Happy World Oceans Day

Today, June 8, 2017 the world celebrates World Oceans Day*.

Men’s Day, Or Stroke-inducing, angry musings

You know what’s disheartening? Women all over the world fighting the patriarchy hard for our rights, for equality, while women in Colombia are celebrating men today on a bloody made up Men’s day. Doesn’t get any more patriarchal than that. Pickup artists all over the world must be laughing and shaking hands right now.

Anger, despair, face-palming, head-desking doesn’t even begin to cover what I feel right now.

Please, give me some words of wisdom. Anything. I feel so aggravated right now I am on the  verge of saying something I will regret for the rest of my life to each one of them. What a horrible thing to be so blind, so brainwashed.

A telling article in Colombia Reports gives us some disheartening numbers:

According to recently released figures, 38,000 cases of reported domestic violence were reported in 2014 alone.

Colombia’s women: Beaten, tortured and extorted

More than 16,000 Colombian women were sexually abused in Colombia in the same year.

According to the Ombudsman’s Office, 75% of women have suffered psychological abuse, 50% have been victim to physical abuse and 11% have suffered economic violence.

Please take a moment to read it. These facts -while chilling- must be known, acknowledged and acted upon.

Last year, my sister posted something to the extent of happy day to all the men in my life shit, 

I explained to her -as kindly as I could, which took the restrain I have exercised in my life, something I am rarely capable of- what the purpose of International Women’s Day is, why it had been created, how it isn’t a hallmark holiday meant to wish women a happy day for no reason, and how women are still oppressed, abused and murdered in many parts of the world. I explained why it was wrong to have a Men’s Day because every other day of the year is basically men’s day given the patriarchal nature of societies in general and Colombian one in particular.. 

And yet… and yet, there she is again this year, posting how she wishes a happy day to all the men in her life! 

Just like most of my old childhood and school friends.the same friends who were so sympathetic to our classmate who’s niece took her own life a couple of months ago due to domestic abuse. 

My friend posted all sorts of articles and statistics about the prevalence of domestic abuse. She exhorted everybody in our secret group to think about it, to share it with all the women in our lives. They all agree, of course.

And yet, here they are today, so happily posting all sort of hallmark-like thoughts of celebration for all men in their day.

I’m losing it. Seriously. I just can’t

PS: This is another post from my phone therefore formatting will be wonky.

Happy [belated] International Women’s Day

March is a momentous month for me.

Well, momentous might be a bit of an exaggeration.

But many things happen in March for me. The birthday of one of my oldest friends on the fifth. My grandmother’s birthday on the 20th. My daughter’s birthday on the 25th.

And then there is International Women’s Day on the 8th.

IWD is a bittersweet celebration. In fact, it is a celebration that shouldn’t be. Because women – and people- should be celebrated, appreciated, valued, etc, every day of the year, not just on March 8.

We all know that, right?

Well, not really. Many men haven’t got the memo yet.

An Open Letter to Scrapbook.com

Dear Scrapbook.com¹,

I absolutely love you guys. Ever since I discovered you about two years ago, I just can’t get enough of your store. If money were not an object, I am pretty sure I’d buy every single thing you sell. So much fun!

However, today I’d like to talk to you about something that is been nagging at me since I got reacquainted with the arts & crafts two or three years ago; the blatant sexism in the papercrafting/scrapbooking community.

Items that are or have some blue in them are tagged as “boy”. Items that are pink or have some pink in them are tagged as “girl”. Any item that is even remotely associated with science is tagged as “boy”. AS BOY!!!!!

In Our Hands

In Our Hands is the tag line for World Wildlife Day.

Or rather, the hashtag.

The full tagline for 2016 is “the future of wildlife is in our hands”.

World Wildlife Day will be celebrated in 2016 under the theme “The future of wildlife is in our hands.” African and Asian elephants will be a main focus of the Day under the theme “The future of elephants is in our hands”. Countries around the world are encouraged to highlight species of wild animals and plants from their own countries, adapting the global theme to suit.

So I created this illustration to help celebrate the day.

Let’s Talk

For the third year in a row, I have been asked to join the Healthy Minds Canada Team for the Let’s Talk Day campaign Needless to say, I consider it an honour.

Last year’s Bell Let’s Talk Day raised $6,107,538 for mental health initiatives in Canada. Not a bad figure, if you ask me.

Today’s Bell Let’s Talk Day finds me in an almost non-stop 24 hours streak of nightmares and their aftermath of hypnopompic hallucinations and sleep paralysis.

I am writing this blog post with shaky hands and the room is not quite still yet. It is slowly expanding and contracting in a seemingly endless cycle.

When I was first diagnosed with a mental illness, I felt my world fall apart.

As a person, I was afraid I’d be the laughing stock of society at large and pitied by my community.

As a mother, I was afraid that should my children eventually display symptoms of mental illness, they would be unceremoniously discarded as learned behaviours displayed by their crazy mother.

As a woman, I was afraid of being labelled as simply screaming for attention. Which did happen, by the way. Of course it happened. Especially among the medical community, my professors, who were mostly men, of course.

As a physician, I was afraid of being ostracized by the medical community for being unprofessional and hysterical. In the original sense of the word, not in the sense of being ludicrously funny.

Professor Jean-Martin Charcot of Paris Salpêtrière demonstrates hypnosis on a “hysterical” patient

 

All those things happened in one way or the other, so I learned to keep it to myself and instead come up with societally valid excuses for my absences. 

Suicide is NOT a joke

Are you ready to be outraged?

Warning: Suicide triggers

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Not quite ouraged yet? Keep reading.

Go me!

so I am a shiny registered Feral Caregiver with the Windsor Essex County Humane Society (WECHS) for the Feral Caregiver Program!!!

This is so exciting!

As some of you know already (if you’ve read my bucket list) it is my dream to one day run a cat sanctuary. That may or may not happen but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

I wish to devote my life to help educate humans on ethical treatment of animals in general and cats in particular, and to improve the quality of life of community cats in my area -wherever that area may be.

TL;DR: community cats include both Feral & Stray cats. A cat is considered feral is she was born outside and has never lived indoors or had much contact with humans. A cat is considered stray if she was at some point a house cat but now lives outdoors for whatever reason (i.e: being dumped or left behind by a heartless human).

One of the first things I learned when I moved to Windsor is the city’s big cat overpopulation problem.

In a way, it has made finding my darling Satchie even more difficult as there are hundreds of feral and stray brown tabbies roaming the city.

There is a big colony of brown tabbies right in the field adjacent to the motel Satchie broke free from, for example.

The causes of cat overpopulation are several – of course, I don’t claim the problem is a simple one – but one of them is believe it or not, compassionate people who feed community cats on a regular basis but don’t think of neutering/spaying them.

When cats are well fed, they have a better change of having strong litters that will grow to have more litters.

As WECHS puts it:

If you’re already feeding free-roaming cats, you’ve shown that you care for them. But the best way to make their lives easier is through TNR, or Trap-Neuter-Return, sometimes also called TNVR (Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return). By feeding but not fixing them, you can actually be making the cats’ lives harder because you are allowing them to have larger litters with more of the kittens surviving to adulthood.

 

Being the change

Today, I’m going to tell you about a cause that is close to my heart, for many reasons.

In no particular order, one, it is about human rights, free speech in particular. I don’t think I need to explain why free speech is so important. Right?

Two, it is for people in Africa. I feel deeply for people there, for all their struggles, the hardships, the social injustice issues, the lack of health and education resources, etc. Life is impossibly hard there. War after war, epidemic after epidemic, genocide after genocide, they get back on their feet, dust their clothes and keep on living without losing hope. You gotta love and admire such peoples.

Third, this cause was started by a dear friend of mine, who happened to work there in 2013. It is close to her heart and therefore it is close to mine.

In her words:

A station I used to work in Burundi was founded 12 years ago to promote nonpartisan news coverage and dialogue between the different ethno-political factions.

Last month there was an attempted military coup in Burundi, and like other nonpartisan media platforms, “my” radio covered it.

The coup failed and the next day loyalist cops attacked all of the radio stations, including “mine”, with sticks, destroying computers, mixing equipment, transmission equipment, even portable recorders, window glass and vehicle tires.

As a result, they can’t broadcast anymore

Radio staff members John Habonimana (left), Christian Nsavye (second from right) and Cynthia Ngendakuriyo (far right) host a live talk show.

Transmission equipment destroyed

My friend – who rocks – decided to do something about it and as I previously said, started this fundraiser: Help save peace radio in Burundi

I’m asking you to please take a moment to read it.

I know there are thousands of worthy causes going around. I know one cannot help them all. I know one has to choose and pick one’s battles.

But after reading it, if you are so moved, then donate and/or share it through your social networks.

Any help will be greatly appreciated by those brave people in Burundi. Thank you!

 

Today is a Good Day

I woke up to a couple of aggravating things.

1. My verbally abusive neighbour at the steps of my porch, being all Mr. Nice to my ground floor neighbour. Holy cow, that was upsetting.
2. No bread for breakfast

Then Sid was the herald of good news:

Same sex marriage is now legal in the country everywhere