Nenya Kanadka

So we went to see Freehold tonight, the movie about the New Jersey lesbian couple fighting for partner benefits. Which, a) was of course very sad because (as you know going into it) Laurel dies in the end, and the movie does a pretty good job of getting us invested in the relationship before the discovery that, shit, cancer, but on the other hand b) omg, ELLEN PAGE IS THE MOST ADORABLE. The most. <3 Also c), the last splash screen says something like "On June 26, 2015, the US supreme court ruled that all Americans have equal rights to marriage" and yup, it's months later and I still can't quite believe that's an actual thing that happened and the movie didn't skew off into science fiction for the last 30 seconds. Man.

In other news, I guess I better find out more about Justin Trudeau than "He has great hair"? I wish the man well, and hope he's going to be good in the job. I did want the NDP to win, even though I have no great feelings about Mulcair. That said, our local NDP MP was indeed returned to office, and also fuck yeah, no more Harper!

So, on balance, \o/?

Seen in a comment to a Slacktivist post (emphasis mine):

It boils down to a cultural difference. Although I didn't come up with it at the time, I've since clued in to the perfect analogy for the way Canadians (generally speaking - there are of course exceptions) think about religion. We treat it like underwear. We acknowledge that it exists and plays a role in the life of most people; we believe people should be able to obtain whatever kind of it they are comfortable in; we are even beginning to recognise that some people don't have much use for it and that's okay. But we are really not comfortable with people who run around showing theirs off in public and get a little freaked out about people who exhibit an interest in other people's, especially complete strangers'. To drag the analogy to the breaking point, relative to the Canadian political landscape, American politicians walk around without trousers on quite frequently.

So, so true. Compared to American politicians, one would think all Canadian politicians were atheist or agnostic, by how much they talk about it.

Icon related. ;-)

Four years too late, but finally the Canadian government admits Maher Arar was innocent.

From the comments:

Nobody erred on the side of caution, just to be on the safe side. They fabricated a case against a completely innocent man, because they were too lazy to hunt for real criminals.

and

In this case, Mr. Arar was hurt because nobody was willing to protect his, and by extension, our freedom. Our soldiers do sometimes die to protect us; to protect Canadians like Mr. Arar from injustice. Our soldiers' sacrifices have been disgracefully undermined by the RCMPs actions. And, most importantly, Mr Arar is 'our people'. He was not protected.

I am heartened by the disgust over this shown loudly by some Canadians in that thread, but saddened that some are bringing up the incarceration of Japanese-Canadians during WWII as a positive example...

I refuse to argue over whether it was more the Canadians' fault or the Americans', though I damn well think the RCMP should have been more careful, and should be in the future, knowing how twitchy the Americans are these days. You protect all your people, guys, and you bloody check out how accurate your intelligence is before passing it on. Smearing people whose cases you fucked up even after they turned out to be innocent doesn't inspire confidence, either. As for the Americans involved, I'll stop now before I start ranting, because bloody hell, Canada shouldn't have to worry that if they pass intel on to the US it'll get their citizens sent off to be tortured. *growl*

Happy Canada Day!

And with that, it being three-thirty a.m., I'm going to bed. :D

(This having-a-job thing means far less indulging of my nightlife proclivities than usual. Yay.)