My Battle with the CBC

I am an avid CBC listener. I have it on in the car and in my office all day. When there is programming I am not fond of I listen to other CBC programs via podcast. Generally speaking, CBC programming is excellent and non-offensive. Lately there seems to be a change.

I was listening to On The Coast, the afternoon show from 3-6 every day. On September 13, Belle Purie was interviewing Grant Lawrence who is the host of a CBC Radio 3 podcast that focuses on new music. He was talking about a band called Said the Whale who sing a song called “On the Banks of English Bay.” He then went on to say that whales don’t beach themselves on English Bay unless you count his ex-girlfriend.

Being the feminist I am, I took great offense to this and fired off an email to the CBC decrying this blatant misogyny on the CBC. I received an email back from producer Karen Burgess promising to listen to the clip. I then advised her that while she was listening to clips she might also want to listen to the “google trends” piece that aired the next day as the misogynistic crap continued. I still have not heard back from Ms. Burgess.

Yesterday, Grant Lawrence was at it again. In a clip discussing Rufus Wainwright (I am still unclear how he was able to insult women given his topic) he said that Rufus was going to give them some ‘fabulous fall fashion tips.’ He should have stopped there. He goes on to add that Jenna Chow can do it for the girls. Now, unless Jenna Chow has become a fashion consultant for pre-pubescent females I have no idea to which group he was referring.

Representations of people in media are crucial. The CBC, as Canada’s publicly funded broadcaster, has an extra responsibility to ensure that all groups it discusses are represented accurately. Then there are the blatant misogynistic comments that we cannot let slide. I am unclear why the CBC seems to think this is alright. Perhaps they think they are appealing to younger, more hip audience and that somehow it is ok to sacrifice women. We need to let them know that this is not alright with us.

They got it right this time

Disgraced, former judge David Ramsay has been denied parole. Apparently he has cancer and is not expected to live out his sentence. I guess he thought he was entitled to mercy. The parole board noted that he has resisted treatment and shown no remorse for his actions.

As a sitting judge, Ramsay, used his position of authority to abuse young First Nations women. Three of his victims had appeared before him in court. Apparently he liked to make his victims scream. Well I hope David Ramsay screams alot as he dies of cancer in prison. May he receive all the mercy he has shown his victims.

A Lesbian’s Worst Nightmare

So, my sister and brother-in-law were visiting on the weekend. My brother-in-law collects guns and swords (eewww, ick). There was a show in Burnaby he wanted to go to and it was only open for a short amount of time. My sister did not want to drive as she did not know where she was going. So I said I would take them.

Well, I walked into lesbian hell. Imagine, tables (decorated in camoflauge) and all these men with guns and swords. I was almost knocked over by the testosterone in the room. I have never been anywhere with that many guns in one place. I don’t like guns. I know guns don’t kill people, people do but I still don’t like guns. I don’t like what they represent and the havoc they wreak. Besides the guns there knives, swords, patches and ammunition. The nazi stuff was the worst. I don’t understand why anyone would want to have this around.

Even worse though was the fact that mostly male children were present. Another generation being indoctrinated in the gun culture and all that goes with it. There was a boy about 7 years old walking around with a gun. Who lets their children do handle guns at that age? Are they not aware of the potential disastrous outcomes? I am fairly positive these children are not receiving an education about ending violence against women. I think I will stay in my safe bubble.

Joyful Moments

I went to Dairy Queen to indulge my weekend caramel sundae addiction and picked up an extra cone for the dogs. As many of you know we have several rescued dogs. For some of our dogs, especially the seniors, joy and pleasure have not been in great abundance. Some have come from abusive backgrounds and others sufferred neglect. One of our dogs, Clio, was a backyard breeding disaster. She is blind and brain damaged and I am not really sure she knows she is a dog most days of the week. Clio’s world is quite small. It is us and the house. She is not all that fond of the other dogs but she will cuddle up with Kiefer and Kirby. Madison has been seen cleaning her from time to time.

I came home with the ice cream cone and sat down in the dining room and proceeded to let them all have a lick, one at a time. The big dogs licked the cone fairly well. Then I gave it to Clio. Well she started biting at the ice cream and the look on her face was one of pure joy and ecstasy. When the ice cream went down she started biting at the cone. Her enjoyment was palpable. I think we will have to do this more often.

Here is a picture of her from last fall:

Rest in Peace Sunny Yong Sun Park

It has been over a week now since the death of Sunny Yong Sun Park, her son and her parents. I will forgive you if you don’t know what I am talking about. I am referring to the horrific events that took place in Oak Bay last week. It took me several days to finally locate her name and then I had to seek it out. As usual the references were all to her killer and she was referred to as ‘his wife.’ Herein lies the problem with eradicating (heck I would even settle for reducing) violence against women. Women are still seen as chattel of their husbands who can do whatever they want to them.

This case is even more disturbing given the lead up of events. He was a known abuser. He had tried to kill her not too long ago by driving his vehicle into a power pole with her in the passenger seat. He was released on bail. Prior to that he had assaulted some of his employees and was being sued. A noted psychiatrist apparently said that this kind of violence (murder suicide) is rare and hard to predict. I say crap. It is all too common and easy to predict.

We need to overhaul our justice system. We need to stop having men making laws that protect men when they assault women and then letting them go.

And we need to do some work in the women’s community. An anti-violence worker stated in an interview on CBC that we don’t have enough jail cells to hold all the men who commit violence against women. We certainly have enough to hold prostitutes, drug dealers, the homeless and the mentally ill. We must get our priorities in order.

In order to cover their asses the powers that be have ordered an inquest. Let’s hope for Sunny’s sake that something is actually learned and that we, as a society, start to take violence against women seriously and treat it as the crime it is.

Why I am no longer a Norton Anti-Virus user

This morning I was happily surfing away or maybe I was playing ‘Nanny Mania’ when an alert from Norton pops up telling me I need to activate my subscription. So, I click activate and it says that my key is not valid. So off I go to the website to try and figure this problem out. Now, to say that the Symantec website is a great example of how not to design help pages would be an understatement. Attempting to locate help information was very difficult. Finally, I stumble across a page about activation issues and discover that there is a fix Norton Antivirus 2005 - which is what I have. I install it, it does not work. Then I decide that maybe my subscription has expired. I can’t keep track of all of them in the house so I decide to purchase a new one.

Well, further down the rabbit hole we go. I purchase it sucessfully and it tells me to click on a menu and look for the ‘renewal centre’ option. And, you guessed it, I don’t have that option. So now I am stuck with a useless new activation code and no way to put it into the program. The new code is 10 digits long and the old ones were 24.

I decide to call tech support. I have now invested about an hour in all of this crap. I get a tech. I give all my information, explain the problem etc. He then tells me that my current subscription has 239 days left on it and he refunds the new one (well, supposedly, I am not holding my breath). Then we go around and around trying to get an activation code which Norton cleared out when I bought the new one and really was immaterial anyway because it did not work. After about 40 minutes with this guy I ask to talk to someone more techy.

I sit patiently on the phone while it rings for at least 5 minutes and then someone answers. I can barely hear him at all. So I give all my information again and explain the problem again. We go through a bunch of crap that basically does nothing. He has me download that program again that does not work and still no success. Then he tells me that this is all my fault because I lost my activation code - which he claims he cannot give me again. Nor, can he give me a new activation code. We are now about 90 minutes into this process and I have had enough. I tell him that I want a code that will work or they can refund the 239 days left on my subscription. Well, he does not want to do that he wants to transfer those days to another one of the computers. I said no way. I then asked to speak to a supervisor. He transferred me and the phone rang for 10 minutes before I finally hung up.

So, back in the queue. Go through all the crap again and I finally get a supervisor who agrees to refund my money. I ask him which credit card is it going to because I can’t remember which one I used months ago. He can’t tell me that but gives me a refund confirmation number.

After thinking about this for a while I wondered why they gave in to the refund so easily. So I poked around on google and found this. Apparently they have had this activation problem for a couple of years. If they can’t fix this problem I have very little faith that they can actually protect my computer from a virus.