You Can Say Whatever You Want, As Long as You Agree With Me

I've been thinking about 'freedom of speech' this morning.



Inspired partly from a Facebook friend's post, and partly from what's going on at work right now.

Here's the work part: We're in the process of moving all the sections around in the store. It's going to take us about 3 weeks of overnight shifts to do so.

The stopping place for this week has left the 'Sexuality' section in a prominent place for customers to see when they're entering the store through the mall entrance. This is not the permanent place for it, but you can imagine it's drawn some complaints.

I've spent a lot of time explaining that it's temporary, and people ask why we're even allowed to carry 'those kinds of books' in the first place.

I'm very proud of the company I work for, and I'm happy to explain to them that we're a First Amendment company. We reserve the right to carry any book we wish, and display it wherever it will sell the best.

We sell many eyecatching titles...











(Just a little warning...if you google 'Penis Pokey Book', be prepared to see dudes using it as directed)

And those are just the ones most complained about. There are many, many more. Books with 'Asshole' and 'Penis' in the title seem to be the most ubiquitous. And books about zombies.

I'm gonna write a book called 'Attack of the Asshole Penis Zombies' and get rich, beeitch! (I call copyright!)

What I find interesting is that almost all of the complaints about which books we carry are directed towards sex books and books with swear words in the title.

Notice you can say 'asshole' on the front of a book here in the US, but not 'fuck'.


No one complains about all our military titles featuring killing. We prominently display 'The Anarchist's Cookbook'. And we sell the hell out of it.

We carry books about MMA fighters, with pictures of their bloody faces on the covers and titles like 'Blood in the Cage' and "Death Clutch'. Parents never complain about them.

Violence is ok for their kids to see, but sex isn't. God forbid they have to explain sex to their children.

I'd much rather my kid find out what a blowjob is, than learn how to make a bomb at home. That's just me.

However, if your penis can blow up an entire city block, that's a different story.

Also, you should give me your phone number.





Ok, now here's the Facebook conversation part (I'm not quoting here, just relaying the gist): A Canadian friend was talking about how they just watched police taking signs away from protesters in front of the White House. How 'freedom of speech' in the US is kind of a joke. If speech was so free, why try and stifle the protestor's right to it?

I agree with parts of that. I don't believe protestor's signs should be taken away, as long as they're making their demonstration peacefully.

I believe this, even when I think the protestors are complete assholes. Like the Westboro church people.




All people have to do is ignore their bullshit, and it doesn't have as much power. Better yet, laugh at them, like the guy in the above picture is doing.

I find laughing at people I don't agree with much better ammo than fighting them back. People don't like to have their views laughed at. Fight them? You just add fuel to their fire.

When Chuck and I accidentally came upon the Gay Pride Parade in Durham last September (which I begged him to stop and watch with me, I'd always wanted to attend one), there were protestors. But they were a small and sad bunch of people at one end of the parade route, no one even paid attention to them. They were drowned out by the fabulous, colourful celebration of human rights going on in the rest of the long street.

People are all for free speech if it's something they want to hear. I'm talking about both individuals and entire governments.

The part of my friend's post I didn't agree with, was just directing it at the US.

I'm a (VERY) proud Canadian. I love my country of birth, loved every second of the 23 years I lived in it. I happened to fall in love with an American (which I never thought I'd do) and move to the United States unexpectedly.

There are some things I don't like about the U.S., but the country's not completely evil.

To use a geeky 'Lord of the Rings' analogy, which you may or may not get:

I may be wearing the ring, but I haven't turned into Gollum either.



Canada's track record isn't perfect with freedom of speech and expression. They just lifted the ban they had put on playing Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing", for Pete's sake. Banning art (which music is) doesn't sound like freedom of expression to me. But they lifted it, so kudos to Canadian radio for correcting that mistake.

There's also a 'Canadian Content' law. In a nutshell, it governs the percentage of music played on the radio by Canadian artists. It was designed to keep our culture alive in the face of American saturation of media. I think the law is kind of ridiculous. I can listen to American musicians all day long, and I feel like I haven't lost one bit of my Canadian identity.

Americans aren't going to suddenly say, "I have this sudden craving for poutine..." when a Rush song pops on the radio.

(Myself, I feel a strong urge to bitchslap Geddy Lee's voice when a Rush song pops on the radio...does that make me anti-Canadian?)




I'm really glad I had the opportunity to live in both Canada and the U.S. I've gotten to see both sides of the story, and pros and cons of living in both countries. There are fools in both governments (in all governments). There's racism and oppression alive in both countries.

Americans will hear my accent and ask where I'm from. I tell them I'm from Canada, and they always have some sort of question to ask about it. Usually it's about health care. Most of them actually will listen to my point of view, and give me the opportunity to debunk the myths spread by internet propaganda.

And some of them forget about the political shit, and make fun of my accent. "Oot and aboot, eh???" and they laugh their asses off.

But you know what? I just laugh right back and point out the hilarity of Americans saying 'tunafish' instead of just 'tuna' because we both know there's no such thing as 'tunahorse', and we laugh together about our differences.



I've lived here for 5 and a half years, and can say whatever the fuck I want. Just like in Canada. I fly my Canadian flag right next to Chuckles' American one, and haven't been shot at yet.

Not saying the government wouldn't take away my protest sign if I was waving one in front of the White House, but luckily I prefer to make my protests locally. Small, quiet protests can eventally turn into large change.

As long as everyone makes fun of everyone equally, 'debate' instead of 'fight', and ALL just lighten the fuck up, the world would be a more peaceful place.



Do you know what I miss most about Canada? I do miss being able to turn on the CBC and hear the word 'fuck' and see titties if I wanted to. Sometimes at the same time.

P.S. If you haven't heard Samuel L. Jackson reading 'Go The Fuck to Sleep', do it now. Especially if you're a parent. It's hilarious.



P.P.S. I didn't mean this as a slam to my FB friend, I respect the opinions that were stated, even if I don't agree with all of them. I love a debate! In fact, this may spur a mass-debate.

Nothing I love more than mass-debating.

;)

Hack This

As I said in my last post: I love the internet. I hate the internet.

I love the internet because it's allowed me to reconnect with people fom school I probably would have never talked to again. I love it because it's given me a creative writing outlet that I've actually stuck with, and highly enjoy. I love the internet because I've met awesome people all over the world. And I can order a book while sitting in my underwear at 2am if I want to!

As you can probably guess from the title of my post, I'm not so in love with the internet this week. You could say the internet is in the doghouse. I'm withholding intimacy and making it sleep on the couch.

I'm well-educated. Polite. Classy if I want to be.

However, I will not be eloquent when it comes to hackers.

Hackers can go fuck themselves sideways.

I do consider myself lucky. My bank account wasn't touched (not yet anyway). I don't believe the hacker used me to spread viruses.

But what a PAIN IN THE ASS.

My husband and I have sort of a ritual in the mornings. The alarm goes off at 5. I sort of lightly doze for another 45 minutes while Chuck watches the news in bed. Then he gets on the computer while I drink my coffee and shake off the rest of the sleep. Then I get on the computer before I rush out the door for work at 6:30.

The hacking occurred a few mornings ago.

'Hey Kyna...you didn't send me an email, did you?' Chuck asked.

'Nope, it's probably a virus or something, I wouldn't open that if I were you,' I said sleepily.

Chuck knows that I never ever use my email. I will use it on occasion, but I always let the recipient know that I'm sending them something.

I didn't think anything of it, this has happened before. When it was my turn to get on the computer, I found that I couldn't get into my email. My password wouldn't work.

I went through the proper channels and finally got into it. All of my contacts had been deleted. I changed the password, and was kind of pissed off. But I had to get to work, and didn't have any time to check anything else.

I had just rolled into Jacksonville when my cell rang. I was concerned, because only Chuck would phone at that time in the morning. And not unless it was for a good reason.

'Hello?' said I.

'Hey Kyna. Um....Meta (a family friend) just phoned,' Chuck said with a brusque tone.

Holy shit, did somebody die? That's the first thing I thought of.

'Yeah, why?'

'Um, she said Jacob (her son) just thought he was chatting to you on Facebook. And he said you said you were in England and needed money because you got mugged.'




And so the whole day went.

I tried to get Chuck to suspend my account whilst I was driving the rest of the way to the store. But it didn't work...they hacked my email a second time, and got into my Facebook again and were hitting everyone up for money all day long.

Every single person who came in to get their paycheck at work on Friday morning stopped by the registers and said, 'Guess what?'

'Yes...I already know...'

My sister-in-law called Chuck at work. My brother Kevin called me that evening. Everyone asking was I really in England??? Was I really crying and penniless???

After I got to work and changed most of my financial-related passwords (didn't really want to get on social networking sites from there, so I let the hackers wreak havoc on FB while I was working all day), I thought....if this wasn't so annoying it would be kind of funny.

Like, who would believe that I was suddenly in England, got mugged and was asking my friends (some of them people on Facebook that I haven't seen in 20 years) for money?

Well, apparently, people were still worried. I'm just glad that none of them sent money to these people. A couple of messages that I received scared me a little, because they sounded as if they believed that it was me that sent the message.

Took me the whole evening after work to get everything straight. Hopefully I made all my new passwords hard enough that it will be tougher to break in. I'm still getting messages from people telling me how weird it was.

It's called a 419 Scam, where the hackers send all your friends messages that you're stranded in a foreign country and need a large amount of money. They ask you to wire it to a Western Union account in said country.

So just a heads up. Make your password something really long and hard. Lots of numbers and different letter sizes. Change it often.

And a warning: I would never ask anyone less connected to me than my siblings for money. And even then, I'd probably rather starve to death in the middle of Picadilly Circus than ask anyone for money. I never use my email, so if you get one from me, it's not me unless I warn you in advance.

And if I had a trip planned to England?

EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WOULD GET AN UPDATE EVERY 5 MINUTES.

Example: "I'm going to England! I'm going to England! Na-na-na-na-naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Ppbthhttttttttttttttttt!"




Hackers. Suck. Balls.