Another sort of cutback in Thunder Bay school

Criminal charges in Canada are laid at the discretion of the Crown Attorney, generally on the recommendation of, or in consultation with the police. If the Crown refuses to lay charges, a victim's options for seeking justice are severely limited. However, the Crown's main consideration in laying charges is the public interest.  A criminal charge, trial and conviction is intended to serve not only to punish someone for breaking the law but also to provide an example that will deter others from breaking the law. On the simple grounds of deterrence alone  I can see no reason at all not to charge this person with assault. 

In April, the seven-year-old was picked up, put on a chair “and when he resisted, the scissors were placed against his forehead and he was told not to move,” said Falconer, who said 10 centimetres of hair was cut from the front. 
According to other information obtained by The Chronicle-Journal that outlines the incident, the boy was in a computer lab reading when a teaching assistant saw him having difficulty seeing due to the length of his bangs. 
The teaching assistant took the boy into the hall and trimmed his bangs with scissors, the information said, and when the employee admitted she had cut the student‘s bangs, she was suspended from her job. 

You can be sure that if a teacher or some other student had snipped the ponytail off  some blonde cheerleader, there would be seven kinds of  hell to pay. I don't care if  it was a  case of not understanding the rules or having the best of intentions, school staff are not allowed to give the students involuntary haircuts. 

Some might argue that "ruining" the teaching assistant's life by charging them with assault is unfair and would end their career and that the person in question doesn't deserve to go to jail for trimming a seven-year-old's bangs.  I would argue that this person very much deserves to go to jail since this is someone who has been placed in a position of trust and authority over that child and has used that authority to violate their person, terrorize and traumatize a seven-year-old. They either know they had no right to interfere with this young boy the way they did and willingly broke the law or they are so completely ignorant of the rules that govern their profession that they should not be allowed within a mile of a classroom full of seven-year-olds. 

If the child's parents were to drop by the teaching assistant's home with a pair of clippers and shave her head "to help her see better" I think it's safe to say they'd be in jail faster than you could knock "shave and a haircut".

I'm not sure whether the family's accusations of anti-Native discrimination are well founded or not - they may just be the racist icing on the layer cake of stupid - and frankly I don't think the discrimination angle even matters. For a teacher or any member of the school staff to take a pair of scissors to a seven-year-old's hair against the child's will is an incredible violation of trust. 

And the first person to make a "scalping" joke is really going to wish they hadn't.

Uke fight!

RossK and I are getting into it big time and the gloves are off. After we both picked the same uke ace last week, we've decided this week its double or nothing!  So here's a double-double shot...

Julia Nunes is a college student/musician in upstate New York who started posting videos on YouTube a couple of years ago and became a sensation. Last year, she toured with Ben Folds, next month she playing Bonnaroo. Like last week's treat from Molly/SweetAfton23, I think this typifies the great DIY spirit of the new uke movement in music

But the ukelele is Hawaiian and what could be more Hawaiian than surf rock?

Then there's a this bad boy, the second double neck uke I've blogged. My wife loves it when I play this one on guitar.

For some seriously wild looking ukes, check this out!

Bonus Track - not strickly uke, or DIY, but the Asylum Street Spankers are God's Favorite Band and Pops Bayless plays a mean ukelele.

Onward Christian soldiers

Just when you think that what you know about the George W. Bush administration's depravity, rank hypocracy and sadististic bullying masquerading as patriotic piety has hit the bottom of the barrel, someone comes along and points out that there is a whole other barrel underneath this one. Apparently Donald Rumsfeld, not content to have things like prayer meetings going on at the Pentagon and a chief of Special Forces who make Gen. Jack T. Ripper look like the moderate wing of the GOP/military axis, took it upon himself to make special title pages for the regular top secret briefing he delivered to the president and handful of others. Pages with heroic, glamorous images of America's Heroic Glamorous Defenders of Heroic Freedom Heroically Defending Freedom in Glamorous ways, overlaid with stirring passages from, yep - you guessed it - the Bible. (image lifted shamelessly from Jesus' General )

See them all here

Keep in mind that this was not an attempt to play to the religious rubes out there in the hinterlands or a pose adopted to curry favor with the evangelistic electorate. These covers were for super-secret executive level only reports that were circulated only to the most senior people.
One wonders what the "Prince of Peace" would make of that. One also wonders why none of these pictures were included with suitable biblical quotes:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth

Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.

Suffer the little children to come unto me

If you are American, write your president, your congressman, your senator, your newspaper and demand that the people responsible for starting this hideous human meatgrinder on false pretenses for their own selfish reasons be brought to trial.

Gratitude to fellow Fez enthusiast Atta J. Turk

Bullies in blue

Who will protect us from those that are supposed to "serve and protect" us? I suppose that the woman should be grateful she wasn't tasered. It is nice to see that there are a few honest people in the system willing to do the right thing. Too bad more of them aren't cops. I fear that the bad cops who abuse their authority are giving the job such a bad name it will soon start to drive out the good ones.

This a good example of the kind of "circle the wagons" mentality that seems to exist whenever anyone questions or criticizes the cops. In a story with an otherwise happy ending in which a community drew together to make a statement against racism and the authorities eventually did the right thing, the police union just can't admit that maybe, just maybe, a couple of their members might have acted a bit hastily.

Last week (York Regional Police Chief Armand) La Barge announced at a press conference that he was recommending to the Newmarket Crown attorney that charges be withdrawn, something only the crown can do.
La Barge went even further, criticizing the thoroughness of the initial investigation that resulted in the charges, saying it was "hasty."
This sparked an angry response from York Regional Police Association president John Miskiw, who called La Barge's comments a "slap in the face" to the two officers.
Additionally, Miskiw maintains the officers did the right thing in laying the charges and La Barge was wrong in recommending they be withdrawn.

Those would be these charges and as the Star story quoted above reveals they have been dropped. It's pretty clear officers involved didn't do much of an investigation, but simply took the school principal at his word and arrested the kid that won the fight. That would be the same school principal who wanted the student in question expelled from not only his school, but from every school in the York Region and who clearly either didn't do much investigating or is a major league dumbass.

"What's the movie this week Rev.?"

If it's Sunday, that means one thing around the Woodshed, music and movies!

Okay, so it's two things, but you get my point. Sunday's are Radio Woodshed/Red Zeppelin days.

So tune in, turn on and mind the drop, it's a long way down from way up here.

A cornucopia of the finest music starting at 5 pm Pacific/ 8 pm Eastern followed up with the latest and greatest offering from the Glorious People's Cinema Project at 7 pm Pacific/ 10 pm East -- half an hour later in Newfoundland. So get on up and get on down, but protect your precious bodily fluids as we stop worrying and learn to love the bomb with Dr. Strangelove.

Friday Uke

I love, love, love this song. 

What is it about a uke that make a girl so appealing?

Mind and eye bending

The break of the curveball, winner in the top illusion 2009 contest

so crazy it just might work

Kevin Smith wants to make a movie with Mitch Albom based on a Warren Zevon song about hockey that features the vocal styling of David Letterman.

Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song) - Warren Zevon

Yes, you heard me right. The guy that made all the "Clerks" stuff and "Zack&Miri Make a Porno," the sentimental, foul-mouthed, Gretzky-worshipping, idiot-savant of Smodcast and Silent Bob fame is planning to team up with the Detroit sportswriter that wrote the immensely successful  and immensely maudlin "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "Five People You Meet In Heaven" to make a hockey movie and he wants it to be an "awards movie."  The end result is either going to be pretty good ("Chariots of Fire" meets "Slap Shot" crossed with "The Sweater") or downright frightening  ("Youngblood" "The Mighty Ducks" and "Miracle" crossed with "Jersey Girl.")

Silent Bob in geek heaven

Seriously, he had Stan Lee, Johnny Rotton, Carrie Fisher and Eddie Izzard (among other notables) in his house all at the same time? Someone should suggest he remake The Party , perhaps as the third installment in the Harold and Kumar franchise. Maybe a sort of H&K meet Jay & Silent Bob kinda thing.

Why is Cheney on TV and not in prison?

It is interesting to see Cheney running to get in front of the cameras and claim that "torture worked". It doesn't. And even if it did, torture is immoral, illegal and uncivilized - whether it works or not is irrelevant. Arguing about whether or not torture works is like arguing about whether you can get rich making kiddie porn or whether eating live babies cures cancer.

Sunday songs and cinema

All the other cool comrades and revolutionary cadres will be at the virtual Marxist-Lennonist Party HQ on Sunday for music and movies. You should be there too, tovarich -- to do otherwise would be counterrevolutionary! Join us in Second Life at The Red Zeppelin or on Radio Woodshed.
This week the Glorious People's Cinema Project wraps up out Burt Lancaster series with the story of a very American coup d'etat "Seven Days in May"



Music from 5 pm PDT/ 8 EDT, movie from 7 pm PDT/10 EDT

If it's Friday, this must be a ukulele video

(nevermind if the date up top says Saturday, I live in the future, and it is still Friday for you)

Ol' Satchmo could certainly pick a tune, and Danielle's sweet voice is enough to give any one ideas. Have a nice weekend.

"I bet I can eat 50 eggs gyoza"

On Sunday afternoon, I returned to one of my favorite restaurants in Tokyo. You won't likely find it in any guidebook and, to be honest, I don't even know its name, but if you find yourself in the Kameido area of Tokyo, just look around near the station for a tiny dive in a side alley across from the train station with a long line outside and you will know you've found The Gyoza Joint.
It isn't much to look at. It is a dingy, slightly dirty, run-down place a little larger than your average basement rec room with a long narrow U-shaped counter running two thirds the length of the place and a raised tatami straw mat-covered platform running along the wall by the door. At the top of the U, next to the door is the open kitchen, a space with just enough room for two men to stand in front of a row of hot cast-iron pans about the size and shape of trash can lids. They don't need a lot of room for a lot of equipment

Those wooden boxes hold uncooked gyoza and they went through a stack of them that reached the ceiling in the half hour we were there. Even on a cool spring day with the doors open it's hot and humid inside. The walls are slightly sticky and the table we sit cross legged and shoeless at is cheap formica with squeeze bottles for the condiments - the holy trinity of soy sauce, vinager and hot chili oil - straight from the 100 yen shop. A stained, hand-lettered piece of card spells out the prices in multiples of 250 yen.

Remember that old Saturday Night Live bit with John Belushi as the counterman in the Greek diner? It didn't matter what people wanted, they got cheeseburgers, chips and "No Coke, Pepsi". Belushi would bellow out "cheeseburg! cheeseburg! cheeseburg!Pepsi! Pepsi!" and the cook, three feet away, usually played by Dan Ackroyd with a cigarette dangling from his lip would dutifully shout back "cheeseburg! cheeseburg! cheeseburg! Pepsi! Pepsi!" as he threw more patties on the grill. Belushi would urge chatty or indecisive customers along with "Cmon, cmon, we got to have turnover!"
Imagine that in Japanese with a couple of plump old ladies hollering "Gyoza! gyoza! beer! beer!" and you have an idea of the atmosphere. You don't even order here, except for drinks. You just wave for another plate of the finest cheap gyoza in town - five to a 250 yen plate - or another quart bottle of ice cold Asahi or a Birley's Orange Soda. (They might serve something else but I've never seen it). Fresh plates arrive like clockwork until you start to slow down and when the feeding frenzy ends, the waitress counts the plates and empty bottles and hands you the bill.

If you don't know what gyoza is, first let me express my pity. Poor you. Moving right along, gyoza are Chinese dumplings similar to shu-mai, but in Japan they are usually pan-fried instead of steamed or boiled. For those of you completely unfamiliar with asian cuisine, think of little envelopes of fresh pasta stuffed with ground pork, cabbage, ginger and garlic and then fried/flash-steamed in a pan until the bottom is just started to turn brown and crisp, and top is al dente. They are sometimes called Chinese pot-stickers in North America, I suppose because they stick to the bottom of the pot if you aren't careful.

And they are easy to make at home. We buy the frozen wrappers at the grocery store for the sake of convenience, but the wrappers are not hard to make either. This is the best recipe I've found so far.  

In Japan, you find them everywhere - in convenience store bento lunches, frozen in the grocery store or fresh made in the deli section and they are a staple item on the menu in  izakayas (Japanese pubs). They are a common item in the many sorts of gluttony contests held here all the time (Eating machine Joey Chestnut set the world record last year at 231 gyoza in ten minutes in LA) and there is even a sort of gyoza theme park where you can try a dozen different kinds of gyoza with different fillings (shrimp is delicious!)

We also went to a small festival to mark the start of the Golden Week holidays in Japan at this little shrine

There were all the usual food stalls selling takoyaki octopus balls, corn on the cob and flavored shaved ice, but the best looking was the trout-on-a-stick booth,  because everything tastes better on a stick.

(all photos by my nine year old son Kentaro, except the close up of the gyoza)

Rocket in your pocket

I've pointed out many times that Japanese Television has some very weird stuff on it you would just never ever see in North America. One popular family program is Kasou Taishou, a sort of odd costume/sketch competition that groups from across the country enter in an effort to get on television. The first clip shows some winners and its easier to show it than to explain it.



This is the latest winner in the humor category - not something you'd see on North American television.

tip of the fez to Nakaima Oh

Ouch

A terrible accident, certainly -- but made worse by the name of the daily newspaper reporting the incident.

Secretary accidentally bites off boss’ penis
A SECRETARY accidentally bit off the penis of her employer while giving him oral sex in a car.
Sin Chew Daily and China Press reported yesterday that while the 30-year-old woman was performing oral sex on the man, the car was hit by a reversing van.

Failure to study stereotypes endangers teen bigot

If this kid was any kind of really serious bigot, he'd have looked past the immediate stereotype of asian immigrants as studious bookworms and looked at the older "all those people know kung fu" stereotype or the even older "godless communists for whom human life has no value" stereotype or the even older "all those people are inscrutable opium-peddling crime lords" stereotypes and steered clear. What is our nation coming to when we can't we even educate our bigots in proper racial stereotyping? I blame multiCULTuralism and LIEbrals and OMIGOD there are ChiComs under the bed! It's Mao and Ho Chi Minh! I think Fu Manchu sent them! Run for your lives!AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Huh? Wha...unhhhh..Where am I? What just happened?
Sorry, I think I was possessed by the spirit of Ezra Levant or Kathy Shaide or Miller Freeman or James Phelan or something for a moment there, I hope I didn't get any bile on you. Where was I? Oh yeah, the ignorant teen bigot who got pwned. I first learned of this story a few days ago and I can't say the subsequent release of further information has done much to change my opinion. The young Korean-Canadian boy should get some sort of medal for showing restraint and not hospitalizing the nitwit bully:

"He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.
The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.
The 15-year-old heard his father's voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.
His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.
The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events - from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion - that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past."

And his schoolmates deserve the same for walking out in support when he was suspended over the incident.

On Monday, 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School to rally in protest in front of their school.
Organizer Mathew Winch, a Grade 12 student, said the school has fewer than 10 Asian students, but everyone wanted to stand up against bullying and racism. The story even hit the front page of local newspapers.
After the public outcry, the York Regional Police hate crimes unit reopened the case. Although the other student has not been charged, further charges are possible, a spokesman said yesterday.

And grudging kudos to the York School Board for doing the right thing in the end, even if it took them awhile to get around to it and they were backed into a corner by the students of Keswick High School, their parents and the media. Let just hope the local crown prosecutor sees things the same way.

However, aside from the obvious appeal of the "bully-finds-out-the-hard-way-that-Clark-Kent-is-Superman" angle of the story, there was another aspect of it that caught my eye. This family of recent immigrants clearly understand Canada and the essentials of the Canadian ideal better than a few people around Keswick (and a lot of blogging tories).

The day after the fight, an older cousin of their son's antagonist approached him in the school cafeteria and uttered a similar slur, compounding their sense of despair.
"He said, 'You punched my cousin you Chinese fuck,' " the 15-year-old said. That student was overheard by a teacher and suspended.
His father explains that the easiest course would be to move somewhere else and get a fresh start for his son. But he can't do it.
"I don't want to run away. If another Asian kid comes to this school, what happens to him? Will he run into problems? Will they think they can just kick him out? I don't want to set that example," he said.
"Personally, for my kid, I should move. But as a Canadian I cannot move."

How's that for "Canadian" Raphael?

(quoted material taken from the Globe and Mail)

accidental YouTube comedy

I'm not sure if I can bring myself to watch all seven parts of the video, but the description is intriguing, given how its been categorized

"Bill Wiese saw the searing flames of hell, felt total isolation, and experienced the putrid and rotting stench, deafening screams of agony, terrorizing demons, and finally, the strong hand of God lifting him out of the pit."
Category: Entertainment

Hurry hard!

Not to be outdone by RossK's curling tribute, here is another song about people who spend the winter throwing rocks at houses.



(And while the post's title is common exhortation out on the slab, I still think it would make a great title for a curling themed adult film containing numerous jokes about "getting your rocks off.")

Sunday at the Red Zeppelin

A feast for the ears and eyes again this Sunday night as I spin some stuff from the mucho fabuloso NEW BOB DYLAN ALBUM and some things old, new, borrowed and blue. The Glorious People's Cinema Project will be screening the very funky 1964 western  "The Professionals" with Lee Marvin, Woody Strode, Claudia Cardinale and Burt Lancaster. Music from 5 Pacific/8 Eastern. Movie starts at 7 Pacific/10 Eastern.

Join us in Second Life for the dancing and plotting of revolution aboard the Marxist-Lennonist Party's airborne HQ or click on the radio for the music and watch the movie right here.

"This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender"

Happy 90th birthday Pete Seeger - our Spiritual Leader of the Moment.

Seeger has long been one of my heroes and he was the first Spiritual Leader of the Moment back when I had my first webpage on Geocites over a dozen years ago.

This 1967 performance was Seeger's first appearance on television in years following his blacklisting in the 50's -- and they still censored him, chopping out his mid-set rendition of "Waistdeep in the Big Muddy" and sparking a controversy. He was invited back to perform the song, which did finally air, but the show was cancelled soon afterward, despite high ratings, and replaced with HeeHaw.






I've had the privilege of seeing Pete Seeger perform twice and as I've often said, I'm glad he's on our side. Give him five minutes in front of a crowd and he can make them do just about anything he wants. Thankfully, he has always used this power for good. While Woody Guthrie was a rambling, gambling, hard-travelling, hard-drinking guy who collected a handful of wives in his time and whose guitar "killed fascists", his travelling partner, Pete Seeger was a teetotalling, pacifist who married a Japanese girl during World War Two and did time briefly for refusing to name names to Joe McCarthy. The insigna on his banjo said "this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
As I reckon these things, he's probably one of the greatest living Americans. Happy Birthday Pete!






More interviews here, and knowing all his history, if this latest work of his doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then the problem is with you, not Seeger. For more music, tune into Radio Woodshed, where I'll be playing Pete Seeger stuff all day long.