01:42 pm - if you dream of buffalo; if you dream of thunderbirds
Musique actuelle: doris day - 'everybody loves a lover'
The Federal Court has ordered Canada's refugee board to take another look at an American deserter's failed refugee claim.
In a ruling issued today, the court found the board had made a mistake in turning down Joshua Key's bid for asylum.
The court found that a someone who refuses to take part in military action which "systematically degrades, abuses or humiliates" combatants or non-combatants might qualify as a refugee.
The court also found that the board should hear evidence on whether deserters like Key can rely on the American government to treat them fairly.
Key served as a combat engineer for eight months in Iraq 2003, where he says he was involved in, or witnessed soldiers, committing savage acts against civilians.
While on leave in November 2003, the deeply troubled Oklahoman father of four decided he could not return to Iraq and fled to Canada.
source
i know he signed up knowing there was a war a-fighting and i know it's a bit late to have regrets when one is in the middle of a war, but i'm all for letting the guy stay. there are consequences for desertion, definitely; it seems to me that he paid that price when he watched/helped in the torture of civilians. how much he helped concerns me, though.
the comment questioning the government's resolve to treat folks who develop conscientious objections fairly was rather interesting.
the bloor's july schedule. specifically: labyrinth is playing a matinee show july 19-20. mark your calendars in pen. also, it might be fun to see 12 monkeys again on wednesday?
bonne 400e anniversaire, ville de québec!
ironically, my parents took my brothers last year for a visit, meaning they are avoiding the big party this year. they also spent a few days trekking around where my mum grew up before heading south to montreal. this year, instead, they're finally coming back to visit toronto.
also! i stopped chickening out about the hill near our new place and biked to work this morning. the hill was stink city, but biking along college was actually alright.
1. bravo dr morgentaler for winning the order of canada. dr morgentaler keeps fighting to ensure that women in all provinces continue to have the right to a safe abortion. he's 85 years-old and still running strong. and thanks ms governor-general for continuing to support the message that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation - being a good canadian means accepting that the needs of others might not mesh with your needs. abortions for everyone who needs one and none for everyone who doesn't, okay?
2. i got to sit in on my first animal care review board hearing. this meant roadtripping to mississauga with my almost-boss mike this morning, which meant eating vegan chocolate chip cookies and discussing why neither of us cares for michael bryant. a nutcase woman was appealing the removal of her alledgedly beloved pet dog; her lawyer was a showboat who kept leaping to his feet to make dramatic objections to the ospca testimony. the agent involved in the case is the semi-notorious agent smith (no, not that guy) - he's the one who rescued a dog stuck in its owner's car last summer, staked out the car and then handcuffed the dog's owner upon his return. humane society investigators don't have handcuffs as a part of their uniform, it turns out. agent smith was a bit of a maverick in this case too, hopping the owner's back fence when he became certain the dog was in danger. to be fair, agent smith's claims (supported by 32 colour photos) show a dog living in squalor in the basement and backyard: faeces all around; urine soaked blanket in its cage; rusty nails; broken glass; rusty rakes (??); open cans of turpentine; a bomb in the corner (???); lack of animal food or a water dish for the dog in the house. a vet confirmed via affidavit that the animal was malnourished and dehydrated, with untreated open wounds. the vet's cv was entered as supporting evidence to clarify her history in animal care, causing the appellant's lawyer to object (with exclamation marks) on grounds that the cv is hearsay, although it was ruled admissible nonetheless. mike and i had to go back to our real jobs after this, meaning that i missed the part where the dog's owner's group of witnesses were going to testify who knows what, but i could kinda see where things were going. my next week's job is going to be glorious.
3. also, i have three interviews next week, but i think i'm a-gonna drop one of them. two are economist interviews, the other to be a programme analyst for a programme i don't understand. i wish the animal welfare job could last longer than six months, or else i wouldn't have to stay in practice.
4. jenny came over for supper tonight. adam made chili and spicy rice and we wrapped it all up in fresh tortillas i picked up in kensington on my walk home ($1.75 for 1/2 pound / about 20 tortillas). lots of love, toronto.
wall-e broke my heart. adam held my hand and was a good sport when i wiped my face on his sleeve.
and i agree with phil: wonder how the merchandise is going to sell when a good chunk of the movie is devoted to demonising frivolous consumption. we will all purchase gumption and dancing shoes?
earlier, bev came over for soup (spicy chickpea, made in a panic and it perhaps was over-paprika-ed) and gossip and to admire our new place. man, our place can keep secrets - if i'm in the kitchen, i can't hear adam practicing his guitar in the study, even with all doors open in between.
here are things:
adam and i took the queen st streetcar past where queen turns into the queensway. then, unexpectedly, it turns out that the queen streetcar heads south off the queensway, past the kingsway and onto the lakeshore. the view is lovely, but this is not so great if you are trying to get to the ikea at kipling and the queensway in west-end etobicoke. we were fine, thanks to the directions from the kipling bus driver. we bought house stuff and had it delivered, when the alternative was taking jeremy c up on his offer of driving us to the north york ikea next week, with a rider attached to this plan that we would have to stick around for supper at my grandmother's.
the benno cd tower didn't come with instructions, but i've built enough billy bookshelves to figure it out lickety-split. the bathroom cabinet is missing a piece for the door, and that is a giant pain. adam allen-keyed up the bedside table, dresser and kitchen pantry while i was running around doing other stuff.
other stuff includes a dinner party at jeanette's on saturday, and brunch with ms rosalie, noah and jeremy t in car-free kensington yesterday. suddenly, i'm all about toronto again.
we painted the living room yesterday, and i made the best spaghetti sauce i've made in ages to celebrate. sundried tomatoes and roasted garlic and fresh basil from the kitchen's basil plant, and i don't remember what else. we finished up season three of the wire and i went for a walk around the neighbourhood. it was a pretty great weekend. it'll be a pretty great few days too, as i took today off work to maximise relaxation times.
in moving to mars news: turns out the soil on mars will probably be great for growing asparagus and green beans. this report is good enough for me. the future is nowish.
also, after a full year of test-based grading, suddenly i have to write a research report for my labour economics class. my plan is to phone up harald and michael, ask what they've been working on lately, grab their marketing booklets, and condense that information down to 6-8 pages. odds are solid my subject will either be a report on oshawa post-GM or how ontario plans to get rich by declaring the alberta oil sands as ours.
i'm finally having normal dreams again.
1. adam found my phone charger! adam's new title is Brains of the Operation.
2. i made hummus this morning in a rush, throwing in flax seed oil and chives with the garlic and chickpeas. it turned out better than expected. man alive, i love a good slice of rye bread.
3. work today has gone better than expected, mostly because my buddy e. decided that if if i'm leaving then she is going to make a run for it too. entirely practical; the staff ratio of full-out crazy:decent folks is reaching critical levels.
nuts! now i've lost my phone charger. unpacking is even messier than packing.
final exam tonight, following which my seven days of awful will officially be over. i'll go back to work tomorrow for my last seven days in corrections, and then start of a much more pleasant summer.
the movers - MIRACLE MOVERS - were the WORST MOVERS yet. they stood around and did not move things (which, face facts, folks, is pretty much their entire job description) and they tried to broker a $600 flat rate to move a one bedroom apartment less than 10km away. stewart, becky and i agreed last night that el cheapo movers might be a bunch of drunks, but they send the most consistently fast and cheap movers and we are wrong to ever try and get away from them. in fact, the only reason i didn't get el cheapo movers was because it took them too long to get back to me, and i panicked and went with someone else. my bad, el cheapo. miracle movers were so bad that our landlord loudly made fun of their atrociousness when he dropped by to pick up my keys, and told them he would never recommend them to any of his other tenants, providing one brief bright spot in the move. the movers were so bad that i phoned jeremy c to come and yell at them for me - because jeremy always loves to yell at people, mostly regarding how he is going to sue them for some reason or another - and he said he'd be by in half an hour. forty-five minutes later, he called back to say he'd thought it through, and decided i really need to learn how to stand up for myself. adam and i got firm. the move ended up taking less than 3 hours (two hours spent loading up our old place, though) and cost $200 less than the flat rate "deal", which is what i expected to pay in the first place. it was awful. jeremy c phoned back again to check up on us, and told me i'd had a character building experience. thanks dad from calvin and hobbes.
everything went better after that, though. my eye is still wonky, but in better shape than friday. handsome adam and i went out for supper to musa, on dundas at palmerston, because i half-remembered two suppers there with becky where there were great falafels involved. they still have great falafels. then one streetcar ride over to rose&noah's for dana's birthday party, which was all sorts of fun, and then home early to bed.
today is for cleaning and unpacking and studying.
bless the germans for beating portugal; we move to little portugal tomorrow and the timing could not be better. bless my hr rep for writing me a letter on office stationary, making the letter an official government document which i used to get my new health card about twenty minutes ago (my wallet is still missing without leave). bless me because my eye sploded around lunchtime. i took my right contact out immediately after lunch and i'm back with the sunglasses inside, but things are still dodgy (and, you know, blurry and light averse). some of you might remember when this happened last time and i was half-blind for about two months. i hope it doesn't come to that, and i'm a bit down about having my new health card photo include me with my david bowied eyes.
here's hoping everything clears up after the move and finals and i start my new job.
i got the job! i start july 7th! policy analyst working in animal welfare, upstairs on the 12th floor (animal welfare falls under public safety?). by second interview, my new manager meant he was going to give me the job and tell me i should accept it and chat about my new responsibilities for an hour and invite me to attend an animal care review board meeting the week before i'm supposed to start. my new manager is a nervous older jewish man with a tendency to wear brown; my first interview consisted mainly of discussing how we both play the bass and ride bicycles to work and dislike many of the same politicians.
this new job sounds busy and wonderful. potential flaws: it's only a six-month contract for now, mostly to draft regulations for the new bill to strengthen anti-animal cruelty legislation. six-month contracts mean spending at least the last half of my term running around applying for new jobs. plus, if the work is busy, i can't spend all day studying for final exams, as i have done today. nonetheless!
my buddy dan got one of these tickets yesterday morning. $110 for not stopping at a streetcar, plus a threat of another $110 because his bike doesn't have a bell (or, it turns out, a front light, but that was apparently not mentioned).
me: you didn't stop for a streetcar??
dan: the lady had already got on! the doors hadn't closed yet, but i wasn't in anyone's way.
me: maybe you intimidated other people from getting on with your vicious bicycleness!
dan: i'm pretty sure i didn't!
i'm not entirely sympathetic - dan should have known better regarding the streetcar, but the bit about facing fines for not having a bell sounds fishy. i don't care for bikers being picked on, as per the tone of the link above, but i'm pretty alright with making folks learn how to stop being maniacs on the road. and i'm glad folks who bike on sidewalks are getting ticketed; lordy, sidewalks aren't for fancy walking. i do wish jerks in cars who drive in the bike lane were being targetted as well, though.
in better news: this weekend is the bike film festival! valet parking provided by the toronto cyclists union! i want to check it out, but i'm also moving and studying for finals and unpacking and attending a bbq and generally a bit busy already.
in planning ahead news:
* dara spilled the beans on what she plans to get me for my birthday in 2010; now what am i going to get for her?!
* we have committed to starting a band when dara moves back to toronto in january; we will be the jessica fletchers.
adam has packed almost all of the living room and has moved on to the kitchen. this is good because i have reached the point in the moving sads where i can't deal with boxes anymore, and instead buried my head in kitchen confidential when i came home from class.
the anticipation is killing me!
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album of the week: 
can't find my wallet!
garage sale cancelled due to rain! grandma's participation in tomorrow's pre-move cancelled thanks to stealth conversation moves coached by my mum (i.e. 'i'm looking forward to moving in to our new place next week! then we can invite you over for tea!' repeated over and over until the final plan was clear to all). adam b's party attended for a bit, thanks to bev's encouragement that i can have it all! bev found me a book of perhaps facts in vancouver, and she has a vancouver umbrella that must be referred to as the vancouver umbrella from vancouver, and i am so glad she is back.
i do like that liam, who still hides in the corners at adam b's parties and mumbles things and bursts out laughing during stories because he is thinking about something else. the first time i met him, about three years ago, i didn't know what to say to that guy, and thus tried to pick his brain on what he thinks of vincent d'onofrio. he perked up and insisted that guy's best role was as thor in adventures in babysitting. that might actually be his best role. anyway, he and i left early at the same time because he had to work today and i have a dramatic week to start, but then we split apart because i wanted to walk to the subway and he wanted to get home.
i always liked you, howard hampton.
okay! jeremy c is killing me loudly. he agreed to help us move breakables and set up my bed on sunday, but now he's invited my grandma as well. what?! this is not a social event, sir, this is a moving errand. plus, how will we have room in the car, with jeremy, eric, adam, my grandmother and myself, for any of our crap?? so i need to gently explain things tonight over supper. he also wanted me to attend a supper on monday night, his birthday, but i have class. adam got the giggles when i mentioned this yesterday, though, because jeremy invited us to his birthday supper four months ago, and then i forgot. similarly, he has invited adam and i on a trip to bermuda in february 2010. i told him i might have midterms that week, to be determined. odds are on i will forget about this too until he springs it on us two weeks beforehand.
i am worked up and huffy that i will maybe end up having to forego adam b's party tonight.
yesterday was horrible: 15 missed phone calls from our current landlord because he is a nutcase and unnecessary phone calls from jeremy c and a really boring class on inflation and i have not packed enough boxes but adam has not packed any boxes yet and i got lupus face and my blood is no good.
things got better. after class, adam rubbed my back, and we watched the last episode of the wire's season 2 while eating popsicles. i had nice dreams. i have a new shirt and i look even lovelier than usual in it.
today is not so bad: an okay interview! i am getting interviews for jobs i want! now i just need to get the jobs i want. a pleasant lunch for lindsay, who is leaving our office. i did respectable work on my Q1 budgets. less lupus face, less stressed out about the move.
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