Aptenobytes

Saturday Music Dump

♫1♫Ina Meena Dika by Kishore Kumar from the album "The Prodigy (disc 1)"
♫2♫My Place by Edgar from the album "Better Than Chocolate"
♫3♫Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths from the album "Hatful of Hollow"
♫4♫Don't Ask Don't Tell by Bratmobile from the album "Girls Get Busy"
♫5♫Kooler Than Jesus by My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult from the album "Confessions Of A Knife"
♫6♫She Sucks My Soul Away by Atari Teenage Riot from the album "The Future of War"
♫7♫Affection Training by Bratmobile from the album "Ladies, Women And Girls"
♫8♫78 RPM by Stiff Little Fingers from the album "Inflammable Material"
♫9♫Herojuana by NOFX from the album "Pump Up The Valuum"
♫10♫Sonic Reducerby Dead Boys from the album "Young, Loud And Snotty"
♫11♫Impermanence (Gravity remix)by Consolidated from the album "CMJ New Music Monthly, Volume 84: August 2000"
♫12♫Excuse Me Mr.by No Doubt from the album "Boom Box (Limited Edition)"
♫13♫Soylent Grün by :Wumpscut: from the album "Music for a German Tribe"
♫14♫Sacred Cows by Citizen Fish from the album "Active Ingredients"
♫15♫Matamoros Banks by Bruce Springsteen from the album "Devils & Dust"

Friday Cat Blogging

As usual, it's harried and hectic here on a Friday, so here's a quick pick of Lola perusing a magazine at the kitchen table.

Don't forget the Friday Ark, and Sunday's Carnival of the Cats.

Back from Edmonton

Took a trip to Edmonton. We've been hoping to expand the business by opening another store. Looks like I found the right location. We're going to put in a offer to buy a building!

I'm excited and scared at the same time. It's going to be a huge amount of work renovating the building, starting with the storefront, then getting the house behind all sorted out.

I really liked Edmonton. The people seem friendly, and somehow more 'real' than in Calgary. Commercial real estate is also a little more reasonable, as in it isn't fricking insane.

Once the offer is accepted, I'll post more details like where the building is, and what it looks like.

Cool article from Mute magazine

FromMETAMUTE : M29::
Venezuela's 'Bolivarian constitution' contains a unique article (Article 88) recognising women's unwaged work as economically productive. Wages For Housework (WFH) has been fighting for this recognition since 1972, and has participated in the annual Global Women's Strike (GWS) since its inception in 2000. GWS members attended Venezuela's international 'Solidarity Women's Encuentro' in July 2002, and saw women at the heart of the revolution and its social changes. Laura Sullivan spoke to Selma James and Nina Lopez of WFH and GWS

Cool article from a fairly cool magazine.

Carnival of the Cats comes to Aptenobytes...

Welcome to the Aptenobytes version of the Carnival of the Cats. Feel free to wander around and browse the rest of the site. It's been relatively quiet for the last little while, but there are some things in the archives worth exploring, including a lot of pictures of the family cats.

As we all know, cats are natural born anarchists. They do not accept your authority, or anyone else's for that matter.

They have a long history as symbols of anarchism, particularly the black cat, and the wildcat:

So, continue on into today's entries into the Carnival....

Federal daycare program: I'm against *this* version.

Our government has been trying to bring in a national daycare program, and I've been feeling like there's something wrong with me, because I've had a really strong gut reaction against it. I haven't been able to really put my finger on why. Then I read a post by Drublood, and realized what's been bugging me.

My objection to it, is that it is being set up so that we can have more taxpayers, not to help people. The right wingers have a point on this one. By setting it up to expressly not give support to stay at home mothers, it is taking away a choice rather than giving women an option. Right now, women are being put in the impossible position of having to work twice as hard so that they can afford daycare, and rent. The Liberal plan doesn't allow them to choose to work less, and look after their children more.*

What the daycare program being introduced doesn't do is provide women the option of choosing to stay home. I'm not advocating that women should have to stay home and raise children, but I don't like a system that forces women into the workforce at the expense of raising their own children.

We need to figure out a system that allows parents a means to raise their own children in the way that they see fit, without penalizing them for choosing to focus on their career, and without penalizing them for making their family their priority. I'm not sure what that system would look like, but I know that the system currently being set up isn't it.

When you add in that our governments constitution expressly says that this is outside the federal governments purview, this looks more and more like social engineering to force more people into the workforce to pay taxes to the federal government rather than an altruistic endeavour to help women.

1:I know that I'm being sexist by not including the possibility of men staying at home, or talking about single parent households headed by men. Statistically, they are a very small minority, and don't face the same problem of being paid less for the same wage, or having just taken a year off due to pregnancy.. etc. Women ARE in a different position than men, and it is overwhelmingly women who face the difficult choice between prioritizing their work or their families.

Saturday Music Dump

♫1♫We're In The City by Saint Etienne from the album "Places To Visit"
♫2♫bhangra - jazzy b. by DJ Jatt from the album "Punjabi Bhangra Blackout ii"
♫3♫Grounded by The Kickovers from the album "Osaka"
♫4♫Anticipate by Ani DiFranco from the album "Not So Soft"
♫5♫Goodbye Grace by Spirit of the West from the album "Hit Parade"
♫6♫London Calling by The Clash from the album "London Calling (disc 1: Original LP)"
♫7♫Succulent by Bif Naked from the album "Bif Naked"
♫8♫No Sleep Till Belfast by Stiff Little Fingers from the album "Live & Loud"
♫9♫The Model by Kraftwerk from the album "Man Machine"
♫10♫The Science of Selling Yourself Short by Less Than Jake from the album "Anthem"
♫11♫Motorway to Roswell by The Pixies from the album "Trompe le Monde"
♫12♫New Friend (Ft. Buccaneer) by No Doubt from the album "Boom Box (Limited Edition)"
♫13♫Fight Like a Brave by Red Hot Chili Peppers from the album "The Best of Red Hot Chili Peppers"
♫14♫I'm A Hellcat by Nekromantix from the album "Return Of The Loving Dead"
♫15♫Temple Tactics by KRS-One from the album "Fat Beats Volume 1"

Friday Cat Blogging - the pre carnival edition

I'm busy organizing the Carnival of Cats for Sunday, but here's a a few pics of my Merlin looking typically Merlin:

Don't forget to check the rest of the Friday Ark, and come by on Sunday for the Carnival of Cats....

Interesting Linkage

This is an interesting concept ConservationEconomy.net -- The Pattern Map.

Something to explore at least.

Looking at gated communities

This is cute: Some artists installed bright orange steps at the gates of some of the gated communities in LA.

"Something there is that does not love a wall…
That wants it down…"
-Robert Frost, Mending Wall

I don't even like the term gated communities. Fortified enclaves may be a better term. They are a symptom of failed democracy, a return to the system of classes living seperately (I know, they always have, but we've stopped even pretending). A statement like this appeals to me. It's saying that we're on the outside, looking at the prisoners, rather than taking the attitude that we've been locked out by our betters, which is the message that the gated community is trying to send.

Urban design is critical to how we form our societies, inasmuch as people who live together understand each other. Most succesful communities have mixed incomes and ethnicities and viewpoints living together, melding and mixing. Monocultures result in sterile places like most suburbs, or result in ghettoes of low income.

I am really beginning to believe that the Christian Right is a symptom of poor urban design, the isolation of people in suburbs where the only place to socialize with your neighbours is the local church, and as part of the PTA. Views get reinforced by each other, and group think results.