Category: I Think …

Alberta will be considering legislation this month that will enable a child to sue its mother for damages incurred from automobile accidents that happened while the child was still in the womb.

Currently legislation exists that allows children to sue other people for damages incurred prior to being born, but suing the mother is strictly off limits. This was decided in the Dobson case by the Supreme Court of Canada, likely as a means of avoiding the thorny issue of mothers being held responsible for the health of their fetuses throughout pregnancy. The issue at stake was whether or not a fetus has a legal standing as a person prior to birth. As you can guess, this bleeds into abortion issues – which is why the mother was left untouchable.

This sad case of a mother being in a car accident has resulted in the belief that the baby was born with health problems due to the trauma of the accident. The girl (Brooklyn) now lives a difficult life and the family is looking for a way to help pay for the costs of the aide required for Brooklyn.

So now we get to the yuckiest part of the story – insurance.
Continue reading Suing Mom For Pre-Birth Damage

It’s official, there really will be another Bridger coming into this world!

Alisa and I are happy to announce that we are expecting our first child in around 28 weeks. The offical due date is April 26th, according to both the doctor and midwife that we’ve spoken to.

I can’t say that this has all really sunk in yet (I’m told that it never does, but that’s another story), but we’re both jubilant!

Note: Since Dale is the only one reading this, I consider this to be an offical notice for you, Mr. Marsden.

Just a quick post to try to refocus some people’s attention on the fact that the media (TV, radio) will be trying to tell you a story about the catastrophe that Katrina has caused in New Orleans. Note that they are telling you a story, which may or may not be reality for many people affected by the hurricane.

I’m not going to point out news sources or articles as I’m still not sure who to trust in what we’re being spoon-fed.

But as this image shows, perspective is important.

The black man loots while the white finds.

Keep our wits about us and try to help as we can – it’s all many of us can do right now.

Update
This particular pair of photos is becoming quite the topic of conversation. So much so that someone tracked down the details of these pictures and discussed the why’s and the what’s. The two pictures’ photographers chose those words for particular reasons, none of which appear racially motivated. Read the details here.

The Georgia Straight published an article last week about the gender binary conundrum. Specifically the article attempts to humanize people who are living outside of society’s gender rules.

Life isn’t necessarily easy for transsexuals and intersexuals—many trans people regard surgery as the only alternative to suicide—but as more gender-variant folks realize their unique potentials, they are pointing toward greater spaciousness in the experience of gender for all of us.

After reading the article I was slightly disappointed. This issue is extremely interesting on a variety of levels, and the article really only tries to tackle the individual’s experiential side. While this is most definitely an important aspect of the issue, I think that by focusing on the individuals we miss out on seeing how the larger picture can impact ‘transsexuals’.

Societal dogma is something that needs to be examined with respect to erasing the binary nature of gender. Hopefully recent legalization of same-sex marriage is at least a small step in the right direction. But then are we defining this change for sex, or for gender?

Bill C-38 was finally written into law on July 19, 2005.

EGALE said it best:

This is a proud and exciting time to be a Canadian. Today, we made history. Today, we affirmed once again our world-wide reputation as a country that is open, inclusive and welcoming.

The remainder of their press release can be found here.

Yesterday was the beginning of a new life for Marty Wight and Nathlie Walsh as they became man husband and wife.

The day was absolutely perfect – thank you for letting Alisa and myself be such a large part of the day, we are honoured.

I acquired a few pictures and if any of them turn out, I’ll post a link here to the album.

Congratulations to you both!

I’ve brought up the topic of my dislike for Wal-Mart several times in discussions with friends. I mention this because I’ve found an online copy of a 60 minute program put together by a television show called Frontline. The 5 parts can be found for free here.

I thought the show picked up on a few interesting aspects of how Wal-Mart controls so much of the industry it participates in. However it never really talks about some of the disgusting practices Wal-Mart has employed in the past in order to maintain those low prices (and high profit margins).

Specifically I am thinking about the practice of taking out life insurance on employees, and making the corporation the benefactor. Often companies will do this for their CEO, as the case can be proven that if they were to die, the company would suffer financial harm. As such they take insurance out on their top dogs. The practice is called Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLIs). However this practice was extended by companies such as Wal-Mart to the so-called peasants of the company – the entry-level employees, and the company would not inform the employees about these policies. These policies have been coined ‘dead-peasant’ policies.

According to this article Wal-Mart took out insurance on over 350,000 employees in around 1994 after choosing two insurance companies.
Continue reading Wal-Mart – I Cast Thee Out!