Sunday, July 6, 2008

does age hold the key of life


There is something about the sound of a violin, which renders it the perfect musical instrument to sing the lament of the exiled. The guitar, while a powerful versatile instrument of emotional expression has come to represent, more often than not, a kind of individualism. In this modern age the guitar has also come to be a potent symbol of rebellion and while exiles can be rebellious; it not necessarily rebellion which sends them off the familiar traveled roads of home and heart.

This UK Independent article tells you more about wood density than you probably ever wanted to know but I did find it fascinating to learn what potentially gave the legendary Stradivarius violins their unique sound had more to do with the age of wood density used in their construction. Chalk it up to another hidden virtue of age.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

I bet there were those who wanted Sigourney Weaver to be a host for the alien

In my other blog incarnation, I refused to weigh into the abortion debate. It always seems like such a lose-lose scenario, and rather pointless to wade in the fray - since there are no possible words to change any one’s point of view. This is one of the few issues, which can only be definitively decided on an individual basis and meditated by one’s life experience.

I was pro-choice long before there was any choice, but what a great many on the ‘pro-life’ side forget to address is this; there more than one alleged right to life they should be busy defending. Get as fetus-lish as you want in the posters, get graphic, hand out bloody dolls, coins, or whatever - but understand this - all you have accomplished is to turn any sane or reasonably minded individual against your point of view. Beating up clerks or doctors just paints you as thugs…and bombing clinics is an unforgivable act of urban terrorism and put you squarely on the same side as the Taliban.

On the other hand, it was not until I had carried a fetus to full-term and given birth that I was able to succiantly answer the question; when does life begin? Now I know, but even being able to answer it definitively, seems like a useless kind of thing to know. While I may appreciate the fact that life begins at conception whose right’s trumps whose body? Here is the thing - while I can appreciate the miracle of being - I would not willingly force or compel any female to carry a fetus to term against her will since the physical well-being of that fetus is entirely dependent on the level of physical care exercised by the host-female.

Years ago, a Toronto Star columnist, (I believe it was Rosie Di-Manno) wrote a column lamenting the fact a woman had 17 abortions and counting. Di-Manno is probably as pro-choice as one could get, but even for her, this woman’s actions were well over the bounds of civilized behaviour. I always thought she had it wrong. The more willingly a woman is to use abortion as a form of birth control shows absolutely her general unfitness for even being a surrogate mother to a child who would, at best, be destined to be adopted at birth.

And in the pro-life camp, I would like to ask; how far are you willing to go to restrain me from having an abortion if I deemed it is necessary? Will you bind my hands and feet to keep me from reaching for a coat hanger or a knitting needle? Does that sound too extreme? I would remind you of the time when the law of the land criminalized abortion and literally thousands of women preferred to risk jail and gamble on death rather than give birth.

Ask yourself – how far will are you really prepared to go? Will you be satisfied if you jail and make me a criminal because I refuse to become a host for another human? This is the path of the Handmaiden’s Tale and I will not let you lead me, my daughter, or even her daughter, there without a fight. Know this, I am not shy to shed much blood protecting my right to my own person or my liberty. Instead, I suggest you content yourself with imagining me and my sisteshold’s eternal damnation in the world to come.

When I first heard the Order of Canada was to be bestowed upon Dr. Henry Morgentaler, I was shocked, and thought - egad an abortionist has been awarded the Order of Canada. Why would the committee award the honour to someone who divides us??? Since then, I have a chance to read the papers and both pro & choice blogs, but mostly, it has caused me to reflect what life was like before Dr. Morgentaler fought the government and won. Well, he might divide us, but no woman in this country is driven in despair to reach for a coat-hanger or knitting needle again, and in my mind, for that fact alone, he deserves it, and my freedom demands it.

And for those of you who think, Dr. Morgentaler a common murderer and criminal, I ask you this; why does the expression and fulfillment of your value system demand a ‘woman’ give way to the despair of the coat hanger?

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Out of many people, comes one nation

Goes one of my nations' mottos. If you are reading this there is a probably chance you think I am referring to either the United States or the very multi-cultural Canada but you would be wrong. Although, the motto could work with either country it is neither country’s motto and actually belongs to Jamaica – my other homeland. I have officially two, and unofficially; there is a third. Canada is where I was born and where I currently live, but Jamaica is my adopted homeland.

Jamaica is a funny kind of place and ignites passions. You either love it or you hate it, but once visited, you are never indifferent. There is a certain kind of cache about being a Jamaican. Sometimes being a Jamaican is a curse, as when others use your nationality in vain and attempt to damn you with all the evils of the world. And then there are times when it is nothing but a blessing; like when the kindness of strangers eases your way.

I can not count the times when I have went through my outside door and joined the maddening throng on the street only to catch the sounds of a fake Jamaican accent and patois used as an every day kind of voice among groups of young people. Among African teenage boys, being Jamaican has a kind of ultra coolness and a street cred, which I suppose being Somalian or Congolese in origin does not possess – yet.

Although, any Jamaican looking at these boys knows they are not Jamaican, and not just because they lack the sing song quality or the proper pitch of their accents, which Jamaicans possess, but because the heart of Africa is still etched cleanly in their faces and in their limbs. Jamaicans, on the other hand, are a homemade soup kind of place. There is no purity of blood and limb but only heart. I remember reading that Bob Marley was the most recognized black man among all Africans people and smiling to myself because Bob’s father was a white man. Jamaicans know this and think nothing of it. So stories like this one from the BBC do not even get my eye to twitch.
Most wrestling fans have never heard of the West African country, so the wrestling body decided fight fans would be more likely to embrace a wrestler from the land of Bob Marley and reggae music. And so desperate is Sarkodie-Mensah to become wrestling's next superstar, he is willing to deny who he is.

"I was actually born in Jamaica - to be honest with a name like Kofi a lot of people assume I was born in Ghana," he says with a bad Jamaican accent, but doing his best to stay in character.

But though he denies it, his mother Elizabeth - the head of a Ghanaian-American organisation in the US - confirms that he was indeed born in Ghana, and not in Jamaica. The family only moved to the US in 1982. "I told him: 'Kofi, your cousins watch you on TV in Ghana and want to know why you don't say you're from Ghana,'" she says. "He said: 'Tell them it is business.'"

It certainly is business. After he discovered his mother had revealed his secret identity to the press, Sarkodie-Mensah banned her and the rest of his family from speaking to the media, for fear of compromising his career.
One love, and all of that.