The Steve-Dave Reality Tour

Proposed Anti-Bullying Law is Pissing Off Bullies

Where do religious freedoms end and personal rights supersede?

Right. Fucking. Here.

A coalition of Christian and Jewish groups say an anti-bullying bill harms faith-based learning.

Here's the story with some of my own editorial:

Some Christian and Jewish groups are denouncing Premier Dalton McGuinty’s anti-bullying legislation, calling it a front for his “radical sex education” agenda.

The Institute for Canadian Values held a news conference Tuesday morning, condemning the premier for a section of the new anti-bullying legislation that allows for all publicly funded school boards to “host gay clubs.”

Oh, Jesus!? The gays are allowed to have "clubs" now? We can't ridicule them and treat them like dirt until they commit suicide anymore? What happened to this world? Surely there is some vigilant bigot to save the day, right? Cue McVety:

The Institute’s president is Dr. Charles McVety, a politically savvy Evangelist who was against proposed changes to the provincial physical health and education curriculum last year. Those changes included discussing same-sex couples in Grade 3.

“We don’t understand why this keeps coming back,” McVety said.

I'd like to give him the answer myself, but surprisingly our idiot Premier has got it figured out...

But speaking in Windsor, McGuinty denounced the criticism.

“Are there gay children attending Catholic schools in Ontario? Yes. Are there gay teachers teaching in Catholic schools in Ontario? Yes,” McGuinty said.

“The purpose of our accepting schools act is to send a strong signal to all Ontarians, of all faiths and backgrounds, all places of origin, culture, ethnicities, in our province and our publicly funded schools — schools will be warm and accepting of all our children, regardless of their sexual orientation as well.”

I know what you're thinking. McGuinty surprised the fuck out of me with this one too. Good for him though. If he's saying it then it reflects the values of most Ontarians as McGuinty wouldn't dare take such a polarizing stance without backup. The anti-bullying legislation, created after recent high profile youth suicides including that of gay Ottawa teen Jamie Hubley, was introduced by the Liberals last week.

“I fully expect Catholic kids will use the word gay,” said McGuinty. “I fully expect Catholic teachers will use the word gay and as a Catholic premier in Ontario, I am going to talk about gay kids.”

There is a time and place for everything, said Rondo Thomas, of the Evangelical Association, but there is no “time and place” in an 8-year-old’s mind to try to make them conceptualize something beyond “tying their shoes.”

Hold it right there, Rondo. If that is a real name? My nine year old kid has been well aware of what it means to be gay for years. He goes to a Catholic school. I don't think we give kids any credit really. Hatred (like homophobia) starts with the parents and their example. So does tolerance, love and acceptance.

“The anti-bullying legislation that Mr. McGuinty is proposing constitutes a violation of our religious freedoms that are guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and further to that, it violates the common law of separation of church and state,” he said. “Please erase this unnecessary clause and show Ontarians you really care and we will join you in the anti-bullying campaign.”

The backlash to introducing this bill could be “quite severe,” he added.

Jack Fonseca, of the Campaign Life Coalition, agreed, saying the premier is misguided in this section of the anti-bullying legislation.

“Catholic teaching, the Catholic church and Catholic schools teach love of God and love of neighbour and if that is taught that is the best defense for children — whether they are same-sex attracted or overweight, skinny or wear glasses … it doesn’t matter, that is the best defense.”

Really? People are supposed to turn the other cheek? Use some kind of God shield from human degradation that your statement seems to condone?

Fonseca said McGuinty wants to force Catholic schools to do something, regardless of what the bishops say. “That is a violation of Catholic rights in Ontario,” he said.

Is it a violation of Catholic rights? Or this just bigotry in disguise?

All bullying is an expression of hate and it is wrong. I'm not surprised that there are those who will resist change. I'm just saying that their motives and argument are complete nonsense.

I'm not talking about gay rights exclusively. This applies to everyone and anyone who has had a hard time fitting in by no fault of their own. It's a big step to take as a society, so let's try not to fuck it up.

Peace.

via www.thestar.com

Occupy Wall Street Eviction

So, early this morning the New York police evicted the protestors in Zuccotti Park. There are reports of excessive force, pepper spray, and general police douche baggery. Seems a little extreme for a bunch of people living in tents.... but hey! What do I know?Get some of the story Here! I’m sure new information will surface later in the day.

 

 

 

Didn’t somebody once say "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”? ... that sounds like something somebody would say. 

Poppy Boxes Stolen from Tim Hortons

This is truly a Canadian crime spree!

HAMILTON—Police say poppy donation boxes were stolen from two Tim Hortons restaurants this morning.

Police say a man placed an order at the Tim Hortons at 65 Ottawa St. N. at about 5:30 a.m. and fled with two poppy donation boxes when the clerk turned away from the counter.

About 30 minutes later, police say the same thing happened at a Tim Hortons at 239 King St. W. with a man matching the same description.

The suspect is described as an east Asian man in his 20s, five-foot-eight and 165 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and sporting a goatee.

He was wearing a dark blue jacket with a white stripe down the sleeves and a logo on the back, and dark jeans.

These incidents happened a day after police reported a poppy box stolen from a pizza shop in Toronto.

via www.thestar.com

In Canada, the poppy is the official symbol of remembrance (for those who have died in war since 1914) worn during the two weeks before November 11th.

What an asshole!

Meet the boy the bullies broke

I saw this story yesterday in the Toronto Star about a kid from Ottawa, Jamie Hubley, that committed suicide partyly due to intense bullying because he was gay.

Bullying may be too soft of a word....

It implies some kind of adolescent behaviour that is excuable. It should be described more accuratley: human cruelty. It is simply a crime. We have to start making some changes.

This story invoked a lot of emotions for me:

Sadness for the loss of a young life and the family & friends who now mourn him.

Empathy for what this kid went through. I'm not gay but I was called that and a lot of other things when I was growing up. If you have never gone through it then I imagine it would be difficult to understand. It's one of the worst things someone can through psychologically. For a kid, it can be too much to handle.

Outrage against the little pricks responsible and all others like them. Somebody needs to start paying for these crimes. No more free rides. No more "boys will be boys" attitude. They have all been getting a free ride for despicable behaviour for way too long. The only solution is a zero tolerance policy in school. You can't really change who they are.

I've pulled  this column by Heather Mallick for you. I found put this case and the ongoing issue of bullying and gay rights in perspective. 

What a shockingly beautiful boy Jamie Hubley was. The ruddy hair, the smokin’ wide grin, that shy downward look — I’m wild and bold but, um, maybe not so much, the look seemed to say — as he sang Lady Gaga’s new song, “Born This Way,” on YouTube.

Jamie was only 15, which is why I’m journalistic ethics-wise allowed to refer to him by his first name, as if he were a friend of mine. And how I wish he had been. This kid could have helped my sadness, I could have helped his, he would have brought credit and affection and candour to everyone who knew him, but now he’s dead, no chance now.

When brightness falls, it falls so hard. Watch Jamie singing. He doesn’t get the low notes quite right. It makes your heart crack.

The Ottawa schoolboy died Saturday of human cruelty, profoundly depressed after years of being bullied for being gay. He killed himself. I’m astonished to read that he was being hounded even in Grade 7 — students tried to stuff batteries down his throat on the school bus after he chose figure skating over ice hockey — but then I remember Grade 7 and what little animals we were.

We were allowed to behave like rodents then, sharp-toothed and scurrying in packs, looking to munch on whatever was available, including each other.

The starter efforts at talking openly about teen suicide give the best advice extant, that time is a healer, that this too shall pass. Jamie wrote in his online suicide note: “It’s just too hard. I don’t want to wait three more years, this hurts too much. How do you even know it will get better? It’s not.”

You can’t tell a 15-year-old to wait three years. To him, it sounds like 30, which to a teenager is practically dead anyway. And when I look at middle-aged people, including many in public life, who can’t admit publicly that they’re gay, it’s clear that time heals nothing. We all fear bullying.

Foolishly, I thought this was generational and that kids were taught to be different now, more humane. As schools become multiracial, girls dare to speak up in class and be smart and everyone’s online and typing out the contents of their souls, I assumed that kids like Jamie, who wanted to sing or act rather than just go into thick-necked grunting mode for the course of their adolescence, would find a place to flourish.

I was wrong. The kids who called Jamie names in the hallway, who tore down his posters for a Rainbow club at A.Y. Jackson Secondary School (this was the school he moved to in an effort to escape bullies), the teenagers who mocked him online, we all went to school with those kids. Maybe we were those kids. Maybe we still are.

There a little dark creature inside all of us, a homunculus as it was known in the Middle Ages, or a tiny human. He is filled with meanness. I always imagine him looking like one of the black pond tadpoles I remember from childhood, little slippery lumps of menace. (In fact, of course, they were harmless and the neighbourhood boys should not have set them on fire.)

Well, there’s a little hate generator in every one of us and he’s the source of the bullying we see in politics, school, workplaces, hockey rinks, talk radio, yell TV, tabloid newspapers and especially online. We live in a bullying culture, in which I suggest you not be gay or a native Canadian or unemployed or in any non-powerful group. Don’t go online if you’re vulnerable.

But who spends the most time online, aside from the old Angry Pajamas of extremist politics? Teenagers, naturally.

If it helps to personalize it, picture your inner nasty as the icon you see on the doors of public toilets, but armed with a pitchfork. Instantly recognizably as Average Guy, he doesn’t just live inside the kids who helped drive Jamie to suicide, he lives inside all of us.

The trick of being civilized is that we silence him when he pokes our mean gland. And he’s not necessarily male. Females are talented bullies with a real eye for where the shiv will do the most emotional damage. No? Rent Mean Girls and see what I mean.

High school is the distillation of our lives, with a term limit, filled with cliques and home to the best and worst of our traits. Remember those hallways lined with lockers, which I recall happily but now realize must have seemed to the bullied kids like a gauntlet they had to run over and over, five days a week. What I wonder is if Jamie’s tormentors understand even now what they did and why.

As Jamie wrote in his last post on his Tumblr blog, “To the people who didn’t like me (many) a big f --k you. Go ride a unicorn.”

And then he adds, “But we love you anyway.”

Even as he headed for death, he had to add, in a clause from a naturally kind heart, some forgiveness for his tormentors.

I cannot get over this.

I’m hoping the schoolmates who mocked and tormented Jamie can’t get over it either. They’re not going to be better people until they confront their own cruelty.

We won’t stigmatize bullying until we force the bullies to understand what they do what they do, that an ugly voice emerges from the black dot inside you, urging you on to call kids like Jamie a “fag.”

Depression was Jamie’s constant, the kind of depression that is implacable in the face of total family love, medical care, counselling and loyal friends. Jamie’s father, Allan, wrote in his public statement that for most of his life, Jamie was “a happy and confident child.” Later, though, he asked “a question no child should have to ask — why do people say mean things to me?”

Hubley pointed out that cyber-bullying has created a new problem. There is no longer any refuge. “Children often feel there is no safe place to go; even when they are at home they can still be victims.” Jamie knew his tormentors were reading his blog. “You bent me until I broke. Happy? You win,” he wrote just days before he killed himself. A student at his school wrote on the new R.I.P. Jamie website, “I had seen him earlier that day [the day of his death] and he had cuts all over his wrists, his arms, even his face.” This matches Jamie’s single sentence entry, “Cut my face.” At this point he was in such despair that he no longer minded handing the confessional gift of his pain to those who were out to hurt him. A day later he quoted from another blog, a list of wounds that would not be the list of a depressed university student or a dentist or rape victim. It is quintessentially high school. It includes being “the first one to ask to hang out, the only one to try, not being invited.”

“F--- high school and f--- having shitty friends.” These words aren’t the whole truth of Jamie’s life but only the last miserable segment of it.

Look at his face as his handsome father proudly poses with his hand on the shoulder of his beloved child. Jamie, in a dress shirt with black bow tie, had clearly been in the spotlight. The photograph radiates love and happiness and is the portrait Allan Hubley chose to represent the bond he had with his 15-year-old darling.

What chills me is that Jamie’s bullies probably thought this picture was funny. I hope they’re not laughing now.

If they are, they haven’t learned to suppress their inner dark voice, the little hate lump urging them to deflect the hate that might come their way.

“You can’t break when you’re already broken.” That was the title of Jamie’s blog and the last words he saw. He was gay and bullies broke him.

Now we will have to reassemble our memories and our morals so that maybe no one like Jamie breaks again. But I suspect there will be other Jamies.

via www.thestar.com

Classic TV 101: C.O.P.S.

C.O.P.S. (Central Organization of Police Specialists) was a cartoon television show, which ran from 1988–1989, and used the tag line: "Fighting crime in a future time, protecting Empire City from Big Boss and his gang of crooks". There were a total of 65 episodes.

I wish this show had lasted longer then it did. C'est la vie.

Here's the breakdown...

The year: 2020. The place: Empire City. The situation: Brandon “Big Boss” Babel (along with his gang of crooks) is holding the entire city under the palm of his iron hand and the Empire City Police Department can do nothing to stop him. As a last resort, Mayor Davis sends in Special Agent Baldwin P. Vess (Codename: Bulletproof) to take him down. However, Bulletproof suffered very serious injuries in a car wreck during a fight with Big Boss' criminal henchmen and had to be taken to the hospital, where he is given a cybernetic bullet-resistant torso to save his life as it would take years for his torso to recover.

While staying at the hospital, Bulletproof, knowing he cannot do all of this alone recruits police officers from all over the country. This was one of the most diverse and comprehensive crime-fighting forces ever portrayed in any fictional setting that I've seen.

• P.J. O'Malley (Codename: LongArm) - The Beat Cop
• Donny Brooks (Codename: HardTop) - The Patrol and Pursuit Officer
• David E. Harlson (Codename: "Highway") - The Motorcycle Patrol Officer
• Colt Howards  (Codename: "Mace") - The S.W.A.T. Officer
• Stan Hyde (Codename: "Barricade") - The Riot Control and Hostage Negotiation Officer
• Tina Cassidy (Codename: "Mainframe") - The Police Technical Analyst
• Walker Calhoun (Codename: "Sundown") - The Texas Ranger
• Suzie Young (Codename: "Mirage") - The Vice Officer
• Hugh S. Forward (Codename: "Bullseye") - The Police Helicopter Pilot
• Rex Pointer (Codename: "Bowser") and his robot dog, Blitz   - The K-9 Officer
• Baldwin P. Vess (Codename: "Bulletproof") - The FBI Agent / Detective

The team is dubbed as “the finest law enforcement agency there is in the country.”

Bulletproof becomes the proud founder and commander of C.O.P.S.

Together, he and his C.O.P.S. team are able to take down Big Boss and his gang of crooks and thwart the first of many of Big Boss' criminal schemes.

The show's futuristic setting looked incredibly like the 1920s with a modern spin.

Check out this very memorable and iconic opening theme.

Classic TV 101: Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries is the scariest television show I've ever watched.

When it was hosted by Robert Stack, it gave me nightmares almost everytime I watched it...which was around 1988 to 1995.

The show is still on television, now hosted by Dennis Farina, but sadly they don't play it on my cable provider.

I'm not sure if the terror is still intact. It's hard to imagine that it would be since Stack was so chilling in his narration of the mysteries and that eerie theme song could really creep you out.

I have two videos to share. The first is the opening credits (which changed with each episode) and the scariest mystery I ever saw on the show.

The video included was the scariest of them all, probably because it was real. His voice was so creepy. Who was Omar? Satanism.? SCARY! Will he get us next?

They got him...because of Unsolved Mysteries.

These Evil Mother Fuckers Must Pay!

This is a fucked-up story. What the fuck is wrong with people? Are they so fucking sad and lonely that they needed to resort to this type of shit. Lock them up and throw away the key!

You wouldn't do this type of shit to a dog let alone an adult. No bail! No plea bargains!

I hate to say it but I don't think that ANYBODY should be allowed to have kids, take care of kids or foster them. There are too many sick fucks out there.

I've never even thought about doing anything like this to my kid ever. Fuck this discipline argument horse-shit. It's just an excuse for people who get a thrill out of torturing people.

Such a sad tale:

Girl, 10, suffocates after being put in box for taking popsicle

Phoenix police have arrested four people in the horrific death of a 10-year-old girl who investigators say had been locked inside a plastic storage container as punishment for taking a popsicle.

Originally, Ame Deal’s family had told police the little girl and other children were playing hide-and-seek in her South Phoenix neighbourhood, and somehow Ame had climbed into the box to hide and accidentally suffocated.

But investigators later concluded, based on remarks by extended relatives and neighbours, that Ame had been placed in the box as punishment for taking a popsicle from the freezer without asking permission earlier in the day.

Police said Ame was 4 feet, 2 inches tall. The box she was locked in was less than 3 feet long, 14 inches wide and about a foot deep, Reuters reports about the July 12 death.

Police also say that the girl had been put in the box at least five times in recent months, and had been beaten and forced to eat dog feces and hot sauce. Ame often slept on a shower floor without any pillow or blankets as punishment for bed wetting, police say.

“This child died at the hands of those who were supposed to love and care for her,” police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump said at a Thursday press conference. “This case has turned the stomachs of some of our most seasoned detectives.”

Police have arrested John and Samantha Allen, both 23, Cynthia Stoltzmann, 44, and Judith Deal, 62.

The Allens have been charged with first-degree murder. Stoltzmann, the girl’s paternal aunt and legal guardian, and Deal, the girl’s grandmother, have been charged with child abuse and kidnapping.

Police said the Allens confessed to putting Ame in the box and locking it. Stoltzmann and Deal both admitted to previously confining the child in the box.

Crump said that when Ame was first caught for taking the popsicle, the Allens allegedly forced her to perform exercises, such as jumping jacks, for over an hour in the Arizona heat. They then made her climb in the container before padlocking it shut. She was found dead the next day, apparently having suffocated.

At their initial court appearances on July 28, the Allens, who are Ame’s distant cousins, were ordered held on $1 million (U.S.) cash bond each, while both Deal's and Stoltzmann's bail was set at $500,000 cash.

Via thestar.com

A Wave of Disbelief, then Disgust...Followed by Thirst

Good morning,

I hope your day started better then mine. This morning, as I settled in my office for a breakfast muffin, I decided to browse the typepad website. When I clicked on the Showcase section I was hit with a wave of disbelief, then disgust…. followed by thirst. I promptly drank the mixed berry juice box I brought from home, and started writing this blog.

The source of my disbelief (and thirst) was The Steve-Dave Reality Tours’ lack of mention on the showcase. I stayed there, scrolling through the list of worthy blogs slowly mouthing the words “why…..god?”, hoping for an answer. But none came. 

How can Beer Leaguer – “Alternative view points on the Philadelphia Phillies” (there are alternative views on this topic?) be up there, but SDRT – “The greatest Canadian export since prohibition era whiskey” not? Mind boggling, I know.

Let’s play a game. I’ll give you a list of categories, and you tell me where SDRT belongs.

 -         Creatives

-         Commentators

-         Industry Experts

-         Business

-         Wordsmiths

-         Personal Bloggers

If you answered “all of the above” you are correct! Let’s take a look at the answer key.

 -         Creatives (Are we creative??? You be the judge)

-         Commentators (Ya, on life)

-         Industry Experts (have you seen our website? Heard our show?)

-         Business (we have advertisers. Its like bad boy entertainment over here)

-         Wordsmiths (read one of my blogs? King kong ain’t got shit on me!)

-         Personal Bloggers (we are people….and we blog. Checkmate)

Each category seems more fitting then the last, yet we still sit on the outskirts of the online community cold and alone.

Dad Talk made it on the list. Why not us? Are we not fatherly enough? Dave has a son, and he named me godfather. That makes Dave a dad, and me a dad in Christ. Is it because we don’t have a picture of a kid standing too close to the camera? Is that the edge we’re missing? Would that be the final push that would launch us to the Showcase dais? What’s wrong with our logo, and our take on the lethal weapon 3 poster? I look adorable in that picture, and we all know it!

 

Sigh…. Much like what Batman is to Gotham, I once again must be to the Internet. I can’t be the hero you need, only the hero you deserve. This is why I’m announcing the epic and much anticipated return of Blog On Blast!

Buckle up…. Episode 60 is going to get real….real fast!

Vancouver Kissing Couple

This is one of those beautiful moments. Almost like out of a movie. What song should be playing?

This was all in the chaos of the Vancouver riots following the Canucks' loss in the Stanley Cup final. A moment of serenity.

The couple in this now-famous photo have been identified as Scott Jones and Alexandra Thomas. If you haven’t seen it, Jones, 29, is lying on a street locked in an embrace with girlfriend, Thomas, as they’re flanked by riot police Wednesday night.

“She had actually been injured,” Brett Jones told the Star Friday morning from his home in Perth, Australia. “She had been knocked down by a shield” from the riot police.

“He lay down next to her to comfort her. She was crying and he just kissed her to calm her down.”

“How’s that for making love, not war,” astonished dad Brett Jones declared on his Facebook page, telling the world that the famous Romeo in a Vancouver riot picture is his son.

via www.thestar.com

YouTube Account Permanently Disabled - This Means War!

Fucking YouTube! They are my new personal arch-nemesis.

When I woke up today I was a big fan of this service. It's made the world a lot of fun and easy place to share video with each other. 

I went to post a comment today on a video and all of a sudden it says that my account has been permanently disabled.

Why? They won't tell me. I don't know what Steve and I could have done to provoke this. There was no warning. No process. Zilch.

These guys have just earned a place on my most hated tech dip-shits list.

Fuck them!

I looked up the possible reasons for this and the only thing I can figure is that one of the video we uploaded rubbed them the wrong way for some reason. Why not just delete the video in question?

Now we have lost all of our Face/Off videos. Hopefully we can recover some of them and post them somewhere new.

Fuck them!

I had so many video saved in the favourites. I practically cataloged everything I liked and it could anticipate my interests and now....gone!

Fuck them!

Fuck them up their stupid fucking asses!

I sent an appeal to their tech service form. They made sure that I read a form that any complaints that get shot down due to "evidence" could lead to criminal charges against me.

Oh yeah?

Fuck them!

THIS MEANS WAR

I have no idea how I'm going to fight this war. I figured that I should start where I have a voice, being this blog.

The next step is a podcast.

When I tried to troubleshoot this problem this was my favourite quote from the boards:

If you do email them, do not expect any formal answer other than a computer-generated one. YouTube really enjoys boasting that they are a "free public service" -- and they genuinely believe that everything they do is a goodwill gesture -- including ignoring people's emails and valid user comments to their very own blogs.

I hate them so much right now.

Fuck them!