Philoillogica

"Here, drink this kool-aid."

Abby: "Wanna just not wake up tomorrow?"

Sarah: "Yeah, kinda."

This surprises noone

Exclamation point !

Yes, you are fine around others. Fine. But you wish you could have just a *little* more alone time. Okay, well, a lot more alone time. In fact, you'd be happier if you didn't have to go out nearly as much. You get along very well with the period, who tries mightily to take up as much of the load as he can. But fools will not listen. You want to scream, "Cut it out, for the love of Safire!" But, all of that notwithstanding, you do your duty. And, if sometimes you feel like a Chicago street hooker, you also remember that you really do have an important role to play. Your soul remains pure. Hold your head high!

Link: Which Punctuation Mark Are You?

Sorry, Mom: still not a lawyer

As a lit geek, I'm awfully fond of adages. 

"In for a penny, in for a pound," I think, surveying the box of leftover Hallowe'en candy, my hand still clutching an Aero wrapper.  "Good things come in small packages."

This means conversations in the Sabby household often take the following form:

Sarah: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Abby: "So does that mean you're gonna vacuum the kitchen or what?"

And so on.  But one saying I'm particularly fond of spouting while reading the newspaper is "hard cases make bad law."  I used to say it just to make my mother hope that I was going to apply to law school, the refuge of English majors everywhere - after all, what with the writing and the generally being obnoxious, I was tailor-made for a law career practically from birth.  I even bought the LSAT  guide and left it in the bathroom, just to make her think I was studying in there.  Even now, I suspect that in the crinkles of her left ventricle, my mother feeds a secret hope that one day I'll don robes and use "article" as a verb instead of a noun.  I won't, but that's really beside the point.

But hard cases really do make bad law, and I've got to say that the latest debacle in Alberta's courtrooms is certainly as hard and bad as it gets:

The Alberta government will introduce legislation this month to allow children to sue their mothers for car crash injuries they suffer while still in the womb.

Yes, apparently now women's bodies are aren't their own anymore if they're in the process of gestating - but it's okay, because it's only while women are driving.

The legislation, a Canadian first, raises concerns it will open the door for mothers to be sued for other activities they pursue while pregnant, such as alcohol consumption or high-exertion sports.

However, Alberta Justice Minister Ron Stevens said the legislation will be written narrowly enough to avoid these worries. Legislation of this type exists in Britain and law academics say it has not undermined women's rights.

Oh, really, Justice Minister Ron Stevens? Well, let's look at that law, shall we? Here's what the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has to say about it.

Britain's Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Act 1976 (England and Wales) clarifies the right of a child born disabled, as distinct from the mother, to bring civil action for damages in respect of that disability.  In its initial inception, the act determined that

in order to have a right of action for any negligent activity that results in injury, the Act requires that the child be born and have an independent existence apart from its mother, providing for liability only if "a child is born disabled" (sect. l(l)), "born" meaning "born alive". Thus, no cause of action is established by the Act in circum- stances where the child dies by virtue of some act of negligence that affects it while it is in the womb. Furthermore, the Act does not impose any liability on a mother, in the usual course of events, for any negligent act or omission, liability being imposed only in circumstances where the tortfeasor would have been "liable in tort to the parent or would, if sued in due time, have been so" (sect. 1(3)).

So in English, that means that a until a fetus is a born, it has no rights of its own, and cannot be considered independent from its host (ie, if it's born, what we would call its mother).  Once born alive, however, a fetus (now a person) has the right to sue those who inflicted injury upon it, provided that the injury could also be claimed by its host while in utero (ie, its mother).

BUT...

This formulation was the result of the deliberations of the English Law Commission (paras. 54-65), which chose to reject any proposition that a child be able to sue its mother for pre-natal injuries caused by her negligence on the grounds of social policy arising out of a concern for family cohesion. The Commission was particularly wary of any litigation that might be brought on behalf of the child which claimed that the mother's failure to give up cigarette smoking or alcohol or follow a particular dietary r6gime during pregnancy had caused it injury. The existence of such an action would be a fertile ground of matrimonial and parental conflict leading to litigation. The Commission did take the view, however, that different considerations applied to injury resulting from a result of a road accident caused by the pregnant woman's negligence; it believed that the existence of third-party insurance would prevent any risk of a child's claim against its mother causing family conflict.

In other words, the reason that women were not allowed to be sued for injuries occurring to their unborn children had nothing to do with women's rights, but was added to the Congenital Disabilities Act to avoid the possibility of family dischord and parental conflict.  Women who are exposed to cigarettes and alcohol while pregnant as part of a "social policy" (because, presumably, their husbands/partners also smoke/drink) are permitted to continue their potentially harmful activities without reprisal, but women acting as independent agents while operating a motor vehicle should be liable to punishment if they harm their non-viable offspring before birth.

The Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Act 1976 thus imposes a duty of care on a pregnant woman with respect to her unborn child only in the context of driving a motor vehicle. Beyond that, the Act does not feature as a means of controlling her pre-natal behaviour. Thus, this legislation cannot serve as a method of regulating female behaviour with respect to drug and alcohol use during pregnancy. The most that can be said is that the existence of the Act serves to provide an educative device in this context, perhaps reminding pregnant women of the consequences that their conduct might have.

But it doesn't exactly work out that way in practice, because the Congenital Disability Act offers an excellent model for a legal evaluation of women's behaviour that is uniquely different from men's, ultimately creating a division between the way male and female parents are treated under the law:

Although the English courts are not prepared to go to extremes regarding protective intervention, intervention in the life of a female drug abuser can be Draconian in a fashion differential to that of a man. If a woman continues her habit during her pregnancy, she will run the risk that her child will be taken into governmental care at birth and it will be difficult for her to re-establish care of the child. This will be so even if the parenting skills of the woman have never been tested and the effect of drug use by a mother on a child whom she keeps free of drugs has not been the subject of research. While criminal penalties may serve to curb drug abuse to some extent, for a pregnant mother the risk of losing her child may well present the ultimate sanction.

So it seems that Justice Minister Ron Stevens is talking out of his ass - such legislation in Britain certainly does have a potentially harmful effect on women's rights.

"I'm absolutely clear that this legislation is focused on a particular circumstance and it will comply with the direction of the Supreme Court ... and that it will not open the door to other cases," Mr. Stevens said yesterday. "I have no intention of going there."

Nor did Britain, it seem, in 1976.  But by 1986:

the House of Lords concluded that the use of the present continuous tense in the statutory formulation denoted that the child's position had to be looked at in a continuum. In so doing, it concluded that treatment by a mother of her child before birth was of vital legal significance; it also raised the question of what other maternal conduct during pregnancy was likely to, or at least could, lead to the removal of a child from its mother.

So I call bullshit on Justice Minister Ron Stevens.   BAD fucking law.

But it's not only bad fucking law from women's perspective either:

The proposed legislation has drawn criticism from automobile insurers, who would bear the costs of successful lawsuits.

The amount of the lawsuits will be limited to the liability coverage for which the mother is insured. Mothers will not be held personally responsible for costs.

So the point of all of this is to allow children who sustained injuries while fetuses to sue insurance companies?

Erm, yep:

This move has been spurred by the case of Brooklynn Rewega, now four years old, and her family, of Rainbow Lake in northern Alberta.

Brooklynn's mother, Lisa Rewega, was driving to church on Dec. 31, 2000, when she lost control of the car. In the rollover, Lisa Rewega was thrown through the windshield. Brooklynn was born four months later blind, brain-damaged and with cerebral palsy. She suffers from seizures throughout the day and needs constant care. The family believes her injuries came as a result of the accident.

Okay, so the Rewegas need money to help pay for Brooklynn' s "constant care." That's fair.  But isn't Alberta the richest province in the country? Surely they must provide adequate care for their disabled, don't they?  Don't tell me the province that just gave each of its citizens $400 is trying to go after private money to serve the public need? 

The potential for a proliferation of lawsuits has raised the ire of the insurance industry. Jim Rivait, Alberta vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said the government is passing this legislation is because it moves responsibility for taking care of some disabled children off the government's shoulders and onto the auto insurance industry.

The only reasons mothers cannot be sued for other risky activities they might engage in, he said, is because no insurance is available.

He said mothers -- and more specifically, their insurance companies -- could be open to lawsuits that stem from something as small as a fender-bender if the child develops Attention Deficit Disorder.

So let me get this straight: bad fucking law for women, bad fucking law for business.   Bad fucking law for small-c conservatism, bad fucking law for people with disabilities. 

But good fucking law for the Alberta government.  Good fucking law for the "thin edge of the wedge" people.

Was that another adage? Amazingly, I don't seem to like that one all that much. 

Self-aggrandizement for a Thursday

The Second Carnival of Feminists is up, and I'm in it, so go check it out!

(And if you don't like me, there are many, many other excellent posts linked too.)

Vancover Sun to Nursing Women: Even your breast milk is fat

And in this week's "women are dreadfully inferior no matter what they do" news, researchers have revealed that Canadian women's breast milk is 7% poison.

Or trans-fats.  The point is that women are BAD, and the baddest of all are those breedin' ones, who lactate chicken McNuggets whole from each nipple (emphasis mine):

Canadian breast milk, not just chicken nuggets and french fries, is one of the highest sources of trans fatty acids in Canada's food supply, a federal committee heard Wednesday. The average lactating woman in Canada consumes 10.6 grams of trans fatty acids per day, and the harmful fats account for seven per cent of total fat in her breast milk, University of Guelph Prof. Dr. Bruce Holub told a 23-member panel charged with finding ways to eliminate, or reduce to the lowest levels possible, trans fatty acids in foods sold in Canada.

Let's just clarify this, shall we? Dr. Holub of Guelph University, supposed to find ways to cut harmful trans-fatty acids from the processed foods that we Canadians stuff into our faces in vast, delicious quantities, has determined that the real problem is LACTATING WOMEN. 

Now, I don't know what kind of milkshake's brought to the Holub dinner table, but I'll venture that most Canadians over the age of six months do not regularly partake IN BREASTMILK.  Those of us who prefer our liquid calcium in udder rather than boob form have bigger concerns with the safety of Canada's food supply, and since we're the majority (and some of us are of the species that make said breast-milk anyway), we'd like to know about Dr. Holub's efforts with lightly-milled solids.  Could you say something about chewable food, Dr. Holub?

Holub stressed in an interview that women should not stop breast-feeding. Rather, he said, "we can change and improve the quality of breast milk" by cutting industrialized trans fats "off at the source."

I'm sorry, Dr. Holub, but who's this "we"?  And how fucking creepy is it anyway that anyone's talking about "the quality of breast milk", as if it's some sort of national industry in need of agricultural support?

If women reduce their intake of trans fat, within days their breast milk benefits.

Holub says there is no safe level of the fats and that food producers should "cease and desist the industrial production of trans fats in the country."

Riiiiiiiiiight. But what about the rest of us who eat the food, Dr. Holub?  Are trans fats worth eradicating only because - gasp - they can get into breast-milk?  The breast-milk that good, unselfish, saintly mothers use to feed their sweet little innocents with?

The joint Health Canada and Heart and Stroke Foundation panel expects to make its recommendations to the government by the end of this month on strategies to reduce trans fats to the lowest levels possible.

But the group still has not decided how low to go -- or how to get there, meaning whether through guidelines or regulations.

How does this press release come about, exactly?  Can you imagine this conversation?

"Gee, Bruce, what are we gonna do? We've got to report back to the federal committee tomorrow, and we haven't done a damn thing!  We don't have a single idea for how to improve the safety of Canada's food supply!  The Heart and Stroke Foundation is going to kill us!"

"No worries, Steve," says Bruce, brushing invisible lint off his labcoat.  "We'll just blame nursing mothers - everyone's a sucker for headline on breast-milk, and it's not like breast-feeders are in any position to complain we're dumping on them.  Hell, with the amount of hormones pumping through their bodies, they'll probably just curl up in little balls on their sofas and weep."

"Brilliant!"  says Steve.  "I'll call the press."

Thoughtfully, The Vancouver Sun has graced us with a paradigm of Holy MartyrMotherdom in the accompanying boxed text, "Mother of Two Taken Aback", so that inferior mothers may know the blackness of their shame:

Now that she's breast-feeding, Sara Abbasakoor is very conscious about what she eats.

"Like, before I knew the glory of womanhood that comes from spawning my DNA, I totally didn't care about what I ate.  When my body was just for me, my inferior gender characteristics led me to believe that I was below contempt - and I was! Now that I'm a mother, I'm eating for two - and I have to shower all the love on my infant that my worthless self could never otherwise deserve."

The 33-year-old mother of two tries to buy only organic meats, is selective about the dairy products she'll consume and has a basket of organic produce dropped at her east Vancouver home every two weeks to limit the amount of pesticides she passes on to her two-month-old son.

Isn't Sara Abbasakoor GOOD?  She only eats organic, pesticide-free food because she recognizes the pollution inherent in her body, and she refuses to pass any corrupted influence on to her offspring.  Readers, are YOU doing that? ARE YOU? NO? It's what - expensive and privileged to have organic food delivered right to your door?  Puh-leeze.  We've all heard that excuse from selfish, bad mothers.  We all know you could afford it if you were willing to make the sacrifices necessary for your sweet, innocent, pristine, saintly children.

Quick, somebody bring out the torches and peasants!  We're gonna have a shunning!  Let this be a lesson to the rest of you: if you want to assuage society's tremendous motherguilt, you'd better get a bimonthly organic vegetable home-delivery!

On Wednesday, however, Abbasakoor learned the volume of trans fatty acids she may be passing on in her breast milk and that she could be doing more to watch what she is feeding her baby.

Unless, of course, we come up with some other reason for mothers to feel guilty.  (But did we fool you with the organic home delivery thing? did you really feel good about yourself for a second there? did you think you were actually a good mother? SUCKER.)

"I'm very conscious of some of the risks of things translating into breast milk and that you do have to be careful," she said, explaining her diet is already relatively low in trans fats, but that she will try to keep a closer eye on her intake of the harmful fats.

"The problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is you are hungry a lot and you have cravings," she said. "It's sometimes hard to fill up on all healthy stuff."

No, Sara, the problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is that society keeps telling women that it's all they're good for, and the infinite ways that those who choose it keep doing it wrong. 

Delighting...

...in the upside of globalization

and a send up of Gwen Stefani's cultural appropriation.

Both stolen shamelessly from Crooked Timber.

National Post to Camilla: You're not as pretty as Diana, therefore we don't like you

So the heir to the British throne and his latest wife are on our continent for the first time since their wedding, and misogynistic royal watchers are eagerly gaping for any opportunity to list the ways that Camilla isn't a thing like the overexposed, uberexpensive, recast-Candle-in-the-Wind, bulimic Princess Die Di.

Oh, I'm sorry.  Was that in poor taste? If you thought so, you're probably still experiencing the aftermath of the "Diana can do no wrong" cult, founded on the principle that the stylish woman who took her gloves off to embrace AIDS hospice patients can be forgiven for all sins against propriety, gender or good taste.   

Certainly the National Post is still captivated by such echoes of the dead princess, choosing to recast Camilla with Diana's public identification of her as "the Rottweiler," and, despite the newfound surge, in "Camilla chic," chastising the Duchess of Cornwall's former "frumpy" duds:

For her part, the Duchess will play up her no-nonsense, hard-nosed charm, and with the help of her dressing staff, lend fresh meaning to the fledgling phrase "Camilla chic." Whatever it means, it at least marks the end of her frumpy public image, best characterized by Princess Diana as "the Rottweiler."

Whereas the preciously coiffed and ever-princessy Diana presumably made all of her clothing decisions herself, the National Post wants Canadians to note that Camilla has yet to master the complexity of buttons and zippers, and is helpless without "the help of her dressing staff." Whatever "Camilla chic" means, it's irrelevant to any of us New Worlders, really, since she used to be frumpy, the ultimate in unforgivable sins for a woman to commit.  What, be brash, dirty and actually ride in her riding clothes, instead of parading them down a red carpet? That old boot.  What a way for a woman to behave!

Remembering Not to Forget: The Loss Suite

The mock orange tree.  Sticky buns. Pickles. Edgar Cayce.  Hockey cards. Crafts. Dolls.  Endless catalogues.  Peanut butter for the squirrels.  Letters to the editor.  The pheasant sofa.  Cleaning the carpets. Toys. Countless humbugs.  The hard, horse barn shaped purse.  "You know, Sarah..." Taking her teeth out and hiding them in her bra.  Dreamwhip.  Diet soda. The clocks.  Never throwing anything away.  Noxema and Dove soap.  Saving the potty for every grandchild.  "Hai-waii."  Never playing favourites.  Always knowing what the must-have toy is.  Climbing roses.  Black-eyed susans.  Ring toss. The never-used treadmill. 

How hugable she was.  Rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.  Parcheesi.  Cribbage.  Squares.  "Rolled oats."  Cookies straight from the freezer.  Pickles at dinner.  Plastic tablecloths. Naked ladies shower enclosure.  Not taking down Mom's folk art, even after the divorce.

Camping.  The video camera.  The pink deer sweatshirt.  Dangly earrings.  The church.  The way they french-kissed at Dad's wedding.  Cheese and apple salads.  "Fluoride is bad for old people."  The way she took care of Grandma Zach.  The ceramic milk jug.  Dallas.  The silver mirror, brush and comb on her dresser.  Orange doilies on the coffee table.  The first satellite dish: "Don't touch that remote!"  Mating pairs of cardinals attacking the front window.  Hanging the dishtowels up high.  Reusing the wash water.  Composting. Recycling.  The macrame owl.  The post-funeral spread that wasn't her equal.

I miss you Nan.