference between men and women, boys and girls.

Despite the fact that biologists such as Brown University professor Anne Fausto-Sterling have demonstrated that “nature” itself yields not two distinct sexes but as many as five in a small but still significant number of cases, we still think male or female is something constant and unchanging. Sex is not only something viewed as uncomplicated and self-evident, but masculinity and femininity are tied to one’s birth-assigned sex. To many, men are from Mars and women from Venus, and “normal” sexual desire is focused toward the opposite sex.

Very well said indeed.