As Fort McMurray burns from an out of control wild fire, forcing the evacuation of some ninety thousand people, fleeing here and there to escape the inferno, is it now time to address Global Warming? In fact, I think it is a very bad time to get into that whole kettle of dead, smelly, stinky fish. For a number of reasons, first, Al Gore claimed that “The science is settled.” on this end of the world apocalypse as we know it theory. In fact, at no point is any piece of science ever settled. But just like one does not swear in a church, bring up such a contentious issue has a better time and place then over the smolder ruins of  what used to be a city. The problem being is that Global Warming is not a strictly speaking scientific debate. It has no real standards to compare itself to or what measure to go by. All science is based on study of events in repetition. So I drop the ball and measure it. I do this a thousand times I can measure the acceleration of gravity. Global Warming is a singular event, happening right now. Scientist point to previous events that may show similarities to our modern event, but over what length or period time do we compare it with, how many years, century, or millennium, do we compare this present period with or to? For example, it seems to me that winter is coming about a month later and November and December are not as cold as they used to be. April is frightfully cold the last few years, at least 3 or 4 of them. Is this my subjective view point, or will time passing bear out a shifting of our seasons? Did I detect climate change? Or is that just another example of uncertainty on what time period or term we can use in our understanding of climate change? No agreement on any definition, boundary or timeline exists in the literature even from the scientists who claim Global Warming to be fact. Yet Fort McMurray continues to burn into the long cold night.

On the other side of this debate are the irrationalists; who claim that science is nothing, evolution is not even a theory and that the only work to be trusted is the Bible. They discount the global warming claims not for valid scientific reasons but because they don’t understand anything to do with the scientific method. (Do not pat yourself on the back if you do support the Global Warming hypotheses, you have Al Gore and his religious view of the settled science involved.) Thus we have two distinct sides with strong differences and yet strangely enough, Fort McMurray continues to burn with neither side offering us any solution or even a way to help those unfortunate victims. To which I say, they are both wrong, we need a new third alternative. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies a mass of plastic bottles the size of Texas that by 2050 is expect to grow so that there will be one bottle for every fish in the seas. For all the global warming debate, can we not agree that somehow this is not a good thing and that someone should clean up this mess? Stop adding to this mess, and find a lasting solution to this mess? We can start by agreeing that this is a mess that something needs to be done to fix it.

In the case of Fort McMurray, the cause of this fire; be it a lightning strike or a dropped cigarette, a camp fire not extinguished properly, the cause is not global warming. It is human. The disaster is compound not by climate change, but by a city government that allowed for a river to act as their only fire break, thinking the roaring flames will never jump over the cool water, until they did in May of 2016. See, I don’t need to call upon God to accept responsibility for this disaster. Nor do I need to scream Global Warming or Climate change as if the fault could be so easily assigned. No, the problem is human error and only humans can fix it. A fire break would cost the city money. So much money that they cannot afford it… How much will it cost to rebuild the whole city after fire destroyed it? I am betting that it would have been cheaper to have a fire break. Just a guess mind you, but I stand behind it. I am also betting that the new city will have a fire break and the budget to maintain it each year. Thus I say to you, we need not accept the religious element of either side. I don’t know and I don’t care if Global Warming had anything to do with this, I do know that Fort McMurray continues to burn and someone has to put that fire out. Abstract theories need not apply. So for the bottom line, Climate Change or Global Warming or its polar opposite the deniers need to both step aside, they are doing no good.  Not knowing the answer to some abstract Cause Belli won’t put out the fire at Fort McMurray, nor will they pick up an empty plastic bottle. We will put out the fire there, not to prevent Global Warming but to save communities. We pick up the plastic bottle not because leaving it causes Climate Change but because we may need to drink that water, or eat of the fish that live in that ocean. The third path is to have real reasons, to deal with real issues to find real solutions. Leave the abstract world to its own eternal debate. Grab a water hose and help fight the real fire.

But I am countered by the notion that if we could find the cause of the dry weather then we could eliminate the problems altogether. To which I say, that this is silly. Fort McMurray burns by human error in protecting the city with a large enough fire breaks. Forest fires will happen no matter what you think about the science of climate. They will not stop even if we had a complete picture of the environmental change which we at present do not have. The question is to make sure Fort McMurray’s disaster won’t happen again. I can get near universal agreement on making the next city have fire breaks that are larger and more effective. I cannot find any agreement on Climate change, nor upon what to do about it. More study is needed to find a smoking gun. No study is needed to see we have to protect out cities with better security, fire breaks and political will to make sure they are respected.

To Donate to the Red Cross to help out the victims of Fort McMurray, donations are being matched by both the Federal and Alberta Governments.

http://www.redcross.ca/

Thanks for reading!

This gift keeps on giving…

In my recent blog, I posted about North Carolina and their law banning transgender people from going to their self selected bathroom, forcing them instead to the bathroom of their biological identity. In reaction, many videos have surfaced showing the results of this open display of ignorance at best and sheer discrimination at worst. I would like to review three of them that caught my eye. First video (Linked below), taken in December, (2015?) surfaced showing police demanding identification from a lesbian woman deemed by said police to be not worthy of being female based on her looks, to being allowed into a female bathroom. When she refused, not having any, she is escorted out of the bathroom, insultingly called “Sir” by the police. (Who carried ID to the bathroom?)Now we can see future fall out, women will need to carry and show ID to law enforcement be allowed into bathrooms. Those without will be removed as a danger to society. Luckily, and surprisingly, no lasting damage or assault by the self righteous police officer was done even as they were rough in their handling of her for attempting to illegally pee… Wait, I am sure that there will be forthcoming future assaults. But things get worse.

We turn to our second video, where a black man, who sounded on the video to be foreign, perhaps poor sound quality, made me think he was African? Hence, my use of his racial identity in this description. Specifically, my thought was he sounded foreign? Maybe he is from Uganda; the country that outlawed being Homosexual by putting them to death, and thereby explaining why he was so hyper alert? In any case, this man follows a woman into the bathroom because he felt she was not female enough. So we may see in such a short time, what an accomplishment this new law in South Carolina has done. Not only does it bar transgender from using the bathrooms, but we may now morally discriminate against women born as women, using the women’s bathroom, if we self select that they are not feminine enough for out liking, even to the point where police can now throw them out for such offending individuals and call them “Sir” just to be on the safe side from any potential lawsuit or other legal ramifications if they fail to produce gender identification sufficient to police.

Our last video, to which I will not link; for any publicity might earn him YouTube money, is I would have hoped inspired by bad comedy, long since past any point of being humorous.  A bad joke doing in an attempt to make light of this clearly outrageous law… I seem to recall a similar skit from the Garry Shandling show, “The Larry Sander’s Show”going along the same lines but I could be wrong as it was so long ago. (And one of the actors now plays a transgender person on HBO series.) In any case, a man does a “social experiment” to see just what happens when a male enters a female bathroom, much to amusement of viewers? So wearing a dress, makeup and a wig, cameras rolling, he enters a female bathroom. Only to be told to leave repeatedly by different women, even as he explained that he was transgender and just trying to use the washroom. One can see the comedy potential here right? The thing I forgot to mention? He had a full beard, a face full of facial hair. Haw haw, yuck yuck. Clearly this is comedy right? The saddest part of all? Is that this is not the comedy channel but a serious political commentary. This guy actually thinks this is his exposing the transgender “lies” for what they are. Showing the justification for such a law and why it is needed. As if a man transiting to female would not shave, or a female transiting to male would wear wigs, dresses and makeup with a beard. Yet this is the level of sophistication for the supporter of the anti transgender bathroom law from North Carolina. Is it any wonder why this law gives rise to a new level of hatred toward anyone differing from normative values of self imposed white male politicians? This law not only allows for open discrimination against Trans people, it now allows for misogyny to show open contempt for women and misogynists be openly critical or women’s dress habits, even up to police intervention. Recall in the first video, how the police called the lady “Sir” to further humiliate and demean her and her sex. She is not following their normative in wear, or makeup and thus must harassed, humiliated and treated like a criminal, all for going to the bathroom. This is the real legacy of North Carolina. Congratulations; this is surely something to be proud of! In one foul (sic) swoop, not only do they demean a minority group, they put all women on notice, there is now a bathroom dress code. And the Police are now ready to enforce it. But they now have opened the door to outright hostility towards anyone not living up to the expectations of what a woman should wear and look like.

Lesbian evicted from bathroom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVuHAS2CtUM

Women’s Bathroom Patrolled by man

North Carolina deserves a note of thanks! Not for passing a discriminatory bill against transgender people but for opening that whole discussion to the national political stage and international reflection. We can ask ourselves just what is their problem with regulating bathrooms in the South? You would think they would have better things to do? I think this is a happy time! It really is. Look at the history of discrimination in the South. First there was Slavery. This caused the American Civil War and when civil rights won out, Amendments were made to the constitution. The result was Jim Crow laws. Complete with separate bathrooms, separate but equal no doubt. The answer was civil right legislation. Being unable to discriminate against blacks any more, they switch to gays and lesbians. Again the Supreme Court crushed there laws on discrimination. So now they are reduced to regulating who stand up to pee and who sits down? Perhaps we should simple rename this as #pee-gate.

Being transgender is not simply guys dressing in drag. It is a lot more involved and a lot more complicated. Starting at a very young age, perhaps before the age of 2, GTM, Girls to Men, MTG, Men to Girls, before they can even think of themselves as having a sexual identity, start to act out in such a way as to portray themselves as the opposite of social norms society has assigned for their biological gender. Thus when they can articulate for themselves, they will assert they are in fact in opposition to that biological destiny assigned by society. They will think of themselves as the other sex and act accordingly. Thus leading to a lifetime of conflict with social normative views and sadly being outcasts from what we expect a little boy or little girl to be and to act. Thus growing up, they struggle with the overwhelming message sent by society to behave according to script on the one hand and yet their inner need to be true to themselves. Nietzsche, perhaps out of context did offer the answer. “Become who you are.” Today, we live in a more open and understanding society, North Carolina notwithstanding, that people who are transgender are given a more accepting and welcoming transition. Laws are still need to be enacted and amended in order to ensure the safety and protection from discrimination for transgender people. But as with the Stonewall Riots that forced society to confront the lesbian and gay community. North Carolina will force society to now confront transgender people. This is why North Carolina has done a good thing, they play the villain as we are forced to confront such outrageous hatred in the 21 st century. In the end, we can and will pass laws to protect these vulnerable members of society.

The reason why people can think that Transgender are some sort of pervert waiting to rape little girls in bathrooms, (seemingly rape, molestation and assault are still against the law in North Carolina? What need is there to add another law on top of those, if not to merely discriminate against an undefined but clearly in need of protection minority group?) is because they do not know who or what a transgender person is. In order to help you, and myself, I went to YouTube to find transgender peoples who could explain who they are in their own words. I don’t think you need agree with everything they say, or even find all their content to be universally enjoyable, to find that after only a few minutes watching that these ladies are smart, articulate and above all else, human beings worthy of our respect and admiration for showing the straight world who they are but also granting us a view with these small slice of their world.

Be they smart, funny or beautiful, they do not ask your permission to be who they are, they, in the immortal words of Marin Luther King, “They shall overcome!”

Maya

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf0CRezZYOUcvqrdMmozowQ

Brittney Kade

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcKor6He5ZbTUYlvNntcEmw

PRINCESSJOULES

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT9lRRTBWIqMIfVgSyfsg7Q

The Israeli settlement issue is against international law?  Or so it is claimed. But is it? The first thing to understand is what is happening on the ground. In Israel, they are building housing for their growing population. Those units are being built on land that is of disputed ownership. As such, under UN resolution 446, 465, and the Fourth Geneva Convention, those settlements are illegal. Here is the law as it applies to the matter at hand and as such, black and white, those settlements are illegal. Plain and simple. Except you may have guessed Israel disagrees. So what? Who cares? They are biased and cannot be expected to have any other opinion. As such, they do not count. Except in international law, their opinion in fact does count. To bring the matter before the International courts, both sovereign states must agree to submit their dispute to the resolution of the International Court. Without the trial, all you have is presumed guilt. Without consent you have no trial. So to settle the matter, Israel is not violation anything international law has proclaimed for in fact no judgement has be issued.

However, by the same logic; Israel having a right to exist under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine has also been soundly ignored, not just by the Palestinians but the Arab world in general. In 2013 Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reiterated that the Palestinian Arabs will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, nor any right to exist as the Jewish state. “Palestinians did not and will not recognize Israel.” One can only then wonder why this point is not made by those claiming that Israel is violation of international law. Before one state can take another state to the international court, by overt action or explicit comment, they must acknowledge that the other has a right to exist, least there is no other party in which to bring suit against in any court. You cannot sue a phantom, you cannot try a ghost. It must include real people, living in a real state that must have the real right to exist.

So no, there is no violation of any international, both by the lack of any such court case, any willingness to bring such a case to a court and lastly, any acknowledgment of the right of the other party to exist. Having said all this, we can thus go forward and say that this issue is a non-issue. The Israelis do not need to make settlements on those lands and should place them elsewhere. This is a lightning rod of for attention that need not necessarily be the case. It offers Israeli’s enemies a soft target to attack that almost sounds legitimate. The real reason they make such settlements on contested land is to stick a thumb in the eyes of those same enemies, showing them, enraging them in some cases, that there is nothing that can be done to stop making those settlements. Until they listen to their better angels, the problem will continue the cycle of violence. The people of Israel and the state itself deserve better representation from their government. Simple as that, something choices are better than others.