Dear goddess of cats.

There are no words to describe the level of offensiveness (racism, sexism, homophobia, internalized oppression), shallowness (I’m not even a 20-something and I’m offended and horrified at the way this age group is being represented) and just plain idiocy that this show is depicting.

Yeah, Canada is clearly as bad as the U.S. in terms of mass market television. How lovely. No more “The Littlest Hobo” for us.

Lake Shore: Toronto’s multi-culti offensive version of “Jersey Shores”.

Watch the 8 minute clip, but don’t blame me for that time you’ll never have back again.

P.S. For fear of being known as a nerd forever, I miss Little Mosque on the Prairie. There, I said it.

P.P.S. The show is set in Toronto. None of the kids in the show are actually from Toronto, however. They’re all the suburban brats that we real downtown types hate, because they come into the city and go to the Loose Moose and think they’ve done something. Ha. Ok, except maybe Salem, who if I had to pick, would be my favourite.

1. See November 1 blog posting
2. “
3. “
4. People who don’t understand sexism, and argue about it, thinking they have a point and really they’re just yammering bullshit.
5. People who don’t understand racism, and argue about it, thinking they have a point and really they’re just yammering bullshit.
6. People who don’t get homophobia  ”    ”    ”
7. People who don’t understand poor bashing ”  ”  ”
8. People who don’t understand how oppression works, that it isn’t the acts of individual “bad people” but that people are enacting, and interacting with systems and institutions of oppression that work together in a supposedly seamless slam of power and privilege. And that we all fit into that system of privilege, and that it suits our needs to hide from our privilege to deny it when it’s pointed out to us.

This will, I’m sure, be continued.

Pride Toronto doesn’t like the phrase “Israeli Apartheid”.

Well, maybe that’s not true.

But funders of Pride Toronto (namely, the City of Toronto) and key corporate sponsors of Pride Toronto, definitely don’t like the phrase “”Israeli Apartheid”.

This phrase has been described as “hateful” and as contravening the City’s anti-discrimination policy and as making some community members feel “uncomfortable”.

Excuse me while I scratch my head, then pound it on my desk.

The phrase, not identifying any person or group of people, but speaking to a governmental policy and ideology is not hateful toward Jews, Israelis, or even Zionists. Because of that, it doesn’t in any way contravene the City of Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy, abiding by which is part of the agreement of accepting City money.

So first, Pride Toronto tried to ban the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from marching in the Pride Parade this year. This didn’t work because like all smart grassroots activists, they aren’t an “official” group. The name isn’t registered anywhere, and nobody is “on the hook” at QuAIA to funders or anyone else.

The next move is to ban the use of the phrase Israeli Apartheid.

Wrong move.

At a press conference this morning, 23 people who have been honoured in the past and in the current year by Pride (Grand Marshall, Honorary Dyke and other awards) returned their awards with words of sadness, regret and shame, that Pride Toronto has become a censoring body in the face of corporate and government funders. All indicated that they would be proud to take back their awards if Pride Toronto rescinded the ban on the phrase Israeli Apartheid.

The list of refuseniks, as Elle Flanders, moderator of the press conference, referred to them:

Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon Fail  Amazon Fail  Amazon Fail  Amazon Fail  Amazon Fail  Amazon Fail  

This is all over Facebook, my favourite blogs, and sites with book lovers everywhere. Amazon, the USian online bookseller that has put many independent bookstores out of business has decided to mark books with positive queer content as “adult” and has therefore stripped such books of their “ranking” as well as their coming up on general searches. The following sites give more detail into what Amazon has been doing, since February apparently, but  it looks like a huge push was done this past long weekend while they thought nobody was looking.

Post at jezebel.com

The Angry Black Woman

Mark Probst

First they said it was a new policy to remove all books with “adult content” in this manner, meaning nudity and expressions of sexuality. But when “Heather Has Two Mommies” is placed on the list to have their ranking removed, and “A Parent’s Guide To Preventing Homosexuality” and “The Professional Bachelor Dating Guide: How To Exploit Her Inner Psycho” remain untouched, it’s fair to say that a homophobic agenda is going on.

Nudity of the homo kind is generally, but not exclusively, deleted. Nudity of the heterosexual kind mostly stays, but some is deleted. My theory is that staff were given a memo describing which books were “in” and which were “out”. But like all political agendas, had many holes in the logic and the applied theory. The word “homosexuality” is okay only if accompanied by “curing” or “fixing” or “OMG it’s a disaster!!!” Otherwise, chuck it. I’d also like to think that members of the secret group, the Homosexual Underground Liberation Front, many of whom are employed by such corporations, were in action during this work blitz this past weekend.

After being challenged on their first position, Amazon spokespeople now claim it was a glitch. See, now you’re just lying stupid. You should have stuck to your original retro-position, it might have gained you supporters in the homophobic community, a demographic you seem to be very much in favour of expanding.  

In the Jezebel article above, she notes that typing in “homosexuality” into the amazon search engine now reveals books such as “A Parent’s Guide To Preventing Homosexuality” and others which are on the topic of “curing” or “fixing” homosexuality, especially regarding your child if they’ve just come out to you.

Despicable.

[Edit. It seems that a search today, Mon April 13, reveals more queer-friendly books, if not slightly dull and academic. Maybe they're watching this unfold and paying attention. Nothing like the potential threat of an internet-wide boycott to get a corporation's attention. Money still is the bottom line. Can we please remember this?]

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I’m not and have never been a fan of amazon, Crapters/Indiblow or Bunns and Noodles (hey has anyone checked how Alison Bechdel’s books have fared?). Why? Because they are a corporate entity, that goes by the bottom line first (even in it’s first few years when it was hemorrhaging money). They have put hundreds, if not thousands of independent bookstores out of business across the US and Canada with their deep discounts, large square footage and McService. Even though that’s an old argument that many of you have heard me make many times over the years, it’s still true today. And it’s worse. Some were fooled by the Crapters/IndiBlow “sections” on queer theory and women’s studies. Really? A few shelves? Those books would not have come into existence, including the fringe publishers that were developed, were it not for independent and specialty bookstores. Never trust a corporation. Especially with books! For the love of cats, books FFS! Information! And books on coming out, books on “am I normal to feel this way?” typed in by some confused teen or child whose only access to this information is the internet??

So I won’t say “I told you so”.

But I will say: DON’T BUY BOOKS FROM ANY OF THOSE BASTARDS!!! EVER!!!

P.S. Just for fun I looked up the one book in which I have a chapter published. It’s been removed from the ranking system, but given the title it’s hardly a surprise.

With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn edited by Amber Dawn and Trish Kelly, published by fabulous Arsenal Pulp Press, based in Vancouver:  

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=with+a+rough+tongue&x=0&y=0 

P.P.S. Books on my shelves, by rocking queer women I know, which have been removed:

Tamai Kobayashi: Quixotic Erotic, Exile and the Heart

 Alison Bechdel: Indelible Dykes to Watch Out For, all the smaller comic books from earlier years such as Carbon Based Dykes to Watch Out For, Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For

 ..interestingly, Bechdel’s new collection The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For still has a ranking. I wonder if books that are over 10,000 or some other arbitrary number, get to keep their ranking, since to some extent such books are making money. Others, well, they can fuck off can’t they? 

 ..and, just showing what goes on when an authors gets on the “homo” list, Bechdel’s grim biography Fun Home is off the ranking list.

..due to perhaps having small sales, being Canadian and having titles that don’t immediately indicate their queer content or the “bent” of the author, off the radar so far is: Elizabeth Ruth, Dionne Brand, Shyam Selvadurai, Wayson Choy.

 Support independent bookstores!! Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!! Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!  Support independent bookstores!!!!!!